An expository comment, doctrinal, controversial, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…An expository comment, doctrinal, controversal, and practical upon the whole first chapter to the…

Therefore in the third place, That distinction of a Saint by external profession or dedication to God thereby, and by internal and spiritual renovation is the most genuine to answer this doubt. Some were Saints by inward regeneration; Others were Saints by external profession and outward submission; so that they had not as yet renounced their Christianity; and this sense the Apostle plainly makes, when he gives that opposition between Heathens and Saints, as 1 Cor. 6. 1. Dare any of you go to law before the unjust, that is, the Heathens, and not before Saints? where Saint is opposed to an Heathen. So vers. 6. a brother, which is all one with a Saint, is opposed to an unbeliever. All that came out of the world to profess Christ, are called Saints and believers, though even amongst them all were not godly. Now you must know, that there are degrees of godliness,

1. There is that which is supreme and infinite, and thus God is holy, holy, holy.

1. There is that which is supream and infinite, and thus God is holy, holy, holy.

2. There is created boliness, and that either perfect, such as the humane Nature of Christ, the Angels and glorified Saints in Heaven have, or else imperfect, subject to many imperfections and weaknesses. Hence saith Salmeron, We dare not call any man a Saint, while be liveth on this earth, till he be consummated; but that is absurd; for to be a Saint is no more than to be holy; so that if we may call any holy, we may also call them Saints, as our Translators do for the most part render the word. The Papists indeed they call only those that are canonized Saints, who are already in Heaven; therefore those that lived in the Old Testament, because of their opinion of their being in Limbo Patrum, they are never in the Roman Church called Saints, they never say Saint David, or Saint Isaiah. Salmeron also observeth from this title of Saints given to all believers, That in the Infancy of the Church (saith he) all were called Saints, in the Adolescentiâ, only the Bishops, and Officers in the Church, but in Senectute, only those that are translated into Heaven. But we must conform to Scripture, not humane speculations. The Greek word [Greek or Hebrew], answering the Hebrew Kodesh; for the Septuagint seldom translate it by [Greek or Hebrew], or [Greek or Hebrew], but generally by [Greek or Hebrew], is by some said to be as much as sine terrâ, without earth, or any worldly pollution. But the best Grammarians derive it from [Greek or Hebrew], to reverence and respect, as [Greek or Hebrew] from [Greek or Hebrew], to desire, because all holy things are with much reverence to be regarded. Whereas then to be holy, hath a two-fold principal signification: