A42757:242
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.
So that as I. Coch. annot▪ in Sanhedrin. cap. 9. saith well, death inflicted by the hand of God is less then [Greek or Hebrew] cutting off. Nam exterminii post mortem poena luitur. The same thing Guil. Vorstius confirmeth out of Maimonides, annot. in Maimon. de fundam. legis pag. 127. And Abrabanel de capite fidei cap. 8. saith that the greatest reward is the life of the world to come, and the greatest punishment is the cutting off of the soul. Now this could not so fitly be resembled, and shadowed forth by the cutting off from the land of the living, either by the hand of God, or by the hand of the Magistrate, as by cutting off from the Church, and from the communion of Saints, by excommunication, which is summum futuri judicii praejudicium, as Tertullian called it, and fore-showeth that the ungodly shall not stand in the judgement, nor ⟨p. 58⟩sinners in the congregation of the righteous, Psal. 1. 5. But Gods taking away of a man by death in the phrase of the Old Testament, is not a cutting off from, but a gathering of him unto his people; yea kit is said of wicked Ishmael when he died, he was gathered unto his people. And as for the abbreviation of life, and the untimeliness of death in youth, or middle age, that both is now, and was of old, one of the things which come alike to all, to the good as well as to the bad. As touching the capital punishment of malefactors by the hand of the Magistrate, it being founded upon the very law of nature, and common to all Nations, without as well as within the Church, (so that very often those from whom a malefactor is cut off, are not so much as by profession the Church and people of God:) it cannot so fitly resemble the separation or casting out of a man from having part or portion of the inheritance of the Saints in light. 5. Dr. Buxtorf lexic. chald. Talm. & Rahbin. page 1101. tells us that this difference was put between him that was guilty of cutting off, and him that was guilty of death. Reus▪ mortis, ipse tantum, non semen ejus: paena excidii comprehendit ipsum & semen ejus. Now if the punishment of death was personal one• ▪ and the punishment of cutting off, comprehensive not only of them but of their seed, how can this agree so well, to any thing else, as to Excommunication; especially if that hold which Godwin in his Moses and Aaron lib. 5. cap. 2.