Is it not difficult to reconcile one's mind to the thought that these men who ruled the Catholic Church for three centuries were the viceregents of God on earth? Or that through them a divine authority and a divine mission has been transmitted to later and happier times? To do so one would be under the necessity of maintaining that no amount of immorality, however infamous, can possibly disqualify men from acting as God's representatives. And such a position would be contrary to all the evidence of scripture, as well as revolting to sound reason.
Footnotes
[1]. Compare Luke x with Matt. x.
[2]. Acts xiv: 23. Acts xx: 17, 28.
[3]. Phillip i: 1. I Tim. iii. This also is the view of Clement of Rome who, in writing to the Corinthians in the third century, says of the apostles: "So preaching everywhere in country and town, they appointed their first fruits when they had proved them by the spirit, to be bishops and deacons unto them that should believe. And this they did do in no new fashion; for indeed it had been written concerning bishops and deacons from very ancient times; for thus saith the scriptures in a certain place: 'I will appoint their bishops in righteousness and their deacons in faith.'"
[4]. Eph. iv.
[5]. I Cor. xii.
[6]. Eph. iv.
[7]. Eph. iv.
[8]. "Ibid."