We come in the third place to the sacrament of penance. On this subject I have already given no little offence by my published treatises and disputations[119], in which I have amply set forth my views. These I must now briefly rehearse, in order to unmask the tyranny that is rampant here no less than in the sacrament of the bread. For because these two sacraments furnish opportunity for gain and profit, the greed of the shepherds rages in them with incredible zeal against the flock of Christ; although baptism, too, has sadly declined among adults and become the servant of avarice, as we have just seen in our discussion of vows. [Sidenote: The Abuse of Penance] This is the first and chief abuse of this sacrament: They have utterly abolished the sacrament itself, so that there penance is not a vestige of it left. For they have overthrown both the word of divine promise and our faith, in which this as well as other sacraments consists. They have applied to their tyranny the word of promise which Christ spake in Matthew xvi, "Whatsoever thou shalt bind," etc. [Matt. 16:19], in Matthew xviii, "Whatsoever ye shall bind," [Matt. 18:18] etc., and in John, the last chapter, "Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them," [John 20:23] etc. In these words the faith of penitents is aroused, to the obtaining of remission of sins. But in all their writing, teaching and preaching their sole concern has been, not to teach Christians what is promised in these words or what they ought to believe and what great comfort they might find in them, but only to extend their own tyranny far and wide through force and violence, until it has come to such a pass that some of them have begun to command the very angels in heaven[120] and to boast in incredible mad wickedness of having in these words obtained the right to a heavenly and an earthly rule, and of possessing the power to bind even in heaven. Thus they say nothing of the saving faith of the people, but babble only of the despotic power of the pontiffs, whereas Christ speaks not at all of power, but only of faith.