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
chief rulers only" (as he had argued that they do, in 1554), "but also to
the whole body of that people, and to every member of the same, according
to the vocation of every man, and according to that possibility and
occasion which God doth minister to revenge the injury done against His
glory, what time that impiety is manifestly known. . . . _Who dare be so
impudent as to deny this to be most reasonable and just_?" {83}

Knox's method of argument for his doctrine is to take, among other texts,
Deuteronomy xiii. 12-18, and apply the sanguinary precepts of Hebrew
fanatics to the then existing state of affairs in the Church Christian.
Thus, in Deuteronomy, cities which serve "other gods," or welcome
missionaries of other religions, are to be burned, and every living thing
in them is to be destroyed. "To the carnal man, . . . " says Knox, "this
may rather seem to be pronounced in a rage than in wisdom." God wills,
however, that "all creatures stoop, cover their faces, _and desist from
reasoning_, when commandment is given to execute his judgement." Knox,
then, desists from reasoning so far as to preach that every Protestant,
with a call that way, has a right to punish any Catholic, if he gets a
good opportunity. This doctrine he publishes to his own countrymen. Thus
any fanatic who believed in the prophet Knox, and was conscious of a
"vocation," might, and should, avenge God's wrongs on Mary of Guise or
Mary Stuart, "he had a fair opportunity, for both ladies were idolaters.