They proposed therefore to restore to the bishops their jurisdiction, the maintenance of discipline, and the superintendence of the priests, provided they did not persecute the Evangelical doctrine, and did not oppress the pastors with impious vows and burdens. "We may not," added they, "without strong reasons rend that order by which the bishops are over the priests, and which existed in the Church from the beginning. It is dangerous before the Lord to change the order of governments." Their argument is not founded upon the Bible, as may be seen, but upon ecclesiastical discipline. The Protestant divines went even farther, and, taking a last step that seemed decisive, they consented to acknowledge the Pope as being (but of human right) supreme bishop of Christendom. "Although the Pope is Anti-christ, we may be under his government, as the Jews were under Pharaoh, and in later days under Caiaphas." We must confess these two comparisons were not flattering to the Pope. "Only," added the doctors, "let the sound doctrine be fully accorded to us." The chancellor Brück alone appears to have been conscious of the truth: he wrote on the margin with a firm hand: "We cannot acknowledge the Pope, because we say he is Antichrist, and because he claims the primacy of right divine."[764] [764] Cum dicimus eum Antichristum. (Urk. p. 247.) Finally, the Protestant theologians consented to agree with Rome as regards indifferent ceremonies, fasts, and forms of worship; and the Elector engaged to put under sequestration the ecclesiastical property already secularized, until the decision of the next council. [Sidenote: PRETENDED CONCORD.]