Further we say, that the minister ought lawfully, duly, and orderly to be
preferred to that office of the Church of God, and that no man hath power
to wrest himself into the holy ministry at his own pleasure and list.
Wherefore these persons do us the greater wrong, which have nothing so
common in their mouths, as that we do nothing orderly and comely, but all
things troublesomely and without order; and that we allow every man to be
a priest, to be a teacher, and to be an interpreter of the Scriptures.
Moreover, we say that Christ hath given to His ministers power to bind,
to loose, to open, to shut. And that the office of loosing consisteth in
this point: that the minister should either offer by the preaching of the
Gospel the merits of Christ and full pardon, to such as have lowly and
contrite hearts, and do unfeignedly repent themselves, pronouncing unto
the same a sure and undoubted forgiveness of their sins, and hope of
everlasting salvation: or else that the same minister, when any have
offended their brothers' minds with a great offence, with a notable and
open fault, whereby they have, as it were, banished and made themselves
strangers from the common fellowship, and from the body of Christ; then
after perfect amendment of such persons, doth reconcile them, and bring
them home again, and restore them to the company and unity of the
faithful.
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