A42757:752
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 for the ⟨p. 546⟩places he citeth, I find in Tertullians Book de poenitentia much of that Exomologesis and public Declaration of Repentance, but that all scandalous persons brought under Church-censures were wholly cast out of the Church, I find not; In the 39 Chapter of his Apologetic there is no such thing as is alleged, but the contrary plainly intimated, econcerning several degrees of Ecclesiastical Discipline, and that if any mans offence was so great, as to deserve excommunication, then he was excommunicate and wholly cast out of the Church. And as in the Ancient Churches there were, and in the reformed Churches there now are different degrees of censures, according to the different degrees of offences: so in the Jewish Church the like may be observed, both concerning Ceremonial uncleanness, and moral offences. Touching the former, that Law Num. 5. 2. command the children of Israel that they put out of the Camp every Leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead, hath been understood by the Jewish Doctors respectivè, that is, that the, Leper was put out of all the three Camps, the Camp of Israel the Camp of the Levites, and the Camp of divine Majesty which was the Tabernacle: he that had an issue might be in the Camp of Israel, but was put out of the other two. He that was defiled by the dead, was only restrained from the Camp of divine Majesty, for which also see before Book. 1. Ch•p. 10. And touching moral offences, there were several Steps and degrees in the Jewish excommunication, as fMaster Selden hath observed from the Talmudists: for first a man was separate from the Congregation for 30 days, and if thereafter he was found obstinate, he was separate for other 30 days, and if after 60 days he did not repent, then they passed from the lesser excommunication to the greater, that is from Niddui and Shammatha (as he thinketh) to Cherem or Anathema. The Author of the Queries, while he argueth in that first Quaere against the suspending from the Sacrament of a person not excommunicated nor wholl• cast out of the Church, closeth in this particular with them of the Separation (which I believe he did it not intend to do;) for they in one of their Letters in