St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians [antikvár]

SAINTS AND FAITHFUL ' The saints which are at Ephesus and the faithful in Christ Jesus.'-eph. i. 1. That is Paul's way of describing a church. There were plenty of very imperfect Christians in the community at Ephesus and in the other Asiatic churches to which this letter went. As we know, there were heretics amongst them, and many others to whom the designation of ' holy' seemed inapplicable. But Paul classes them all under one category, and describes the whole body of believing people by these two words, which must always go together if either of them is truly applied, ' saints' and 4 faithful.' Now I think that from this simple designation we may gather two or three very obvious indeed, and very familiar and old-fashioned, but alsó very important, thoughts. I. A Christian is a saint. We are accustomed to coníine the word to persons who tower above their brethren in holiness and manifest godliness and devoutness. The New Testament never does anything like that. Somé people fancy that nobody can be a saint unless he wears a special uniform of certain conventional sanctities. The New Testament does not take that point of view at all, but regards all true believers in Jesus Christ as being, therein and thereby, saints. Now, what does it mean by that? The word at bottom simply signifies separation. Whatever is told A