A42757:299
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.
and if they did, they ought to have been judicially and by authority cast out; for that which was permitted to private persons in the executing of justice or inflicting of punishment, out of their zeal to the glory of God, was much more incumbent to such as had authority in their hands for correcting and removing the profanation of the Temple in an authoritative, judicial, and orderly way. 4. The Levites had a charge to let none that were unclean in any thing enter into the Temple, 2 Chron. 23. 19. Now this is like that 1 Cor. 5. 11. with such a one no not to eat: an argument from the denial of that which is less, to the denial of that which is more. So here, it was a necessary consequence: If those that were ceremonially unclean were to be excluded from the Temple, much more those who were morally or impiously unclean. For, 1. the legal uncleanness did signify ⟨p. 90⟩the sinful uncleanness; and the exclusion of those that were known to be legally unclean from the Temple, did signify the excluding of those who are known to be grossly and notoriously unclean in their life and conversation. Which shall be abundantly confirmed afterwards. Therefore Bertramus de Rep. Ebr. cap. 7. saith rightly that the Levites had a charge to keep from the Temple the uncleane aut etiam alio quovis modo indignos, or those also who were any otherwaies unworthy. 2. Godwin in his Moses and Aaron, lib. 5. cap. 2. makes a comparison between the three degrees of the Jewish excommunication, and the three degrees of excluding the unclean, Numb 5. 2. which parallel if we please to make then as for any of the three sorts of uncleanness, the touch of the dead, issue, or leprosy, a man was excluded from the camp of God or the Sanctuary; so it will follow that even those who were cast out by the Niddui▪ or lowest degree of Excommunication, were fo• a time suspended from communion with the Church in the Ordinances. 3. The Levites were appointed to put a difference not only between the clean and the unclean, but between the holy and unholy, Levit. 10. 10. or between the holy and profane,