s and
chief rulers only" (as he had argued that they do, in 1554), "but also to
the whole body of that people, and to every member of the same, according
to the vocation of every man, and according to that possibility and
occasion which God doth minister to revenge the injury done against His
glory, what time that impiety is manifestly known. . . . _Who dare be so
impudent as to deny this to be most reasonable and just_?" {83}

Knox's method of argument for his doctrine is to take, among other texts,
Deuteronomy xiii. 12-18, and apply the sanguinary precepts of Hebrew
fanatics to the then existing state of affairs in the Church Christian.
Thus, in Deuteronomy, cities which serve "other gods," or welcome
missionaries of other religions, are to be burned, and every living thing
in them is to be destroyed. "To the carnal man, . . . " says Knox, "this
may rather seem to be pronounced in a rage than in wisdom." God wills,
however, that "all creatures stoop, cover their faces, _and desist from
reasoning_, when commandment is given to execute his judgement." Knox,
then, desists from reasoning so far as to preach that every Protestant,
with a call that way, has a right to punish any Catholic, if he gets a
good opportunity. This doctrine he publishes to his own countrymen. Thus
any fanatic who believed in the prophet Knox, and was conscious of a
"vocation," might, and should, avenge God's wrongs on Mary of Guise or
Mary Stuart, "he had a fair opportunity, for both ladies were idolaters.
This is a plain inference from the passage just cited.

Appealing to the Commonalty of Scotland, Knox next asked that he might
come and justify his doctrine, and prove Popery "abominable before God."
Now, could any Government admit a man who published the tidings that any
member of a State might avenge God on an idolater, the Queen being,
according to him, an idolater? This doctrine of the right of the
Protestant individual is merely monstrous. Knox has wandered far from
his counsel of "passive resistance" in his letter to his Berwick
congregation; he has even passed beyond his "Admonition," which merely
prayed for a Phinehas or Jehu: he has now proclaimed the right and duty
of the private Protestant assassin. The "Appellation" containing these
ideas was published at Geneva in 1558, with the author's, but without the
printer's name on the title-page.

"The First Blast" had neither the author's nor printer's name, nor the
name of the pl