He stated these diverse doctrines
in the course of eighteen months. In a Protestant country, the
Catholics must obey the Protestant ruler, or take their chances of
prison, exile, fire and death. The Protestant ruler, in a Protestant
State, is to be obeyed, in spiritual matters, by Protestants, just as
far as the Kirk may happen to approve of his proceedings, or even
further, in practice, if there is no chance of successful resistance.
We may take it that Knox, if he had been alive and retained his old
ideas in 1843, would not have gone out of the Established Church with
the Free Church, because, in his time, he actually did submit to many
State regulations of which he did not approve. For example, he
certainly did not approve of bishops, and had no bishops in the Kirk
as established on his model in 1560. But, twelve years later, bishops
were reintroduced by the State, in the person of the Regent Morton, a
ruffian, and Knox did not retire to 'the mountain and the fields,' but
made the most practical efforts to get the best terms possible for the
Kirk. He was old and outworn, and he remained in the Established Kirk,
and advised no man to leave it.
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