Spain--God's anger will be pacified. "Delay not thy vengeance, O Lord,
but let death devour them in haste . . . For there is no hope of their
amendment, . . . He shall send Jehu to execute his just judgments against
idolaters. Jezebel herself shall not escape the vengeance and plagues
that are prepared for her portion." {49b} These passages are essential.
Professor Hume Brown expresses our own sentiments when he remarks: "In
casting such a pamphlet into England at the time he did, Knox indulged
his indignation, in itself so natural under the circumstances, at no
personal risk, while he seriously compromised those who had the strongest
claims on his most generous consideration." This is plain truth, and
when some of Knox's English brethren later behaved to him in a manner
which we must wholly condemn, their conduct, they said, had for a motive
the mischief done to Protestants in England by his fiery "Admonition,"
and their desire to separate themselves from the author of such a
pamphlet.

Knox did not, it will be observed, here call all or any of the faithful
to a general massacre of their Catholic fellow-subjects. He went to that
length later, as we shall show. In an epistle of 1554 he only writes:
"Some shall demand, 'What then, shall we go and slay all idolaters?'
_That_ were the office, dear brethren, of every civil magistrate within
his realm. . . . The slaying of idolaters appertains not to every
particular man." {49c}

This means that every Protestant king should massacre all his
inconvertible Catholic subjects! This was indeed a counsel of
perfection; but it could never be executed, owing to the carnal policy of
worldly men.

In writing about "the office of the civil magistrate," Knox, a Border