Provident, honorable, and dear wise lords, first of all we offer our obedient and due service, because God almighty has sent to many of our hearts the spirit of truth with the revelation of his holy gospel. He enlightens all who believe in him. But the clerical mob, monks and parsons, knew how to suppress this [spirit] in many ways, without having any basis in truth. Still worse, together with their tyrannical followers they keep trying to hinder it as much as they can. And they like to see disturbances, in which [the work of] the devil, with the clergy as his tools, is characterized by division among the people into different parties about how we receive the mercy of God. And all friendly requests for them to stop have been useless. Since we should owe God more obedience than man [Acts 5:29], it is highly necessary that we eliminate godless things, and that we begin to reform ourselves, to develop godly, brotherly behavior in praise of almighty God and the honor of his holy word, Christ our Lord, and to institute brotherly unity. [It is necessary to do this] so that others, foreigners, do not seek to reform us, and so that they are not able to burden us. We want to free ourselves from the grievances which need imposes on us, and we want to support and maintain ourselves among one another as follows.

First, it is our request, desire and deep conviction that henceforth an honorable council and the congregation should have the power to install or remove a pastor in parish churches or in other churches.