Okay, let me start off here with an appropriate passage of scripture from Hebrews chapter 11. Because this was true of a lot of people in history, obviously, it's talking about people in the Bible. But let's see here. Well, there's two different. This is two parts that at Yeah, but I'll read the last part. Well, let's read the first part first. Starting verse 13 first. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city." Now, if you look all the way down in verse 33, After it lists all these people in this hall of faith, it says who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mounts of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two. They were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated, of whom the world was not worthy. wandering about in deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth." So that is an apt description of the kind of people that were working in England at this time, even though they were surrounded by a den of compromisers who were working for what they were working for. Well, Edward was, I believe, one of those people who would have done it from the throne, but obviously in God's sovereignty, you can't play too much of what might have been. 1550 was a shining year for the new preaching. Among the best men who were set free to preach the whole gospel were Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who would die together on the same fire later on. And that summer, Cranmer released his own defense of the true and Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, which satisfied no Roman Catholic. Calvin wrote to Cranmer, to make haste with the reforms, lest, quote, so many autumns wasted in procrastination may be followed by an eternal winter. Calvin saw very clearly, you better get this thing rolling quick. Otherwise, the parasites have a tendency to get in there. Ridley was the Bishop of London. He began as a parish priest in Kent and had been reading the medieval realists of England's past. One French monk, in particular, of that view, had written something which caught his attention concerning the Lord's Supper. Christ was present spiritually, not physically, and so the younger Ridley would come to influence Cranmer when constructing the prayer book, though not enough to make a clean sweep of the whole pageantry. By 1550, he settled into London and set to work on total reform. In the summer of 1552, 42 articles were passed which had to be accepted by any minister, any teacher, or any student in the realm. The articles defined even predestination the way that Calvin did, showing that under Edward's reign, Doctrine may take precedence over unified liturgy after all. So you had a brief time where Anglicanism was going to take on the same doctrinal gospel flavor as it had on the continent. In November, at St. Paul's Cathedral, Ridley utilized the new prayer book for the first time. In this year also, young Edward began to assert himself with the strength of his father, yet with sound doctrine. But it is in that year when Edward started to make decrees, even though he wasn't of age yet, the week of Christmas he became sick. And though medicine could not detect it at the time, one author said he had pulmonary tuberculosis, another one says probably pneumonia. And there was some other ones that were just saying, we can't know, we don't know, we don't know. Same thing with Henry. Medical examiners look back just based on symptoms and stuff like that and give a diagnosis. But at any rate, he was sick. But during this time, mass amounts of crates of Bibles were sent to Scotland. And again, these were Tyndale's translations by that time. And yet the north of the islands remained very conservative. Many in that government were opportunistic enough to settle for Mary's Roman revival should it come. Inflation has skyrocketed during this time that Edward was in there because a population increase, coupled with incoming gold from newly discovered South America, without a sufficiently new supply of domestic goods, All of that, again, just like in that scene in Luther, where the smoke is rising from the background, and that peasant who was talking to Knight George didn't know he was talking to Luther. He said, ah, Luther's doctrine has set the whole world on fire. People think they can do whatever they want. Well, the same thing's happening here. Domestic things are going down south a little bit. And so the mob is swirling like vultures around what few knew was becoming the carcass of their young king. and the hirelings that were surrounding him, caring nothing for God's truth. And so you had a sea of dark spirits overwhelming the light that was flickering on this small island. It didn't matter much that the Protestant preachers invade against the oppression of the rich, and that they actually had liberated a lot of the land for the use of the poor. From the public's perspective, the Protestants were now to blame. And so what you see here in England is this going back and forth, much like