It has been alleged by some writers, that the question respecting the suspension of the queen regent was altogether incompetent for ministers of the gospel to determine, and that Knox and Willock, by the advice which they gave on this occasion, exposed themselves unnecessarily to odium.[454] But it is not easy to see how they could have been excused in refusing {299} to deliver their opinion, when required by those who had submitted to their ministry, upon a measure which involved a case of conscience, as well as a question of law and political right. The advice which was actually given and followed is a matter of greater consequence, than the quarter from which it came. As this rests upon principles very different from those which produced resistance to princes, and limitation on their authority, under feudal governments, and as our Reformer has been the object of much animadversion for inculcating these principles, I shall embrace the present opportunity to offer a few remarks on this interesting subject. * * * * * Among the various causes which affected the general state of society and government in Europe, during the middle ages, the influence of religion cannot be overlooked. Debased by ignorance, and fettered by superstition, the minds of men were prepared to acquiesce without examination in the claims of authority, and tamely to submit to every yoke. In whatever light we view popery, the genius of that singular system of religion will be found to be adverse to liberty. The court of Rome, while it aimed directly at the establishment of a spiritual despotism in the hands of ecclesiastics, contributed to rivet the chains of political servitude upon the people. In return for the support which princes yielded to its arrogant claims, it was content to invest them with an absolute authority over the bodies of their subjects. By the priestly unction, performed at the coronation of kings in the {300} name of the holy see, a sacred character was understood to be imparted, which raised them to a superiority over their nobility which they did not possess according to feudal ideas, rendered their persons inviolable, and their office divine. Although the sovereign pontiffs claimed, and on different occasions exercised, the power of dethroning kings, and of absolving subjects from their allegiance; yet any attempt of this kind, when it proceeded from the people themselves, was denounced as a crime deserving the severest punishment in this world, and damnation in the next. Hence sprung the doctrine of the divine right of kings to rule independently of their people, and of passive obedience and non‑resistance to their will; under the sanction of which they were encouraged to sport with the lives and happiness of their subjects, and to indulge in the most tyrannical and wanton acts of oppression, without the dread of resistance, or of being called to an account by any power on earth.