by them; yea, ruling elders being one sort
of church guides, have such an undoubted power of governing in the
Church divinely committed to them, that of them it is said, "God hath
set in the church governments", 1 Cor. xii. 28, i.e. governors, the
abstract being put for the concrete. If _God have set governors in the
Church_, then God vested those governors with a power of governing,
whence they have their name of governments.

2. The keys of the kingdom of heaven, with all their acts, were
immediately committed to the church guides, viz. to the apostles and
their successors to the end of the world; compare these testimonies,
Matt. xvi. 16, 19, and xviii. 18-20; John xx. 21-23; with Matt, xxviii.
18-20: therefore consequently ecclesiastical power was committed
immediately unto them as the subject thereof. For, _By the kingdom of
heaven_ here we are to understand (according to the full latitude of the
phrase) both the kingdom of grace in this world, and of glory in the
world to come; _binding and loosing both in earth and in heaven_, upon
the right use of the keys, being here the privileges promised to church
guides; and _by kingdom of heaven_--on earth, understand the whole
visible Church of Christ in the earth, not only some single
congregation. By _keys of the kingdom of heaven_, thus apprehend, Christ
promiseth and giveth not the sword _of the kingdom_, any secular power;
nor the sceptre _of the kingdom_, any sovereign, lordly, magisterial
power over the Church. But the _keys_, &c. i.e. a stewardly, ministerial
power, and their acts, _binding and loosing_, i.e. _retaining and
remitting sins on earth_, (as in John it is explained;) opening and
shutting are proper acts of keys; binding and loosing but metaphorical,
viz. a speech borrowed from bonds or chains wherewith men's bodies are
bound in prison or in captivity, or from which the body is loosed: we
are naturally all under sin, Rom. v. 12, and therefore liable to death,
Rom. vi. 23. Now sins are to the soul as bonds and cords, Prov. v. 22.
_The bond of iniquity_, Acts viii. 23; and death with the pains thereof,
are as chains, 2 Pet. ii. 4, Jude 6; in hell as in a prison, 1 Pet.
iii. 10: the remission or retaining of these sins, is the loosing or the
binding of the soul under these cords and chains. So that the keys
themselves are not material but metaphorical; a metaphor from stewards
in great men's houses, kings' houses, &c., into whose hands the whole
trust and o