The Gospel declares those who believe righteous and saved.

I am calling attention just to the main points of these tremendously important matters, which can be understood better by pious meditation than explained by human language.

As however the ancients say that in case of necessity any Christian lay person can administer the sacrament of baptism, so Luther says the same thing about absolution in case of necessity, where no priest is present.

And there is a difference between the essence of a Sacrament and its use.

Thus first of all in His own person He sanctified, restored, and blessed human nature.

For we can affirm with a good conscience that we have, after reading the Holy Scripture, applied ourselves and yet daily apply ourselves to the extent that the grace of the Lord permits to inquiry into and investigation of the consensus of the true and purer antiquity.

In the first place, our faith ought to lay hold on Christ as God and man in that nature by which He has been made our neighbor, kinsman, and brother.