at that time no great outward encouragements, and therefore the less danger of multitudes of hypocrites, which, as vermin in summer, breed most in the time of the Church's prosperity. Though no nation or kingdom had then universally received the faith, but rather hated and persecuted it, yet were there even then amongst them, as the writings of the Apostles testify, false brethren, and inordinate walkers, and men of corrupt minds, earthly-minded, and led with a spirit of envy and contention and vain-glory.

Although the question that is moved concerning the necessary qualifications of all the members of a true visible church, can no way (as I conceive) be decided from the inscriptions of the Epistles; yet, certainly, they are useful to teach Christians and Christian churches what they ought to be, and what their holy profession requires of them, and sharply to reprove the gross unlikeness and inconformity that is in the most part of men, to the description of Christians. As there be some that are too strait in their judgment concerning the being and nature of the visible church, so certainly the greatest part of churches are too loose in their practice.

From the dissimilitude betwixt our churches and those, we may make this use of reproof, that if an apostolical Epistle were to be directed to us, it ought to be inscribed, to the ignorant, profane, malicious, &c. As he who, at the hearing of the Gospel read, said, "Either this is not the Gospel, or we are not Christians," so, either these characters, given in the inscription of these Epistles, are not true characters, or we are not true Christians.

Ver. 2. Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience, and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

IN this verse we have their condition and the causes of it.Their condition sanctified and justified; the former expressed by obedience, the latter, by sprinkling of the blood of Christ. The causes, 1. Eternal election, 2, The execution of that

decree, their effectual calling, which (I conceive) is meant by Election here, the selecting them out of the world, and joining them to the fellowship of the children of God. So John xv. 19. The former, Election, is particularly ascribed to God the Father, the latter, to the Holy Spirit; and the blood of Jesus Christ the Son of God, is here assigned as the cause of their justification; and so the whole Trinity concurring dignify them with this their spiritual and happy estate.

First, I shall discourse of these separately, and then of their connexion. I. Of the State itself, and 1. of Justification, though named last.

This sprinkling has respect to the rite of the legal purification by the sprinkling of blood; and that appositely, for these rites of sprinkling and blood did all point out this blood and this sprinkling, and exhibited this true ransom of souls, which was only shadowed by them.

The use and end of sprinkling were purification and expiation, because sin merited death, and the pollutions and stains of human nature were by sin. Such is the pollution, that it can be no manner of way washed off but by blood. (Heb. ix. 22.) Neither is there any blood able to purge from sin, except the most precious blood of Jesus Christ, which is called (Acts xx. 28) the blood of God.

That the stain of sin can be washed off only by blood, intimates that it merits death; and that no blood, but that of the Son of God, can do it, intimates, that this stain merits eternal death; and it had been our portion, except the death of the eternal Lord of life had freed us from it.

Filthiness needs sprinkling; guiltiness (such as deserves death) needs sprinkling of blood; and the death it deserves, being everlasting death, the blood must be the blood of Christ, the eternal Lord of life, dying to free us from the sentence of death.

The soul (as the body) hath its life, its health, its purity, and the contrary of these,-its death, diseases, deformities, and

impurity, which belong to it as to their first subject, and to the body by participation.

The soul and body of all mankind are stained by the pollution of sin. The impure leprosy of the soul is not a spot outwardly, but wholly inward; hence, as the corporal leprosy was purified by the sprinkling of blood, so is this. Then, by reflecting, we see how all this that the Apostle St. Peter expresseth is necessary to justification. 1. Christ the Mediator betwixt God and man, is God and man. 2. A mediator not only interceding, but also satisfying (Eph. ii. 16). 3. This satisfaction doth not reconcile us, unless it be applied: therefore there is not only mention of blood, but the sprinkling of it. The Spirit by faith sprinkleth the soul, as with hyssop, wherewith the sprinkling was made: this is it of which the Prophet speaks, (Isa. lii. 15,) So shall he sprinkle many nations; and which the Apostle to the Hebrews prefers above all legal sprinklings, (Chap. ix. 12, 13, 14,) both as to its duration, and as to the excellency of its effects.

