The keys of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word…The keyes of the kingdom of heaven and power thereof according to the word…

2. The people by their acts of liberty, as in election of officers, and concurrency in censure of offenders, and in the Determination and Promulgation of Synodal acts; they have a great stroke or power in the ordering of Church affairs, which may be called [Greek or Hebrew], or potestas, a POWER, which many times goeth under the name of rule or authority, but in proper speech it is rather a privilege or liberty then authority, as hath been opened above in Chap. 3. For no act of the peoples power or liberty doth properly bind, unless the authority of the Presbytery concur with it.

2. The people by their acts of liberty, as in election of officers, and concurrency in censure of offenders, and in the Determination and Promulgation of Synodall acts; they have a great stroke or power in the ordering of Church affairs, which may be called 〈non-Latin alphabet〉, or potestas, a POWER, which many times goeth under the name of rule or authoritie, but in proper speech it is rather a priviledge or liberty then authoritie, as hath been opened above in Chap. 3. For no act of the peoples power or liberty doth properly bind, unlesse the authoritie of the Presbytery concur with it.

3. A third argument whereby it may appear that the Elders of a particular Church are the first subject of authority in that Church, is taken from the like removal of other subjects, from whence they might be thought to derive their authority, as was used before to prove the Church of Brethren was the first subject of their own liberty in their own Congregation. The Elders of Churches are never found in Scripture to derive their authority which they exercise in their own congregation, either from the Elders of other Churches, ⟨p. 37⟩or from any Synod of Churches. All particular Churches and all the Elders of them are of equal power, each of them respectively in their own Congregations. None of them call others their Rabbis, or Masters, or Fathers (in respect of any authority over them) but all of them own and acknowledge one another as fellow Brethren,