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 though some do pretend, that the faults here spoken of by our Saviour in this place, were injuries, not scandals; and that the church here mentioned was not any ecclesiastical consistory, or court, but the civil Sanhedrin, a court of civil judicature; and yet most absurdly they interpret the binding and loosing here spoken of, to be doctrinal and declarative; not juridical and authoritative; as if the doctrinal binding and loosing were in the power of the civil Sanhedrin:[107] yet all these are but vain, groundless pretences and subterfuges, without substance or solidity, as the learned and diligent reader may easily find demonstrated by consulting these judicious authors mentioned in the foot note,[108] to whom for brevity’s sake he is referred for satisfaction in these and divers such like particulars.

3.  The consideration of the apostolical practice, and state of the Church of God in those times, may serve further to clear this matter to us.  For, 1.  We sometimes read of single congregations; and as the Holy Ghost doth call the whole body of Christ the Church, Matt. xvi. 18, 1 Cor. xii. 28, and often elsewhere; and the larger particular members of that body of Christ (partaking the nature of the whole, as a drop of water is as true water as the whole ocean) churches; as, the church of Jerusalem, Acts viii. 1; the church of Antioch, Acts xiii. 1; the church of Ephesus, Rev. ii. 1; the church of Corinth, 2 Cor. i. 1; (these being the greater presbyterial churches, as after will appear, Chap.  XIII.;) so the same holy Spirit of Christ is pleased to style single congregations, churches, “Let women keep silence in the churches,” 1 Cor. xiv. 34, i.e. in the single congregations of this one church of Corinth:  and often mention is made of the church that is in such or such an house, as Rom. xvi. 5; 1 Cor. xvi. 19; Col. iv. 15; Philem. 2; whether this be interpreted of the church made up only of the members of that family, or of the church that ordinarily did meet in such houses, it implies a single congregation.  Now shall single congregations have the name and nature of churches, and shall we imagine they had not in them the ordinary standing church officers, viz.