John Knox was moved thus to speak, because he understood more of the craft than the other did.
Lethington. Well, I am persuaded in this last head somewhat better than I was in the other two. Mr. Knox, yesterday we heard your judgment upon the 13th to the Romans; we heard the mind of the Apostle well opened; we heard the causes why God has established powers upon the earth; we heard the necessity that mankind has of the same; and we heard the duty of magistrates sufficiently declared; but in two things I was offended, and so I think were some more of my Lords that were then present. The one was that ye made difference betwixt the ordinance of God and the persons that were placed in authority; and ye affirmed that men might refuse the persons, and yet not offend against God's ordinance. This is the one; the other ye had no time to explain; but methought ye meant this,—that subjects were not bound to obey their princes if they commanded unlawful things; but that they might resist their princes, and were never bound to suffer.
Knox. In very deed ye have rightly both marked my words, and understood my mind; for I have long been of that same judgment, and so I yet remain.
Lethington. How will ye prove your division and difference, and that the person placed in authority may be resisted, and God's ordinance not transgressed, seeing that the Apostle says, "He that resists the powers, resisteth the ordinance of God."
Knox. My Lord, the plain words of the Apostle make the difference, and the acts of many approved by God prove my affirmative. First, the Apostle affirms that the powers are ordained of God for the preservation of quiet and peaceable men, and for the punishment of malefactors. From this it is plain that the ordinance of God and the power given unto men is one thing, and the person clad with the power or with the authority is another. God's ordinance is the conservation of mankind, the punishment of vice, and the maintaining of virtue, which is in itself holy, just, constant, stable, and perpetual. But men clad with the authority are commonly profane and unjust; yea, they are mutable and transitory, and subject to corruption. God threateneth them by His Prophet David, saying, "I have said ye are gods, and every one of you the sons of the Most Highest; but ye shall die as men, and the princes shall fall like others." Here I am assured that persons, the soul and body of wicked princes, are threatened with death: I think that ye will not affirm that so also are the authority, the ordinance and the power, wherewith God has endued such persons; for, as I have said, as it is holy, so is it the permanent will of God. Now, my Lord, it is evident that the prince may be resisted, and yet the ordinance of God not violated. The people resisted Saul, when he had sworn by the living God that Jonathan should die. The people, I say, swore to the contrary, and delivered Jonathan, so that not a hair of his head fell. Now, Saul was the anointed king, and they were his subjects, and yet they so resisted him that they made him no better than mansworn.[236]
Lethington. I doubt if in so doing the people did well.
Knox. The Spirit of God accuses them not of any crime, but rather praises them, and condemns the king, as well for his foolish vow and law made without God, as for his cruel mind, that would have punished an innocent man so severely. I shall not stand entirely upon this: what follows shall confirm it. This same Saul commanded Abimelech and the priests of the Lord to be slain, because they had committed treason, as he alleged, for intercommuning with David. His guard and principal servants would not obey his unjust commandment; but Doeg, the flatterer, put the king's cruelty to execution. I will not ask your judgment whether the servants of the king, in not obeying his commandment, resisted God or not; or whether Doeg, in murdering the priests, gave obedience to a just authority. I have the Spirit of God, speaking by the mouth of David, to assure me of the one as well as of the other; for he, in his fifty-second Psalm, condemns that act as a most cruel murder; and affirms that God will punish not only the commander but the merciless executor. I conclude that they who gainstood his commandment resisted not the ordinance of God.
And now, my Lord, to answer to the statement of the Apostle, where he affirms that such as resist the power resist the ordinance of God, I say that the power in that place is not to be understood to be the unjust commandment of men, but the just power wherewith God has armed His magistrates and lieutenants to punish sin and maintain virtue. If any man enterprise to take from the hands of a lawful judge a murderer, an adulterer, or any other malefactor that by God's law deserves death, this same man resists God's ordinance, and procures to himself vengeance and condemnation, because he has stayed God's sword from striking. But this is not the case if men, in the fear of God, oppose themselves to the fury and blind rage of princes; in doing so, they do not resist God, but the Devil, who abuses the sword and authority of God.
Lethington. I sufficiently understand what ye mean; and to the one part I will not oppose myself. But I doubt of the other. If the Queen commanded me to slay John Knox, because she is offended at him, I would not obey her. But, were she to command others to do it, or by a colour of justice to take his life from him, I cannot tell if I should be found to defend him against the Queen and against her officers.
Knox. Under protestation that the audience think not that I seek favours for myself, my Lord, I say that, if ye be persuaded of my innocency, and if God has given you such power and credit as might deliver me, and yet you suffered me to perish, in so doing you should be criminal, and guilty of my blood.