Richard Baxter versus the Pope

Some highlights from Richard Baxter's 'Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction'

In Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, Richard Baxter argues forcefully against the encroachment of the Papacy into the ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction of England. Quite apart from any particular errors of the Roman Catholic Church, he argues that their chief and most foundational error is the very nature of the Papacy: it is a claim to much more power than God, by either natural law or Scripture, has entrusted to any one man.

Christ alone as universal ruler

A key principle for Baxter is that there can be no claim to universal civil power or to universal pastoral power by any man, other than by Christ himself:

Christ only is the Head, the King, and Law-giver, and Judge of the whole World: The Law of Nature, and sacred inspired Apostolical Scriptures, are his only Universal Law. Pastors by the Word, and Princes by the Sword (conjoined where it may be) rule under him only in their several Provinces. [Baxter, Foreign Jurisdiction, 3]

So each pastor and each prince may exercise rule according to their respective offices in some limited portion of the world: this pastor rules over this church, that prince rules over that nation. But Baxter rejects the idea that either a pastor or a prince could enjoy either or both kinds of power on a global scale: the ceiling on any legitimate civil or church power is at the national level. In this sense, Richard Baxter was a nationalist.

A brief history of the Papacy

In Foreign Jurisdiction, Baxter recites a brief history of the rise of general church councils and of the Papacy. He claims that the episcopal government of the church, over time, came to reflect civil power: in those cities which were most prominent, the bishops in those cities themselves came to prominence, and were raised up by emperors to preside over the assemblies or councils of churches. It is worth noting that Baxter was as opposed to General Councils that claimed to be binding on all churches throughout the world, just as much as he was opposed to the claim that the Bishop of any one church could claim to be the overseer of all churches everywhere. While a church in one nation might be at liberty to adopt the conclusions of a church council in other nation, they could not be bound to do so as a matter of conscience.

How did the idea develop that the Bishop of Rome had authority over all churches in the entire world? Baxter argues that the power of the Bishop of Rome was at first understood to extend to the entire Roman world (orbis Romani). However, the vast extent of the Roman Empire seemed to habituate the Roman bishops to think of themselves as Bishop of the Whole World (totius Orbis). Interestingly, Baxter claims that for some “long” time prior to this inflation of self-understanding, the Bishop of Rome did not claim to be supreme over the Greek Patriarchs. This idea of universal jurisdiction came later as part of a vision of the Pope as St Peter’s successor. It seems that there was a time in Christian history when the Bishop of Rome was happy not to meddle with other bishops.

The consequences of tolerating Popery

For Baxter, each local church properly has equal standing with all other local churches, subject only to Christ. By contrast, tolerating the Pope’s claims to jurisdiction within England would mean that the churches of England would necessarily be reconceived as “sub-churches” of another Church. Rather than the churches being akin to kingdoms in parallel with each other, they would become akin to cities within a kingdom. This would be a transformation of the churches into another species of church entirely.

Baxter also argues that tolerating Popery would undermine the King’s legitimate claim to national sovereignty. The Pope’s claim by this time extended not only to being a kind of global pastor, but also to being the universal conduit of all civil power. In other words, the Pope claimed that the kings and princes in all the world receive their authority to rule by the sword not immediately from God, but mediately via the Bishop of Rome.

It was not a mere academic concern of Baxter’s that the King would find himself “at the mercy of a thousand deluded desperate Slaves of the Pope!” (23). He recalls the murder of King Henry III in France by a Catholic fanatic, and how Henry IV submitted himself to the Pope, from a quite reasonable fear. If the Pope claims the ability to give and to revoke the power of the kings and princes, and to declare that the murder of such a king is not actually regicide, then giving the Pope a foot in the door in England is simply asking for trouble.

Does the King of England want a situation in which any number of his subjects do not recognise his sovereignty within their nation?

Against universal sovereignty

Baxter understood the Reformers’ separation from Rome in these terms:

[The Reformers] preferred not to separate from Papists as Christians, or from any of their Societies as parts of Christ’s Church; but to renounce, deny and separate from their new Usurped Church-Species or Form, as it is feigned to be an Universal Humane Sovereign with his Subjects. Had they never corrupted other Doctrine or Worship, this Church-Species of Universal Sovereignty is to be separated from. [12]

In other words, the Protestant objection to the Papacy is concerned with matters more fundamental than any particular error of doctrine or practice that the Roman Catholic Church might be guilty of. Rather, the objection is to the claim that all pastoral and civil power in the world is mediated to pastors and to princes via the Pope, which is effectively to usurp the absolutely unique role of Christ, as the one man who rules over the world.

The Protestant Reformers did not resist in principle the concept of an established church, or of the king exercising rule circa sacra, that is, surrounding sacred things. Thus the English Reformation was not, as is sometimes thought, just the swapping out one kind of Pope for another, namely Henry VIII. It makes all the difference in the world that Henry did not consider himself the ruler of all the churches of the world, but merely the formal head of the Church of England.