A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

by Richard Baxter

5. If one of them command the reception of a worthy person, and the other of an intolerable one, the former must prevail, because of obedience to Christ, and care of our souls.

6. But if the persons be equal, or both fit, the magistrate is to be obeyed, if he be peremptory in his commands, and decide the case in order to the peace or protection of the church; both because it is a lawful thing, and because else he will permit no other.

7. And the rather because the magistrate's power is more past controversy, than, whether any bishop, pastor, or synod, can any further than by counsel and persuasion, oblige the people to receive a pastor.

[242] See more of this after.

Quest. XI. Whether an uninterrupted succession either of right ordination or of conveyance by jurisdiction, be necessary to the being of the ministry, or of a true church?

The papists have hitherto insisted on the necessity of successive right ordination; but Voetius de desperata Causa Papatus hath in this so handled them, and confuted Jansenius, as hath indeed showed the desperateness of that cause: and they perceive that the papacy itself cannot be upheld by that way; and therefore Johnson, alias Terret, in his rejoinder against me, now concludeth, that it is not for want of a successive consecration that they condemn the church of England, but for want of true jurisdiction, because other bishops had title to the places whilst they were put in; and that successive consecration (which we take to include ordination) is not necessary to the being of ministry or church. And it is most certain to any man acquainted in church history, that their popes have had a succession of neither. Their way of election hath been frequently changed, sometimes being by the people, sometimes by the clergy, sometimes by the emperors, and lastly by the cardinals alone. Ordination they have sometimes wanted, and a layman been chosen; and oft the ordination hath been by such as had no power according to their own laws. And frequent intercisions have been made, sometimes by many years' vacancy, when they had no church (and so there was none on earth, if the pope be the constitutive head) for want of a pope: sometimes by long schisms, when of two or three popes, no one could be known to have more right than another, nor did they otherwise carry it, than by power at last: sometimes by the utter incapacity of the possessors, some being laymen, some heretics and infidels, so judged by councils at Rome, Constance, Basil; and Eugenius the fourth continued after he was so censured, and condemned, and deposed by the general council. I have proved all this at large elsewhere.

And he that will not be cheated with a bare sound of words, but will ask them, whether by a succession of jurisdiction, they mean efficient, conveying jurisdiction in the causers of his call, or received jurisdiction in the office received, will find that they do but hide their desperate cause in confusion and an insignificant noise. For they maintain that none on earth have an efficient jurisdiction in making popes. For the former pope doth not make his successor; and both electors, ordainers, and consecrators, yea, and the people receiving, they hold to be subjects of the pope when made, and therefore make him not by jurisdiction giving him the power. Therefore Johnson tells me, that Christ only, and not man, doth give the power, and they must needs hold that men have nothing to do but design the person recipient by election and reception, and to invest him ceremonially in the possession. So that no efficient jurisdiction is here used at all by man. And for received jurisdiction, 1. No one questioneth but when that office is received which is essentially governing, he that receiveth it receiveth a governing power, or else he did not receive the office. If the question be only, whether the office of a bishop be an office of jurisdiction, or contain essentially a governing power, they make no question of this themselves. So that the noise of successive jurisdiction is vanished into nothing. 2. And with them that deny any jurisdiction to belong to presbyters, this will be nothing as to their case, who have nothing but orders to receive.

They have nothing of sense left them to say but this, That though the efficient jurisdiction which maketh popes be only in Christ, because no men are their superiors, yet bishops and presbyters who have superiors, cannot receive their power but by an efficient power of man, which must come down by uninterrupted succession.

Answ. 1. And so if ever the papal office have an intercision, (as I have proved it hath had as to lawful popes,) the whole catholic church is nullified; and it is impossible to give it a new being, but by a new pope.

But the best is, that by their doctrine indeed they need not to plead for an uninterrupted succession either of popes, bishops, or presbyters, but that they think it a useful cheat to perplex all that are not their subjects. For if the papacy were extinct a hundred years, Christ is still alive; and seeing it is no matter ad esse who be the electors or consecraters, so it be but made known conveniently to the people, and men only elect and receive the person, and Christ only giveth the power, (by his stated law,) what hindereth after the longest extinction or intercision, but that somebody, or some sort of person, may choose a pope again, and so Christ make him pope? And thus the catholic church may die and live again by a new creation, many times over.