Though our Reformer was of opinion, that, in certain circumstances of the church, a power might be delegated to some ministers to inspect the congregations within a particular district, and accordingly recommended the appointment of superintendents at the first establishment of the Reformation in Scotland, yet he did not allow of any class of office‑bearers in the church, under whatever name, who were superior either in office or in order to ministers or presbyters. His sentiments were not more favourable to diocesan episcopacy in his latter than they had been in his earlier days. Writing to a correspondent in England, in the year 1568, he says, “I would most gladly pass through the course that God hath appointed to my labours, giving thanks to his holy name, for that it hath pleased his mercy to make me not a lord bishop, but a painful preacher of his blessed evangel.”[260] In his correspondence with Beza, he had informed him of the government established in the Scottish church; and at this very time he received a letter from that reformer, congratulating him that he had banished the order of bishops, and admonishing him and his colleagues to beware of suffering it to re‑enter under the deceitful pretext of preserving unity.[261] He had an opportunity of {204} publicly declaring his sentiments on this subject, at the installation of Douglas as archbishop of St Andrews. Having preached as usual on Sabbath, February 13, 1572, the earl of Morton, who was present, desired him to inaugurate Douglas; but he positively refused, and pronounced an anathema against both the donor and the receiver of the bishopric. The provost of St Salvator’s college having said that Knox’s conduct proceeded from disappointment, because the bishopric had not been conferred on himself, he, on the following Sabbath, repelled this invidious charge. He had refused, he said, a greater bishopric than that of St Andrews, which he might have had by the favour of greater men than Douglas had his:[262] what he had spoken was for the exoneration of his conscience, that the church of Scotland might not be subject to that order, especially after a very different one had been settled in the Book of Discipline, subscribed by the nobility, and ratified by parliament. He lamented also that a burden should have been laid upon an old man, which twenty men of the greatest ability could not sustain.[263] In the General Assembly held {205} at St Andrews in the following month, he not only entered a protest against the election of Douglas,[264] but also “opponed himself directly to the making of bishops.”[265]