A supplication was presented by “the Barons, gentlemen, Burgesses, and others” to “the nobility and Estates” (of whom they do not seem to reckon themselves part, contrasting themselves with “yourselves").  They reminded the Estates how they had asked the Regent “for freedom and liberty of conscience with a godly reformation of abuses.”  They now, by way of freedom of conscience, ask that Catholic doctrine “be abolished by Act of this Parliament, and punishment appointed for the transgressors.”  The Man of Sin has been distributing the whole patrimony of the Church, so that “the trew ministers,” the schools, and the poor are kept out of their own.  The actual clergy are all thieves and murderers and “rebels to the lawful authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes.”  Against these charges (murder, rebellion, profligacy) they must answer now or be so reputed.  In fact, it was the nobles, rather than the Pope, who had been robbing the Kirk, education, and the poor, which they continued to do, as Knox attests.  But as to doctrine, the barons and ministers were asked to lay a Confession before the House. {172}

It will be observed that, in the petition, “Emperors, Kings, and Princes” have “lawful authority” over the clergy.  But that doctrine assumes, tacitly, that such rulers are of Knox’s own opinions:  the Kirk later resolutely stood up against kings like James VI., Charles I., and Charles II.

The Confession was drawn up, presented, and ratified in a very few days:  it was compiled in four.  The Huguenots in Paris, in 1559, “established a record” by drawing up a Confession containing eighty articles in three days.  Knox and his coadjutors were relatively deliberate.  They aver that all points of belief necessary for salvation are contained in the canonical books of the Bible.  Their interpretation pertains to no man or Church, but solely to “the spreit of God.”  That “spreit” must have illuminated the Kirk as it then existed in Scotland, “for we dare not receive and admit any interpretation which directly repugns to any principal point of our faith, to any other plain text of Scripture, or yet unto the rule of charity.”

As we, the preachers of the Kirk then extant, were apostate monks or priests or artisans, about a dozen of us, in Scotland, mankind could not be expected to regard “our” interpretation, “our faith” as infallible.  The framers of the Confession did not pretend that it was infallible.  They request that, “if any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning to God’s Holy Word,” he will favour them with his criticism in writing.  As Knox had announced six years earlier, that, “as touching the chief points of religion, I neither will give place to man or angel . . . teaching the contrair to that which ye have heard,” a controversialist who thought it worth while to criticise the Confession must have deemed himself at least an archangel.  Two years later, written criticism was offered, as we shall see, with a demand for a written reply.  The critic escaped arrest by a lucky accident.