A42758:271
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…
An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyterial government.An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of ruling-elders and of the authority of presbyteries and synods with a postscript in answer to a treatise lately published against presbyteriall government.
Edinburgh: printed for James Bryson, 1641Edinburgh: printed for Iames Bryson, 1641
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.
First, we find Deut. 17. a distinction of two supreme Judicatories, to be set in the place which the Lord should choose to put ⟨p. 169⟩his name there, the one of the Priests & Levi•s, the other of the Judges: & unto these two supreme Courts, the Lord appointed all matters which were too hard for the inferior Judges in the Cities of the Land, to be brought and determined by their authority, and the sentence of the Priests or of the Judges to be obeyed both by the parties and by the inferior Judges, under pain of death, v. 8.9.10.11.12.1 To this Sutlivius answereth, that there is only one Sanhedrin in that place, which was civill, as appeareth by their judging of the causes of blood, and their receiving of appellations from the civill Judges mentioned in the preceding Chapter. As for the Judge which is spoken of v. 9. and 12. he saith, we must understand that it was the high Priest. Ans. 1. The disjunctive Or doth distinguish the Judges from the Priests, verse 12. as Junius and Ainsworth do rightly note upon that place: The man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest (that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God) or unto the Judge. Here a distinction betwixt the Court of the Priests and the Court of the Judges, which Lyranus also acknowledgeth. 2. The Chaldee readeth Judges in the plural. By the Judge, saith Ainsworth, is understood the high Council or Senate of ⟨p. 170⟩Judges, even as they who are called Priests, verse 9. are called the Priest, verse 12. and 1 Chron. 4.42. many Captains are in the Hebrew called an head. 3. The high Priest cannot be understood to be the Judge there spoken of, both because there were many Judges, as hath been said, and because we find not in Scripture that ever the high Priest was called by the name of the Judge. 4. Whereas he objecteth that the causes of blood, and other civill causes were judged in this Sanhedrin. We answer, there were two several things in those civill causes,2