We may thus see that the transaction mentioned in the 15th chapter of the Acts admits of a simple and satisfactory explanation.  When the question respecting the circumcision of the Gentile converts began to be discussed at Antioch, there were individuals in that city quite as well qualified as any in Jerusalem to pronounce upon its merits; for the Church there enjoyed the ministry of prophets; and Paul, its most distinguished teacher, was “not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.”  But the parties proceeded in the matter in much the same way as Israelites were accustomed to act under similar circumstances.  Had a controversy relative to any Mosaic ceremony divided the Jewish population of Antioch, they would have appealed for a decision to their Great Sanhedrim; and now, when this dispute distracted the Christians of the capital of Syria, they had recourse to another tribunal at Jerusalem which they considered competent to pronounce a deliverance. [254:1] This tribunal consisted virtually of the rulers of the universal Church; for the apostles, who had a commission to all the world, and elders from almost every place where a Christian congregation existed, were in the habit of repairing to the capital of Palestine.  In one respect this judicatory differed from the Jewish council, for it was not limited to seventy members.  In accordance with the free spirit of the gospel dispensation, it appears to have consisted of as many ecclesiastical rulers as could conveniently attend its meetings.  But the times were somewhat perilous; and it is probable that the ministers of the early Christian Church did not deem it expedient to congregate in very large numbers.

A single Scripture precedent for the regulation of the Church is as decisive as a multitude; and though the New Testament distinctly records only one instance in which a question of difficulty was referred by a lower to a higher ecclesiastical tribunal, this case sufficiently illustrates the character of the primitive polity.  A very substantial reason can be given why Scripture takes so little notice of the meetings of Christian judicatories.  The different portions of the New Testament were put into circulation as soon as written; and though it was most important that the heathen should be made acquainted with the doctrines of the Church, it was not by any means expedient that their attention should be particularly directed to the machinery by which it was regulated.  An accurate knowledge of its constitution would only have exposed it more fearfully to the attacks of persecuting Emperors.  Every effort would have been made to discover the times and places of the meetings of pastors and teachers, and to inflict a deadly wound on the Church by the destruction of its office-bearers.  Hence, in general, its courts appear to have assembled in profound secrecy; and thus it is that, for the first three centuries, so little is known of the proceedings of these conventions.