wisdom, and not by limitation of statutes and laws; if she might dispose alone of war and peace; if, to be short, she wer a mer monarch, and not a mixed ruler, you might peradventure make me to fear the matter the more, and the less to defend the cause.” Harborowe for Faithfull and Trew Subjects. H. 2 & 3. Note CC, Footnote 323. _Female Supremacy._――“Our countryman, John Knox, has been much censured for want of civility and politeness to the fair sex; and particularly for sounding a first and second ‘blast of the trumpet {435} against the monstrous regiment of women.’ He was indeed no milksop courtier, who can sacrifice the public weal to the punctilios of politeness, or consider the interests of nations as a point of gallantry. His reasons for the abolition of all female government, if they are not entirely convincing, may be allowed at least to be specious; and might well be indulged as a harmless speculative opinion in one who was disposed as he was to make no bad use of it in practice, and to give all dutiful respect to whomsoever the will of God and the commonwealth had assigned the sovereign power. But though the point may be conceded in regard to secular government, in ordering of which the constitutions and customs and mere pleasure of communities may be allowed to establish what is not morally evil; it will not follow that the essential order and positive law of the spiritual kingdom may also be sported with, and subverted.――Let the English, if they please, admit a weak, fickle, freakish, bigoted, gallantish or imperious woman, to sway the sceptre of political dominion over millions of men, and even over her own husband in the crowd, to whom at the altar she had previously vowed obedience, they shall meet with no opposition from the presbyterians; provided they do not also authorize her to lord it, or lady it, over their faith and consciences, as well as over their bodies, goods, and chattels.