This promise was afterwards repeated to all the Apostles, (St. Matt. xviii. 18.) and accompanied with other assurances, which seem to give it a more distinct meaning. "If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.... But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in Heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven."

Now in this passage many things deserve to be noticed. (1.) We may observe that a Society was to be set up, consisting either of the Apostles alone, or of the Apostles together with others, called the Church, with authority over offenders, and that such an authority, as belonged to private men neither separate nor united together. For the offender here was to be admonished, first by a single person; then by one or two more, i. e. by an indefinite number, who still had no commission except to admonish; but as soon as he is brought before the Church, there an authority appears, and the offender is to feel its sentence, "Let him be unto thee as a Heathen."

(2.) That this authority was not to belong to the Church, considered only as a greater number of Christians, but as it signified particular persons

who had this authority from Christ, for the edification of His Church. For Christ expressly declares in the following verse, that "where two or three are met together in His Name, there is He in the midst of them." Here is the description of that Church, before which the offender was to be brought, and whose authority Christ promises to support; it is "two or three met together in His Name." Now the Church was not to have this authority over the offender, considered as a number, i. e. two or three; for we see that the offender had been already before such a Church; he had been before two or three and after the neglect of them he was to be brought before another two or three, met together in Christ's Name'. Which is a plain proof that the offender was not to be censured by the Church as it signifies a number of Christians, but as it implies particular persons, acting in the Name of Christ, and with His authority.

(3.) That the authority here promised to the Church, was a judicial authority, such as to affect and alter the condition of persons censured by it. This is implied in the words, "let him be unto thee as a heathen;" which means, in the most natural and common sense of the words, that they should look upon him no longer as a Christian, or within the kingdom of Heaven, but as reduced to the state of heathens.

1

"If he

[That is, our Lord's words seem to run as follows: will not hear them, tell it to the Church; now, where two or three are gathered in My name, there is the Church, My representative."]

(4.) That this judicial authorny va u affec man's condition, not merely in relation to their fellow-men, but also to God. For in # declared that "whatsoever should be thus bound of earth should be bound in Heaven.”

From this analysis of our Lord's second promise. we derive a very intelligible explanation of th first; "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of Heaven;" which is precisely equiven to the assurance here given, that admission imu, o exclusion from this kingdom, shotic belong siy to the Apostles. The keys of the kingdom of Heaven were to be entrusted to St. Peter and the other Apostles, in such a sense, that no one comić enter it without their leave, nor remain in it against their command

Now it is only to suppose that the kingdom of Heaven was set up for the remission of sins, a proposition, which I suppose no one will question,) and that the sins of those who are excluded from it are not remitted in the same sense, or to the same extent, as the sins of those that are within it, and then the two promises which have just been com

1 These four remarks are taken almost word for word from Law's third Letter to Bishop Hoadly.

2 [It would seem that the connexion between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Remission of Sins, was of such a nature as to make the one phrase naturally suggest the other to the Apostles. Comp. St. Matt. iii. 2. with St. Mark i. 4. and St. Luke iii. 3. Part of the baptismal Creed in St. Cyprian's time was, "Credis remissionem peccatorum et vitam æternam per sanctam Catholicam Ecclesiam ?" Ep. 69. ed. Fell.]

pared and explained, receive their exact fulfilment in the grant recorded by St. John, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained."

As a farther illustration of the nature of this grant, two instances are recorded, in which the Apostle St. Paul appears to have acted on it. St. Paul was not indeed one of those on whom our Lord breathed, and to whom His words, "Receive the Holy Ghost," were in the first instance addressed. But that he was "caught up into the third heaven," and there "heard unspeakable things," that he was "called to be an Apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ," and that he was "nothing behind the very chiefest of the Apostles," he himself has thought it necessary to assure us. From whence it is manifest, that the power of remitting and retaining sins, whatever it was, must have been among those committed to him and if it should appear that on any occasion he acted conformably to the view of that power which our Lord's previous promise suggests, we may presume, perhaps, that this was the view he himself took of it, and consequently the true one.

Now, in the case of the incestuous Corinthian, we find St. Paul issuing the following command "to the Church of God which was at Corinth." "I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already as though I were present, concerning him that hath done this deed; In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are

gathered together, mi ny mrt v the power i the Lord Jesus, to deliver suci in me with baun. for the destruction" ir normerikation”) “ of the fesñ, at de surt nay le sel ll the day of the Lari Jess' En de vina 1 Church, i. e. persons per geler 1 Trs: Name, under the authority of a ste stint w judges on an cender, and retung inne state of a Christian to the sate if a healen using the Keys of the Engum f Ewan tat very sense in which ur Larf primat sus that they were intended the wazi, ani a via they would seem premsay respond at the

power of remitting and retaining 18. Jesus Christ. had said, “Whosescemer se Trel, AT retained;" this has been shown to be perfect Ţ 21telligible, if understood to meat, Wormsleter Je exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven, they are excluded;" and thus St. Paul Limself appears to have understood and acted upon it.

That the expression, to deliver such an one unto Satan,” is only another way of saying, "to exclude such an one from the Kingdom of Heaven," seems to require little proof; though, if any were wanted, it is afforded us in Coloss. i. 13: where being "delivered from the power of darkness" is evidently spoken of as the same thing as being "translated into the Kingdom of God's dear Son.” The same phraseology is also to be found in Acts xxvi. 18, where the Christianizing of the Gentiles is called, “turning them from darkness to light, and