s.

To prohibit marriage, and to burden the divine order of
priests with perpetual celibacy, they have had neither
authority nor right [they have done out of malice, without any
honest reason], but have acted like antichristian, tyrannical,
desperate scoundrels [have performed the work of antichrist,
of tyrants and the worst knaves], and have thereby caused all
kinds of horrible, abominable, innumerable sins of unchastity
[depraved lusts], in which they still wallow. Now, as little
as we or they have been given the power to make a woman out of
a man or a man out of a woman, or to nullify either sex, so
little have they had the power to [sunder and] separate such
creatures of God, or to forbid them from living [and
cohabiting] honestly in marriage with one another. Therefore
we are unwilling to assent to their abominable celibacy, nor
will we [even] tolerate it, but we wish to have marriage free
as God has instituted [and ordained] it, and we wish neither
to rescind nor hinder His work; for Paul says, 1 Tim. 4, 1
ff., that this [prohibition of marriage] is a doctrine of
devils.

XII. Of the Church.

We do not concede to them that they are the Church, and [in
truth] they are not [the Church]; nor will we listen to those
things which, under the name of Church, they enjoin or forbid.
For, thank God, [to-day] a child seven years old knows what
the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear
the voice of their Shepherd. For the children pray thus: I
believe in one holy [catholic or] Christian Church. This
holiness does not consist in albs, tonsures, long gowns, and
other of their ceremonies devised by them beyond Holy
Scripture, but in the Word of God and true faith.

XIII. How One is Justified before God, and of Good Works.

What I have hitherto and constantly taught concerning this I
know not how to change in the least, namely, that by faith, as
St. Peter says, we acquire a new and clean heart, and God will
and does account us entirely righteous and holy for the sake
of Christ, our Mediator. And although sin in the flesh has not
yet been altogether removed or become dead, yet He will not
punish or remember it.

And such faith, renewal, and forgiveness of sins is followed
by good works. And what there is still sinful or imperfect
also in them shall not be accounted as sin or defect, even
[and that, too] for Christ's sake; but the entire man, both as
to his person and his works, is to be called and to