that its polity also
was borrowed from the institutions of the chosen people. [251:5] Every
Jewish congregation was governed by a bench of elders; and in every city
there was a smaller sanhedrim, or presbytery, consisting of twenty-three
members, [251:6] to which the neighbouring synagogues were subject.
Jerusalem is said to have had two of these smaller sanhedrims, as it was
found that the multitudes of cases arising among so vast a population
were more than sufficient to occupy the time of any one judicatory.
Appeals lay from all these tribunals to the Great Sanhedrim, or
"Council," so frequently mentioned in the New Testament. [252:1] This
court consisted of seventy or seventy-two members, made up, perhaps, in
equal portions, of chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people,
[252:2] The chief priests were probably twenty-four in number--each of
the twenty-four courses, into which the sacerdotal order was divided,
[252:3] thus furnishing one representative. The scribes were the men of
learning, like Gamaliel, [252:4] who had devoted themselves to the study
of the Jewish law, and who possessed recondite, as well as extensive
information. The elders were laymen of reputed wisdom and experience,
who, in practical matters, might be expected to give sound advice.
[252:5] It was not strange that the Jews had so profound a regard for
their Great Sanhedrim. In the days of our Lord and His apostles it had,
indeed, miserably degenerated; but, at an earlier period, its members
must have been eminently entitled to respect, as in point of
intelligence, prudence, piety, and patriotism, they held the very
highest place among their countrymen.

The details of the ecclesiastical polity of the ancient Israelites are
now involved in much obscurity; but the preceding statements may be
received as a pretty accurate description of its chief outlines. Our
Lord himself, in the sermon on the mount, is understood to refer to the
great council and its subordinate judicatories; [252:6] and in the Old
Testament appeals from inferior tribunals to the authorities in the holy
city are explicitly enjoined. [253:1] All the synagogues, not only in
Palestine but in foreign countries, obeyed the orders of the Sanhedrim
at Jerusalem; [253:2] and it constituted a court of review to which all
other ecclesiastical arbiters yielded submission.

In the government of the Apostolic Church we may trace a resemblance to
these arrangements. Every Christian cong