chair, with his triple crown full of labels, with sumptuous and Persian-like gorgeousness, with his royal sceptre, with his diadem of gold, and glittering with stones, was carried about, not upon palfrey, but upon the shoulders of noble men.  These things, no doubt, did Peter at Rome in times past, and left them in charge to his successors, as you would say, from hand to hand; for these things be now-a-days done at Rome by the popes, and be so done, as though nothing else ought to be done.  Or contrariwise, peradventure they had rather say thus, that the Pope doth now all the same things, which we know Peter did many a day ago:  that is, that he runneth up and down into every country to preach the gospel, not only openly abroad, but also privately from house to house:  that he is diligent, and applieth that business in season and out of season, in due time and out of due time:  that he doth the part of an evangelist, that he fulfilleth the work and ministry of Christ, that he is the watchman of the House of Israel, receiveth answers and words at God’s mouth; and even as he receiveth them, so delivereth them over to the people:  that he is the salt of the earth:  that he is the light of the world:  that he doth not feed his own self, but his flock:  that he doth not entangle himself with the worldly cares of this life:  that he doth not use a sovereignty over the Lord’s people:  that he seeketh not to have other men minister to him, but himself rather to minister unto others:  that he taketh all bishops as his fellows and equals; that he is subject to princes, as to persons sent from God:  that he giveth to Caesar that which is Caesar’s:  and that he, as the old bishops of Rome did without any question, calleth the emperor his lord.  Unless, therefore, the popes do the like now-a-days, and Peter did the things aforesaid, there is no cause at all why they should glory so of Peter’s name, and of his succession.

Much less cause have they to complain of our departing, and to call us again to be fellows and friends with them, and to believe as they believe.  Men say, that one Cobilon, a Lacedaemonian, when he was sent ambassador to the king of the Persians to treat of a league, and found by chance them of the court playing at dice, he returned straightway home again, leaving his message undone.  And when he was asked why he did slack to do the things which he had received by public commission to do, he made answer, he thought it should be a great reproach to his commonwealth to make a league with dicers.  But if we should content ourselves to return to the Pope, and to his popish errors, and to make a covenant not only with dicers, but also with men far more ungracious and wicked than any dicers be; besides that this should be a great blot to our good name, it should also be a very dangerous matter, both to kindle God’s wrath against us, and to clog and condemn our own souls for ever.  For of very truth we have departed from him, who we saw had blinded the whole world this