Kewley, John, D.D., a Roman Catholic priest, was by birth an Englishman, and of Roman Catholic parent- age. He was educated at St. Omar's, and was in early hfe a Jesuit. He afterwards renounced the doctrines and communion of the Church of Rome, joined " Lady Huntingdon's persuasion," preached somewhat among that body and the Methodists, and, coming to the United States, was admitted to holy orders in the I'rotcstant Episcopal Church by bishop Claggett (about 1804) ; iii 1809 became rector of an Episcopal Church in Middle- town, Conn., and in 1813 of the parish of St. George's, New York, where he continued till he sailed for Europe in 1816. He afterwards became reconciled to the Church of Rome, and returned to his original ecclesiastical con- nection, in which he continued till his death. Kewley was a man of great meekness and gentleness, always im- tiring in tlie discharge of his holy functions, and fervent and effective in his preaching. He published a Sermon delivered at the opening of the Convention of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church in Marj-land in 1806; also a sermon entitled Messiah the Physician of Souls, preach- ed at Middletown and Cheshire in 1811. See Sprague, A muds of the A merican Pulpit, v, 545. (J. L. S.)
Key is a common heraldic bearing in the insignia of sees and religious houses, particularly such as are under the patronage of St. Peter. Two ke3-s in saltire are fre- quent, and keys are sometimes interlaced or linked to- gether at the loics, 1. c. rings. Keys indorsed are placed side by side, the wards away from each other.
Key (HriS'5, maphte'dch, an op)ener, Judg. iii, 25 ; Isa. xxii, 22; "opening," 1 Chron.ix, 27 ; (cXt/c, from its use in shutting. Matt, xvi, 19; Luke xi, 52; Rev. i, 18; iii, 7 ; ix, 1 ; xx, 1), an instrument frequently mentioned in Scripture, as well in a literal as in a figurative sense. The keys of the ancients were very different from ours, because their doors and trunks were generally closed with bands or bolts, which the key served only to loosen or fasten. Chardin saj-s that a lock in the East is like a little harrow, which enters half way into a wooden staple, and that the key is a wooden handle, with points at the end of it, which are pushed into the staple, and so raise this little harrow. See Lock. Indeed, early Oriental locks probably consisted merely of a -wooden slide, drawn into its place by a string, and fastened there by teeth or catches ; the key being a bit of wood, crook- ed like a sickle, which lifted up the slide and extracted it from its catches, after which it was drawn back by the string. But it is not diflicidt to open a lock of this kind even without a key, viz. with the finger dipped in paste or other adhesive substance. The passage Cant. V, 4, 5 is thus probably explained (Harmer, Obs. iii, 31 ; vol. i, 394, cd. Clarke ; Eauwolft", ap. Ray, Irav. ii, 17). Ancient Egyptian Ivcj-s are often found figured on the monuments. The}'- were made of bronze or iron, and consisted of a straight sliank, about five inches in length,
Iron Key. (From Ancient Thebes, iu Egypt.)
with three or more projecting teeth ; others had a near- er resemblance to the wards of modern keys, with a short
KEY
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KEYS, POWER OF THE
shank about an inch long ; and some resembled a com- mon ring, with the wards at its back. The earliest mention of a key is in Judg. iii, '23-25, where Ehud hav- ing gone "through the porch and shut tlie doors of the parlor upon him, and locked them," it is stated that Eg- lon's " servants took a kei/ and opened them.'" Among the Assyrian monuments are extant traces of strong gates, consisting of a single leaf, which was fastened by a huge modern lock, like those still used in the East, of which the key is as much as a man can conveniently carry (Isa. xxii, 22), and also by a bar which moved into a square hole in the wall. See Door.
Tlie term key is frequently used in Scripture as the symbol of goi'ernment, poicer. and authority. Even in modern times, in transferring the governinent of a city, tlie keys of the gates are delivered as an emblem of au- thority. In some parts of the P^ast, for a man to march along with a large key upon his shoulder at once pro- claims him to be a person of -consequence. The size and weight of these oftentimes require them to be thus carried (Thomson, Land and Book, i, 493). So of Christ it is said, " And tlu key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoidder ; so he shall open, and none shall shut ; and he shall shut, and none shall open" (Isa. xxii, 22; Kev. iii, 7). He also has the " keys of hell and of death" (liev. i, 18; comp. ix, 1; xx, 1). Our Saviour said to I'eter, as the representative of the apostles generally, upon whom collectively the same prerogative was on another occasion conferred, "And I ^vill give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven ; and ^vliatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matt, xvi, 19; xviii, 18) — that is, the power of preaching the Gospel officially, of administering the sacraments as a steward of the mysteries of God, and as a faithful servant, whom the Lord hath set over his household. This general authority is shared in common by all ministers and officers in the Church. The grant doubtless likewise included the authority to establish rules and constitutional orders in the Church, to which Christ himself gave no special ecclesiastical form, but left it to be organized by the apostles after his oivn res- urrection. This power, too, in a subordinate degree, is delegated to the Church of later times ; for it is notewor- tliy that even the apostles have not delinitely prescribed a'iiy specilic form of Church polity, and this is therefore, in a great measure, left to the discretion of each body of Christians. Indeed, the settlement of the cardinal doc- trines of Christianity, as a basis of Church-membership and ecclesiastical discipline, appears to be the only ex- plicit clement of the authority conferred in these pas- sages by Christ to his apostles — and this exclusively belonged to them, inasmuch as their office was not trans- missible ; so that the canon of Scripture, as well as the essential points of Church constitution, have been com- jilcted by them for all time. See Succession. As to Peter himself, it is a gratuitous assumption on the part of Romanists tliat the authority was conferred upon him personally above his fellow-disciiiles, since in the other passage the general "ye" is used in plaCe of the individ- ual " thou." It is true, however, that as Peter was here addressed as the foreman, so to speak, of the apostolical college, he was eventually honored as the instrument of the introiluction of the first Gentile as well as Christian nu'mljcrs into the Church (sec Acts ii, xl. a fact to which Peter himself alludes in a very unassuming way (Acts XV, 7 ). The association of this authority wit h the power of absolution is another unauthorized gloss of the Koman Catholic Church; for the passage in which this is con- ferred (John XX, 23, " Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ve re- tain, tliey arc retained") stanils in a very different con- nection, and is evidently to l)e i+itcr])reted of, the exclu- sively apostolical right to jtronouuce upon the religious state of those to whom, by the imposition of hands, they imparted the peculiar miraculous gifts of the primitive age (see Acts viii, li-17; xix, 0). In accordance with