For, howsoever wicked themselves be in life, or howsoever ungodly their
precepts or commandments be, ye must obey them for conscience' sake;
except in chief points of religion, and then ye ought rather to obey God
than man: _not to pretend to defend God's truth or religion, ye being
subjects, by violence or sword, but patiently suffering what God shall
please be laid upon you for constant confession of your faith and
belief_." Man or angel who teaches contrary doctrine is corrupt of
judgment, sent by God to blind the unworthy. And Knox proceeded to teach
contrary doctrine!

His truly Christian ideas are of date 1552, with occasional revivals as
opportunity suggested. In exile he was now asking (1554), how was a
Protestant minority or majority to oppose the old faith, backed by kings
and princes, fire and sword? He answered the question in direct
contradiction of his Berwick programme: he was now all for active
resistance. Later, in addressing Mary of Guise, and on another occasion,
he recurred to his Berwick theory, and he always found biblical texts to
support his contradictory messages.

At this moment resistance seemed hopeless enough. In England the
Protestants of all shades were decidedly in a minority. They had no
chance if they openly rose in arms; their only hope was in the death of
Mary Tudor and the succession of Elizabeth--itself a poor hope in the
eyes of Knox, who detested the idea of a female monarch. Might they "bow
down in the House of Rimmon" by a feigned conformity? Knox, in a letter
to the Faithful, printed in 1554, entirely rejected this compromise, to
which Cecil stooped, thereby deserving hell, as the relentless Knox (who
had fled) later assured him.

In the end of March 1554, probably, Knox left Dieppe for Geneva, where he