_The Smalcald Articles.
                      Articles of Christian Doctrine
               which were to have been presented on our part
           to the Council, if any had been assembled at Mantua
               or elsewhere, indicating what we could accept
                      or yield, and what we could not._
                         by Dr. Martin Luther, 1537
                   Translated by F. Bente and  W. H. T. Dau
                                Published in:
                  _Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
                        of the Ev. Lutheran Church_.
        (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921), pp. 453-529.
 
        THE THIRD PART OF THE ARTICLES.
         
        X. Of Ordination and the Call. 
         
        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. But because they
        neither are, nor wish to be, true bishops, but worldly lords
        and princes, who 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]. 
         
        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.
         
        
 
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