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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Smalcald Articles by Dr. Martin Luther: 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.
XI. Of the Marriage of Priests.
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