A42757:181
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.
Wherefore from this place, these two things may appear: 1▪ That the Court of the Priests had not power of capital punishments; for if they had, certainly Jeremiah had been put to death, as Hierom noteth. 2. Yet they had a power to judge of a false Prophet, and judicially to pronounce him to be a false Prophet, and such a one as ought to be punished so and so, according to the Law. That they had such a power, appeareth, 1. from V. 8, 9. where they do not take him to lead him to the Court of the Princes, and there to accuse him; but they take him, so as to give forth their own sentence against him, as against a false Prophet, Thou shalt surely die, say they, why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, &c. Why didst thou dare to pretend the name of God, as if God had sent thee to preach against the Temple and holy City? 2. Jeremiah doth not in all his differences allege that the Priests and Scribes had not power to judge of a false Prophet, or to give sentence against one in such a case. Nor yet did the Princes object this, as hath been said; yet this had been as strong an exception as could have been made against the Priests, if they had assumed a power and authority of judgement, which was without their Sphere, and did not at all belong unto them. ⟨p. 20⟩3. If you compare the sentence of the Priests with the sentence of the Princes, the former is in suo genere, no less judicial, authoritative, and peremptory, than the later: only that was affirmative, this was negative. Finally, let us take for a conclusion of this Argument, that which Mr. Prynne himself in his fourth part of The Sovereign power of Parliaments and Kingdoms, pag. 144. tells us out of vindiciae contra Tyrannos, with an approbatory and encomiastic close of his citation. Jeremiah being sent by God to denounce the overthrow of the City Jerusalem, is for this first condemned (citing in the Margin Jerem. 26.) by the Priests and Prophets, that is, by the Ecclesiastical Judgement or Senate: after this by all the people, that is, by the ordinary Judges of the City, to wit, by the Captains of thousands and hundreds: at last by the Princes of Judah: that is, by 71 men sitting in the new porch of the Temple; his cause being made known, he is acquitted.
Wherefore from this place, these two things may appeare: 1▪ That the Court of the Priests had not power of capitall punishments; for if they had, certainly Ieremiah had been put to death, as Hierom noteth. 2. Yet they had a power to judge of a false Prophet, and judicially to pronounce him to be a false Prophet, and such a one as ought to be punished so and so, according to the Law. That they had such a power, appeareth, 1. from V. 8, 9. where they doe not take him to lead him to the Court of the Princes, and there to ccuse him; but they take him, so as to give forth their owne sentence against him, as against a false Prophet, Thou shalt surely die, say they, why hast thou prophesied in the name of the Lord, &c. Why didst thou dare to pretend the name of God, as if God had sent thee to preach against the Temple and holy City? 2. Iremiah doth not in all his differences alledge that the Priests and Scribes had not power to judge of a false Prophet, or to give sentence against one in such a case. Nor yet did the Princes object this, as hath been said; yet this had been as strong an exception as could have been made against the Priests, if they had assumed a power and authority of judgement, which was without their Sphere, and did not at all belong unto them.