Part 3 › Question 3: Quest. 3. Whether we must take the Romish Clergy for true Ministers of Christ? And whet…, A Christian Directory by Richard Baxter (1673) | AskReformation

Skip to content

:5849p. 776

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 mans 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 ought 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 Rebaptizer, nor a Separatist as a Separator, 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 Lords Supper, pray, praise God, guide the Church, he may be.

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 mans 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 shewed 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 ought I see, do not nullifie their office to the Church. As a Mass-Priest, he is no Minister of Christ (As an Anabaptist is not as a Rebaptizer, 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 Lords Supper, pray, praise God, guide the Church, he may be.

:5852p. 776

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 Popes Treason is under pretence of the greatest service and friendship to Christ, making himself his Vicar General without his Commission. So that they that receive power from him, do think him to be Christs 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 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 denyal 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 Popes Treason is under pretence of the greatest service and friendship to Christ, makeing himself his Vicar General without his Commission. So that they that receive power from him, do think him to be Christs Vicar indeed, and so renounce not Christ, but profess their first and chief relation to be to him, and dependance 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 superiour.) 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.

:5853p. 776

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 Kings 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 Kings 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 Kings Lieutenant, (and specially living where all believe it) but yet would renounce him if they knew that he had not the Kings Commission, These are the Kings subjects, though in ignorance they obey an Usurper. And on this account it is that A. Bishop 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 to their greater seduction, the case may be the same.

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 Kings 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 Traytor (antecedently only by the description of his Laws,) and maketh it the duty of the subjects to renounce him: Those now that know the Kings will, and yet adhere to the Usurper, though they know that the King is against it, are Traytors 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 Kings Lieutenant, (and specially living where all believe it) but yet would renounce him if they knew that he had not the Kings Commission, These are the Kings subjects, though in ignorance they obey an Usurper. And on this account it is that A. Bishop 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 to their greater seduction, the case may be the same.