rdering 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 for