There can be no doubt, so Luther argues, that, among his followers in the town of Erfurt, there was indeed the true “Holy Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ,” for they possessed the true Word and the true Sacraments. God had indeed “sent down on the people of Erfurt the Holy Ghost, Who worked in some of them a knowledge of tongues, discernment of spirits,” etc. (1 Cor. xii. 10), in the same way He had given them Evangelists, teachers, interpreters and everything necessary for the upbringing of His Body (Eph. iv. 11 f.). He urges that the ministers of the Word were rightly appointed, though here he does not appeal as much as usual, to the supposed validity of the call by the Town Council, as the whole trouble had its source in the town magistracy. The appointment of the preachers, so he now says, was the duty of the Church rather than of the magistrates; the Town Council had given them the call only in its capacity as a “member of the Church,” for which reason their dismissal or persecution was quite unjustifiable. He also brings forward other personal, mystic grounds for the validity of their call: they were “very learned men and full of all grace”; the appointment, which they had received not only from the “people and the Church, but also from the supreme authority,” had taken place under the breath of the Spirit (“_impetu quodam spiritus_”) Who had sent them as reapers into the harvest; they are recognised by all the Churches abroad, even the most important, and no less do their sheep hear their voice. Hence, if some of the magistrates now refuse to recognise them, they must simply appeal to their calling “by the Holy Ghost and the Church”; the efficient cause here is, and remains, Christ, Who gives the Church her authority. Hence at all costs they must stick to their post. The whole of the extremely involved explanation points to the reaction now taking place in his mind owing to his bitter experiences with the authorities in the question of Church government. In this frame of mind he often makes the call depend solely on the Church, nay, on Christ Himself. If the Courts are to rule as they please, so he wrote in the midst of one of these conflicts with the authorities, the last state of things will be worse than the first. They ought to leave the Churches to the care of those to whom they have been committed and who will have to render an account to God. Hence Luther urges that the two callings be kept separate.[1223]