the American public does now, back and forth. back and forth, blaming that guy and blaming that guy, throw the bum out, the whole nine yards. Well Edward died on July 6th, 1553 at age 16. Though not before helping form a device for succession which subverted both Mary and Elizabeth, which he had to do because remember Mary and Elizabeth are back in the will from Henry's last wife. Lady Jean Grey was the eldest daughter of Henry's younger sister, Mary, and thus the cousin of Edwards. She was even more of a reformed theologian than Edwards, some say, but was certainly not planning on usurping the throne. So what fallacy, women in those days, if they're in the culture classes, had nothing better to do than to read Greek and classical literature. And so oftentimes, yeah. They would sometimes be a leg up on even the guys that were studying that stuff. But at any rate, she certainly didn't want to be any part of this, what became a catastrophe. So what followed was both a blundering tragedy, and a retrospective adventure for any English-speaking person who shares her convictions, another adventure in history of what might have been, she too was 16 and had already been married to the son of a duke. Everyone involved knew it was treason against Mary, according to the highest will, which was Henry's, technically, until Edward reached 18. What Henry said in that will was the highest law. But the problem was, even while the Living King was still underage, there was prestige involved, and that kind of felt like treason to disobey Edward. And so they went along with this. So, you know, these guys were not, well, I don't know about all of them, but certainly some of them didn't care enough to even say, well, Mary's Catholic, what's Elizabeth? I don't know, I don't care. They just assumed that everything would be okay as long as you pass down that line. of 3,000 was ready to capture Mary and ensure the transition. But Mary was informed and escaped. And as the Queen on paper was put out in the open more and more, increasing numbers went over to her side just in a matter of hours and days. Including the Protestant Bishop Hooper, remember, one of the most Calvinistic and reforming of the bunch, he just didn't know her venom at the time. He was just saying, well, we have to obey the earthly magistrate and so on and so forth. So Jane was marked for death from the very first few minutes, and few would remain loyal for long. Mary, on the other hand, was not so naive and innocent. At age 37, her blueprint was well thought out. But one thing she underestimated was the very lust for peace which had carried her into the public's acceptance in the first place. She immediately overreached. And the last straw for many people was her announcement that she would be marrying the Spanish King Philip, the son of Charles V. Even Catholics, who happened to be nationalists first, saw it as high time to revolt. Such conspiracies were found out, and this is what finally led to the beheading of Jane Grey by the spring of 1554. At first, she was actually going to say, look how merciful I am, I'm sparing her. But after this uprising, she got really violent. Now the execution of Protestant ministers began. Cardinal Reginald Pohl, one of three cardinals presiding at the Council of Trent, was an aristocratic Englishman determined to aid Mary in the restoration of Catholic England. And so when he returned, he warred against Protestants. And yet, he was stripped of his cardinal's hat by 1556 on his own defense for heresy charges. His main vendetta in his old age was against Cranmer for the unforgivable sin of being Henry's archbishop and the arrogance which built in his exile caused him to pay no deference to Cranmer's work. So again, he underestimated things. Cranmer's work had become popular, gained the affections of the people. And so all of this would add to more rapid discontent after the initial honeymoon phase with Mary. The first to die, though, was a guy named John Rogers, because he had actually helped play a role in translating the Bible into English. And at his trial, the lawyers protested back that the Bible is dead. It takes experts to translate it. Rogers' wife, interestingly, found his own account of the proceedings when she was required to clean out his belongings from the cell after his martyrdom. In the damp English woods, the material for killing was often inefficient, and so it wouldn't fully light. And so deaths were often slow and excruciating. And yet to one historian, this meant that never in English history did preachers occupy more influential pulpits. And so they would be still preaching and testifying to their hope and the gospel while they were burning. They expounded the gospel that they were dying for on their way out, ensuring that the fires would not be extinguished with their corpses. John Bradford, a pastor in Lancashire, turned at the end of his literally fiery sermon to his fellow martyr, who was beginning to be caught on fire with him. And he was just a