eat an impenitent Catholic ruler as Jehu treated Jezebel. But
if any brother had consulted Knox as to the propriety of assassinating
Queen Mary, in 1561-67, he would have found out his mistake, and
probably have descended the Reformer's stairs much more rapidly than
he mounted them.

Yet Knox, though he could submit to compromise, really had a
remarkably mystical idea of what the Kirk was, and of the attributes
of her clergy. The editor of _The Free Church Union Case_, Mr. Taylor
Innes (himself author of a biography of the Reformer), writes, in his
preface to _The Judgment of the House of Lords_: 'The Church of
Scotland, as a Protestant Church, had its origin in the year 1560, for
its first Confession dates from August, and its first Assembly from
December in that year.' In fact, the Confession was accepted and
passed as law, by a very dubiously legal Convention of the Estates, in
August 1560. But Knox certainly conceived that the Protestant Church
_in_, if not _of_, Scotland existed a year before that date, and
before that date it possessed 'the power of the Keys' and even, it
would perhaps seem, 'the power of the Sword.' To his mind, as soon as
a local set of men of his own opinions met, and chose a pastor and
preacher, who also administered the Sacraments, the Protestant Church
was 'a Church in being.' The Catholic Church, then by law established,
was, Knox held, no Church at all; her priests were not 'lawful
ministers,' her Pope was the man of Sin _ex officio_, and the Church
was 'the Kirk of the malignants'--'a lady of pleasure in Babylon
bred.'

On the other hand, the real Church--it might be of but 200 men--was
confronting the Kirk of the malignants, and alone was genuine. The
State did not make and could not unmake 'the Trew Church,' but was
bound to establish, foster, _and obey it_.

It was this last proviso which caused 130 years of bloodshed and
'persecution' and general unrest in Scotland, from 1559 to 1690. Why
was the Kirk so often out 'in the heather,' and hunted like a
partridge on the field and the mountain? The answer is that when the
wilder spirits of the Kirk were not being persecuted they were
persecuting the State and bullying the individual subject. All this
arose from Knox's idea of the Church. To constitute a Church no more
was needed than a local set of Calvinistic Protestants and 'a lawful
minister.' To constitute a lawful minister, at first (later far more
was required), no more was neede