[d] regeneration] The word παλιγγενεσία signifies properly a new or second state, τὸ ἐκ δευτέρον γεννηθῆναι, καὶ ἀναπλασθῆναι, say the grammarians. It is used among the Pythagoreans for the return of the soul, εἰς γένεσιν, when that soul which was once in him that is dead comes back to life again in another body. In sacred writers it is used agreeably for the resurrection, whether that of the future being of body and soul, or that which Christ is pleased to make preparative to it, the spiritual proselytism, expressed by that phrase, Tit. iii. 5, the change and renovation of the soul and affections in this life, and as a token and sign of that work of Christ's, it is used for baptism, that being born of water and the Holy Ghost, John iii. And so hath Phavorinus observed, παλιγγενεσία, τὸ ἅγιον βάπτισμα λέγεται, it is set to signify holy baptism, (see note [a] Matt. iii. and note [a] John iii. Further yet, and by the same analogy, it may signify that second or new state, that μέλλων αἰών, in Isaiah, that age to come, that is, the state of the church under Christ, or his spiritual kingdom, beginning at the resurrection of Christ; and this, either in respect of the beginning of it, Christ's resurrection, which is fitly styled παλιγγενεσία the new birth of Christ, or else in regard that all other things (that is, the general disposal of all things in the church) are become new, 2 Cor. v. 27, the Gentiles received into the church, the Jewish priesthood and ceremonies abolished, &c. If this last sense be here made use of, then it will be most agreeable to the ordinary punctuation of our printed copies, which set a comma after ἀκολουθήσαντίς μοι, ye that have followed me, and another again after ἐν τῇ παλιγγενεσίᾳ, in the regeneration, severing the latter from the former, and joining it so with καθίσεσθε καὶ ὑμεῖς, ye shall also sit, &c. that what is betwixt ὅταν καθίση &c. when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, shall be as in a parenthesis, to explicate what is meant by that time, and what that in the regeneration signifies, viz. when Christ shall be gone to heaven, and all power in the church Was it not then reasonable for thee that hadst received pardon of so vast a debt from thy master, or superior, to have (in like manner as I gave thee example) shewed pity to thy fellowservant, to whom thou wert so much more obliged than I to thee, and to have remitted him so small a sum, when I forgave thee six hundred thousand times as much! Upon this the master was most justly enraged against him, and used him as he had done his fellow, ver. 30, and though he had before remitted him, yet upon this unworthy impious behaviour he revoked his designed mercy and cast him into prison, till—