ought not of right once to be called a bishop, or so much as an elder.  For a bishop, as saith Augustine, is a name of labour, and not of honour:  because he will have that man understand himself to be no bishop, which will seek to have pre-eminence, and not to profit others.  And that neither the Pope, nor any other worldly creature can no more be head of the whole Church, or a bishop over all, than he can be the bridegroom, the light, the salvation, 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 the same a sure and undoubted forgiveness of their sins, and hope of everlasting salvation:  or else that the same minister, when any have offended their brothers’ minds with a great offence, with a notable and open fault, whereby they have, as it were, banished and made themselves strangers from the common fellowship, and from the body of Christ; then after perfect amendment of such persons, doth reconcile them, and bring them home again, and restore them to the company and unity of the faithful.  We say also, that the minister