A42757:243
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.
tells us, that the children of excommunicate persons were not circumcised. 6. M. Selden de jure nat. & Gent. lib. 7. cap. 10. tells us, that the Hebrew Doctors themselves do not agree concerning that cutting off in the Law. He saith that R. Bechai and others, make three sorts of cutting off. i. a cutting off, whereby the body only is cut off, which they understand by that phrase Levit. 20. 6. I will cut him off from among his people: and this is untimely death Palm 55. 23. Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days. 2. They say there was another cutting off, which was of the soul only, Levit. 18. 29. the souls that commit these things •all be cut off from among their people. By this cutting off (they say) the soul ceaseth to have a being, the body not being taken away by death, before the natural period. 3. They make a third kind, whereby both soul and body is cut off, ⟨p. 59⟩Num. 15. 31. That soul shall be utterly cut off, his iniquity shall be upon him. Whereby (say they) both the body is destroyed before the natural time, and likewise the soul ceaseth to have a being. But whatsoever any of the Hebrews fancied in their declining latter times, concerning that second kind of cutting off, (which M. Selden doth not approve, but relate out of them) I am confident it was only the degenerating notion of Excommunication; and that very fancy of theirs, is a footstep thereof; which may make us easily believe that the more ancient Hebrews in purer times, did understand that such a cutting off was mentioned in the Law, by which a man in respect of his Spiritual being was cut off from the Church of Israel, whiles his natural life and being was not taken from him. Yea Gul•elmus Vorstius annot. in Maimon. de fundam. legis pag. 60. showeth us, that some of the Hebrews acknowledge nothing under the name of the cutting off, but that which is the cutting off of the soul only. But if there be so much as some cutting off mentioned in the Law, which concerneth a mans Spiritual estate only, it doth abundantly confirm what I plead for: and I shall not need to assert, that everywhere in the Law Excommunication must needs be understood by cutting off. Some understand the cutting off in the Judicial or Civill laws, to be meant of capital punishments: