estinated you to this end, that ye should be truly holy; as Paul
also says, in Eph. iv., "In righteousness and true holiness"--that
is, in a genuine and well-founded holiness,--for outward holiness,
such as the Jews had, is of no value before God.

Thus the Scripture calls us holy, while we yet live on earth, if we
believe. But the Papists have taken the name from us, and say, we are
not to be holy; the saints in Heaven alone are holy. Thus we are
compelled to reclaim the noble name. You must be holy, but you must
also beware against imagining that you are holy through yourself or
by your own merit, but only that you have God's word, that Heaven is
yours, that you are truly pious and made holy by Christ.

This you must confess if you would be a Christian. For it would be
the greatest affront and reviling of the name of Christ, if we took
from the honor due to Christ's blood, in that it is this that washes
away our sins, or from the faith that this blood sanctifies us.

Therefore, you must believe and confess if you would be holy; but by
this blood, not by your own excellence must it be, insomuch that for
it you would be willing to give up life and all that you possess, and
endure whatever might come upon you.

_To obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Christ._ Hereby, he
says, are we made holy, if we are obedient, and believe the word of
Christ, and are sprinkled with his blood. And here St. Peter speaks
in a somewhat different manner from St. Paul. But it is in substance
the same as when Paul says that we are saved through faith in Christ;
for faith makes us obedient and submissive to Christ and his word.
For to obey the word of God and the word of Christ is the same thing,
and to be sprinkled by his blood is the same as to believe. For it is
difficult to nature, hostile to it, and exceedingly humbling, to
submit to Christ, give up all its own possessions, and account them
contemptible and sinful. But yet it must be brought into subjection.

Of sprinkling, the Psalm _Miserere Domine_ (li.) also speaks:
"Sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be clean." It refers to the law
of Moses, from which St. Peter has derived it, and he discloses Moses
to our view, while he brings in the Scripture. When Moses had built
the tabernacle, he took the blood of bullocks and sprinkled it over
all the people.

But _this_ sprinkling sanctifies not in the spirit, but only
outwardly. Therefore there must be a spiritual purifica