candle maker. This other guy, he said, be of good comfort, brother, for we shall have a merry supper with the Lord this night. And standing back to back at the same stake, Latimer exhorted Ridley, be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out. Now, interestingly, Latimer went quickly, but maybe the reason for his words was something that was given by God, because the fire that was meant for Ridley took several times to relight, and therefore prolonged the agony. A lot of times they would put gunpowder in it, and that was actually a form of mercy, because that would make them go faster. But at any rate, that didn't catch, that was one of the things that went wrong, and so it prolonged the agony. As it turned out, that just made the crowd further and further move toward the true faith. Mary attempted to return to Rome all the material objects that were supposedly stolen by the Reformed preachers, yet it was an impossible task to search out what had passed into private ownership. Guys like Vermigli and Lasky from Poland and Knox and other outside Reformers all enjoying the benefits of Edward's pure reformation now had to escape to the continent, which they did. Edward's bishops were not so blessed. They were sent to Smithfield and burned. Many died by starvation and sickness under imprisonment. The number of those executed by burning was reported to be 288 by the end of her regime. Four of them were children. There's actually even a story of a woman who's pregnant and it's burned. She gives birth and the baby is thrown into the fire. Now, I don't know what you do with stories like that except to say that I wasn't there and I'll have to go with that, but it's just unimaginable. Bloody Mary was given her most notorious reputation by John Fox in his Book of Martyrs. One woman, Joan Waste, was blind. and came to true faith as the New Testament was read to her by another Protestant in prison. The fact that a blind woman could see boiled the hateful blood of the papists who could not help but kill other women as well. Fox himself had excelled at Oxford, but underwent an awakening that made him a Protestant. His book was fundamental to the permanent fixture of a new faith. He was among those who went into exile in Switzerland in 1553, working as a proofreader in a print shop. Now, so he wasn't a martyr himself. In his mind, he wasn't fit for that, but he could at least chronicle it, grab all the stuff he could on his way out of England to chronicle the history of martyrdom. And then while he is in Switzerland, he does his main work on the subject. John Hooper, here's another reformer at the time, a former bishop, was executed near his home church in Gloucester in February of 1555. He was seen as the extremist of the group. For starters, he was the most Calvinistic of all the reform preachers in England. But what was more resented was his scorched earth reform policy of the clergy and the liturgy. His body burned for 45 minutes. which was especially pleasing to the Roman contingent there, because they had to listen to him travel the country in former years, raising the intelligence of the clergy, and insisting on the more reformed worship and lame rallies. There's not many things the devil hates more than churches raising the intelligence level. In other words, arming the saints. He hates it. As the flames consumed him up to the face, He confessed his own sins to God and he pled for the mercy of Christ. And here, Fox's account is especially graphic, so let's read Fox. He says, when he was black in the mouth and his tongue swollen so that he could not speak, yet his lips went till they were shrunk to the gums and he did knock his breast with his hands until one of his arms fell off. and then knocked still with the other arm, while at what time the fat, water, and blood dropped out at his fingers' ends, until by renewing of the fire his strength was gone, and his hand did cleave fast in knocking the iron upon his breast. So immediately bowing forward, he yielded his spirit." Now the only reason that Cranmer's execution dragged on was because he was consecrated by Rome. and therefore had to await papal judgment. But under much pressure, Cranmer actually recanted for a time, and prepared a Catholic version, and secretly, in his pocket, a Protestant version of his last words, and he really wasn't sure himself which he would use. But it was at the execution that he truly recanted, not to Rome, but to Christ, asking to have the hand which betrayed his Lord on paper burned first. Mary's reign of terror was for five years. She would become pregnant, or so she thought, ordering public rejoicing through the realm. It was apparently ovarian dropsy, which caused the swelling that she thought was an heir to the throne. Philip left embarrassed, back to Spain, and Mary prepared for the loss of everything. The English higher-ups, Catholic and Protestant alike, would rather send for Elizabeth than to concede to servitude to Spain. On November 17, 1558, after