Series 5 > Religious Controversy in Scotland 1625-1639

178
RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY IN SCOTLAND
This is the language now of our good men who yet will sweare themselves
Protestants. As for the chief part of the argument that the bishop is summus pontifex,
this wer an highway to reduce the pope to be the head of all the church of the
New Testament as Aaron was under the Old; yea, this our men thinks expedient
that the pope should be not only patriarch of the whole Latine and West Church,
but have a primacie over all Christendome as in right the first patriarch of the
world, that this his privilege was unjustfie taken from him in the Reformation.
Besid, this doctrine would be a good ground for erecting in everie prince’s do¬
minion a high priest as Aaron was in Israel, to make my lord of Canterburie
soveraigne patriarch in the king of Britan s territories, as the pope of old did
acknowledge Anselm truelie to be; yea, this maxime would be a ground for the
erection of a papacie in everie province or diocesse, to make everie bishop a
soveraigne pontifex as some does urge. But no true Protestant may yeeld to any
such wicked ambition either of an oecumenick or a national!, or a diocesan
pontifex: scripture and antiquitie are both contrair. In the epistle to the Hebrews
and many other scriptures, Christ alone is the high priest of the New Testament,
the substance and bodie of that type, figure, shadow of Aaron. Augustine is cleare
for the same, Sermon 99 (de tempore):124 ‘The true high priest is one and alone, as
the scriptures teach, of whom this Aaron the priest foreshadowed the type ... as
we have often set forth, the true high priest is Christ’.
As for the testimonie of Jerome, that which he speaks of the apostolick tradi¬
tion is meaned only of the preheminence of presbyters above deacons which the
apostles did institute to serve and help the preachers of the Word, as the Levites
wer ordained by Moses to serve the priests. He speakes not there of the superioritie
of bishops to presbyters but of the high priest to inferiour priests; he speaks of
Aaron and of his sonnes as of one, of bishops and presbyters as of one.That this is
Jerome’s mind, go no farther to try then the same episde where his only inten¬
sion is to compare two, presbyters and deacons—to advance the one and debase
the other as farre as Levites wer under the priests. As for bishops, he [35r] brings
them in, not as diverse from presbyters, but according to scripture all one, as
Aaron and his eldest sonnes were one in dignitie.Whatever inferioritie was among
the minor priests beneath the high, Jerome heere speaks not of it. However, that
he compares not bishops, presbyters, and deacons in this place as three, but as
two, wherof bishops and presbyters makes but one, it is cleare from the place:‘I
am told that some one has been mad enough to put deacons before presbyters,
that is, before bishops. For when the aposde clearly teaches that presbyters are
the same as bishops....’After two or three scriptures he subjoines:‘there is the
124 Opera, x, 605. In this, the 1616 edn., Sermon 99 (DeTempore) has been renumbered Sermon 40, and
placed in an appendix, indicating doubtful authorship.