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.

3.  Against the scandal of the weak Jews, and their heart-estrangement from the Gentiles, who neglected their ceremonial observances, as also against the scandal of the Gentiles, who were much troubled and offended at the urging of circumcision, and the keeping of the law as necessary to salvation, ver. 1, 2, 19, 24, the synod put forth an ordering or regulating power, framing practical rules or constitutions for the healing of the scandal, and for prevention of the spreading of it, commanding the brethren of the several churches to abstain from divers things that might any way occasion the same:  “It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to impose” (or lay) “upon you no further burden than these necessary things,” Acts xv. 28, 29.  Here is burden and necessary things, (so judged to be necessary for those times, and that state of the Church,) and imposing of these upon the churches:  will not this amount to a plain ordering power and authority?  Especially considering that the word to impose, or lay on, when it is used of the judgment, act, or sentence of an assembly, ordinarily signifies an authoritative judgment, or decree, as, “Why tempt ye God, to lay, or impose, a yoke upon the neck of the disciples?” Acts