Deuteronomy 17

"Two angels, however, appeared there." For just so many honorary companions were required by the Word of God, which usually prescribes "two witnesses." Moreover, the women, returning from the sepulcher and from this vision of the angels were foreseen by Isaiah, when he says, "Come, you women, who return from the vision"; that is, "come" to report the resurrection of the Lord.

I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person. [Deuteronomy 17:7]

Just as a person has to pick his way between fire and water so as to be neither burned nor drowned, so we should steer our way between the pinnacle of pride and the whirlpool of sloth, as it is written, "turning neither to the right nor to the left." For there are some who, through fear of being carried up to the heights on the right, slip and are drowned on the left. Others … fear to be sucked in by the soft ease of sloth on the left and are ruined and destroyed by the ostentation of boasting on the other side, and [they] vanish into smoke and ashes.

Because the written law was a law of rigor, it not only approves this threefold obedience, but also punishes transgressors of this obedience. It punishes the rebellious son, the rebellious servant, and also the disobedient subject, Deuteronomy 17: He who acts proudly, refusing to obey the command of the priest, that man shall die.

Deuteronomy 17: If you perceive that the judgment before you is difficult and ambiguous, and you see the words of the judges to vary: arise and go up to the place which the Lord your God has chosen. But the man who acts proudly, refusing to obey the command of the priest, that man shall die: there the Gloss says: "Here he grants the faculty of appeal." From this text and Gloss it is gathered that in the old law there was a supreme Pontiff, to whom recourse was to be had in judgments, and whom all were bound to obey. If therefore this was so in the law of the figure, much more does it seem that it ought to be so in the law of grace. And this for a threefold reason: first, because there is greater unity now than then: therefore much more ought there be one Pontiff. Likewise, the pontificate is now more worthy and lofty: therefore much more ought all now be subject to one Pontiff than in the time of the law of Moses. Finally, because here there ought to be a greater obedience and a more ordered hierarchy. From all of which it is gathered that if one supreme Pontiff was to be obeyed in the time of the law of Moses, much more so in the time of the law of Christ.

You are a wayfarer, like to him who prayed, "Direct my steps." "Give heed to yourself" that you may swerve not from the path, that you decline neither to the right nor the left. Keep to the king's highway. The architect should lay the firm foundation of faith which is Jesus Christ and let the builder look to his materials: not wood, nor hay nor stubble but gold, silver, precious stones.