The great choice was made not by counting heads but by weighing character.
The burgher class having seized the reins of government proceeded to use them in the interests of their kirk.

The prime duty of the state was asserted to be the maintenance of the true religion.

Ministers were paid by the government.

Almost any act of government might be made the subject of interference by the church, for Knox's profession, "with the policy, mind {364} us to meddle no further than it hath religion mixed in it," was obviously an elastic and self-imposed limitation.
[Sidenote: Theocracy] The character of the kirk was that of a democratic, puritanical theocracy.

The real rulers of it, and through it of the state, were the ministers and elders elected by the people.