TO THE NOBILITY AND ESTATES of Scotland John Knox wisheth grace, mercy and peace from God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with the spirit of righteous judgement.

Every man ought to confess and reverence God's truth

It is not only the love of life temporal (Right Honourable), neither yet the fear of corporal death, that moveth me at this present to expone unto you the injuries done against me and to crave of you, as of lawful powers by God appointed, redress of the same. But partly it proceedeth from that reverence which every man oweth to God's eternal truth, and partly from a love which I bear to your salvation, and to the salvation of my brethren abused in that realm by such as have no fear of God before their eyes.

It hath pleased God of His infinite mercy not only so to illuminate the eyes of my mind and so to touch my dull heart that clearly I see, and by His grace unfeignedly believe, that ‘there is no other name given to men under the heaven in which salvation consisteth save the name of Jesus alone’, ‘who by that sacrifice which he did once offer upon the cross hath sanctified forever those that shall inherit the kingdom promised’. But also it hath pleased Him of His superabundant grace to make and appoint me, most wretched of many thousands, a witness, minister and preacher of the same doctrine.