judicatories, that inflicted public punishments upon persons ecclesiastically offending? Besides, we read often in the New Testament of the _rulers of the synagogue_, as Mark v. 35, 36, 38; Luke viii. 41, and xiii. 14; and of Crispus and Sosthenes the chief _rulers of the synagogue_, Acts xviii. 8, 17; whence is intimated to us, that these synagogues had their rule and government in themselves; and that this rule was not in one person, but in divers together; for if there were chief rulers, there were also inferiors subordinate unto them: but this is put out of doubt, in Acts xiii. 15, where after the lecture of the law and the prophets, _the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them_--_synagogue_ in the singular number, and rulers in the plural. Thus analogically there should be ecclesiastical rulers and governors in every single congregation, for the well guiding thereof. But if this satisfy not, add hereunto the material passages in our Saviour's speech. 2. Now touching the matter of our Saviour's discourse, it makes this very clear to us; for by a gradation he leadeth us from admonition private and personal, to admonition before two or three witnesses, and from admonition before two or three witnesses, to the representative body of one church, (as the phrase _tell the church_ must here necessarily be interpreted,) if there the difference can be composed, the offence removed, or the cause ended; rather than unnecessarily render the offence, and so our brother's shame, more public and notorious. And that the presbytery or eldership of a particular congregation, vested with power to hear and determine such cases as shall be brought before them, is partly, though not only here intended, seems evident in the words following, which are added for the strengthening and confirming of what went before in ver. 17: "Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," Matt. xviii. 18-20. In which passages these things are to be noted: 1. That this church to which the complaint is to be made, is invested with power of _binding_ and _loosing_, and that so authoritatively that what by this church shall be bound or loosed on earth shall also be bound or loosed in heaven, according to Christ's promise. 2. That these acts of _binding_ or _loosing_, may be the acts but of two or three, and therefore consequently of the eldership of a particular congregation; for where such a juridical act was dispatched by a classical presbytery, it is said to be done of _many_, 2 Cor. ii. 6, because that in such greater presbyteries there are always more than _two or three_. And