to "the nobility and Estates" (of whom they do not seem to reckon
themselves part, contrasting _themselves_ with "yourselves"). They
reminded the Estates how they had asked the Regent "for freedom and
liberty of conscience with a godly reformation of abuses." They now, by
way of freedom of conscience, ask that Catholic doctrine "be abolished by
Act of this Parliament, and punishment appointed for the transgressors."
The Man of Sin has been distributing the whole patrimony of the Church,
so that "the trew ministers," the schools, and the poor are kept out of
their own. The actual clergy are all thieves and murderers and "rebels
to the lawful authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes." Against these
charges (murder, rebellion, profligacy) they must answer now or be so
reputed. In fact, it was the nobles, rather than the Pope, who had been
robbing the Kirk, education, and the poor, which they continued to do, as
Knox attests. But as to doctrine, the barons and ministers were asked to
lay a Confession before the House. {172}

It will be observed that, in the petition, "Emperors, Kings, and Princes"
have "lawful authority" over the clergy. But that doctrine assumes,
tacitly, that such rulers are of Knox's own opinions: the Kirk later
resolutely stood up against kings like James VI., Charles I., and Charles
II.

The Confession was drawn up, presented, and ratified in a very few days:
it was compiled in four. The Huguenots in Paris, in 1559, "established a
record" by drawing up a Confession containing eighty articles in three
days. Knox and his coadjutors were relatively deliberate. They aver
that all points of belief necessary for salvation are contained in the
canonical books of the Bible. Their interpretation pertains to no man or
Church, but solely to "the spreit of God." That "spreit" must have
illuminated the Kirk as it then existed in Scotland, "for we dare not
receive and admit any interpretation which directly repugns to any
principal point of our faith, to any other _plain_ text of Scripture, or
yet unto the rule of charity."

As we, the preachers of the Kirk then extant, were apostate monks or
priests or artisans, about a dozen of us, in Scotland, mankind could not
be expected to regard "our" interpretation, "our faith" as infallible.
The framers of the Confession did not pretend that it was infallible.
They request that, "if any man will note in this our Confession any
article or sentence repugning t