4.  Because if Christ gave the keys to the civil magistrate as such, then to every magistrate, whether Jewish, heathenish, or Christian:  but not to the Jewish magistrate; for the sceptre was to depart from him, and the Jewish polity to be dissolved, and even then was almost extinct.  Not to the heathenish magistrate, for then those might be properly and formally church governors which were not church members; and if the heathen magistrate refused to govern the Church, (when there was no other magistrate on earth,) she must be utterly destitute of all government, which are grossly absurd.  Nor, finally, to the Christian magistrate, for Christ gave the keys to officers then in being; but at that time no Christian magistrate was in being in the world.  Therefore the keys were given by Christ to no civil magistrate, as such, at all.

The minor, viz.  But all formal power of church government is at least part of the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven is clear.  If we take church government largely, as containing both doctrine, worship, and discipline, it is the whole power of the keys; if strictly, as restrained only to discipline, it is at least part of the power.  For, 1st, Not only the power of order, but also the power of jurisdiction, is contained under the word keys; otherwise it should have been said key, not keys; church government therefore is at least part of the power of the keys. 2d, The word key, noting a stewardly power, as appears, Isa. xxii. 22, (as Erastians themselves will easily grant,) may as justly be extended in the nature of it to signify the ruling power by jurisdiction, as the teaching power by doctrine; in that the office of a steward in the household, who bears the keys, consists in governing, ordering, and ruling the household, as well as in feeding it, as that passage in Luke xii. 41-49, being well considered, doth very notably evidence.  For, Christ applying his speech to his disciples, saith, “Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler of his household?—­he will make him ruler over all that he hath,” &c. 3d, Nothing in the text or context appears why we should limit keys and the acts thereof only to doctrine, and exclude discipline; and where the text restrains not, we are not to restrain. 4th, The most of sound interpreters extend the keys and the acts thereof as well to discipline as to doctrine; to matters of jurisdiction, as well as to matters of order.  From all we may conclude,

Therefore no formal power of church government was ever given by Christ to the civil magistrate, as a magistrate.

Argum. 2d.  There was full power of church government in the church when no magistrate was Christian, yea, when all magistrates were persecutors of the Church, so far from being her nursing fathers, that they were her cruel butchers; therefore the magistrate is not the proper subject of this power.  Thus we may argue: