Nor can the Wittenberg view of the Church be taken otherwise when we see how the theologians of that town in Luther’s own time proceeded in appointing ministers and controlling and supervising their office. The preachers and pastors, after their doctrine had been found consonant with that of Wittenberg,[1171] were “entrusted with the ministry” though it is not apparent whether the authorisation came from the congregations who applied for them, or from the theological examiners, or from the sovereign and his mixed consistory. The formulas used are by no means clear, save on one point, viz. that they expressly claim for the Wittenbergers the character of a true “Catholic Church,” or at least their harmony with such a Church. In the ordination-certificate of Heinrich Bock (above, p. 265), who received a call as pastor and Superintendent to Reval, the quondam city of the Teutonic Order in Esthland, and who had been “ordained” on April 25, 1540, by Bugenhagen, the pastor of Wittenberg, we find it stated: “His doctrine tallies with the consensus of the Catholic Church which our Church also holds, and he is free from every kind of fanaticism condemned by the Catholic Church of Christ.”[1172] Hence they claimed to be one with the universal Church throughout the world and not to form an isolated community apart; this, as we know, was Melanchthon’s favourite view. The olden hierarchy was, however, replaced by that of Wittenberg, as we read in the same certificate: “We”—the signatories, Luther, Bugenhagen, Jonas and Melanchthon—“have entrusted him with the ministry of the Church, that he may teach the Gospel and dispense the sacraments instituted by Christ,” “_iuxta vocationem_,” i.e. in accordance with the call of the authorities at Reval who had summoned the ordinand to govern their Church (“_ad gubernationem ecclesiæ suæ_”). The testimonial was the work of Melanchthon. Other testimonials of this kind are similarly worded.