Charles Hodge via Mark Horne

Mark Horne at Theologia has provided an extract from an article written by Charles Hodge in 1845 for the Princeton Review. Pastor Horne's stated purpose in providing Hodge's remarks is, "in the interest of disentangling Presbyterians from what I see as the pervasive influence of an Americanist “fundamentalism” that is lacking in a sense of history and ecclesiology ... We need to recover an othodox and confessional sense of where the “baseline” is..."

Here's Hodge:
We maintain that as the Romish priests are appointed and recognized as presbyters in a community professing to believe the scriptures, the early creeds, and the decisions of the first four general councils, they are ordained ministers ... and consequently baptism administered by them is valid. It has accordingly been received as valid by all Protestant churches from the Reformation to the present day.

Calvin, in his Institutes, (Book IV, chs 15, 16), after saying that baptism does not owe its value to the character of the administrator, adds: "By this consideration, the error of the Donatists is effectually refuted, who made the force and value of the sacrament commensurate with the worth of the minister. Such are our modern Katabaptists, who strenuously deny that we were properly baptized, because we received the rite from impious idolators in the papacy; and they are therefore ferocious for re-baptism. We shall, however, be sufficiently guarded against their nonsense, if we remember we were baptized not in the name of any man, but in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and therefore baptism is not of man, but of God, no matter by whom it was administered." - LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE

Hodge, in another article for the Princeton Review, provided by Horne:

"It is neither by research nor argument the question whether Romanists are members of the visible church to be answered. It is a simple matter of definition and statement. All that can be done is first to determine what is meant by the word church; and secondly what is meant by Rome, church of Rome, Romanists, or whatever term is used, and then see whether the two agree, whether Rome falls within or without the definition of the church ... Professor Thornwell very correctly remarked, in his effective speech before the General Assembly, that it is very plain that though the Reformers denied Rome to be the true church, they admitted her to be in some sense a church. The fact is, they used the word true as Turrettin does, as implying conformity with the true mode or standard. They made a distinction between a description of a church including all the excellencies such a body ought to possess; and a definition including nothing but what is essential to the being of a church. " - LINK FOR FULL ARTICLE