Of Ordination and the Call

1] If the bishops would be true bishops [would rightly discharge their office], and would devote

themselves to the Church and the Gospel, it might be granted to them for the sake of love and unity, but

not from necessity, to ordain and confirm us and our preachers; omitting, however, all comedies and

spectacular display [deceptions, absurdities, and appearances] of unchristian [heathenish] parade and

pomp. 2] But because they neither are, nor wish to be, true bishops, but worldly lords and princes, who

Smalcald Articles

will neither preach, nor teach, nor baptize, nor administer the Lord’s Supper, nor perform any work or

office of the Church, and, moreover, persecute and condemn those who discharge these functions, having

been called to do so, the Church ought not on their account to remain without ministers [to be forsaken

by or deprived of ministers].

3] Therefore, as the ancient examples of the Church and the Fathers teach us, we ourselves will and

ought to ordain suitable persons to this office; and, even according to their own laws, they have not the

right to forbid or prevent us. For their laws say that those ordained even by heretics should be declared

[truly] ordained and stay ordained [and that such ordination must not be changed], as St. Jerome writes of

the Church at Alexandria, that at first it was governed in common by priests and preachers, without

bishops.