formed after the image of God――they had souls to be saved――they were accountable for their conduct――they were bound to judge of the truth of religion, and to make profession of it, as well as kings, nobles, or bishops. If idolatry was maintained, if the gospel was suppressed, if the blood of the innocent was shed, and if, in these circumstances, they kept silence, and did not exert themselves to prevent such evils, how could they vindicate their conduct?[304] But the most singular treatise published this year by Knox, and that which made the greatest noise, was, “The first Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment[305] of Women;” in which he attacked, with great vehemence, the practice of admitting females to the government of nations. There is some reason to think that his mind was struck with the incongruity of this practice as early as Mary’s accession {217} to the throne of England.[306] This was probably one of the points on which he had conferred with the Swiss divines in 1554.[307] That his sentiments respecting it were fixed in 1556, appears from an incidental reference to the subject in one of his familiar letters.[308] Influenced, however, by deference to the opinion of others, he refrained for a considerable time from publishing them to the world. But at last, provoked by the tyranny of the queen of England, and wearied out with her increasing cruelties, he applied the trumpet to his mouth, and uttered a terrible blast. “To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrarious to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and, finally, it is a subversion of all equity and justice.” Such is the first sentence and principal proposition of the work. The arguments by which he endeavours to establish it are, that nature intended the female sex for subjection, not superiority, to the male, as appears from their infirmities, corporal and mental (excepting always such as God, “by singular privilege, and for certain causes, exempted from the common rank of women”); that the divine law, announced at the creation of the first pair, had expressly assigned to man the dominion over woman, and commanded her to be subject to him; that female government was not permitted among the Jews; that it is contrary to apostolical injunctions; and that it {218} leads to the perversion of government, and other pernicious consequences.