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The keys of the kingdom of heaven are committed to them, Matt. xvi. 19, and keys import a stewardly power: compare Matt. xvi. 19, and xviii. 18, John xx. 21, 23, with Isa. xxii. 21, 22. Materially, the acts and exercise of these officers are acts of power, as binding, loosing, &c., Matt, xviii. 18; not only preaching, &c., but excommunicating, is an act of power, 1 Cor. v. 4.
For explication of this proposition, four things are to be opened. What is meant by proper, formal, ministerial or stewardly authority and power for church government? See this already discussed, Part 2, chapters III., V., and IX., in the beginning of Section 2, so that here there needs no further addition, as to this point. What is meant by church guides?
Ministerial, stewardly, and subordinate; and this power Jesus Christ our Mediator hath committed to his church guides and officers in his Church, 2 Cor. x. 8, and xiii. 10; and church government, as intrusted in the hands of church guides, is representative. This ministerial church government, committed by Christ to his officers, may be considered either, 1.
Touching the second, that Jesus Christ our Mediator hath peculiarly intrusted his own officers with the power of church government: take it thus Jesus Christ our Mediator did immediately commit the proper, formal, ministerial, or stewardly authority and power for governing of his church to his own church guides as the proper immediate receptacle or first subject thereof.
R. Mather, Church Government and Church Covenant Discussed, pp. 47-50. J. Cotton, The Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, p. 12. "In regard to Christ, the head, the government of the Church, is sovereign and Monarchicall: In regard to the rule of the Presbytery, it is stewardly and Aristocraticall: In regard to the people's power in elections and censures, it is Democraticall."
These are Christ's own church officers, these Christ hath made the immediate receptacle and first subject of the keys, or of ecclesiastical power derived from himself. What is meant by Christ's committing this stewardly power first and immediately to the church guides? Ans. There is, 1.
All absolute lordly power is in God originally: all lordly magisterial mediatory power is in Christ dispensatorily: all official, stewardly power is by delegation from Christ only in the church guides ministerially, as the only proper subject thereof that may exercise the same lawfully in Christ's name: yet all power, both magisterial in Christ, and ministerial in Christ's officers, is for the Church of Christ and her edification objectively and finally.
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