does not appear; it is not very probable, for that service is idolatrous, and the Band itself denounces the Church as “the Congregation of Satan.”  Dr. M’Crie thinks that the Banders, or Congregation of God, did not ask for the universal adoption of the English Prayer Book, but only requested that they themselves might bring it in “in places to which their authority and influence extended.”  They took that liberty, certainly, without waiting for leave, but their demand appears to apply to all parish churches.  War, in fact, was denounced against Satan’s Congregation; {81b} if it troubles the Lords’ Congregation, there could therefore be little idea of tolerating their nefarious creed and ritual.

Probably Knox, at Dieppe in 1557 and early in 1558, did not know about the promising Band made in Scotland.  He was composing his “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.”  In England and in Scotland were a Catholic Queen, a Catholic Queen Mother, and the Queen of Scotland was marrying the idolatrous Dauphin.  It is not worth while to study Knox’s general denunciation of government by ladies:  he allowed that (as Calvin suggested) miraculous exceptions to their inability might occur, as in the case of Deborah.  As a rule, a Queen was an “idol,” and that was enough.  England deserved an idol, and an idolatrous idol, for Englishmen rejected Kirk discipline; “no man would have his life called in trial” by presbyter or preacher.  A Queen regnant has, ex officio, committed treason against God:  the Realm and Estates may have conspired with her, but her rule is unlawful.  Naturally this skirl on the trumpet made Knox odious to Elizabeth, for to impeach her succession might cause a renewal of the wars of the Roses.  Nothing less could have happened, if a large portion of the English people had believed in the Prophet of God, John Knox.  He could predict vengeance on Mary Tudor, but could not see that, as Elizabeth would succeed, his Blast would bring inconvenience to his cause; or, seeing it, he stood to his guns.

He presently reprinted and added to his letter to Mary of Guise, arguing that civil magistrates have authority in religion, but, of course, he must mean only as far as they carry out his ideas, which are the truth.  In an “Appellation” against the condemnation of himself, in absence, by the Scottish clergy, he labours the same idea.  Moreover, “no idolater can be exempted from punishment by God’s law.”  Now the Queen of Scotland happened to be an idolater, and every true believer, as a private individual, has a right to punish idolaters.  That right and duty are not limited to the King, or to “the chief Nobility and Estates,” whom Knox addresses.  “I would your Honours should note for the first, that no idolater can be exempted from punishment by God’s Law.  The second is, that the punishment of such crimes as are idolatry, blasphemy, and others, that touch the Majesty of God, doth not appertain to kings and