Obeying the Higher Power

In an essay titled "The Freedom of the Free Churchman", Paul Cook makes the following statement: "The Christian's subjection to human governments and magistrates and his respect for local and national laws should arise from recognition that such authority has been delegated to men by God. The living God is the One to whom the believer renders ultimate obedience; should the state and its officers trespass from their civil duties into the spiritual realm, where it has no legitimate authority, then the Christian is to obey the higher power." Over the centuries many Christians have paid steep penalties, often execution, for holding fast to this truth. In 1593, for example, Henry Barrows, John Greenwood, and John Penry suffered death on the scaffold over this very issue.

John Penry was a Welshman who was a graduate of both Oxford and Cambridge, and he came under deep conviction for the spiritual needs of his brethren in Wales. He became a separatist because of the indifference of the Church of England over sending the gospel to Wales. He was found guilty of sedition, and in May 1593 he followed Barrows and Greenwood to the scaffold. According to Robert Oliver, at his trial, Penry declared: "Imprisonment, judgement, yea death itself are not meet weapons to convince men's consciences, grounded on the word of God." He left a Bible to each of his three daughters, and his will ends with the words, "I leave the success of my labours, the calling of my country to the knowledge of Christ's blessed Gospel unto such of my countrymen as the Lord is to raise after me."