A42757:255
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.
To the fifth I Answer, 1. If there was an exclusion from Reading, Expounding, Preaching, and Prayer, then much more from Sacraments, in which there is more of the communion of Saints. 2. He that was cast out of the Synagogue might not enter in the Synagogue, saith Menochius in Jo. 9. 22. therefore he did not communicate in Prayer with the Congregation, nor in other acts of Divine Worship, (which how far it is applicable to excommunication in the Christian Church, I do not now dispute, nor are all of one opinion, concerning excommunicate persons, their admission unto some, or exclusion from all public Ordinances, hearing of the word and all) I know Erastus answereth the word Synagogue may signify either the material house, the place of Assembling; or the people, the congregation which did Assemble; and some who differ in Judgement from us in this particular, hold that when we read of putting out of the Synagogue, the word Synagogue doth not signify the house or place of public worship (which yet it doth signify in other places, as Luk. 7. 5. Act. 18. 7.) but the Church or Assembly it self. But I take it to signify both jointly; and that it was a casting out, even from the place it self, such as that Jo. 9. 34. [Greek or Hebrew]. and they cast him out, or excommunicated him, as the English Translators add in the Margin. Besides, I take what it is granted. It was a casting out from the Assembly, or Congregation it self. But how could a man be cast out from the Congregation, and yet be free to come where the Congregation was Assembled together? O but he must keep off four cubits distance, from all other men. And was there so much room to reel to and fro in the Synagogue? I do not understand how a man shall satisfy himself in that notion. But I rather think Bertramus speaks rationally, that he that was excommunicate by Niddui was shut out ab hominum contubernio atque ade• ab ipsius Tabernaculi aditu. de Rep. Jud. cap. 7. which Niddui he takes to be the same with casting out of the Synagogue. He that was cast out from mens society, must needs be excluded from the public holy Assemblies, and from the place where these Assemblies are. Whereunto agreeth that ⟨p. 66⟩which we read in Exc. Gem. Sanhedrin cap. 3. Sect. 9. a certain Disciple, having after two and twenty years divulged that which had been said in the School of R.