If the bishops would be true bishops [would rightly discharge
their office], and would devote themselves to the Church and
the Gospel, it might be granted to them for the sake of love
and unity, but not from necessity, to ordain and confirm us
and our preachers; omitting, however, all comedies and
spectacular display [deceptions, absurdities, and appearances]
of unchristian [heathenish] parade and pomp. But because they
neither are, nor wish to be, true bishops, but worldly lords
and princes, who will neither preach, nor teach, nor baptize,
nor administer the Lord's Supper, nor perform any work or
office of the Church, and, moreover, persecute and condemn
those who discharge these functions, having been called to do
so, the Church ought not on their account to remain without
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.