d authority to the most
insignificant Christian with faith, even though it be but a
seven-year-old child, and his decision of their doctrines and laws is
to be accepted. Christ commands us to take heed that we despise not
one of these little ones that believe in him. See Mt 18: 6, 10. Again,
he says (Jn 6, 45), "They shall all be taught of God." Now, it is
inconsistent to reject the judgment of him whom God himself teaches.
Rather, let all men hearken to him.

"Or ministry, let us give ourselves to our ministry."

21. The office of the ministry is the second gift of God the apostle
enumerates. With the early Christians the duties of this office were
to serve poor widows and orphans, distributing to them temporal goods.
Such were the duties of Stephen and his associates (Acts 6, 5), and
such should be the duties of the stewards and provosts in monasteries
today. Again, this was the office of those who ministered unto the
prophets and apostles, the preachers and teachers: for instance, the
women who followed Christ and served him with their substance; and
Onesimus, Titus, Timothy and others of Paul's disciples. They made all
necessary temporal provision, that the apostles and the preachers
might give themselves uninterruptedly to preaching, teaching and
prayer, and might be unencumbered with temporal affairs.

22. But things have changed, as we see. Now we have spiritual lords,
princes, kings, who neglect, not alone to preach and to pray, but also
to distribute temporal goods to the poor and the widow and the orphan.
Rather, they pervert the rightful substance of these to add to their
own pomp. They neither prophesy nor serve; yet they appropriate the
position and the name of minister, their purpose being to restrain and
persecute true preachers and servants, and to destroy Christianity
everywhere and spend its possessions to foster their own luxury.

"Or he that teacheth, to his teaching; or he that exhorteth, to his
exhorting."

23. We treated of these two gifts in the epistle lesson for Christmas
night. Tit 2. Teaching consists in instructing those unacquainted with
faith and the Christian life; exhortation, in inciting, arousing,
impelling, reproving and beseeching with all perseverance, those
having knowledge of the faith. We are enjoined (2 Tim 4, 2) to be
urgent, to "reprove, rebuke and exhort," that Christians may not grow
weary, indolent and negligent, as too often they do, knowing already
what is required