A42757:865
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
Book 3 › Chapter 6: Of the power of binding and loosing Matth. 18. 18.
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.
As binding and loosing are Acts of authority and power, such as doth not belong to any single person or brother offended, so the binding and loosing mentioned Matth. 18. 18. are Acts of Ecclesiastical and spiritual authority, belonging to the Kingdom and Government of Christ in his Church, but not belonging to the civill Magistrate. And as the authority is Ecclesiastical and spiritual, so it is more than Doctrinal, it is a power of inflicting or taking off Church Censures. These two things I will endeavour to prove. 1. That this power of binding and loosing belongeth neither to private Christians nor to civill Magistrates, but to Church Officers. 2. That this power is juridical or forensicall, and not Doctrinal only; that is, that Church-Officers are here authorised to bind with censures, or to loose from censures, as there shall be cause. In both which we have Antiquity for us. Which I do the rather observe because Erastus and Grotius allege some of the Ancients, for their exposition of Math. 18. 18. that this binding or loosing is by the offended brother. That which Augustine, Origen, and Theophylact say of one brother his binding or loosing, is but spoken tropologically, and not as the literal sense of the Text, yea, Theophylact in that passage cited by Erastus and Grotius, doth distinguish between the Ministerial or Ecclesiastical binding and loosing, and the party offended his binding and loosing. Non enim solùm quae solvunt sacerdotes sunt soluta, sed quaecunque & nos &c. Theophylact doth also find excommunication in that Text Illam autem (Ecclesiam) si non audierit, tunc abjiciatar, ne suae maliti• participes faciat alios. I further appeal to Augustine himself Epist. 75. where speaking of Excommunication and Anathema he distinguisheth it from corporal punishment, and after he hath spoken of the temporal sword he addeth, Spiritualis autem paena, qua fit quod scriptum est, Quae ligaveris in terra, erunt ligata & in caelo, animas obligat. But the spiritual punishment, by which that thing is done which is written, What thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, doth bind soul•. Again in his ⟨p. 410⟩sixth Tome lib. 1. contra adversarium legis & prophetarum •ap. 17.