2. Against the schism, occasioned by the doctrine of the false teachers that troubled the Church, Acts xv. 1, 2, the synod put forth a censuring power, stigmatizing the false teachers with the infamous brands of troubling the Church with words, subverting of souls, and (tacitly, as some conceive from that expression, "Unto whom we gave no such commandment," ver. 24) of belying the apostles and elders of Jerusalem, as if they had sent them abroad to preach this doctrine. _Object_. But the synod proceeded not properly to censure the false teachers by any ecclesiastical admonition, or excommunication; therefore the power exercised in the synod was only doctrinal, and not properly juridical. _Ans_. 1. They censured them in some degree, and that with a mark of infamy, ver. 24, as was manifested. And this was not only a warning and hint to the churches, to note such false teachers, avoid them, and withdraw from them, compare Rom. xvi. 17, 18, with 1 Tim. vi. 3-5; but also was a virtual admonition to the false teachers themselves, while their doctrines and ways were so expressly condemned. 2. They proceeded not to present excommunication, it is granted; nor was it at first dash seasonable, prudent, or needful. But the synod knew well, that if these false teachers, after this synodal mark of disgrace set upon them, should still persist in their course, incurably and incorrigibly obstinate, they might in due time be excommunicated by course; it being a clear case in itself that such heretics or schismatics, as otherwise cannot be reduced, are not to be suffered, but to be cast out of the churches. "An heretic, after once or twice admonition, reject," Tit. iii. 10, 11; see Rev. ii. 2, 14, 20.