A discourse concerning the Redeemer's dominion over the invisible world, and the entrance thereinto

Nor is this Key of the vast Hades, when it is in the hand of our Redeemer, the less in the hand of the Holy, Blessed One; for so is he too. But it is in his hand as belonging to his Office, of Mediator between God and Man, as was before said. And properly the phrase signifies Ministerial Power, being a manifest allusion to the common usage, in the Courts of Princes, of entrusting to some great Minister the Power of the Keys; as it was foretold of Eliakim, Isa. 22. that he should be placed in the same high station in Hezekiahs Court, wherein Shebna was, of whom so severe things are there said; and that the Key of the House of David, should be laid upon his shoulder, &c. ver. 20, 21, 22. And the House of David, being a known Type of the House or Church of God; ⟨p. 25⟩and he himself, of Christ, who, as the Son, hath power over the whole house, according to this typical way of speaking our Lord is said, Rev 3.7. to have the Key of David, to open so as none can shut, to shut so as none can open, i. e. to have a final decisive power in all he doth, from which there is no appeal.

Nor could any thing be more congruous, than that having the Keys of the Celestial House of God, the Heavenly Palace of the Great King, the Habitation of his Holiness and Glory, in which are the Everlasting Habitations, the many Mansions, the Places prepared for his Redeemed; he should also have the Keys of the Terrestrial Bethel; which is but a sort of Portal, or Vestibulum to the other. The House of God, and the Gate of Heaven. And as he is implied ⟨p. 26⟩to have the Keys of this introductive, preparatory Kingdom of Heaven (as the Keys of the Kings Palace, where is the Throne or Seat of Government; and the Keys of the Kingdom must mean the same thing) when he is said to give them to the Apostle Peter, and the other Apostles: This was but a Prelude, and a minute Instance of his Power of those Keys of Hades, and of the glorious Heavenly Kingdom it self contained therein, which he was not to delegate, but to manage himself immediately in his own Person.