First, there is the power to fasten and to lock. We call this administering discipline. This is necessary to the health and life of the Church. In the Corinthian church a certain man was guilty of a nameless crime. Possibly of good social standing, his offense was winked at. St. Paul, however, exhorts the Corinthian congregation to deal summarily with him; he exhorts them to meet in the name of the Lord, and deliver this evil-doer over to Satan in the hope that he might come to his senses and be reclaimed--"for the destruction of the flesh," as the phrase is. In another place he writes: "I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner. Put away from among yourselves that wicked person." It was what we call suspension, excommunication, or the ban. It is not a pleasant duty by any means, as little as it is a pleasant thing to amputate, to cut off a member of the body; but if the member be gangrenous and a menace to the life of the body, and nothing but an amputation will do, then let it be done. A congregation is answerable before the Head of the Church; it must keep its membership and roster clear; it dare not permit among its membership impenitent and manifest sinners, those who are despisers of God's means of grace, the Word and the Sacrament, whose morals are a blot, whose lives are a stench in the nostrils of the believers and of the world. Such, after due hearing, exhortation, remonstrance, must be turned out. They have no place in the company of Christians. This is the exercise of the office of the keys in the one direction. In general, it is to be deplored that the Christian Churches do not exercise this power as they ought. It would mean the reawakening and recovery of many a sinner. The other part of the office of the keys is what is called absolution, the power to forgive sins. That power the Church has committed to it, as we heard in the text, by Christ Himself. There is much misconception on this among even Christians; to some it is no small stumbling-block. It need not be. The matter is quite simple and plain.