t such abuse, and with all deference to the authority, they
rail and threaten thunder and lightning, they clamor that it is
heresy and high treason, that it is a rending of the seamless
garment of Christ, and they would burn up the heretics, rebels,
apostates and everybody in the whole world. By all of which it is
clear that they hold "feeding" to mean naught else but such
preying and flaying. In the meanwhile, however, we think that
feeding does not mean preying on others. Let us endeavor to see
what it means.

[Sidenote: Distinction of Person and Office]

They have a high-sounding, keen and subtile speech--as they
imagine--when they say that person and office are not one and the
same, and that the office remains, and remains good, though the
person be evil. From this they conclude, and it must, indeed,
follow, that the word of Christ, "Feed My sheep," means an office
of external power, which even an evil man may have, for the
office makes no one holy. Very well. This is acceptable to us,
and we will ask the Romanists a question. Whoever keeps and
fulfils the word of Christ, he is truly obedient and pious, and
shall be saved, for His words are spirit and life [John 6:63].
If, therefore, "feeding" means to sit in the highest place and to
have an office--even if the incumbent be a knave--it follows that
he feeds who sits in the highest seat and is pope; and whoever
does this work of feeding is obedient to Christ; and whoever is
obedient in one particular is obedient in all and is a saint
Therefore it must be true that whoever is pope and sits in the
chief room is obedient to Christ and is a saint, though he be a
knave, or a rogue, or what not. Have thanks, my dearest
Romanists! Now I know, for the first time, why the pope is
addressed as "your holiness." Thus must the word of Christ be
explained, so that knaves and rogues are made out to be holy and
obedient servants of Christ, just as in the previous pages you
have made Christ an arch-knave and a brothel-keeper.[71]

[Sidenote: Being Fed in the Roman Sense]

Further, if "feeding" means to sit in the highest place, then
"being fed" must mean to be subject, so that just as "feeding"
means external governing, "being fed" must mean to be governed,
and, as they say, to live in the Roman fellowship.[72] Then it
must also be further true that all who are within the Roman
fellowship,[72] be they good or evil, are saints, because they
are obedient to Christ and are being