on is that church
subject to a provincial or a national assembly; and by the same
proportion that one congregation is governed by the particular eldership
representing it, by the same proportion are ten or twelve congregations
governed by a classical presbytery representing them all.

2. From the sufficiency of that remedy that Christ here prescribes for
those emergent exigencies under which the Church may lie; since,
therefore, offences may as well arise between two persons in the same
congregation, Christ hath appointed that particular congregations, as
well as members, shall have liberty to complain and appeal to a more
general judgment for redress: the salve here prescribed by Christ is
equal to the sore; if the sore of scandal may overspread whole churches,
as well as particular persons, then certainly the salve of appeals and
subordination is here also appointed. If a man be scandalized by the
neighbor-church, to whom shall he complain? The church offending must
not be both judge and party.

3. From that ecclesiastical communion that is between churches and
churches in one and the same province or nation, whereby churches are
joined and united together in doctrine and discipline into one body, as
well as divers particular persons in a particular congregation; since,
therefore, scandals may be committed among them that are in that holy
communion one with another, most unworthy of and destructive to that
sacred league, certainly those scandals should be redressed by a
superior judicatory, as well as offences between brother and brother.

4. He that careth for a part of a church must much more care for the
whole; he whose love extends itself to regard the conversion of one, is
certainly very careful of the spiritual welfare of many, the edification
of a whole church; the influence of Christ's love being poured upon the
whole body, bride and spouse, by order of nature, before it redound to
the benefit of a finger or toe, viz. some one single person or other.
Nor are the exceptions against this institution of gradual appeals of
any moment.

The grand one, and that makes directly against our position is, that our
Saviour would have the controversy between brother and brother to be
terminated in a peculiar church, and that its judgment should be
ultimately requested, he saith, _Tell the church_, not churches. The
subordination here appointed by Christ is of fewer to more, but still
within the same church, not without