A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

by Richard Baxter

And, 1. It is doubted, as to the office itself, whether a mass priest be a true minister, as having another work to do, even to make his Maker, and to give Christ's real flesh with his hands to the people; and to preach the unsound doctrines of their church; and these seem to be essential parts of his function.

The case is very bad and sad; but that which I said about the heresies or errors which may consist with christianity, when they overthrow it but by an undiscerned consequence, must be here also considered. The prime part of their office is that (as to the essentials) which Christ ordained: this they receive, and to this they sew a filthy rag of man's devising; but if they knew this to be inconsistent with christianity or the essentials of the ministry, we may well presume (of many of them) they would not receive it. Therefore as an error which consequentially contradicteth some essential article of faith, nullifieth not his christianity who first and fastest holdeth the faith, and would cast away the error if he saw the contradiction, (as Davenant, Morton, and Hall have showed, Epist. Conciliat.) so is it to be said as to practical error in the present case. They are their grievous errors and sins, but, for aught I see, do not nullify their office to the church. As a mass priest, he is no minister of Christ (as an anabaptist is not as a re-baptizer, nor a separatist as a separater, nor an antinomian, or any erroneous person, as a preacher of that error); but as a christian pastor ordained to preach the gospel, baptize, administer the Lord's supper, pray, praise God, guide the church, he may be.

The same answer serveth to the objection as it extendeth to the erroneous doctrines which they preach, which are but by consequence against the essentials of religion.

2. But it is a greater doubt, Whether any power of the ministry can be conveyed by antichrist, or from him? and whether God will own any of antichrist's administrations? Therefore seeing they profess themselves to have no office but what they receive from the pope, and Christ disowning his usurpation, the same man cannot be the minister of Christ and antichrist; as the same man cannot be an officer in the king's army and his enemies'.

But this will have the same solution as the former. If this antichrist were the open, professed enemy to Christ, then all this were true: because their corrupt additions would not by dark consequences, but so directly contain the denial of christianity or the true ministry, that it were not possible to hold both. But (as our divines commonly note) antichrist is to sit in the temple of God, and the pope's treason is under pretence of the greatest service and friendship to Christ, making himself his vicar-general without his commission. So they that receive power from him, do think him to be Christ's vicar indeed, and so renounce not Christ, but profess their first and chief relation to be to him, and dependence on him, and that they would have nothing to do with the pope, if they knew him to be against Christ. And some of them write, that the power or office is immediately from Christ, and that the pope, ordainers, and electors do but design the person that shall receive it (because else they know not what to say of the election and consecration of the pope himself, who hath no superior). And the Spanish bishops in the council of Trent held so close to this, that the rest were fain to leave it undetermined; so that it is no part of their religion, but a doubtful opinion, Whether the power of bishops be derived from the pope, though they be governed by him?

But as to the other, the case seemeth like this: if a subject in Ireland usurp the lieutenancy, and tell all the people that he hath the king's commission to be his lieutenant, and command all to submit to him, and receive their places from him, and obey him; and the king declareth him a traitor, (antecedently only by the description of his laws,) and maketh it the duty of the subjects to renounce him; those now that know the king's will, and yet adhere to the usurper, though they know that the king is against it, are traitors with him: but those from whom he keepeth the knowledge of the laws, and who for want of full information believe him to be really the king's lieutenant, (and specially living where all believe it,) but yet would renounce him if they knew that he had not the king's commission; these are the king's subjects, though in ignorance they obey a usurper. And on this account it is that Archbishop Usher concluded, that an ignorant papist might be saved, but the learned hardly. But when the learned, through the disadvantages of their education, are under the same ignorance, being learned but on one side but to their greater seduction, the case may be the same.

The same man therefore may receive an office from Christ, who yet ignorantly submitteth to the pope, and receiveth corrupt additions from him.

But suppose I be mistaken in all this, yet to come to the second question,

III. Whether baptism and ordination given by them be nullities? I answer, no; on a further account, 1. Because that the ministry which is a nullity to the receiver, (that is, God will punish him as a usurper,) may yet perform those ministerial acts which are no nullities to the church.[236] Else how confused a case would all churches be in! For it is hard ever to know whether ministers have all things essential to their office. Suppose a man be ignorant, or a heretic against some essential article of faith; or suppose that he feigned orders of ordination when he had none; or that he was ordained by such as really had no power to do it; or suppose he pretended the consent of the majority of the people, when really the greater part were for another: if all this be unknown, his baptizing and other administrations are not thereby made nullities to the church, though they be sins in him. The reason is, because that the church shall not suffer, nor lose her right for another man's sin! When the fault is not theirs, the loss and punishment shall not be theirs. He that is found in possession of the place, performeth valid administration to them that know not his usurpation, and are not guilty of it. Otherwise we should never have done re-baptizing, nor know easily when we receive any valid administrations, while we are so disagreed about the necessaries of the office and call; and when it is so hard in all things to judge of the call of all other men.

2. And as the papists say, that a private man or woman may baptize in extremity, so many learned protestants think, that though a private man's baptism be a sin, yet it is no nullity, though he were known to be no minister.