So also must we interpret the words of Christ recorded by the apostle John:  “And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.”  Chap. 20:22, 23.  The authoritative forgiveness of sin is a prerogative of God alone, the exercise of which implies omniscience as well as supreme authority in heaven and earth.  The prerogative of remitting and retaining men’s sins here conferred on the apostles is part of the general power of binding and loosing already considered.  It was exercised in the sphere of the visible church on earth.  As it respects the actual forgiveness of sin and consequent admission of the soul to communion with God here and eternal life hereafter, God’s ministers can only declare the terms of salvation as they are set forth in the gospel.

The same general principle is applicable to the interpretation of all passages containing “things hard to be understood.”  The “unlearned and unstable” wrest them, by taking them out of their connection and in contradiction to the general tenor of God’s word.  But the candid student of Scripture never uses that which is difficult in revelation to obscure that which is plain.  He seeks, on the contrary, to illumine what is dark by that which shines with a clear and steady light.

13.  As a fitting close to this part of our subject we add some remarks on the analogy of faith.  “We may define it to be that general rule of doctrine which is deduced, not from two or three parallel passages, but from the harmony of all parts of Scripture in the fundamental points of faith and practice.”  Horne’s Introduct., vol. 1. p. 269, edit. 1860.  It is based on two fundamental principles; first, that “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God,” and therefore constitutes a self-consistent whole, no part of which may be interpreted in contradiction with the rest; secondly, that the truths to which God’s word gives the greatest prominence, and which it inculcates in the greatest variety of forms, must be those of primary importance.  Thus understood, the analogy of faith is a sure guide to the meaning of the inspired volume.  He who follows it will diligently and prayerfully study the whole word of God, not certain selected parts of it; since it is from the whole Bible that we gather the system of divine revelation in its fulness and just proportions.  “If we come to the Scriptures with any preconceived opinions, and are more desirous to put that sense upon the text which coincides with our sentiments rather than with the truth, it then becomes the analogy of our faith rather than that of the whole system.”  Horne, ubi supra.  In this substitution of “the analogy of our faith” for the analogy of Scripture lies the foundation of sectarian controversy.