An assertion of the government of the Church of Scotland in the points of…

Sutlivius denieth both these, and so would have us believe that the Jewish Church had no Ecclesiastical Court at all.¹ As for the Synagogues, he saith, they treated of things civill, and inflicted civill punishments, and a civill excommunication. That they inflicted civill punishment, he proveth from Mat. 10. and 23. and Luke 21. where Christ foretelleth that his Disciples should be beaten in the Synagogues. That their excommunication was civill, he proveth by this reason, that Christ and his Disciples when they were cast out of the Synagogues, had notwithstanding a free entry into the Temple, and access to the sacrifices. Answ. This is a gross mistake; for 1. the civill Court was in the gate of the City, not in the Synagogue. 2. He who presided in the Synagogue was called the chief Ruler of the Synagogue, Acts 18.8.17. the rest who sate and voiced therein, were called the Rulers of the Synagogue, Acts 13.15. They who sate in the civill Court had no such names, but were called Judges. 3. Our Saviour distinguisheth the Synagogical Courts from the civill Courts of judgement in Cities, calling the one Councils, the other ⟨p. 167⟩Synagogues, Matth. 10.17. 4. The beating and scourging in the Synagogues was an error and abuse of the later times, the corrective power of those Consistories being properly spiritual, and ending in excommunication, Jo. 16.2. Isai. 66.5. the liberty of which spiritual censures the Romans did permit to the Jews, together with the liberty of their religion, after they had taken away their civill Jurisdiction. 5. Civill excommunication is an unknown word, and his reason for it is no less unknown; for where he hath read that Christ or any of his Disciples were excommunicate out of the Synagogues, and yet had free access to the Temple, I cannot understand, if it be not in the Gospel of Nicodemus. I read,