A42757:182
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 sixth place which intimateth an Ecclesiastical Sanhedrin, is Jerem. 18. 18. where the adversaries of Jeremiah say among themselves, Come and let us devise devices against Jeremiah, for the Law shall not perish from the Priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the Prophet. Come, and let us smite him with the tongue. The force of their argument, (as not only our Interpreters, but Maldonat also and Sanctius, following Aquinas and Lyra, tell us) stands in this, those who are of greatest authority in the Church, the Priests, Prophets, and Elders, with whom are the Oracles of truth, do contradict Jeremiah, therefore he is a false Prophet. But what was the ground of this consequence? surely the ground was, that which Bullinger and the late English Annotations do observe, namely, the Popish error was also their error, the Church cannot err. But let us yet follow the argument to the bottom. How came they to think the Church cannot err? or what was that Church which they thought infallible? No doubt they had respect to the Law of the Sanhedrin, Deut. 17. 10, 11, 12. And thou shalt do according to the sentence which they of that place (which the Lord shall •hoose) shall show thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee. According to the sentence of the Law which they shall teach thee, and according to the ⟨p. 21⟩judgement which they shall tell thee, thou shalt […]: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall show thee, to the right hand, or to the left; And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest (that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God) or unto the Judge, even that man shall die. From this Scripture misapplied they drew an argument against Jeremiah. Wherein their meaning could not be this, that the doctrine of every individual Priest, or of every individual Scribe, is infallible, (for as the Law now cited did speak of the Sanhedrin, not of individual Priests, so neither the Jews of old nor the Papists after them, have drawn the conceited infallibility so low, as to every particular Priest.) But they mean collectively, and point at an assembly or council of Priests, Wise-men, and Prophets, which (as they apprehended) could not err, and whose determination they preferred to the word of the Lord by Jeremiah: