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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
[Knox remained in Dieppe for some months before returning to Geneva in the spring of 1558. He presumably did not know of the drawing up of the First Band when he penned the following letter (Laing, vol. IV, pp. 276–86) two weeks later on 17 December 1557.]
To the Lords and Others Professing the Truth in Scotland.
The secrets of the Lord are revealed to those that fear Him.
The Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David and Solomon (Right Honourable Lords), for two reasons calleth ‘the fear of the Lord the beginning of all wisdom’. First, because without the same, all that appeareth to be wisdom perisheth, and most commonly turneth to the perdition of those that are esteemed and do esteem themselves most wise. For wisdom natural, not ruled nor bridled by the fear of God, as it is but extreme foolishness, so is it a poison and venom most deadly, which in the end commonly bringeth the worldly wise to worldly confusion, as the experience of all ages has taught us; where, by the contrary, the fear of the Lord preserveth His servants in their greatest extremities even before the world. But this is not the chief cause why the fear of the Lord hath the forenamed title.
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