th not that
good men, being awaked, as it were, out of their dead sleep at the light
of the Gospel and at the voice of God, have resorted to the hills of the
Scriptures, waiting not at all for the councils of such masters?

But, by your favour, some will say, these things ought not to have been
attempted without the Bishop of Rome's commandment, forsomuch as he only
is the knot and band of Christian society. He only is that priest of
Levi's order whom God signified in the Deuteronomy, from whom counsel in
matters of weight and true judgment ought to be fetched; and whoso
obeyeth not his judgment, the same man ought to be killed in the sight of
his brethren; and that no mortal creature hath authority to be judge over
him, whatsoever he do: that Christ reigneth in heaven, and he in earth;
that he alone can do as much as Christ or God Himself can do, because
Christ and he have but one council-house; that without him is no faith,
no hope, no Church; and whoso goeth from him quite casteth away and
renounceth his own salvation. Such talk have the canonists, the Pope's
parasites, surely, but with small discretion or soberness. For they
could scant say more, at least they could not speak more highly of Christ
Himself.

As for us, truly we have fallen from the Bishop of Rome upon no manner of
worldly respect or commodity. And would to Christ he so behaved himself
as this falling away needed not; but so the case stood, that unless we
left him we could not come to Christ. Neither will he now make any other
league with us than such a one as Nahas the king of the Ammonites would
have made in times past with them of the city of Jabez, which was to put
out the right eye of each one of the inhabitants. Even so will the Pope
pluck from us the holy Scripture, the Gospel of our salvation, and all
the confidence which we have in Christ Jesu. And upon other condition
can he not agree upon peace with us.

For whereas some use to make so great a vaunt, that the Pope is only
Peter's successor, as though thereby he carried the Holy Ghost in his
bosom, and cannot err, this is but a matter of nothing, and a very
trifling tale. God's grace is promised to a good mind, and to one that
feareth God, not unto sees and successions. "Riches," saith Hierom, "may
make a bishop to be of more might than the rest: but all the bishops,"
whosoever they be, "are the successors of the Apostles." If so be the
place and consecrating only be sufficient,