Statute 72

1Concerning those who are persecuted for the faith: Those who flee from city to city for the faith and in remembrance of our Lord’s word, knowing that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, flee from place to place and patiently endure the plundering of their possessions so that they may keep the name of Christ and not deny him. Help them, give them everything they need, and fulfill the commandment of God our Lord.

2We command all these things to you in common. Everyone shall remain in the order assigned to him and shall not step outside the commandment ordained for him. This commandment is not our own, but belongs to God the Father, for he said, “He who heard you heard me, and he who heard me heard him who sent me. He who rejected you rejected me, and he who rejected me rejected him who sent me.”

3Do not created things that have no soul keep the commandment given to them—the day and night, sun and moon and stars, winds, changes of the moons, weeks, hours, and days? They perform the work ordained for them, as was spoken at the beginning. He said, “He gave them a commandment, and they do not transgress.”

4Concerning the sea he said, “I have established an ordinance for it, and I have set a bar and a gate against it, and I said, ‘Thus far you shall come, and you shall not pass beyond.’” How much more, then, should you not depart at all from what has been ordained for you according to the will of God?

5Some treat this as nothing and confuse ordinations. Yet the offices assigned to each person shall not be confused. You shall not seize for yourselves an ordination that was not given to you, nor shall you force your way into possession of what is not yours but belongs to others and over which you have no authority.

6Because of this offense, you provoke God as did the children of Korah and King Uzziah, who seized the priestly work without the will of God. The former were burned with fire, and the latter’s face was changed by leprosy.

7They provoked God—Jesus Christ, who commanded that it should be so. They grieved the heart of the Holy Spirit, rejected his testimony, despised him, and did not fear the judgment prepared for those who do this, or the consequences of their carelessness concerning the offering and the bread of the Blessing whenever these are offered by unworthy persons. Such persons think that they are performing the honorable work of the priesthood, which is in the likeness of the great High Priest, Christ; and some regard this work as foolishness.

8We desired to teach them this, but from this point we speak of Moses, the servant of God, with whom God spoke face to face as one speaks with a neighbor. Of him he said, “I know you above all men.” With him God spoke face to face, not through signs, miracles, visions, angels, or interpretations. This happened on the day when he commanded the holy Law.

9He ordained this ordinance and the proper way for them to fulfill it concerning ordination to the priesthood: what was suitable for the priests and what was suitable for the Levites. He separated each person according to what was proper for him and right for his service.

10He specified what the chief priests were commanded to do, which it was not proper for the priests to do and which, by decree of the Law, they were not to do. The Levites could not approach to do what the priests were commanded to do. Each person was to remain in the service of God that he had received and not step outside it. Anyone who transgressed and stepped outside the service he had received was to be condemned to death.

11This is abundantly clear to us from what happened to Saul. When he presumed to offer sacrifice by his own will before the prophet and chief priest Samuel arrived, he brought sin and a curse upon himself forever. The prophet was not afraid because of the anointing with which he had anointed Saul to be king.

12God has also made this known to us through the declaration of the great event that happened to King Uzziah. Vengeance for the perversity with which he acted did not delay, but made him an alien from his kingdom because he aspired to the ordination of the priesthood.