comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word.
(6) If this be the “fair interpretation,” then we may see what is the value of the pretended “succession” of the ministry through that system. If such a regular “succession” of ministers from the apostles could be made out, what would it be worth? What is the value of a spiritual descent from Pope Alexander VI? How would it increase the proper respect for the ministerial office, if it could be proved to be derived in a right line from those monsters of incest, ambition, covetousness, and blood, who have occupied the papal throne? A Protestant minister should blush and hang his head if it were charged on him that he held his office by no better title than such a derivation. Much less should he make it a matter of glorying and an argument to prove that he only is an authorized minister, that he has received his office through such men.