Calvin had, however, the final struggle to go through. To him, as to Luther, the great objection was the question of the Church. He had always respected the authority of a Church which he believed to have been founded by the apostles and commissioned to gather mankind round Jesus Christ; and these thoughts often disturbed him. ‘There is one thing,’ he told the evangelicals, ‘which prevents my believing you: that is, the respect due to the Church.[601] The majesty of the Church must not be diminished.[602] ... I cannot separate from it.’ Calvin’s friends at Paris, and afterwards perhaps Wolmar and others at Orleans and Bourges, did not hesitate to reply to him.[603] ‘There is a great difference between separating from the Church and trying to correct the vices with which it is stained.[604] ... How many antichrists have held the place in its bosom which belongs to the pastors only!’ Calvin understood at last that the unity of the Church cannot and ought not to exist except in the truth. His friends, perceiving this, spoke openly to him against the Pope of Rome.--‘Men take him for Christ’s vicar, Peter’s successor, and the head of the Church.... But these titles are empty scarecrows.[605] Far from permitting themselves to be dazzled by these big words, the faithful ought to discriminate the matter truly. If the pope has risen to such height and magnificence, it is because the world was plunged in ignorance and smitten with blindness.[606] Neither by the voice of God, nor by a lawful call of the Church, has the pope been constituted its prince and head; it is by his own authority and by his own will alone.... He elected himself.[607] In order that the kingdom of Christ may stand, the tyranny with which the pope oppresses the nations must come to an end.’[608] Calvin’s friends, as he tells us, ‘demolished by the Word of God the princedom of the pope and his exceeding elevation.’[609] Calvin, not content with hearing the arguments of his friends, ‘searched the Scriptures thoroughly,’ and found numerous evidences corroborating the things that had been told him. He was convinced. ‘I see quite clearly,’ he said, ‘that the true order of the Church has been lost;[610] that the keys which should preserve discipline have been counterfeited;[611] that christian liberty has been overthrown;[612] and that when the princedom of the pope was set up, the kingdom of Christ was thrown down.’[613] Thus fell the papacy in the mind of the future reformer; and Christ became to him the only king and almighty head of the Church.