He {73} appealed to the Bible, recognized by all Christians as an authority, and showed how far the practice of the church had degenerated from her standard.

[Sidenote: Sacraments] In the first place he reduced the number of sacraments, denying that name to matrimony, orders, extreme unction and confirmation.

In attacking orders he demolished the priestly ideal and authority.

In reducing marriage to a civil contract he took a long step towards the secularization of life.

Penance he considered a sacrament in a certain sense, though not in the strict one, and he showed that it had been turned by the church from its original significance of "repentance" [1] to that of sacramental penance, in which no faith was required but merely an automatic act.