Ans.  In Acts xv. and xvi., where we have a cause referred; the proper members of a synod convened; the ordinary and equal power exercised by all those members; the ordinary method of procedure in such courts; and the judicial decrees given by the synod; together with the effect which their judgment, in this matter, had upon the churches.

Quest.  What was the cause referred to this synod?

Ans.  False doctrine propagated by some Judaizing teachers, who had gone down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and maintained that circumcision and the observance of other branches of the ceremonial law continued necessary for salvation, whereby they subverted some, and troubled other members of the churches there.  After much unsuccessful disputing, Paul, Barnabas, and others were delegated to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this matter.

Quest.  Who were the proper members of the synod convened here?

Ans.  The apostles and elders at Jerusalem; Paul, Barnabas, and others, from Antioch; and other commissioners from the troubled churches to whom the decrees were sent.

Quest.  Are not the brethren, the church, the whole church, mentioned here as well as the apostles and elders?

Ans.  But none of these expressions can mean, that all the members of the church of Jerusalem either were present or judged in that synod; for women, real members of the church, of the whole church, are expressly forbid to speak in the church, 1 Cor. xiv. 34.  Church sometimes signifies only a small part of the church, either as delegates or commissioners, and in this sense it is used in verse 3, where the commissioners from Antioch are said to be brought on their way by the church; and in chap. xviii. 22, it is said that Paul saluted the church at Jerusalem.  Now, it is not credible that all the Christian professors at Antioch would attend their commissioners a part of the way to Jerusalem; or that Paul saluted the many ten thousand Christians at Jerusalem, Acts xxi. 20.  And the whole church does not necessarily mean the whole individual members of the church, more than the whole world mentioned, 1 John ii. 2, means every individual in the world.  If any, to support a favorite opinion, will still insist that the whole members of the church actually met and judged of this affair equally with the apostles and elders, they may inform us where they obtained a proper place for so many judges to reason and determine with distinctness or order.  That the brethren who joined in judgment with the apostles and elders were not private persons, but rather delegates from the troubled churches around, appears from Judas and Silas, two of them being preachers, v. 22.

Quest.  How does it appear that the power of all the members was ordinary and equal?