Knox may have forgotten, and Lethington did not know, that, about 1558- 59, in a tract, already noticed (pp. 101-103 supra), of 450 pages against the Anabaptists, Knox had expressed the reverse of his present opinion about religious Regicide.  He is addressing the persecuting Catholic princes of Europe:  " . . .  Ye shall perish, both temporally and for ever.  And by whom doth it most appear that temporally ye shall be punished?  By us, whom ye banish, whom ye spoil and rob, whom cruelly ye persecute, and whose blood ye daily shed? {243a} There is no doubt, but as the victory which overcometh the world is our faith, so it behoveth us to possess our souls in our patience.  We neither privily nor openly deny the power of the Civil Magistrate. . . . "

The chosen saints and people of God, even when under oppression, lift not the hand, but possess their souls in patience, says Knox, in 1558-59.  But the idolatrous shall be temporally punished—­by other hands.  “And what instruments can God find in this life more apt to punish you than those” (the Anabaptists), “that hate and detest all lawful powers? . . .  God will not use his saints and chosen people to punish you. For with them there is always mercy, yea, even although God have pronounced a curse and malediction, as in the history of Joshua is plain.” {243b}

In this passage Knox is speaking for the English exiles in Geneva.  He asserts that we “neither publicly nor privately deny the power of the Civil Magistrate,” in face of his own published tracts of appeal to a Jehu or a Phinehas, and of his own claim that the Prophet may preach treason, and that his instruments may commit treason.  To be sure all the English in Geneva were not necessarily of Knox’s mind.

It is altogether a curious passage.  God’s people are more merciful than God!  Israel was bidden to exterminate all idolaters in the Promised Land, but, as the Book of Joshua shows, they did not always do it:  “for with them is always mercy”; despite the massacres, such as that of Agag, which Knox was wont to cite as examples to the backward brethren!  Yet, relying on another set of texts, not in Joshua, Knox now informed Lethington that the executors of death on idolatrous princes were “the people of God”—­“the people, or a part of the people.” {244a}

Mercy!  Happily the policy of carnal men never allowed Knox’s “people of God” to show whether, given a chance to destroy idolaters, they would display the mercy on which he insists in his reply to the Anabaptist.

It was always useless to argue with Knox; for whatever opinion happened to suit him at the moment (and at different moments contradictory opinions happened to suit him), he had ever a Bible text to back him.  On this occasion, if Lethington had been able to quote Knox’s own statement, that with the people of God “there is always mercy” (as in the case of Cardinal Beaton), he could hardly have escaped by saying that there was always mercy, when the people of God had not the upper hand in the State, {244b} when unto them God has not “given sufficient force.”  For in the chosen people of God “there is always mercy, yea even although God have pronounced a curse and malediction.”