[2.] In the life there will be a change ; men will walk worthy their calling, not disgracing it by scandals or unseemly practices: Eph. iv. 1, ' I beseech you, brethren, walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called ;' that is, suitable to the purity, suitable to the dignity of it. When David was a shepherd, he thought of nothing else but keeping his father's sheep ; but when God called him to be a shepherd of the people, then he had other projects, and was of other manner of behaviour. A new calling requireth a new conversation : so 1 Thes. ii. 12, ' Walk worthy of God, who hath called you to his kingdom and his glory.' The divine calling puts an honour upon you : it is not for princes to ' embrace the dung,' nor for eagles to catch flies ; to be vain, voluptuous, carnal, and worldly, as others are : you are called to the fellowship of saints and angels ; will it become one of your hopes to drive on such a low design as a worldly interest ? If you saw a man labouring in filthy ditches, and soiling himself as poor men do, would you believe that he were heir-apparent to a crown, called to inherit a kingdom ? Who will believe your calling when you stick in the mud of pleasures, and are carried on with such a zealous respect after secular interests ? The apostle reproveth the Corinthians for ' walking as men,' 1 Cor. iii. 3. Some walk as beasts, others are of a more civil strain ; but this is but as men : you should walk more sublimely, above the ordinary rate of flesh and blood. When Antigonus was going into the house of a harlot, one told him, Thoii art a king's son. Oh ! remember your dignity, and walk worthy of your high calling ; walk as having the world under your feet, with a holy scorn and con- tempt of sublunary enjoyments. And as you should walk worthy of the dignity of your calling, so of the purity of it : ' He that hath called you is holy,' 1 Peter i. 15 ; and your condition is a ' holy calling,' 2 Tim. i. 9 ; and the end of your calling is holiness : 1 Thes. iv. 7, ' God hath called us unto holiness.' All which are so many engagements to urge us to the more care. A filthy, loose conversation will never suit with this calling ; you are a shame and a stain to him that calleth you if you walk thus: as some in the prophet are said to pollute
26 AX EXPOSITION, WITH NOTES, [VeR. 1.
God, Ezek. xxxi. 9, namely, as their pollutions were retorted upon God.
Let us now come to the manifestations and effects of this calling ; and the first effect mentioned is sanctification, sanctified in God the Father. Where you may note two things : — (1 .) The state, sanctified ; (2.) The author of it, hy God the Father.
1. The state, r)yia(jfievoi.<i, ' to them which are sanctified ;' instead of which some copies have, rjyaTnjfievoi^, ' beloved by God the Father :' but let us kee}) to our own reading, the other being a mistake, and in few Greek copies. The note is : —
Obs. That God's people, whom he hath called out of the world to himself, are a sanctified people. I shall show you — (1.) What it is to be sanctified ; and then (2.) Why God's called people must be sanctified.
First, What it is to be sanctified. There are many acceptions of the term ; the most famous are two — to sanctify is either to set apart, or to cleanse. These two notions will be enough for our purpose, if in each of them we suppose both something privative, and something positive ; as when it signifieth to set apart, you must conceive not only a setting apart from common use, but a dedication to holy uses, or a setting apart for God, which is the most proper acception of the word. So when it signifieth to cleanse, you must not only conceive a purga- tion from filthiness, but a plantation of seeds of grace ; not only an abolition of natural corruption, but a renovation of God's image. In this method let us a little consider the thing in hand.
1. To sanctify is to set apart and dedicate. Now, God's people are set apart by God, Ps. iv. 3, and they dedicate themselves to his use and service: 2 Tim. ii. 21, 'Vessels of honour for the master's use.' They are set apart by God both in time and before time. Be- fore all time they are set apart by God's decree, to be a holy seed to himself in and by Christ, separated from the perishing world to be vessels of honour ; as the reprobate are called ' vessels of wrath and dishonour ; ' thus we are said to be ' chosen to be holy,' Eph. i. 4. But then in time they are regenerated, and actually set apart. Sancti- fication is an actual election (as before) by which we are set apart from the perishing world to act for God, and to seek the things that make for his glory. Thus we are called God's ' first-fruits,' which were the Lord's portion, James i. 18, and is there made a fruit of regeneration. And thus we are said to be ' a holy priesthood,' 1 Peter ii. 9, the priests being men set apart to minister in God's presence. Now, this conse- cration inferreth a holy preciseness and singularity in the godly, that they may ' keep themselves unspotted from the world,' James i. 28, as holy things were to be kept from a common use ; ^ and it implieth that every sin is a kind of sacrilege, it stealeth a holy thing from God. But over and above all this, they dedicate themselves, or set apart themselves, by the consent of their own vows : Eom. xii. 1, ' Present yourselves,' &c., as every man was to bring his own sacrifice ; and for this dedication the Lord calleth when he saith, ' My son, give me thy heart ; ' because God lovetli to put the honour upon us of a gift, when it is but a debt ; and because our voluntary consent to this surrender is a necessary fruit of grace, and the immediate effect of his own choice.