To him chiefly pertains the reformation of the religion," which includes "the suppression of idolatry and superstition"; and Catholicism, we know, is idolatry.

Superstition is less easily defined, but we cannot doubt that, in Knox's mind, the English liturgy was superstitious.

{174b} To resist the Supreme Power, "doing that which pertains to his charge" (that is, suppressing Catholicism and superstition, among other things), is to resist God.

It thus appears that the sovereign is not so supreme but that he must be disobeyed when his mandates clash with the doctrine of the Kirk.

Thus the "magistrate" or "authority"-- the State, in fact--is limited by the conscience of the Kirk, which may, if it pleases, detect idolatry or superstition in some act of secular policy.