In the second place, it is proved by the nature of the head. For it is the nature of every head joined to a body to infuse into all its members life and feeling and activity. This will be found to be true of the heads in worldly affairs. For the ruler of a country instils into his subjects all the things which are in his own mind and will, and causes all his subjects to be of like mind and will with himself, and thus they do the work he wishes to have done, and this work is truly said to have been instilled into the subjects by the prince, for without him it would not have been done. Now no man can instil into the soul of another, nor into his own soul, true faith, and the mind, will and work of Christ, but this Christ Himself must do. For neither pope nor bishop can produce faith in a man's heart, nor anything else a Christian member should have. But a Christian must have the mind and will which Christ has in heaven, as the apostle says, I. Corinthians ii [1. Cor. 2:16; 3:23]. It may also happen that a Christian member has the faith which neither pope nor bishop has; how then can the pope be his head? And if the pope cannot give to himself the life of the spiritual church, how can he instil it into another? Who has ever seen a live animal with a lifeless head? The head must give life to the body, and therefore it is clear that on earth there is no other head of the spiritual Christendom but Christ alone. Moreover, if a man were its head here below, Christendom would perish as often as a pope dies. For the body cannot live when the head is dead.
It follows further, that in this Church Christ can have no vicar, and therefore neither pope nor bishop is Christ's vicar or regent in this Church, nor can he ever become such. And this is proved as follows: A regent, if obedient to his lord, labors with and urges on the subjects and instils into them the same work which his lord himself instils, just as we see in temporal government, where there is one mind and will in lord, regents, and subjects. And if he were more holy than St. Peter, the pope can never instill into or create in a Christian man the work of Christ his Lord, i. e., faith, hope, love, and every grace and virtue.
And if such illustration and proof were not without flaw, though founded on the Scriptures, yet St. Paul stands strong and immovable in Ephesians iv, giving to Christendom but one head and saying, "Let us be true (i. e., not external, but real and true Christians) and grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ, from Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." [Eph. 4:15,16] Here the apostle says clearly that the building up and increase of Christendom, which is the body of Christ, cometh alone from Christ, Who is its Head. And where can there be found another head on earth to whom such nature could be ascribed, especially since these "heads" in most cases have neither love nor faith? Besides, St. Paul referred in these words to himself, to St. Peter, and to every other Christian; and if another head were necessary he would have been utterly false in saying nothing about it.
I know very well that there are some who dare to say in reference to this and similar passages that though Paul was silent [1 Cor. 3:1], he did not thereby deny that St. Peter was also a head, but was feeding the unwise with milk. Just listen to this: they claim that it is necessary for salvation to have St. Peter for a head, and yet they have the effrontery to say that Paul concealed the things which are necessary to salvation. Thus these senseless goats would rather blaspheme Paul and the Word of God than be convinced of their error, and they call it "milk for babes" when Christ is proclaimed, and "strong meat" when St. Peter is proclaimed, just as if Peter were higher, greater, and more difficult to understand than Christ himself. And this is called explaining the Scriptures and overcoming Dr. Luther; this is the way to run out of the rain and fall into the trough. What could such babblers accomplish if we should have a disputation with the Bohemians[41] and the heretics? Truly nothing, except that we should be made a mockery for all, and give them due cause to look upon us all as blustering idiots, and they become more strongly entrenched in their own belief through the foolishness of our side.
[Sidenote: The Equality of Bishops]
But then you ask: If the prelates are neither heads nor regents of the spiritual Church, what are they?
Let the laymen answer this, when they say: St. Peter is a messenger[42] and the other apostles are messengers too. Why should the pope be ashamed to be a messenger, if St. Peter himself is no more? But beware, ye laymen, or the super-learned Romanists will burn you at the stake as heretics because ye would make the pope a messenger and letter-carrier. But ye have a strong argument, for the Greek Apostolos is in German "messenger," and thus are they called throughout the Gospel.
If, then, they are all messengers of the one Lord Christ, who would be so foolish as to say that so great a lord, in a matter of such great importance for the whole world, sends but one messenger, and he, in turn, sends other messengers of his own? Then St. Peter would have to be called, not a Zwölfbote (one of the twelve messengers), but an only-messenger, and none of the others would remain Zwölfboten, but they would all be St. Peter's Elfboten (i. e., his eleven messengers). But what is the custom at court? Is it not true that a lord has many messengers? Aye, when does it happen that many messengers are sent with the same message to one place, as now we have priest, bishop, archbishop and pope, all ruling over the same city, not to mention other tyrants, who shove in their rule somewhere between the rest? Christ sent all the apostles into the world with His Word and message with full, equal powers, as St. Paul says: "We are ambassadors for Christ." [1 Cor. 5:20] And in I. Corinthians iii. he says: "What is Peter? What is Paul? Servants through whom ye believed." [1 Cor. 3:5] This ambassadorship means to feed, to rule, to be bishop, and so forth. But that the pope makes all the messengers of God to be subject to himself, is the same as if one messenger of a prince detained all the other messengers, and then sent them out when it suited his pleasure, while he himself went nowhere. Would that be pleasing to the prince, if he found it out?
Should you say: True, but one messenger may be above another; I would reply: One may indeed be better and more skilful than another, as St. Paul was when compared with Peter; but since they bring one and the same message, one cannot be above another by reason of his office. But, put the other way, St. Peter is not a Zwölfbote at all, but a special messenger and lord over the Eleven. What can it be that one has above the others, if they all have one and the same message and commission from the one Lord?
Forasmuch then as all bishops are equal by divine right and sit in the Apostles' places, I may gladly concede that by human right one is above the other in the external Church. For here the pope instils what is in his own mind, as, for instance, his Canon Law and human inventions, whereby Christendom is ruled with outward show; but that does not make Christians, as I have said above[43]; neither are they heretics who are not under the same laws and ceremonies or human ordinances. For customs change with the country.