rve the tables of the poor, by
distributing the funds of the church, according to the respective
necessities of the saints, 1 Tim. iii. 12.

_Quest_. What are the courts in which presbyterian rulers meet?

_Ans_. Congregational sessions, presbyteries, and synods.

_Quest_. Where is the divine warrant for congregational sessions?

_Ans_. From Matt, xviii. 15-18, where, in the Christian form of church
discipline prescribed by the Church's Head, the concluding expression,
"Let him be unto thee as a heathen man and publican," plainly alludes to
the Jewish form of procedure in scandals. They had rulers, and
consequently courts in every synagogue, or worshipping congregation,
Mark v. 35-39. By virtue of letters from the high-priest to these, Saul
had free access to punish the Christians in every synagogue, Acts ix. 1,
2. To these congregational courts it pertained to cast out of the
synagogue, and to order transgressors to be held for heathen men and
publicans, John ix. 22. Now Jesus, in alluding to these, intimates that
similar courts should be in every Christian congregation. In this form
of discipline our divine Saviour shows his utmost aversion against
private offences being unnecessarily published abroad: and therefore the
church, to which the offence is to be told, after private admonition is
fruitless, must be understood in the most private sense of the word. The
following context evidences that it is a _church_, which may consist
only of _two or three_ met together in Christ's name; yet,
notwithstanding, a church having power to bind and loose from censure;
that is, a church having the keys of the kingdom of heaven. It cannot
then be the whole congregation or body of the people, as they are in
general far too numerous to conceal offences, and to them Christ has
given no formal judicial power, Matt. xviii. 18-21.

_Quest_. Where is the divine warrant for a presbytery?

_Ans_. Timothy is expressly said to be ordained by the laying on of the
hands of the PRESBYTERY, 1 Tim. iv. 14. And the number of different
Christian congregations governed by one presbytery, as at Jerusalem,
Antioch, Ephesus, and Corinth, proves the divine right of this court. It
is shown in the xiii. chapter of the preceding treatise, that in each
of these places there were more Christians than could meet in one
worshipping congregation, for the enjoying of public ordinances: and yet
all these different congregations, at Jerusalem, are expressly s