Page:John Wycliff, last of the schoolmen and first of the English reformers.djvu/236

 of temporal lords, who, if they find it in such a state, are to act boldly, and on pain of damnation to take away its temporalities.

8. We know that it is impossible that the Vicar of Christ should, purely by his bulls, or by them with the will and consent of himself and his College of Cardinals, qualify or disqualify anyone.

9. It is not possible for any man to be excommunicated, unless he be first and principally excommunicated by himself.

10. Nobody is excommunicated, suspended, or tormented with other censures so as to be the worse for it, unless it be in the cause of God.

11. Cursing or excommunication does not bind simply of itself, but only so far as it is denounced against an adversary of the law of Christ.

12. Christ has given to his disciples no example of a power to excommunicate subjects principally for their denying temporal things, but has rather given them an example to the contrary.

13. The disciples of Christ have no power forcibly to exact temporal things by censures.

14. It is not possible even for the absolute power of God to effect that, if the Pope or any other pretend that he binds or looses absolutely, he does actually so bind or loose.

15. We ought to believe that then only does the Pope bind or loose when he conforms himself to the law of Christ.

16. This ought to be universally believed, that every priest rightly ordained has a power of administering every one of the sacraments, and, by