"For what are all your brethren, the Bishops of the Universal Church, but the stars of heaven? Whose life and language together shine amid the sins and errors of men, as among the shades of night. And while you seek to set yourself over these by a proud term, and to tread under foot their name, in comparison with your own, what else do you say, but 'I will ascend into the heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.' Are not all the Bishops clouds, who rain down the words of their preaching, and shine with the light of good works? And while your brotherhood despises them, and endeavours to put them under you, what else do you say but this, which is said by the old enemy: 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds?' And when I see all these things with sorrow, and fear the secret judgments of God, my tears increase, my heart contains not my groans, that that most holy man, the Lord John, of such abstinence and humility, seduced the persuasion of those about him, hath proceeded to such pride, that in longing after a perverse name, he endeavours to be like him, who, desiring in his pride to be as God, lost even the grace of that likeness to God which had been given him; and so forfeited true blessedness, because he sought false glory. _Surely Peter, the first of the Apostles, a member of the holy universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John, what else are they but the heads of particular communities? and yet all are members under one head._ And to comprehend all in one brief expression, the saints before the law, the saints under the law, the saints under grace, all these making up the body of the Lord, are disposed among members of the Church, and no one ever wished to be called Universal. Let, then, your Holiness acknowledge how great is your pride, who seek to be called by that name, by which no one has presumed to be called who was really holy."[145]