; which words signify the principal person of the assembly, whose office was to number the votes, and to declare thereby who was chosen; and where the votes were equal, to decide the matter in question by adding his own; which is the office of a president in council. And, because all the Churches had their presbyters ordained in the same manner, where the word is “constitute” (as Titus 1:5), ἵνα καταστησης κατα πόλιν πρεσβυτέρους , “For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldst constitute elders in every city,” we are to understand the same thing, namely, that he should call the faithful together, and ordain them presbyters by plurality of suffrages. It had been a strange thing, if in a town, where men perhaps had never seen any magistrate otherwise chosen than by an assembly, those of the town becoming Christians should so much as have thought on any other way of election of their teachers and guides, that is to say, of their presbyters (otherwise called bishops), than this of plurality of suffrages, intimated by St. Paul (Acts 14:23) in the word χειροτονήσαντες