ordering one last private mass, she died. News was sent from Westminster Abbey, where she was buried, to Cardinal Pole, who was himself sick, and this quickened his own agonizing death. And so look at the way that people die throughout church history, the enemies of Christ versus his martyrs. And it really goes a long way to explain why the blood of the martyr is the seed of the church. Because as people watch, especially as you heard Fox graphically talk about Hooper's martyrdom, you have the idea that it's something that you cannot not be moved by. Well, what about John Knox? He had already left during that reign. As the Scots came into contact with Reformation ideas, their rulers brought more pressure down on their churches than did the English. And this had the effect of making the Scottish faith more resolute. Mary Stuart was Queen of Catholic France, and so Stuart versus Tudor, there's the difference there. She was Queen of Catholic France, remember there's that unity of France and Scotland. Once her husband died in 1560, she would make her more explicit designs upon Scotland. Now she had been raised in France while her island was governed by executors, since she, like Edward VI, was too young at the time. As a matter of fact, she was six when she officially came to the throne. John Knox, Knox's dates are 1514 to 1572, was educated at St. Andrews and Glasgow in Scotland. and ordained a Catholic priest in 1536, the same year that Calvin penned the first edition of the Institutes. He would have preferred to be a spectator, but he was awakened to the evils of the Roman system by the martyrdom of friends of his, and then by serving as chaplain to those who had murdered one cardinal beaten, and he saw their hypocrisy. He was taken prisoner and enslaved by the French and exposed to more of the Catholic practice on the mainland. And he never saw anything more corrupt than just to watch Catholics on the mainland. He lived in England in the times of Edwards and then Mary's takeover. And so, like I said, he fled at that time. Geneva and Zurich would become his refuge where he would grow into a prophetic leader. And so he prayed the prayer to God, give me Scotland or I die. Now he, I've mentioned before in other classes that he had what we would today call a more pietistic leaning at first, that would change. And it would already change because he saw Mary coming on the horizon and what the clash that would happen. But so he wrote on his way there. Sorry, Tyndale. Hello, Knox. to Bollinger in Zurich and Calvin in Geneva, asking advice for what to do about the relationship to the state and obedience and so on. And Bollinger and Calvin's response were both cautious. because they didn't want to ignite something that would just discredit the Reformed movement in other places in the world. But there was enough there to show the sense in which the church with the Word stands over the secular order. But Knox first influenced Scotland while he was still in Geneva. He would return later. The year before, and by the way, he would preach while in Geneva three times a week. In fact, if you go to Geneva, there's that famous statue of the four guys. So you have Calvin Bullinger, Beethoven, and Knox. Pharoah. Knox is not one of the four? Oh, it is Pharoah. No, you're right, it is Pharoah. Well, they all have thick beards. They make him one of the four, right? I could have sworn he was one of the four. Maybe it's not Bollinger because he wasn't in Geneva. They all look alike, those bearded reformed people. Anyway, the year before he came home he wrote in 1558, a first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women. Come on, that's a great title. If you're a misogynist, Anyway, what was he doing there? He was anticipating a showdown with Mary, yet before it was clear that the other Mary would die. It was the English matriarchy, however, that furnished Knox with the only proof he needed that God cursed the land who resorted to feminine rule. In fact, C.S. Lewis one time said that there's, let's see, oh yes, there's two reasons why humans are afraid of spiders. The Collective and the Rule of the Feminine. See, there's cool British people. You bunch of misogynists. Anyway, Feminine Rule, Knox is thinking, an oxymoron in the nature of things. Now, Elizabeth would read that and make up her mind right away about Knox. She would never forgive him. In fact, she refused to let him pass through England to get home. He arrived in Edinburgh the long way around in May of 1559. Well, when he arrived, the Mass had already been declared illegal in Scotland, and now that he was home, the material work of Reformation would begin. It would have to aim its words at Mary of Guise, and I don't know how you pronounce that in French, but I'm going with Guise anyway, because I like it. Under the guise of, anyway. She was the mother of the long-awaited Mary, who was running the Regency until the proper age. I'm assuming it's French, because it's a guise. Yeah. Knox preached to Protestants, and