believers and obstinate persons, and denouncetli to them the vengeance of God and eternal punishment ; or excludeth out of the bosom of the Church, those that are publicly excommuni- cated ; and that God Himself doth so far approve whatever sen- tence His ministers shall so give, that whatsoever is either loosed or bound by their ministry here on earth, He Avill in like manner bind or loose and confirm in heaven. The key with which these ministers do shut or open the kingdom of heaven, we say, with St. Chrysostom, is the knowledge of the Scripture ; with Tertullian, is tJie interpretation of the law ; and with Eusebius, is the Word of God. We say the disciples of Christ received this power (from Him) not that they might hear the private confessions of the people, and catch their whispering murmurs, as the Popish priests everywhere now do, and that in Buch a manner as if all the force and use of the keys con- sisted only in this ; but that they might go and preach and pub- lish the Gospel, that so they might be a savor of life unto life, to them that did believe ; and that they might be also a savor of death unto death, to those that did not believe ; that the minds of those who were affrighted with the sense of their former ill lives and errors, after they beheld the light of the Gospel, and believed in Christ, might be opened by the Word of God, as doors are with a key : and that the wicked and stub- born, who would not believe and return into the way, might be left, shut up, and locked, and, as St. Paul expresseth it (2 Tim. iii. 13), might " wax worse and worse." This we take to be the meaning of the keys, and that in this manner the consciences of men are either bound or loosed."
Calvin observes, " When Christ enjoins the Apostles to for- give sins. He does not convey to them what is peculiar to Him- self. It belongs to Him to forgive sins. This honor, so far as it belongs peculiarly to Himself, He does not surrender to the Apostles. He only enjoins them, in His name, to proclaim the forgiveness of sins, that through their agency He may recon- cile men to God."
Brentius says, " This is the true and heavenly mode of re- mitting sins : to wit, the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Those who do not preach the Gospel of Christ have no power of either remitting or retaining sins."
Bullinger says, " The Apostles remitted men's sins, when by the preaching of the Gospel they taught that the sins of be- lievers were remitted, and eternal life granted through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They retained men's Bins when they announced that the wrath of God remained on those who believed not."
Gualter says, *' At this day ministers are said to remit sins when they promise remission of them in Christ to those who believe, and to retain sins when they denounce damnation on the unbelieving and obstinately impenitent."