[Sidenote: The Priesthood of All Christians]
If they were forced to grant that as many of us as have been baptised are all priests without distinction, as indeed we are, and that to them was committed the ministry only, yet with our consent, they would presently learn that they have no right to rule over us except in so far as we freely concede it. For thus it is written in i Peter ii, "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and a priestly kingdom." [1 Peter 2:9] Therefore we are all priests, as many of us as are Christians.[179] But the priests, as we call them, are ministers chosen from among us, who do all that they do in our name. And the priesthood is nothing but a ministry, as we learn from I Corinthians iv, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God." [1 Cor. 4:1]
It follows herefrom that whoever does not preach the Word, called by the Church to this very thing, is no priest at all. And further, that the sacrament of ordination can be nothing else than a certain rite of choosing preachers in the Church. For thus is a priest defined in Malachi ii, "The lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and they shall seek the law at his mouth: because he is the angel of the Lord of hosts." [Mal. 2:7] You may be certain, then, that whoever is not an angel of the Lord of hosts, or whoever is called to anything else than such angelic service--if I may so term it--is never a priest; as Hosea says, "Because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will reject thee, that thou shalt not do the office of priesthood to me." [Hosea 4:6] They are also called pastors because they are to pasture, that is, to teach. Therefore, they who are ordained only to read the canonical hours and to offer masses are indeed papist, but not Christian, priests, because they not only do not preach, but are not called to preach; nay, it comes to this, that such a priesthood is a different estate altogether from the office of preaching. Thus they are hour-priests and mass-priests, that is, a sort of living idol, having the name of priest, while they are in reality such priests as Jeroboam ordained, in Bethaven, of the off-scouring of the people, and not of the tribe of Levi.[180][1 Kings 12:31]