"It has been said that the pope, the bishops, the priests, and all those who people convents, form the spiritual or ecclesiastical estate; and that princes, nobles, citizens, and peasants, form the secular or lay estate. This is a specious tale. But let no man be alarmed. All Christians belong to the spiritual estate, and the only difference between them is in the functions which they fulfil. We have all but one baptism, but one faith, and these constitute the spiritual man. Unction, tonsure, ordination, consecration, given by the pope or by a bishop, may make a hypocrite, but can never make a spiritual man. We are all consecrated priests by baptism, as St. Peter says, 'You are a royal priesthood;' although all do not actually perform the offices of kings and priests, because no one can assume what is common to all, without the common consent. But if this consecration of God did not belong to us, the unction of the pope could not make a single priest. If ten brothers, the sons of one king, and possessing equal claims to his inheritance, should choose one of their number to administer for them, they would all be kings, and yet only one of them would be the administrator of their common power. So it is in the Church. Were several pious laymen banished to a desert, and were they, from not having among them a priest consecrated by a bishop, to agree in selecting one of their number, whether married or not, he would be as truly a priest, as if all the bishops of the world had consecrated him. In this way were Augustine, Ambrose, and Cyprian elected. "Hence it follows that laymen and priests, princes and bishops, or, as we have said, ecclesiastics and laics, have nothing to distinguish them but their functions. They have all the same condition, but they have not all the same work to perform. [Sidenote: PAPAL USURPATION. RUIN OF ITALY.] "This being so, why should not the magistrate correct the clergy? The secular power was appointed by God for the punishment of the wicked and the protection of the good, and must be left free to act throughout Christendom without respect of persons, be they pope, bishops, priests, monks, or nuns. St. Paul says to all Christians, '_Let every soul_,' (and consequently the pope also,) '_be subject to the higher powers; for they bear not the sword in vain_.'"[207] [207] Πᾶσα Ψυχή, Rom. xiii. 1. 4. Luther, after throwing down the other two walls in the same way, takes a review of all the abuses of Rome. With an eloquence of a truly popular description he exposes evils which had, for ages, been notorious. Never had a nobler remonstrance been heard. The assembly which Luther addresses is the Church, the power whose abuses he attacks is that papacy which had for ages been the oppressor of all nations, and the Reformation for which he calls aloud is destined to exercise its powerful influence on Christendom, all over the world, and so long as man shall exist upon it.