and life of the Church. For the privileges and names belong only to
Christ, and be properly and only fit for him alone. And that no Bishop
of Rome did ever suffer himself to be called by such a proud name before
Phocas the emperor's time, who, as we know, by killing his own sovereign
Maurice the emperor, did by a traitorous villainy aspire to the empire
about the six hundredth and thirteenth year after Christ was born. Also
the Council of Carthage did circumspectly provide, that no bishop should
be called the highest bishop or chief priest. And therefore, sithence
the Bishop of Rome will nowadays so be called, and challengeth unto
himself an authority that is none of his; besides that he doth plainly
contrary to the ancient councils, and contrary to the old fathers; we
believe that he doth give unto himself, as it is written by his own
companion Gregory, a presumptuous, a profane, a sacrilegious, and an
antichristian name: that he is also the king of pride, that he is
Lucifer, which preferreth himself before his brethren: that he hath
forsaken the faith, and is the forerunner of Antichrist.

Further we say, that the minister ought lawfully, duly, and orderly to be
preferred to that office of the Church of God, and that no man hath power
to wrest himself into the holy ministry at his own pleasure and list.
Wherefore these persons do us the greater wrong, which have nothing so
common in their mouths, as that we do nothing orderly and comely, but all
things troublesomely and without order; and that we allow every man to be
a priest, to be a teacher, and to be an interpreter of the Scriptures.

Moreover, we say that Christ hath given to His ministers power to bind,
to loose, to open, to shut. And that the office of loosing consisteth in
this point: that the minister should either offer by the preaching of the
Gospel the merits of Christ and full pardon, to such as have lowly and
contrite hearts, and do unfeignedly repent themselves, pronouncing unto