A42757:584
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.
But we deny that (in a well constituted Church) it is agreeable to the will of Christ, for the Magistrate, either ⟨p. 254⟩cto receive appeals (properly so called) from the sentence of an Ecclesiastical Court, or to receive complaints exhibited against that sentence by the party censured, so as by his authority, upon such complaint, to nullify or make void the Ecclesiastical censure. The latter of these two V•delius pleadeth for, not the former. But Apollonius oppugneth the latter, as being upon the matter all one with the former. Now to ascribe such power to the Magistrate, is 1. To change the Pope, but not the Popedom; the Head, but not the Headship; for is not this the Popes chief supremacy, to judge all men▪ and to be judged of no man, to ratify or rescind at his pleasure the decrees of the Church, Councils •nd all: and shall this power now be transferred upon the Magistrate? Good Lord, where are we, if this shall be the up-shot of our Reformation? O• for it? Shall we condemn the Papists and Anabaptists who give too little to the Magistrate, and then join hands with the Arminians, who give as much to the Magistrate as the Pope hath formerly usurped? 2. Appeals lie in the same line of subordination, and do not go de g•nere in genus; but the civil and Ecclesiastical Courts stand not in one line, neither are they of one kind and nature; they are disparata, non subordinata. 3. They who receive appeals, have also power to […] the sentence, else the appeal is in vain. But the Magistrate hath no power to execute the Church censure, nor to shut out of the Church, our opposites themselves being Judges. It was not therefore without just cause that Augustine did v•ry •uch •lame the Donatists for their appealing from the Ecclesiastical Assemblies, to the Emperors and civil Courts, Epist. 48. and Epist. 162.
But we deny that (in a well constituted Church) it is agreeable to the will of Christ, for the Magistrate, either