A42757:1191
Aaron's rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present…Aarons rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present…
Aaron's rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present Erastian controversy concerning the distinction of civill and ecclesiastical government, excommunication, and suspension, is fully debated and discussed, from the holy scripture, from the Jewish and Christian antiquities, from the consent of latter writers, from the true nature and rights of magistracy, and from the groundlessness of the chief objections made against the Presbyterial government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power / by George Gillespie ...Aarons rod blossoming, or, The divine ordinance of church-government vindicated so as the present Erastian controversie concerning the distinction of civill and ecclesiasticall government, excommunication, and suspension, is fully debated and discussed, from the holy scripture, from the Jewish and Christian antiquities, from the consent of latter writers, from the true nature and rights of magistracy, and from the groundlesnesse of the chief objections made against the Presbyteriall government in point of a domineering arbitrary unlimited power / by George Gillespie ...
London: printed by E.G. for Richard Whitaker, 1646
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.
If any man shall object against me and say; Peradventure the Penitents before spoken of, were only such as did manifest their repentance after excommunication, and these several degrees afore-mentioned, were but the degrees of their reception or admission into the Church, so that all this shall not prove the suspension from the Sacrament of persons not excommunicated. I answer, he that will think so, will be found in a great mistake: and my Argument from Antiquity will yet stand good, for suspending from the Sacrament persons not excommunicated. For first, neither do the Canons of the Councils of Ancyra, and Nice, nor of Gregorius Thaumaturgus and Basilius magnus, nor yet the Commentators Zonaras and Balsamon, apply these five degrees above mentioned to persons who had been excommunicated, but they speak generally of persons who had committed scandalous sins, and afterward were converted and appeared penitent: for instance, those who did backslide and ⟨p. 561⟩fall in time of persecution, as multitudes did under Licinius and other persecutors, when they converted and professed repentance, they were received again into the Church by certain steps and degrees, some more, some fewer, according to the quality of their offence; No man that hath searched antiquity will say that all who did fall in time of persecution were excommunicated for that offence, nor yet that they were all put to the [Greek or Hebrew], to the weeping at the Church door, but yet all of them, even those whose offence was least (as the Libellatici who had taken Writs of protection from the Enemy or Persecutor) were put to the [Greek or Hebrew] or consistentia, which was a suspension or abstention from the Sacrament, even when the person was admitted to hear and pray with the Church. Wherefore the degrees afore-mentioned were degrees of receiving into the Communion of the Church scandalous persons professing repentance.
If any man shall obj•ct against me and say; Peradventure the Penitents before spoken of, were onely such as did manifest their repentance after excommunication, and these several degrees afore-mentioned, were but the degrees of their reception or admission into the Church, so that all this shall not prove the suspension from the Sacrament of persons not excommunicated. I answer, he that will think so, will be found in a great mistake: and my Argument from Antiquity will yet stand good, for suspending from the Sacrament persons not excommunicated. For first, neither do the Canons of the Councels of Ancyra, and Nice, nor of Gregorius Thaumaturgus and Basilius magnus, nor yet the Commentators Zonaras and Balsamon, apply these five degrees above mentioned to persons who had been excommunicated, but they speak generally of persons who had committed scandalous sins, and afterward were converted and appeared penitent: for instance, those who did backslide and