"(agxiouraywyos) answered with indignation, because Jesus "had healed on the Sabbath-day." See also Mark v. 35, 36, 38. Acts xvii. 8, 17. Accordingly it is said by Josephus, in his account of his life, p. 1020 and 1022, that the synagogue at Tiberias was governed by a president, gx, and a senate of elders, βουλην: Συνειδων δε την μεταβολην Ιησους, τον μεν δήμον εκέλευεν αναχωρείν, προσμείναι DE την βουλην ηξίωσε; i.. "But Jesus, the president, seeing the state of things alter"ed, ordered the people to depart, but thought it proper "that the senate," or, as it is in the Latin translation, senatum solum, "should remain." And Maimonides, a celebrated Jewish Rabbi, in Hilcoth Taanioth, cap. iv. sect. i. in his Tract. de Jejuniis, represents a synagogue at Jerusa lem as governed by one, whom he denominates princeps or chief, and pater or father, and a synedrium aut collegium apientium, i. e. a senate, or college of wise men. The number of the rulers in their synagogues in large cities, according to Benjamin of Tudela, as quoted by Vitringa, was sometimes very great; and even in their least synagogues, "they were never less," says Goodwin, (p. 58), "than three, that a major vote might cast it among them." Now if a Jew, when offended, though he made known his complaint in the hearing of the other members of the synagogue, submitted it for judgment to the scribes and doctors, who were rulers of the synagogue, and them alone; and if our Saviour, when speaking of the manner in which an offended brother was to proceed in his church, uses precisely the very same language, and bids him tell it expressly to a simi lar church; is it not plain, that, so far at least as the present passage is concerned, instead of proving the right of every member of a Christian congregation to hear and judge in a case of offence, it demonstrates that this power, as in the Jewish synagogue, is committed to the rulers, and the rulers exclusively.

Again, as there was a right of appeal from the determination of the rulers of a particular synagogue to their great sanhedrin, or council of seventy, is it not obvious that this

it may perhaps be difficult to prove from the scriptures, that when a congregation is met in a church-capacity, any member who chuses is warranted to rise, and publicly to exhort, or admonish, or ins struct them.

passage, instead of favouring the Independent plan, of constituting every congregation a complete court in itself, without subjecting it to the review of a Presbytery, strongly establishes the very contrary; and exhibits clearly these first principles of Presbyterians, that, as in the Jewish courts, it is the elders alone who are entitled to govern a particular congregation, and that these again are subject to the authoritative review of other courts, who can either affirm or reverse their decisions *?

It is said, in fine, that we are informed in other places, that the form of government in the New Testament church is completely different from that which existed in the synagogue and sanhedrin, and consequently that it cannot be inferred from this passage, that the administration should be committed in a particular congregation only to those who are elders, and that these again should be subject to the authoritative review of a higher court? It is replied, that when this is proved from these other passages, the inference will be dropt-that it is readily granted, that in so far as the form of government is demonstrated from these passages to be altered, it ought to be altered-but unless it can be evinced from them, that it is changed in the points about which we are now inquiring, and is taken from the elders in a particular congregation, and in an equal degree given to all the members of a congregation, without any possibility of appeal to a higher court, the inference is good. So far, however, as the passage before us is viewed in itself, and explained by the allusion to which it refers, though brought forward by you and the rest of your brethren, as the first argument for Independency, it seems naturally to establish the very contrary, and to prove that in a Christian congregation, as in a Jewish synagogue, it is the elders alone, and

* Accordingly Prynne, a very noted ancient divine, who favoured some of the sentiments of Independents, in his Answer to Gillespie, affirms, in opposition to you, that by the church, or assembly, mentioned by Matthew, is intended, not the members of a particular congregation, but the sanhedrin; and quotes Josephus, as if he had spoken of this text, and applied the very name here employed by the Evangelist to that celebrated court. For an account of this court, and of the synagogue, with a solution of some objec tions urged against this argument, see Appendix.

not the members, and the elders as subordinate to the authoritative review of a superior court, who are appointed to govern the church of God *.

It is urged indeed by Goodwin, (p. 60), that no argument can be adduced in favour of Presbytery, from the application of the terms descriptive of the synagogue and of the mode of procedure in it, in cases of offence to the Christian church," because the "manner is oftentimes to speak in the language of the Old Testa“ment when the same thing," or an exact correspondency to it " is not meant; as when Christ speaks of the person offending, "Matth. v. 22, he expresseth the degrees of punishment to several "sins, under the names of three courts amongst the Jews, and yet "he meaneth spiritual degrees of punishment. Thus, too, in 1 Cor. "ix. 13, the whole service of the sanctuary is called the altar (he "that serveth at the altar, must live of the altar); yet there is no "such altar erected amongst us as was amongst the Jews. And the "prophets also, prophesying of the times of the gospel, spake of "our ordinances anew to be instituted in Old-Testament language; "so, in Isaiah Ixvi. 23. They shall go from one new moon to another. "Though, under the gospel, we have not monthly feasts and meetings as they had, yet the meetings that we have are expressed "thereby." From which he concludes, that "though Christ useth "the same words to express the institution of the new churches of "the gospel by, yet it follows not that it is of the same kind with "the old, or that it runneth in the same way." But to this it is answered, that this passage is not here advanced as an argument for Presbytery, though it has been often brought forward with triumph, as an invincible argument in support of Independency-that all that is maintained is simply this, That if we consider the allusion, if it proves any thing, as viewed in itself, and without going elsewhere to discover the constitution of the church, it is in favour of the former, and not of the latter, and consequently that the argument which has so often been drawn from it for Independency necessarily falls. As we must have believed, from the passages produced from Goodwin, that there should be altars, and new moons, and degrees of external punishment among Christians, the same with those which we are assured existed among the Jews, unless it could be evinced from other passages, that a change was enjoined : so it is no less manifest from the present passage, that the government of the Christian church, in the point here specified, must resemble that of the Jewish synagogue, by the name of which it is called, unless it can be demonstrated from other passages, that it is appointed to be altered. And it will not suffice to establish this idea, to inform us that the term church, when applied, as in this place, to a Christian congregation, most commonly, in the New Testament, denotes the whole of the members as well as the rulers, since it is certain that it was understood in the same latitude of signification when applied also to a Jewish synagogue, and yet we know that when a complaint was told in it before the members at large, it was the rulers

