ectypal.net

The validity and authority of supralocal bodies such as synods in particular circumstances was something that only the most radical of Independents would deny. See, for example, the section of the Savoy Declaration titled “Of the Institution of Churches, and the Order Appointed in Them by Jesus Christ,” sect. 26... where synods are permitted in situations where this would be helpful to a church in difficulty. While the Declaration explicitly denies that these synods have any ecclesiastical power in the proper sense of the word, it does nevertheless provide a picture of Independency that is somewhat different from the caricatures presented in popular Presbyterian polemic.