1.  Partly, because it is called “The whole multitude,” ver. 12; “The apostles and elders with the whole church,” ver. 22; “The apostles, and elders, and brethren,” ver. 23.  This whole multitude, whole church, and brethren, distinct from the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem, cannot be the company of all the faithful at Jerusalem, for (as hath been evidenced, Chap.  XIV., Position 2,) they were too many to meet in one house.  But it was the synodal multitude, the synodal church, consisting of apostles, and elders, and brethren; which brethren seem to be such as were sent from several churches, as Judas and Silas, ver. 24, who were assistants to the apostles and evangelists—­Judas, Acts xv. 22, 32; Silas, Acts xv. 32, 40, and xvi. 19, and xvii. 4, 14, 15, and xviii. 5.  Some think Titus was of this synod also.

2.  Partly because the brethren of Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, were troubled with this question, ver. 23, 24.  Therefore it cannot be reasonably imagined, but all those places sought out for a remedy; and to that end, severally and respectively sent their delegates to the synod at Jerusalem:  else they had been very regardless of their own church peace and welfare.  And the epistle of the synod was directed to them all by name, ver. 23; and so did formally bind them all, having men of their own members of the synod, which decrees did but materially, and from the nature of the thing, bind the other churches at Lystra and Iconium, Acts xvi. 4.  Now, if there were delegates but from two presbyterial churches, they were sufficient to constitute a synod; and this justifies delegates from ten or twenty churches, proportionably, when there shall be like just and necessary occasion.

Thirdly, Here all the members of the synod, as they were convened by like ordinary authority, so they acted by like ordinary and equal power in the whole business laid before them; which shows it was an ordinary, not an extraordinary synod.  For though apostles and evangelists, who had power over all churches, were members of the synod, as well as ordinary elders; yet they acted not in this synod by a transcendent, infallible, apostolical power, but by an ordinary power, as elders.  This is evident,

1.  Because the Apostle Paul, and Barnabas his colleague, (called a prophet and teacher, Acts xiii. 1, 2, and an apostle, Acts xiv. 14,) were sent as members to this synod, by order and determination of the church of Antioch, and they submitted themselves to that determination, Acts xv. 2, 3; which they could not have submitted unto as apostles, but as ordinary elders and members of the presbytery at Antioch:  they that send, being greater than those that are sent by them.  Upon which ground it is a good argument which is urged against Peter’s primacy over the rest of the apostles, because the college of apostles at Jerusalem sent Peter and John to Samaria, having received the faith, Acts viii. 14.