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wardrobe. That is here supposed that we have no garments of ourselves ; and therefore ' Buy of me,' saith Christ, Rev. iii. 18.
2. Now, the second thing is this, we having none of ourselves, therefore we must have garments; and when we have them, we must keep them clean and close: ' Blessed is he that keeps his garments close.'
For the first, being born naked, there is a necessity for modesty to have garments to cover our shame. When God saw Adam naked, he would make him garments himself rather than he should be naked. There must be garments for defence ; so in spiritual things there must be garments to defend us from the wrath of God, else we lie as naked to God's wrath as a man in a storm being naked lies open to the storm.
We must have garments of amity and friendship now. Being to enter- tain friendship with God, we must have something applied to us and wrought in us by the Spirit of God ; for whatsoever is of Christ is amiable, because he is the only beloved.
Again, we must have garments for distinction. Now, garments do dis- tinguish Christians at the day of judgment, for then God looks upon us to see what we have of his image ; and if he find us in ourselves and not in Christ, then we are condemned with the world.
Garments that are coverings must be all over of equal extent. They cover the whole man. So head, hands, and heart, all must be sanctified as well as justified. So that those that look upon a Christian should see nothing in him but somewhat of Christ, his words, his callings, hia thoughts. And as a man sees nothing of another man outwardly but hia apparel, so the whole conversation of a Christian should be nothing but the expressing of Christ. He should speak by the Spirit of Christ, do all that he doth by the Spirit of Christ. We must labour to be ' wholly sanc- tified,' as the Scripture phrase is, 1 Thes. v. 23. There is an expression of this in the 2 Chron. xviii. 33 : ' A certain man drew a bow, and smote the king of Israel between the joints of the harness.' There was some small place open, and that cost him his life. Let a man's profession be never so great, and let him have good expressions thereof, if there be any place for Satan's entrance, he will be sure to wound him in that place. So that by this you may see there must be an universal clothing.
And we must be clothed not only with garments, but armour, because we live in the midst of our enemies ; by which we may perceive the neces- sity of the putting on of the one as well as the other.
Now, as we must have garments, and must keep them close, so also wa must keep them from stains. The persons where these graces are, may be defiled, but the graces are pure. We should therefore labour to keep our actions unspotted. The reason why we should do so, among many other, is this, we live in a soiling age. The holy prophet could say, ' I am a man of polluted lips, and live among men of polluted lips,' Isa. vi. 5. We are defiled with corruption, and that soils all our actions; and therefore we ought, as much as in us Hes, to keep our nature unspotted. We are polluted ourselves, and we live among men that are polluted. We live in an infected air, therefore we ought to keep our garment close, unspotted, and safe. Beloved, nothing will do us good but the application of things. All the virtue of things without us is conveyed unto us by application ; therefore as the garments of a Christian are precious, so they must be applied. We must keep them close, and we must labour for the spirit of faith and of all graces. The truth must be engrafted into our spirits, that the word may be an engrafted word; for being from without us, we never
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have them to do us any good without the application. Therefore watch- fulness is put before : ' Blessed is he that watcheth, and kecpeth his gar- ments close.'
The righteousness of Christ is an excellent garment, hut it must be put on ; and if we have Christ we have all. We will speak a little to shew you what is the reason men are tempted to despair, viz., because they keep not the garment of Christ clean, and close to their souls by the spirit of faith, for then the devil gets in between them and Christ. When garments are not close, the wind gets between them, or else perchance [they] fall off. So here we must labour to keep our garments close, and to renew our right in Christ every day, that we may not fall away utterly ; and that is the reason we so often take the sacrament to strengthen our faith, by which we are ready against all despair, and against all the temptations that Satan can administer ; and so we have all necessary graces ready. We have our hope ready to set our souls quiet; our preparation to endure is ready ; our meekness and our love is ready. ' Put on love,' saith the apostle, because it is the uppermost, the largest, and the richest garment; and set all other graces on work, as meekness, patience, &c., Col. iii. 14. We should therefore labour to have these graces ready, that is, by watching ; for watchfulness is nothing but to have grace in readiness. And we have opportunity every day for one grace or other; but when we have them, we must keep them close by watching.