37. (Book 37)
Unto the Universall Synode also (when it may be had) is to be referred the judgement of controversies, not of all, but of those which are controversia juris, controversies of right, neither yet of all those, but of the chief and most weigh∣ty controversies of the orthodox faith, or of the most hard and unusuall cases of Conscience. Of the controversies of fact there is another and different consideration to be had; for be∣sides that it would be a great inconvenience that plaintifes, per∣sons accused, and witnesses be drawne from the most remote Churches, to the generall or universall Counsell; the visible communion it selfe of all the Churches (on which the universal Counsel is built, and whereupon as on a foundation it leaneth) is not so much of company, fellowship, or conversation, as of Religion and Doctrine. All true Churches of the World doe indeed professe the same true Religion and faith; but there is beside this a certaine commixture and conjunction of the Churches of the same Nation, as to a more near fellowship,