In like manner cardinals, if they thought themselves the successors of the apostles, they would
likewise imagine that the same things the other did are required of them, and that they are not
lords but dispensers of spiritual things of which they must shortly give an exact account. But if
they also would a little philosophize on their habit and think with themselves what's the
meaning of their linen rochet, is it not a remarkable and singular integrity of life? What that
inner purple; is it not an earnest and fervent love of God? Or what that outward, whose loose
plaits and long train fall round his Reverence's mule and are large enough to cover a camel; is
it not charity that spreads itself so wide to the succor of all men? that is, to instruct, exhort,
comfort, reprehend, admonish, compose wars, resist wicked princes, and willingly expend not
only their wealth but their very lives for the flock of Christ: though yet what need at all of
wealth to them that supply the room of the poor apostles? These things, I say, did they but
duly consider, they would not be so ambitious of that dignity; or, if they were, they would
willingly leave it and live a laborious, careful life, such as was that of the ancient apostles.