Footnote 98:[(return)]
This hymn is variously read. In the edition of Mr. Husenbeth (H. 497.) it is: "O Peter, blessed shepherd, of thy mercy receive the prayers of us who supplicate, and loose by thy word the bands of our sins, thou to whom is given the power of opening heaven to the earth, and of shutting it when open."—"Beate pastor, Petre, clemens accipe voces precantum, criminumque vincula verbo resolve, cui potestas tradita aperire terris coelum, apertum claudere." H. 497.
Let it not be answered that many a Christian minister is now called a good shepherd. Let it not be said that the very words of our ordination imply the conveyance of the power of loosing and binding, of opening and shutting the gates of heaven. When prayer is contemplated, we can think only of One, HIM, who has appropriated the title of Good Shepherd to himself. And we must see that Peter cannot, by any latitude of interpretation, be reckoned now among those to whom the awful duty is assigned of binding and loosing upon earth.
The same unsatisfactory associations must be excited in the mind of every one who takes a similar view of Christian worship with myself, by the following supplication to various saints on St. John's day:
"Let the heaven exult with praises[99],
Let the earth resound with joy;
The sacred solemnities sing
The glory of the Apostles.
O ye Just Judges of the age,
And true lights of the world,
We pray you with the vows of our hearts,