The Obedience of a Christian Man

Also this binding and loosing is one power / and as he bindeth so louseth he:¹ ye and bindeth first ere he can louse. For who can louse that is not bound. Now what so ever Peter bindeth or his successor (as he will be called and is not / but in dead the very successor of Satan) is not so to be understand / that Peter or the Pope hath power to command a man to be in deadly sin or to be damned or to goo in to hell saying: be thou in deadly sin / be ⟨p. cxliiij⟩thou damned / goo thou to hell / goo thou to purgatory. For that exposition is contrary to the everlasting testament that God hath made unto us in Christ. He sent his Son Christ to louse us from sin and damnation and hell / and that to testify unto the world sent he his disciples Acts. j. Paul also hath no power to destroy / but to edify .ij. Corithiorum. x. and .xiij. How can Christ give his disciples power against him self and against his everlasting testament? Can he send them to preach salvation and give them power to damn whom they lust? What mercy and profit have we in Christs death and in his Gospel / if the Pope which passeth all men in wickedness hath power to send whom he will to hell / and to damn whom he lusteth? we had then no cause / to call him ²Jesus / that is to say saver: but might of right call him destroy ar. Wherefore then this binding is to be understand as Christ interpreteth it in the places above rehearsed and as the Apostles practised it ³and is nothing but to rebuke men of their since by preaching the law. A man must first sin against Gods law ere the Pope can bind him: ye and a man must first sin against Gods law ere he need to fear the Popes curse. ⁴For cursing and binding are both one and * no thing save to ⟨image 145⟩rebuke a man of his since by Gods law. It followeth also then that the loosing is of like manner / and is no thing […] forgiving of sin to them that repent through preaching of the promises which God hath made in Christ in whom only we have all forgiveness of since /