kes all the messengers of God to be subject to himself, is the
same as if one messenger of a prince detained all the other
messengers, and then sent them out when it suited his pleasure,
while he himself went nowhere. Would that be pleasing to the
prince, if he found it out?

Should you say: True, but one messenger may be above another; I
would reply: One may indeed be better and more skilful than
another, as St. Paul was when compared with Peter; but since they
bring one and the same message, one cannot be above another by
reason of his office. But, put the other way, St. Peter is not a
_Zwolfbote_ at all, but a special messenger and lord over the
Eleven. What can it be that one has above the others, if they all
have one and the same message and commission from the one Lord?

Forasmuch then as all bishops are equal by divine right and sit
in the Apostles' places, I may gladly concede that by human right
one is above the other in the external Church. For here the pope
instils what is in his own mind, as, for instance, his Canon Law
and human inventions, whereby Christendom is ruled with outward
show; but that does not make Christians, as I have said
above[43]; neither are they heretics who are not under the same
laws and ceremonies or human ordinances. For customs change with
the country.

All this is confined by the article in the Creed: "I believe in
the Holy Ghost, one Holy Christian Church, the Communion of
Saints." No one says: "I believe in the Holy Ghost, one Holy
Roman Church, a Communion of the Romans." Thus it is clear that
the Holy Church is not bound to Rome, but is as wide as the
world, the assembly of those of one faith, a spiritual and not a
bodily thing, for that which one believes is not bodily or
visible. The external Roman Church we all see, therefore it
cannot be the true Church, which is believed, and which is a
community or assembly of the saints in faith, for no one can see
who is a saint or a believer.

[Sidenote: The Marks of the Church]

The external marks, whereby one can perceive where this Church is
on earth, are baptism, the Sacrament, and the Gospel; and not
Rome, or this place, or that. For where baptism and the Gospel
are, no one may doubt that there are saints, even if it were only
the babes in their cradles. But neither Rome nor the papal power
is a mark of the Church,[44] for that power cannot make
Christians, as baptism and the Gospel do; and therefore it does
not belong to