Men are not easily convinced and persuaded of the deep stain of sin, and that no other laver can fetch it out, but the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Some who have moral resolutions of amendment, dislike at least gross sins, and purpose to avoid them, and it is to them cleanness enough to reform in those things; but they consider not what becomes of the guiltiness they have contracted already, and how that shall be purged, how their natural pollution shall be taken away. Be not deceived in this: it is not a transient sigh, or a light word, or a wish of God forgive me; no, nor the highest current of repentance, nor that which is the truest evidence of repentance, amendment; it is none of these that purify in the sight of God, and expiate wrath; they are all imperfect and stained themselves, cannot stand and answer for themselves, much less be of value to counterpoise the former guilt of sin. The very tears of the purest repentance, unless they be sprinkled with this blood, are impure; all our washings, without this, are but

washings of the blackmoor, it is labour in vain. (Jer. ii. 22. Job ix. 30, 31.) There are none truly purified by the blood of Christ, who do not endeavour after purity of heart and conversation; but yet it is the blood of Christ by which they are all made fair, and there is no spot in them. Here it is said, Elect to obedience; but because that obedience is not perfect, there must be sprinkling of the blood too. There is nothing in religion further out of nature's reach, and out of its liking and believing, than the doctrine of redemption by a Saviour, and a crucified Saviour,-by Christ, and by his blood, first shed on the cross in his suffering, and then sprinkled on the soul by his Spirit. It is easier to make men sensible of the necessity of repentance and amendment of life, (though that is very difficult,) than of this purging by the sprinkling of this precious blood. Did we see how needful Christ is to us, we should esteem and love him more.

It is not by the hearing of Christ and of his blood in the doctrine of the Gospel; it is not by the sprinkling of water, even that water which is the sign of this blood, without the blood itself and the sprinkling of it. Many are present where it is sprinkled, and yet have no portion in it. Look to this, that this blood be sprinkled on your souls, that the destroying angel may pass by you. There is a generation (not some few, but a generation) deceived in this; they are their own deceivers, pure in their own eyes. (Prov. xxx. 12.) How earnestly doth David pray, Wash me, purge me with hyssop! Though bathed in tears, (Psal vi. 6,) that satisfied not:-Wash thou me. This is the honourable condition of the saints, that they are purified and consecrated unto God by this sprinkling; yea, they have on long white robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. There is mention indeed of great tribulation, but there is a double comfort joined with it. 1. They come out of it; that tribulation hath an end. And, 2. They pass from that to glory; for they have on the robe of candidates, long white robes washed in the blood of the Lamb, washed white in blood. As for this blood, it is nothing but purity and spotlessness,

being stained with no sin, and besides hath that virtue to take away the stain of sin, where it is sprinkled. My well beloved is white and ruddy, saith the spouse; thus in his death, ruddy by bloodshed, white by innocence and purity of that blood.

Shall they then, who are purified by this blood, return to live among the swine, and tumble with them in the puddle? What gross injury were this to themselves, and to that blood by which they are cleansed! They who are chosen to this sprinkling, are likewise chosen to obedience. This blood purifieth the heart; yea, this blood purgeth our consciences from dead works to serve the living God. (Heb. ix. 14.)

2. Of their sanctification. Elect unto obedience.] It is easily understood to whom. When obedience to God is expressed by the simple absolute name of obedience, it teacheth us that to him alone belongs absolute and unlimited obedience, all obedience by all creatures. It is the shame and misery of man, that he hath departed from this obedience, that we are become sons of disobedience; but Grace, renewing the hearts of believers, changeth their natures, and so their names, and makes them children of obedience (as afterwards in this chapter). As this obedience consists in the receiving Christ as our Redeemer, so also at the same time as our Lord or King; there is an entire rendering up of the whole man to his obedience. This obedience, then, of the only-begotten Jesus Christ, may well be understood not as his actively, as Beza interprets it, but objectively, as 2 Cor. x. 5. I think here it is contained, yea chiefly understood to signify that obedience which the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans calls the obedience of faith, by which the doctrine of Christ is received, (and so Christ himself,) which uniteth the believing soul to Christ,-he sprinkles it with his blood, to the remission of sin,-and which is the root and spring of all future obedience in the Christian life.

By obedience, sanctification is here intimated; it signifies,, then, both habitual and active obedience, renovation of heart, and conformity to the divine will. The mind is illuminated