immediately, first sermon, riots. That's what happens when you preach to Scottish people. At least it used to happen, riots. The government instantly called in their French reserves and declared war, assuming that her terms were not agreed to. But the foreign intrusion caused some of her leading men to switch sides. Now, Knox returned to St. Andrews, where he one day prophesied his own return to preach, which obviously had come true. More acts of icon smashing and stained glass window breaking would follow. Mary's troops were in retreat and on the verge of all-out mutiny. A couple of sermons had literally turned a nation on its head. Now, a third sermon, this time in the most influential pulpit of St. Giles. Promise of the freedom of conscience immediately followed by Mary. So in six months, the word of God out of one man's mouth chased a ruling army into the corner of their own domain and brought them to their knees. Mary, the older Mary, was deposed and she would die one year later. The French would be called on to bail out her government. However, in the meantime, And likewise, the English would be appealed to by Knox, which normally Elizabeth would have said, I thought I was a woman. But under the circumstances, the new queen would not want any French surrounding her island either. A treaty was reached, and the battle turned to doctrine where it belonged. The Protestants presented their Scottish confession in August of 1560. Every request against Romanism made a clean sweep, and it looked as if the Reformed faith would be strongest here in Scotland than anywhere else. The Kirk, as they called it, what, by the way, that is the Scottish word, from the Greek Kerkourion. or belonging to the Lord, kurios. You see that? So the word for congregation or assembly is ekklesia, but immediately, especially in northern Europe, you had this interpretation of the Greek belonging to, or of, or pertaining to the Lord as the church's belonging to the Lordship of Christ, so that the emphasis was not simply on worship, but orderliness and owing to-ness. of the Lord. And so in German, it's Kirche. And Scottish, Kirk and English, Church. Just a little side note. So your name is Andy Church. It may be something else, too. Maybe something else. A lot going on at church. All right, what else? I was curious. Cherry church. Church with a cherry on top. See? A little etymology adventure there. All right, well, that Kirk was to be run by churchmen, and so their parliament agreed. So a little bit more purity going on here than in England. A book of discipline was the next order of business in 1561. During the holidays, though, Knox's wife died, and as he had two small children, this would slow him down naturally. And Calvin knew a thing or two about that. His wife had died, and so Calvin sent him a letter of condolence at that time. So the new woman in Knox's life would be his nemesis, and he would be her nemesis. Mary arrived in August, 16 years old. Now, unlike Elizabeth, Mary Stewart was universally recognized to be beautiful, at least that's the consensus of historians. So you can decide what you want from the paintings. They didn't have Polaroids back then. But being still younger than a lot of even the other queens in the land, the sight of the thick-bearded, fire-breathing Knox putting his finger and thumping his Bible in her sobbing little face wouldn't go over too well today. Not because of chivalry, which we don't know anything about, but because of banality and false humility. She celebrated the mass when she arrived, and that started a protest. Knox fired back the next Lord's Day with a sermon. She would put him to an initial test. She brought him in and she accused the reformer of inciting the people against her mother and of writing against her own present rule. Face to face, she asked him about the infamous book to which he responded, So long as she didn't exceed her lawful bounds, it mattered less that she was a woman, so long as she wasn't a tyrant. In December, she asked to see him again after his sermon criticized practices of hers that he felt were meant as a jab against the Reformed. She assured him, so notice the tone immediately going to apologetics. She assured him it wasn't and left it at asking him to just please consult her first the next time he wants to criticize her. Fairly remarkable gesture, however, Knox replied that his sermons could not wait for her editing approval. At Easter in 1563, some more masses were performed to which the Council of the Kirk responded with legal prosecution. Mary surprisingly agreed to have those Catholic priests deposed. But the most famous interchange occurred on June 24th, later that year. Mary was all set to marry the son of Philip II of Spain, named Don Carlos, to which Knox scolded her in a sermon. After going back and forth for a moment, she burst into tears and cried, What do you have to do with my marriage? What are you in this domain? A subject of the same, madam, he replied. She could think of nothing to do but to keep on crying. As usually happened when Knox came into the room, she would cry. Madam, Tyndale softened up without losing his firm stance. In God's presence I speak. I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures. Yea, I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys, whom my own hand corrects. Much less can I rejoice in your majesty's weeping. Yet I would rather endure your tears than remain silent and betray my commonwealth. The Queen composed herself just enough to order him out of the room. They would have one more encounter after another riot threatened the life of a Catholic priest conducting a mass. Knox was naturally blamed and accused of treason, and he was acquitted. Now, oddly enough, in 1564, Knox remarried. Odd, because the young woman was only 17, while he was 50 by this time. Odder still, because she was a steward, family member of Mary. They had three children, and after Mary married a noble the next year, it set off a revolution in which this Lord Darnley, who she married, was murdered. She was indicted because she immediately remarried the main suspect. She rallied her troops, and Knox momentarily fled to finish writing his History of the Reformation in Scotland. Mary fled to England in 1568, and though her cousin Elizabeth would have liked to pardon her, she was suspect in the whole realm. And after everybody's execution with her execution, after everybody's execution, pretty much almost everyone's exhaustion with bloody Mary, nobody was going to take any chances. And so she was beheaded. Now back home, there was fighting over the government for three years. Officially, James VI, by the way, pay attention to that because it's James who's a Scottish monarch who becomes King James I of England, who would stick it to the Puritans and write the King James, and yeah, we'll get to that. But James VI of Scotland took the throne, and there was an assumption of a total reform direction happening. Knox would finish his years of preaching at St. Giles as all enemies of the Queen had to remain out of Edinburgh, but he was left to preach there. Now, to this day, this is ironic, and I've seen this in lots of pictures, including, I think when Dave Peterson went over there, he took some pictures, I think he has direct pictures of this. To this day, in the back parking lot of St. Giles Cathedral, the Reformers grave is paved under parking spot 23. If you want to find out where Knox is resting and what Scotland apparently thinks about him now, you can look in the back parking lot and read and move over to spot number 23 if there's no car directly blowing his fumes right over it. While in front of the church in the crowded street, a great statue of the infidel David Hume that adorns the city. So what do you think about that? They're practically French. The Scottish have shaved their legs, dropped their kilt and become French. No offense to anyone personally. Anyway, what does that say? What did David Hume ever do for your country? Except draw you under the curse of God. Right up there, you know, not right up there, ahead of William Wallace in liberating you in all the right reasons. But anyway. All right, what about Elizabeth? A woman who cared less for theology than for politics would actually act more like a man than all of the other enemies of the faith. Not the last to do it, by the way, in Britain. Think of Margaret Thatcher, but at any rate. All of that and more makes her an enigma. But what she did in her courts and her secular realm made a golden age for the English people. She was arguably one of the great ten leaders of the modern world. Yet for reform, she was too good of a politician. She was brilliantly single-minded, but her mind was not the same as that of the Puritans that her compromise would foster. She gave birth to no heir except for the twins of liberalism and Puritanism, which became two nations wrestling in her womb. On November 17, 1558, upon hearing the news of her half-sister's death, the 25-year-old Elizabeth knelt down in hiding and recited in Latin Psalm 118. Like the psalmist, she had escaped And to all of England, they had all escaped together, this being evidence of her legitimacy and the end to the mad decades of religious war. Again, exhaustion with religious arguments creates 99% of the effeminate fruitless that run the church throughout history. Seriously. As you study church history, that's what you'll find out. People get exhausted, and they turn into Rob Bell. I'm tired. Why are we talking about this anymore? Love wins. Anyway, the climate had changed. While in exile, one author, John Ponet, it looks like a French name, but he's English, so I'm going to go with that. Otherwise, I'd have to say Ponay, but obviously that can't be the case because he's English. Anyway, he wrote a short treatise on political power in 1553, being the first among the English to suggest that one may disobey a disobedient magistrate, even kill him or her, parenthetically. Somewhat early on, after