The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament, Part 1 · Section 52

The Harmony Chronicle and Order of the New Testament · Part 1 · Section 52

p. 39SECTION LII.

The Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven given to Peter, &c.

MATTHEW and Mark establish the order.

Upon Peters confession that Iesus was The Christ the Sonne of the living God: 1. He promiseth to build his Church upon the Rock of that Truth, and the Rock confessed in it, from Isa. 28.16. Psal. 118.22, &c. 2. He promiseth the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven to Peter only, of all the Apostles: meaning thereby, that he should be the man that should first unlock the door of faith, and of the Gospel unto the Gentiles, which was accomplished in Act. 10. And 3. he giveth him power of binding and loosing, and this power the other Disciples had common with him, Matth. 18.18.

Binding and loosing in the language and stile most familiarly known to the Jewish Nation [and it can little be doubted that Christ speaketh according to common and most familiar sense of the language] did referre more properly to things then to persons: Therefore he saith, foreign, and not foreign. And in Matth. 18.18. foreign, not foreign.

The phrase foreign To binde and to loose in their vulgar speech, meant, to prohibit and to permit, or to teach what is prohibited or permitted, what lawfull, what unlawfull, as may appear by these instances; a few produced▪ whereas thousands might be alledged out of their Writings.

Talm. in Pesachim per. 4. halac. 5. Our wise men say that in Iudah they did w…rk on the Passeover eve till noon, but in Galilee not at all: And as for the night foreign The School of Shammai bound it ▪ that is, forbad to work on it, or taught that it was unlawfull: foreign but the School of Hillel loosed it till sun rising, or taught that it was lawfull to work till sun-rise.

p. 40Ierus. in Shabb. fol. 6. col. 1. They are speaking about washing in the Bathes of Tiberias on the Sabbath: And they determine how farre this was lawfull, in these words, foreign They bound washing to them, but they loosed sweating: meaning, they taught that it was lawfull to go into the Bath to sweat, but not to bathe for pleasure.

Ibid. fol. 4. col. 1. They send not letters by the hand of a Gentile on the eve of the Sabbath, nor on the fifth day of the week: Nay on the fourth day of the week foreign The School of Shammai bound it foreign but the School of Hillel loosed it.

Ibid. fol. 7. col. 4. Women may not look in a Looking glasse on the Sabbath: But if it were fastned upon a wall foreign Rabbi loosed the looking into it, but the wise men bound it.

Id. in Jam. tobh. fol. 60. col. 1. R. Iochanan went from Tsipporis to Tiberias, he saith, Why brought ye to me this Elder foreign For what I loose he bindeth, and what I binde he looseth.

Maym. in Hhamets umatsah. per. 4. foreign The Scribes have bound leaven, that is, they have prohibited it.

Tanchum. fol. 1. col. 3. foreign They have upon necessity loosed salvation on the Sabbath: that is, they have permitted it, or taught that it was lawfull.

Thousands of instances of this nature might be produced, by all which it is clear that the Jews use of the phrase was of their Doctors or learned mens teaching what was lawfull and permitted, and what unlawfull and prohibited. Hence is that definition of such mens office and work, in Tosaphta ad Iebamoth per. 4. foreign A wise man that Iudgeth Iudgement, maketh unclean and maketh clean, bindeth and looseth: that is, teacheth what is clean and unclean, what is permitted and prohibited. And Maymony in Sanhedr. per. 4. giving the relation of their ordaining of Elders, and to what severall imployments they were ordained, saith thus, A wise man that is fit to teach all the Law, the Consistory had power to ordain him, To Iudge, but not to teach Bound and loose, or power to teach Bound and loose, but not to judge in pecuniary matters: or power to both these, but not to judge in matters of mulct, &c. So that the Ordination of one to that Function which was more properly Ministeriall, or to teach the people their duty, as what was lawfull, what not, what they were to do, and what not to do, was to such a purpose, or in such a tenour as this, Take thou power to binde and loose, or to teach what is bound and loose, for they use both the expressions foreign and foreign

By this vulgar and onelyonly sense of this phrase in the nation, the meaning of Christ using it thus to his Disciples, is easily understood; namely that he first doth instate them in a Ministeriall capacity to teach, what bound and loose, what to be done and what not, and this as Ministers, and thus all Ministers successively to the end of the world. But as they were Apostles of that singular and unparalleled order, as the like never in the Church again, he gives them power to binde and loose in a degree above all Ministers that were to follow: namely, that whereas some part of Moses Law was now to stand in practise, and some to be laid aside, some things under the Law prohibited, were now to be permitted, and some things then permitted, to be now prohibited, he promiseth the Apostles such assistance of his Spirit, and giveth them such power, that what they allowed to stand in practise should stand, and what to fall should fall: what they bound in earth should be bound in heaven, &c.