1. Jesus Christ committed immediately ecclesiastical power and the exercise thereof to his church guides. Thus we may argue:
Major. All those that have ecclesiastical power, and the exercise thereof, immediately committed to them from Jesus Christ, are the immediate subject or receptacle of that power.
For what makes any persons the immediate subject of power, but the immediate derivation and commission of power to them from Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of all power?
Minor. But the church guides have the ecclesiastical power and the exercise thereof immediately committed to them from Jesus Christ. This may be evinced many ways by Scriptures. 1. It is said expressly, "Of our authority which the Lord hath given us for your edification," 2 Cor. 10, 8: by us here we are to understand church guides, for here they are set in opposition to the church members (for edification,) not destruction of (you.) Here are edifiers and edified. Now these church guides have authority given them, and that from the Lord, i.e. Christ; here is their commission or power, not from the Church or any creature, but from Christ; hence the apostle calls church guides, "Your rulers or guides in the Lord," 1 Thes. v. 12; in the Lord, i.e. by the Lord's authority and commission. So that church officers are rulers in the Lord, and the churches ruled 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 ordering of household affairs is committed, who take in and cast out servants, open and shut doors, &c., do all without control of any in the family save the master of the family. Such, in the Hebrew phrase, are said to be over the house, Gen. xliii. 18; Isa. xxii. 15; 2 Kings xviii. 18: and the keys of the house are committed to them as a badge of their power. So that when God threatens to put Shebna out of his office in the king's house, and to place Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, in his room, he saith, "I will commit thy government into his hand—and the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder," Isa. xxii. 21, 22, parallel of that phrase, "and the government shall be upon his shoulder," Isa. ix. 6. Hence, as key is in the Old Testament used for stewardly power and government, Isa. xxii. 21, 22; (only twice properly, Judges iii. 25; 1 Chron. ix. 27;) so in the New Testament, key is always used, metaphorically, to denote power, and that about ecclesiasticals or spirituals, viz. in Matt. xvi. 19; Luke xi. 52; Rev. i. 18, and iii. 7, and ix. 1, and xx. 1. So that keys, &c., are metaphorically the ordinances which Christ hath instituted, to be dispensed in his church, preaching the word, administrations of the seals and censures: for it is not said key, but keys, which comprehendeth them all: by the right use of which both the gates of the Church here, and of heaven hereafter, are opened or shut to believers or unbelievers; and Christ promising or giving these keys to Peter and the apostles, and their successors to the end of the world, Matt. xxviii. 20, doth intrust and invest them with power and authority of dispensing these ordinances for this end, and so makes them stewards in his house of the mysteries of God, 1 Cor. iv. 1, so that we may conclude:
Conclusion. Therefore the church guides are the immediate subject and receptacle of that ecclesiastical power, and of the exercise thereof.
Argum. II. Jesus Christ our Mediator did institute ecclesiastical offices for church government under the New Testament before any Christian Church under the New Testament was gathered or constituted. Therefore those persons that were intrusted with those offices must needs be the first and immediate receptacle or subject of the power of the keys. Thus we may argue:
Major. All those whose ecclesiastical offices for church government, under the New Testament, were instituted by Christ, before any formal visible Christian Church was gathered or constituted, are the first and immediate receptacle or subject of the power of the keys from Jesus Christ.
Minor. But the ecclesiastical offices of Christ's own officers for governing of the Church, now under the New Testament, were instituted by Christ before any formal visible Christian Church was gathered or constituted.
Conclusion. Therefore Christ's own officers for governing of the Church now under the New Testament are the first and immediate receptacle or subject of the keys from Jesus Christ.