Hence we see Adam and Eve so deeply fallen and sunk under sin, that they could not sink any lower. For upon their unbelief followed the disobedience of all the powers and all the members in man. Upon this disobedience, immediately afterwards, followed the excuse and defense of their sin. This defense was next followed by an accusation and condemnation of their God. This is sin's last step, to reproach God himself and to make him the author of sin. This nature of ours can ascend no higher than this in its sin against God. And these are the onward steps of sin, unless the minds of fallen sinners are lifted up by a confidence in God's mercy. Wherefore the state of the Church under the pope, was most horrible; for in it was neither seen nor heard anything whatever which could lift up the mind of a sinner, laboring under his sin and guilt; except that once a year the history of the passion of our Lord was slightly taught. And the statement of that history showed forth in some slight manner the source from which pardon was to be sought. But everything else on every side led men away from the promise of the remission of sins to their own righteousness. Hence it was that we saw in many monasteries men alarmed by their sins through their whole life time, who were filled with despair as they walked about, and at length died in agony, worn out with sorrow and pains of spirit. And as to the rest of their brethren, this doctrine of pardon being wholly unknown, they did nothing but stand in their places and procure the protection of their saint by idolatrous prayers. Thus were these miserable creatures worn out and consumed with the most terrible pains of soul, without hope, without counsel and without any help whatever. Was not this then, I pray you, a horrible state of things? Wherefore if the papacy and all the monasteries together could be overturned by the touch of one finger, it ought at once to be done on account of the whole papal church being this most wretched slaughter-house of consciences! For there is nothing more horrible than for a man to be under the weight of his sins, and yet never to hear or have the remission of sins and the promise of grace. Now the pope was the very cause of the remission of sins being utterly kept out of men's sight. For no sound doctrine nor any true worship whatever was retained in the church. And if any were saved in these times they were saved by the bare annual recital of the sufferings of Christ, apprehended by faith, contrary to the will of the pope and in defiance of his opposition. For through him men in the extreme perils of their souls were brought down to the necessity of imploring the intercession of Mary and of the saints. For these sayings filled every place: that the mother Mary showed her breasts to her Son, and that the Son showed his wounds to his Father, and that the man was thus saved; not by the intercession of the Son, but by the intercession of his mother.