PROP. III.--The ancient Christians were addressed by the
Apostles as sanctified persons.
Paul addressed all the disciples in Rome as saints or sanctified persons. In his first letter to the Corinthians, he addresses them all as the sanctified under Christ Jesus. "To the congregation of God which is at Corinth, to the sanctified under Christ Jesus." Paul argues with the Hebrews that "by the will of God we are sanctified by the offering of Jesus Christ once only." "For by this one offering he has forever perfected (the conscience of) the sanctified." So usual was it for the Apostles to address their disciples as sanctified persons, that occasionally they are thus designated in the inscription upon their epistles. Thus Jude addressing indiscriminately the whole Christian community, inscribes his catholic epistle--"To the sanctified by God our Father and to the preserved (or saved) by Jesus Christ; to the called." "The sanctifier and the sanctified are all of one family," says the Apostle to the Gentiles. And therefore the sanctifier addressed the sanctified as his brethren, and the brethren the disciples as sanctified. But once more we must hear Paul, and hear him connecting his sanctification with the name of the Lord Jesus. He says, "But now you are sanctified by the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God."16