2dly, Though it could not be established, that there is a reference to the Jewish synagogues in this passage, it seems equally fair, and much more consistent, to understand by the term church, the elders of the congregation, than the congregation itself.

Nothing is more common than to say, that a thing is to be done to or for a body, which is done only to or by those of that body who represent the whole, and to whom it is competent. And no phraseology was more common among the Jews, than to say that a thing was done by a congregation, which was done only by the elders or rulers of that congregation. Thus, in the case of the manslayer, (Numb. xxxv. 24, 25), it is said, that " the congregation of the city "to which the manslayer and the avenger of blood belong"ed, should judge between them. And that the congre"gation should restore him to the city of his refuge, whi"ther he was fled: And that he should abide in it till the "death of the high-priest." Yet, if Moses may be allowed to explain his own words, even where this is so frequently ascribed to the congregation, it was the elders of the city alone who performed it. "But if any man," says he, (Deut. xix. 11, 12), "hate his neighbour, and lie in wait "for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally "that he die, and fleeth into one of these cities, then the "elders of his city shall send, and fetch him thence, and "deliver him into the hands of the avenger of blood," (i. e. after judging him), "that he may die." Here we see, that what is in, one place repeatedly ascribed to the congregation, is in the other asserted to be done only by the elders; and we are assured, that it was the prerogative of the elders alone, agreeably to the divine appointment, (Deut. xvi. 18), to judge the people. In Joshua xx. 4, 5, it is also said, that "when the manslayer that doth flee into one of these "cities, shall stand at the entering of the gate of the city, " and shall declare his cause in the ears of the elders of the "city; and they shall take him to the city unto them,

alone who judged respecting it. Granting, therefore, all that is desired even by Independents, as to the proper import of the term church, or xxλnoia, no argument can be deduced from it in confirmation of their system.

The usual judges who sat in the gate; and who, if the city contained only a hundred and twenty families, amounted merely to

"and give him a place that he may dwell among them. "And if the avenger of blood pursue after him, then they "shall not deliver the slayer into his hand; because he "smote his neighbour unwittingly, and hated him not be"fore time." And yet it is subjoined, that " he should ❝ dwell in that city, until he stood before the congregation "for judgment." Thus we perceive that while the congregation of the city from which he fled, are said, in this passage, to have judged in the case of the manslayer, in the preceding words we are told that the persons in the city to which he escaped, who heard and decided upon his case, were the elders; and, consequently, as the government of every city was the same, it must have been the elders who were to hear and judge of his conduct in the city from which he came, while yet we are told that he was to stand before the congregation. Accordingly we find, from Philo, Josephus, and other Jewish writers, that it was the elders alone, and not the people, who judged in their cities; and that the congregation, being considered as doing it by them, were said themselves to have exercised the power of judgment, though it was vested in and exercised only by the elders. Agreeably to this, likewise, the Greek transla tors, in their version of the Old Testament, render kahal, the strongest Hebrew word denoting the congregation, in Prov. xxvi. 26, by ruvedeior, a council or assembly of elders*.

three; and if it contained more, according to Josephus, amounted to seven, and according to the Talmudists, to twenty-three.

It is the same word which is used in Luke xxii. 66, and Acts iv. 15, to signify the council of the high-priest, the elders, and the scribes. See also Pasor, who quotes Demosthenes, according to the principle which has been now stated, as employing the word Exxλnox, the word rendered church in Matthew, and the term most frequently used in the Septuagint, even according to Independents, as the translation of kahal or congregation, for an assembly of nobles who were rulers. « Εφοβουντο δε μη εξαίφνης εκκλησία jenta:" "Ubi accipi videtur (says he), pro concione magnatum repente convocatorum," i. e. " It seems to denote here an assem bly of nobles or rulers suddenly convened." And see, too, the author of the Guide to Zion, p. 5, and Ainsworth, in his Counterpoison, p. 113, who, though very keen and very respectable ancient Independents, admitted that the word exxyno, here rendered the church, is used repeatedly by the Seventy for the sanhedrin, who undoubtedly were an assembly only of rulers.

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