A34674:387
The Covenant of Grace
The covenant of grace discovering the great work of a sinners reconciliation to God / by John Cotton ... ; whereunto are added Certain queries tending to accommodation [sic] between the Presbyterian and Congregational churches ; also a discussion of the civill magistrates power in matters of religion ; by the same author.The covenant of grace discovering the great work of a sinners reconciliation to God / by John Cotton ... ; whereunto are added Certain queries tending to accommodadation [sic] between the Presbyterian and Congregationall churches ; also a discussion of the civill magistrates power in matters of religion ; by the same author.
London: printed by M.S. for Francis Eglesfield and John Allen, 1655
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Object. If you make the example of the Princes of Israel, acting Coercively in matters of Religion for Magistrates imitation, why do not you make the Levites a pattern also to Ministers now, to act as they did civilly, in civil censures?
Object. If you make the example of the Princes of Israel, acting Coercively in matters of Religion for Magistrates imitation, why doe not you make the Levites a pattern also to Ministers now, to act as they did civilly, in civil censures?
Answ.1 It's not clear that the Levites d d act any further than by counsel, or at most by some general consent to that which the Princes were formally to Act.
Answ.1 It's not clear that the Levites d d act any further than by counsel, or at most by some generall consent to that which the Princes were formally to Act.
2 If the Levites did act in matters of the State by a peculiar liberty, it doth not follow, that this can invalidate the Rulers power, then acting in matters of Religion; as if by a peculiar liberty also, unless the Objection could be bottomed on the proportion betwixt the Levites then, and the Rulers then: Thus, that as the Levites which by special liberty (proper to those times, and so not imitable now) did intermeddle in matters peculiar to Magistrates, so the Magistrates then did intermeddle in matters peculiar to the Priests, by a liberty proper to those ⟨p. 27⟩times; and this would be cross to express Text, 2 Chron. 26.16. where Uzzias meddling with Priestly matters of offering Incense, is made a transgression against the Lord, for which he was afterward ruined.