The certificate of Johann Fischer who went from Wittenberg to Rudolstadt in 1540 (above, p. 265) sets forth that “he had been called to the ministry of the Gospel by the people there, who had also borne witness to his good moral character”; they had asked that “his call might be reinforced by public ordination”; this had been conferred on him when it had been shown that he held “the pure, Catholic doctrine of the Gospel which our Church also teaches and professes,” and that he rejected all the fanatical opinions which the Catholic Church of Christ rejects.[1173] The statement embodied in the testimonial, giving the grounds on which the signatories, the pastor of Wittenberg and other “ministers of the Gospel,” undertook such an ordination is noteworthy: “We may not refuse to do our duty to the neighbouring Churches for the Nicene Council made the godly rule that ordination should be requested of the neighbouring Churches.” Of the objections that theology and Canon Law might have raised those who drafted the document seem to have no inkling. In this case the Wittenbergers claim to be no more than a “neighbouring Church”; elsewhere they are more ambitious. The fact is, Wittenberg was anxious to stand at the head of the visible Church. It was at Wittenberg that Luther, as the leader of the young Church, had first preached the truth of the Gospel urged thereto “by Divine command”; on the strength of such a command he was compelled to defend himself against the Elector’s lawyers who wanted to play havoc with “his Church.”[1174] “By divine authority we have begun to ameliorate the world.”[1175] Foes at home twitted him with setting up an “office of the Word” by which an end was made of all freedom; they urged, that, at Wittenberg, people were trying to “breathe new life into despotism, to seat themselves in the chair and to exercise compulsion just as the Pope had done heretofore.”[1176] Luther proclaims loudly: “We, who preach the Evangel, have full powers to ordain; the Pope and the bishops can ordain no one.”[1177]—“You are a bishop,” said Luther once jokingly to a Superintendent, “just as I am Pope.”[1178] Beneath the jest there lay bitter earnest, for the authority of the “Wittenberg school” in Luther’s estimation stood high indeed; whoever “despises it, so long as the Church and school remain as they are, is a heretic and a bad man,” seeing that, in this school, God has “revealed His Word.”[1179]—Nevertheless, the Wittenberg theologians complained that this authority was not recognised, that the Church was a “spectacle of woe,” without “oneness either in doctrine or in worship”; “our princes and cities” ought to bring about unity. Moreover things are bound to grow worse, seeing that “each one wants to be his own Rabbi.”[1180] Outside Wittenberg, and even within the city walls, and that even in Luther’s time, the prediction of Duke George about the 72 sects of the Protestant Babel seemed about to be fulfilled.[1181]