ace of publication. Calvin soon found that it had given
grave offence to Queen Elizabeth. He therefore wrote to Cecil that,
though the work came from a press in his town, he had not been aware of
its existence till a year after its publication. He now took no public
steps against the book, not wishing to draw attention to its origin in
Geneva, lest, "by reason of the reckless arrogance of one man" ('the
ravings of others'), "the miserable crowd of exiles should have been
driven away, not only from this city, but even from almost the whole
world." {84} As far as I am aware, no one approached Calvin with
remonstrance about the monstrosities of the "Appellation," nor are the
passages which I have cited alluded to by more than one biographer of
Knox, to my knowledge. Professor Hume Brown, however, justly remarks
that what the Kirk, immediately after Knox's death, called "Erastianism"
(in ordinary parlance the doctrine that the Civil power may interfere in
religion) could hardly "be approved in more set terms" than by Knox. He
avers that "the ordering and reformation of religion . . . doth
especially appertain to the Civil Magistrate . . . " "The King taketh
upon him to command the Priests." {85} The opposite doctrine, that it
appertains to the Church, is an invention of Satan. To that diabolical
invention, Andrew Melville and the Kirk returned in the generation
following, while James VI. held to Knox's theory, as stated in the
"Appellation."

The truth is that Knox contemplates a State in which the civil power
shall be entirely and absolutely of his own opinions; the King, as
"Christ's silly vassal," to quote Andrew Melville, being obedient to such
prophets as himself. The theories of Knox regarding the duty to revenge
God's feud by the private citizen, and regarding religious massacre by
the civil power, ideas which would justify the Bartholomew horrors,
appear to be forgotten in modern times. His address to the Commonalty,
as citizens with a voice in the State, represents the progressive and
permanent element in his politics. We have shown, however, that, before
Knox's time, the individual Scot was a thoroughly independent character.
"The man hath more words than the master, and will not be content unless
he knows the master's counsel."

By March 1558, Knox had returned from Dieppe to Geneva. In Scotland,
since the godly Band of December 1557, events were moving in two
directions. The Church was continuing