a few hints at attraction to others, Elizabeth resolved to be the Virgin Queen, married to her people. If she had no offspring, a realm of peace and prosperity would be her children. And so only an easy to suppress riffraff would want to overturn things ever again. That didn't stop others from trying to match her. She was certainly not irreligious like the other opponents of Reformation, and she was more literate than they as well. Earlier she had translated Queen Margaret of Navarre's Mirror of a Sinful Soul into English, and one of her stepmother Catherine Parr's prayer books into English from Latin. So she was not cold to the religious question. She had a conviction. It was simply that she took Cranmer's worship over doctrine false dichotomy to its logical extension, and crystallized it the permanent realm. The Acts of Uniformity and the Acts of Supremacy in 1559, let me write those down, because that really, like I said, crystallizes the theology of Cranmer, the liturgical-based theology of Cranmer. The Acts of Uniformity and the Acts of Supremacy. Wolf in 1559, the year after she takes the throne, 26 years old, and she takes the throne of the church because since the whole thing implied that the monarch is now seen as the supreme head of the church, this made a woman the first official head of the church. Apparently, including Bollinger from Zurich, said, yeah, you might want to just change that to governor or something of the church, which is the way she interpreted it. She was well aware of the theological problem and got around it that way. Both she and her advisors understood the need for modification in the language. Interestingly, it would be under the very unmonarchical stint of Elizabeth II, still current, that the Anglican Church has come undone in its establishment. In 1562 she nearly died of smallpox and named Robert Dudley to be protector of the realm in the event of her death. So she still had to think about who's going to take over, even if I don't have kids. And so she figured, I'm just going to last. I'm just going to last for 40 years. I'm going to create peace and prosperity. And it won't matter so much who takes it, as that England will be this kind of a people. And in a sense, she succeeded in doing that. The first edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs appeared in her reign in 1563, and it hardened vigilance against papistry. Popery, always a fun one, popery. Smells like potpourri in here. And papistry, like sophistry except papistry. It's cool stuff. That's awesome. All right, so Fox had given the Protestants a theological history. He had given them a larger narrative than even Rome. And so the Protestant fervor was no innovation against an ordered backdrop. It was a revival against the eternal backdrop. And so now Protestantism was an ism, at the very least. It was a narrative of the Christian worldview, and Fox really helped them do that through the study of martyrdom. Now, it is fair to remember, in closing, that hundreds of loyal Catholics died under Elizabeth, but their reasons were far different. In one sense, and obviously in one sense it was the same, they thought their faith was the true faith, and so on. But here's the difference. They would force an external secular unity on other people, whereas the Reformed martyrs under Mary had burned for their beliefs, which they propagated by persuasive preaching and writing. I'm talking about Latimer, Hooper, Ridley. These guys were not about that. Edward was surrounded by gold-seeking opportunists who just wanted all the lands that the monks were moving out of. And so they certainly would have behaved just as hypocritically as the Catholics. And people see that and they think, well, those are the Protestants. Well, that's not what their preachers were doing. They were giving those riches to the poor and just giving it up and simply preaching. That's how they spread things. But persuasive preaching and writing and the manner of their lives and their deaths, Fox pled for them. for the Catholics that Elizabeth was, not in the same way Mary was, but if somebody that was seditious, Elizabeth would of course put them to death, but it was for sedition in that sense. But Fox would plead even for them. And though he initially defended Elizabeth as possessing a virgin sword, he was disappointed in his appeals to her and the country to spare even the Romanists. So those are some things worth noting so it's not all lumped into one. So what we're going to do Sunday is we're going to get into the beginning of what I call the Empire Strikes Back, which happens in different ways. You have the overt oppression of the secular rulers and from Rome and the Counter-Reformation and the Society of Jesus, Ignatius Loyola's Jesuits, but you also have what the devil introduces as tempting Islands to the left and right of spiritualism and rationalism and that starts to Try to make the Reformation into something other than what it was so open it up to questions and comments