ister of the church. Again the minister of the church, the vicar of Christ, is not able to absolve or to bind, to forgive sins or to retain them, unless God has done this previously. This appears from John 15:5: "Apart from me ye can do nothing." That vessel of election knew this, and so he said: "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to account anything as from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God," II Cor. 3:5. Therefore, if we are not sufficient to think except as God imparts the thought, how are we sufficient to bind and loose except God have previously loosed and bound? And this the philosophers recognize when they say that a second cause can effect nothing without the coagency of a first cause.
Further, it is clear that no man may be loosed from sin or receive the remission of sins, unless God have loosed him or given him remission. Hence the Baptist says: "A man can receive nothing except it first be given him from heaven," John 3:27. Hence as an earthly lord first forgives in spirit the sin committed against himself, before this is announced by himself or by another, so it is necessary for God to do. Therefore, the presbyters are wildly beside themselves who think and say that they may of their own initiative loose and bind, without the absolution or binding of Jesus Christ preceding their act. For loosing and binding are in the first instance the simple [absolute] act of God. Therefore, the Gospel says, "Whatsoever is bound on earth shall be bound in heaven," but it does not say that it is bound in heaven at a later time and not previously.
Hence, the ignorant think that the priest binds and looses in time first and after him God. It is folly to have this opinion. But the logicians know well that priority is twofold: the one, priority of origin, taken from the material cause, and the other the priority of dignity, taken from the final cause. And these two priorities meet at one and the same time, and in this way the binding and loosing of the church
