Book 4 of 4 - External Means by which God Invites Us into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein
Chapter 7 - History of the Papacy: From origin to current oppressive state
19-22 - Recent papal claims contradict Gregory's
19. Rome today claims to have jurisdiction over every case in all the church. The worst is that they say no one has the right to review Rome's judgments.
20. Flimsy forgeries lay claim ("with an unrestrained fury and tyranny like that of barbarian kings") to Rome's jurisdiction over all the church, that the pope cannot err and is above councils.
21. Cyprian said Rome was not bishop of bishops or first bishop. Gregory forbade the very title of universal bishop that Rome now claims. He forbade others to ask him to command them. To other bishops he said, "In degree you are my brothers; in moral character, my fathers."
22. Today's papacy [of Calvin's day] is "a hundred times more corrupt" than in Bernard's day. "What depravity is this," in Rome where there is "no preaching, no care for discipline, no zeal toward the churches, no spiritual activity - in short, nothing but the world." Asserting the papacy is like praising freedom in order to advance tyranny.
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