A42757:180
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.
The fifth place which I take to hold forth that distinction of Courts and Jurisdictions is Jerem. 26, where first the Prophet is taken into the Court of the Priests and Prophets, for which the Chaldee readeth Scribes, whose office it was to be Doctors of the law, and to resolve the difficult cases, and in that capacity they were members of Ecclesiastical councils, Matth. 2. 4. To the same sense saith Diodati, that the Prophets here spoken of, were such as were learned in the law, and had been bred in the Schools and Colleges of the chief Prophets, and in Jeremiahs time were present at Ecclesiastical judgements and assemblies, 2 Kings 23. 2. as in Christs […] Scribes and Doctors of the Law used to be, who were somewhat like these Prophets. Menochius and others expound it as the Chaldee doth. In this Court Jeremiah was examined and judged as a false Prophet, V. 8. 9. yet though they had judged him worthy to die, the Court of the Princes acquitteth him as a Prophet of the Lord, who had spoken to them in the name of the Lord, V. 10, 11, 16. That Jeremiahs cause was twice judged in two distinct Courts, and two different sentences upon it, hath been asserted by divers of the Erastian party to prove appeals from Ecclesiastical to Civill courts: to which argument I have elsewhere spoken. ⟨p. 19⟩Only I take here what they grant, that there were two Courts, and two sentences given, and so it was. The sentence of the Court of the Priests, (as themselves explain it, V. 11.) was this, This man is worthy to die, or as the Hebrew hath it, the judgement of death is for this man. The Chaldee thus, a sin of the judgement of death is upon this man. For (say they) he hath […] so and so; and he that speaketh against this City, and against this holy place is worthy to die. But the sentence •f the Court of the Princes is V. 16. This man is n•t worthy to die, for he hath spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God. They do not say to the Priests, Who did put any jurisdiction or authority to judge, in your hands? but they acquit him in point of fact, whom the Court of the Priests had condemned in point of right, as if they had said to the Priests, if Jeremiah were a false Prophet, you had reason to call for justice upon him even unto death: but your judgement hath run upon a false supposition in point of fact, which we do not find proved, but know to be false.