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To work miracles is old and antiquated, and not in fashion now; to instruct the people,
troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, pedantic; to pray, a sign one has little else to do; to
shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor, base; to be vanquished, dishonorable and little
becoming him that scarce admits even kings to kiss his slipper; and lastly, to die, uncouth; and
to be stretched on a cross, infamous.
Theirs are only those weapons and sweet blessings which Paul mentions, and of these truly
they are bountiful enough: as interdictions, hangings, heavy burdens, reproofs, anathemas,
executions in effigy, and that terrible thunderbolt of excommunication, with the very sight of
which they sink men's souls beneath the bottom of hell: which yet these most holy fathers in
Christ and His vicars hurl with more fierceness against none than against such as, by the
instigation of the devil, attempt to lessen or rob them of Peter's patrimony.
