in
which Knox had long since been encouraged by his earliest teacher.[84]

The congregation had confessed the doctrine to the Parliament, and the
Parliament had accepted and approved it. Had the Parliament more to do?

Some things were absolutely necessary. It had to wipe out the previous
legislation against the profession of the new faith. The Evangel had to
be set free by statute. Once liberated from the ban of the law under
which its previous victories had been won, it could finish its work
independently, and without difficulty sweep the whole of Scotland. And
Knox had no doubt as to the right of the Kirk to act independently, or
as to its duty to do so--if it could not do more and better. Already,
before the Parliament met, the members of it who were Protestants had
gathered together in Edinburgh, and arranged for fixing this and that
minister of the word in the various centres of population. And once the
legal obstacles to proselytism were removed, the way would be open for a
more glorious advance than they had yet seen. But such a work in the
future, though comparatively easy, and though in Knox's view certain in
its result, would be slow. Why not do it all at a stroke? Instead of
merely revoking the intolerant laws, why not turn them against the other
side?

A very strong petition had been already presented against the Romish
Church, and exactly a week after the ratification of the Confession,
three Acts were passed.[85] These three Acts, with that ratification,
constituted the public 'state of religion' during the seven years of
Mary's reign, and they were re-enacted on her abdication in 1567 as the
foundation of the regime of Protestantism. Of the three, the first was
only ambiguously intolerant, for though it ordained that the Pope 'have
no jurisdiction nor authority within this realm,' that might be held to
reject mainly the Papal encroachment upon civil power. The second was
not intolerant at all, and as being well within the power and duty of
the nation, it ought to have come first. By it all Acts bypast, and
especially those of the five Jameses, not agreeing with God's Word and
contrary to the Confession, and 'wherethrow divers innocents did
suffer,' were abolished and extinguished for ever. But the third, passed
the same day, proceeded on the preamble that 'notwithstanding the
reformation already made, according to God's Word, yet there is some of
the said Papist Kirk that stubbornly persevere in their