hat just
as we are His brethren and co-heirs and fellow-kings with Him, so we
should be also fellow-priests with Him, and venture with confidence,
through the spirit of faith, to come into the presence of God, and cry,
"Abba, Father!" and to pray for one another, and to do all things
which we see done and figured in the visible and corporeal office of
priesthood. But to an unbelieving person nothing renders service or work
for good. He himself is in servitude to all things, and all things turn
out for evil to him, because he uses all things in an impious way for
his own advantage, and not for the glory of God. And thus he is not a
priest, but a profane person, whose prayers are turned into sin, nor
does he ever appear in the presence of God, because God does not hear
sinners.

Who then can comprehend the loftiness of that Christian dignity which,
by its royal power, rules over all things, even over death, life, and
sin, and, by its priestly glory, is all-powerful with God, since God
does what He Himself seeks and wishes, as it is written, "He will fulfil
the desire of them that fear Him; He also will hear their cry, and will
save them"? (Psalm cxlv. 19). This glory certainly cannot be attained by
any works, but by faith only.

From these considerations any one may clearly see how a Christian
man is free from all things; so that he needs no works in order to be
justified and saved, but receives these gifts in abundance from faith
alone. Nay, were he so foolish as to pretend to be justified, set
free, saved, and made a Christian, by means of any good work, he would
immediately lose faith, with all its benefits. Such folly is prettily
represented in the fable where a dog, running along in the water
and carrying in his mouth a real piece of meat, is deceived by the
reflection of the meat in the water, and, in trying with open mouth to
seize it, loses the meat and its image at the same time.

Here you will ask, "If all who are in the Church are priests, by what
character are those whom we now call priests to be distinguished from
the laity?" I reply, By the use of these words, "priest," "clergy,"
"spiritual person," "ecclesiastic," an injustice has been done, since
they have been transferred from the remaining body of Christians to
those few who are now, by hurtful custom, called ecclesiastics. For Holy
Scripture makes no distinction between them, except that those who are
now boastfully called popes, bishops, and lords,