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54 ISIK/YAIIB III ()!•’ AOIAIMNE

(rc)consccralion,0° and for the priestly ministry, or others whom
you consider more suitable than them for the great work of the
lofty service of the Church of God, so that in this way they may be
anointed and consecrated and made perfect and sent to you again
of

from the fountainhead101 102 priestly power by the law of Christ.
Watch, and again watch, and watch most greatly, that you may
not be seduced in some way by satanic wiles, so that you become
the enemy of your lives like those who have strayed. I tor the enemy
of Christians is most cunning and has banned many people many
times. Now indeed the time of his coming is close through the man
of sin, the son of perdition;’02 and the book of the Spirit
107

*
predicted103 *105not only the order'01 (of events) signaling his arrival,

but also that many shall be led astray, that is, the elect,'05 just as
those people of yours have strayed, that is, the bishops-by-namc,
who, in their madness believing that submission to die Church of
God is not a source of spiritual aid for those who are worthy of it,
but a harmful and destructive slavery, have renounced it,
diabolically, like the demons who rejected slavery to God dieir
creator. They did not know and did not understand, the madmen,
that they diemselves, as also everyone, were being made slaves, by
complete will, of this worldly power that now is master everywhere.
Those who are ordered by Christianity to submit to those powers
that arc ordered by God, only refuse to submit to the authority of
Christianity, when they earnestly'06 submit to every authority,
excluding Christianity, with body and soul and possessions and in
all things, except for submission to Christianity, that is, submission
to God, themselves rebelling like the demons. Tor neither arc they,
the fools, well-advised'07 concerning the following: that we have
been commanded to render to every authority anything owed to it

100 11,0-
102 Reference to 2 ITicssalonians 2:3.
103 reading
101
105 Reference Io Matthew 24:24.
'°6
107