Three letters to the bishop of Bangor

[re]ceived as his ambassadors? Can they be thought to act in his name, if they have no authority from him? If so, your Lordship’s servant Law is using an "argument from absurdity": if succession doesn't matter, a common domestic servant has as much right to perform holy rites as a Bishop. might ordain and baptize with as much validity as your Lordship. For the only objection to such actions would be that they had no authority from Christ. And if there is no succession of ordainers coming from him, then everyone is equally qualified to ordain.

My Lord, I believe it should be granted that administering a sacrament is an action we have no right to perform simply because we are men, gentlemen, scholars, or members of a civil society. Who then can have any authority to intervene except the person who received it from Christ? And how that authority can be obtained from him without a succession of people descending from him is not easily conceived. If a private citizen were to choose a Lord Chancellor Lord Chancellor: The highest-ranking officer of the Crown, responsible for the judiciary and the Great Seal of the Realm. and declare his authority to be valid, would that be anything other than absurdity, impudence, and presumption? But why such a person cannot just as easily commission someone to act, sign, and seal in the King's name as in the name of Christ is unaccountable Law argues that if spiritual authority does not require a formal chain of succession from Christ, then secular authority shouldn't require one from the King—a conclusion he knows the Bishop would find ridiculous..

My Lord, it is a plain and obvious truth that no man, or group of men acting on their own, can create a priest or commission someone to officiate in Christ’s name any more than they can expand the means of grace Means of Grace: The ways through which God provides spiritual help and salvation to believers, traditionally through the Word and the Sacraments. or add a new sacrament for the delivery of spiritual benefits. The ministers of Christ are as much positive ordinances Positive Ordinance: A rule or ritual established by a specific divine command or decree rather than by natural law. as the sacraments are; and we might as well think that sacraments not instituted by him could be means of grace, as [those...]