of his prefence, is abiding all these that are hypocrites in heart; and dreadful temporal deftruction from the Lord, may overtake even his own children, who do defile their garments: For this caufe many are fick and weakly, and many fleep. Thirdly, Ye will break your peace and marr your comfort; if you keep not your garments clean, you may provoke the Lord to fill you with terrors, and to caft such a spark of hell-fire into your bofoms, as shall make you roar and cry out of broken bones, with David, or with Job, The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poifon thereof drinketh up my fpirits. Fourthly, Ye will caft a blot upon religion, and on the good ways of the Lord, if ye who have been profeffing to own Chrift at his table shall be found defiling your garments, by lying, fwearing, drunkenness, or the like; what will the graceless world fay they will conclude, that profeffors are but a company of hypocrites; that religion is nothing but a piece of trick and imposture: Ye will be a blemish to chriftian fociety; these are spots, fays the apostle, in your feafts of charity; and he speaks of fome, who through their untendernefs made the way of the Lord to be evil spoken of. Fifthly, Ye will dishonour Chrift, that glorious mafter, whom ye have been profeffing to own; hence the Lord complains of the children of Ifrael, that they, by their wickedness, caufed his name to be polluted among the heathen: David's fin made the name of God to be blafphemed and reproached. Sixthly, By polluting your garments, ye will offend the generation of the righteous; and it were better for you, that a milftone were hanged about your necks, and ye caft into the midst of the fea, than that ye should offend one of Chrift's little ones. It is a dangerous thing to grieve the

hearts

hearts of these that are dear unto God, for God will not grieve their hearts; and he will refent it, if any other do it by their untenderness. Seventhly, Ye will harden others in their fins: When the wicked fee profeffors or minifters going along with them, they conclude that their way is the best of it, and preferable unto the way of religion. Thus ye fee the difmal effects that will follow upon your defiling your garments.

MOTIVE 4th, Confider the great advantages that fhall accrue unto you by keeping your garments clean. ft, It will yield you great peace: Peace in life; for, as many as walk according to this rule, peace fhall be upon them: Peace in the midst of all troubles, This is our rejoicing, the teftimony of a good confcience: Peace at death, Pfal. xxxvii. 37. Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace: Peace after death, Ifai. lvii. at the beginning, we are told, That the righte ous, at death, they enter into peace, they rest upon their beds, each one walking in his uprightness: Peace at the last judgment; it is only the cleanly remnant to whom the Lord will fay then, Lift up your heads, for the day of your redemption is now come. 2dly, By keeping clean garments, ye will be in a continual fitness for maintaining fellowship and communion with God, in any ordinance of his appointment; for it is the man that bath clean hands, and a pure heart, that shall ftand on God's holy bill, and have a place in his tabernacle: And not only fo, but it will fill you with a holy boldness and confidence in your approaches unto God in the ordinances of his appointment, Job xi. 14, 15. If iniquity be in thine hands, put it far away, &c. 3dly, The influences or ordinances will flay the longer

upon you, that ye keep your garments clean; what is the reason, why the impreffion of any thing of God, that we meet with in ordinances, doth fo foon vanih, like the morning cloud? The reafon is the untenderness of our walk; we lie down among the pots of fin, and this makes God to withdraw from us. We read of fome mountains, that are fo high, that if men drew figures in the fand upon the tops of them, they will abide for many years; the reason is, they are so high, that they are above the winds and rains. O firs, if we were living and walking on high with God, the impreffion of ordinances would ftay longer with us than they do. 4thly, By keeping your garments clean, ye will, perhaps, fave the fouls of others, and commend religion unto them: Hence is that of Chrift, Mat. v. 16. Let your light fo fine before men that they may fee your good works, and glorify your ther which is in heaven. 5thly, By keeping your garments clean, ye will find more ftrength to keep yourfelves, For the way of the Lord is ftrength to the upright; if ye keep God's way, he will keep you in the hour of temptation, Rev. iii. 10.

Fa

God

will keep you by his power thro' faith unto falvation. 6thly, After a little time is elapfed, ye fhall be clothed in white, and walk with Chrift in the new Jerufalem, according to his promife in the

text.

Now I conclude all with directions and advices. In order to your keeping of your garments clean; (1.) Be perfwaded of your own utter inability to keep your garments clean by your own power, or the ftrength of created grace; for the way of man is not in himself: It is not in man that walketh to direct his own fteps. (2.) Take care that ye be 3 nuited

united to Chrift the fountain of holiness; for ye do but wash the Ethiopian, while ye attempt to make yourselves clean and holy, while ye grow on the root of the old Adam. Ye may indeed wash the out-fide of the cup and platter, but he will remain filthy ftill in the fight of God, till ye be created in Chrift, the true root of fanctification: Can a man gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? the tree must be good, before the fruit be good, (3.) Being united unto Chrift, ye must make daily ufe of him by faith. Do not think that when ye have first believed in Chrift, your work is done; No, your life must be a life of faith; by faith we live, by faith we ftand, by faith we work, by faith we fight; and, whatever we do in word or in deed, we must do all in the name of the Lord Jefus. Ye must be always building up yourselves in the holy faith, and going on from faith to faith; and whenever ye have through infirmity, or the prevalency of temptation, defiled your garments, be fure to run by faith unto the blood of fprinkling, that ye may get your hearts fprinkled from an evil confcience. (4.) Set God continually before you, and keep up the impreffion of his all feeing-eye on your fpirits, Pfal. xvi. 8. I have fet the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. (5.) Be much in viewing and meditating on the dismal and terrible effects of fin, how it did caft angels out of heaven, Adam out of Paradife, and brought God's curfe upon all his pofterity; how it brought a deluge on the old world, Sodom and Gomorrah burn by fire and brimftone; how it made the earth to swallow up Korah, Dathan and Abiram. (6.) If ye would keep your garments clean, O then, beware of going to the utmost length

of chriftian liberty! it is dangerous to come too near God's marches. We fhould take heed to ourselves, even in the use of things that are in themselves lawful; many things are lawful, but every thing lawful is not at all times expedient. Ye fhould thun every appearance of evil; do not stand in the way of temptations, or occafions of fin; and, in particular, take care to avoid evil company: For, can a man take fire in his bofom, and his clothes not be burnt? (7.) Beware of giving your confent and countenance unto the fins of others; for hereby ye fhall be partakers with them in their fins. We may not only defile our garments by perfonal fins, but by fins of others, when we encourage them in an evil way, when we affent or confent unto them, or do not faithfully warn and reprove them, or endeavour to reclaim them. (8.) Be importunate with God at the throne of grace for guidance and direction : For unless the Lord keep the city, the watchmen watch in vain; unlefs his grace be fufficient for us, we will foon be carried down the ftream of temptation and corruption? for the way of man is not in himself: And therefore, I fay, plead hard at the throne, that the Lord would keep you, who keeps the feet of his faints; and, for this end, plead the promise that he has made to his people, Jer. xxxii. 40. I will make an everlafling covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me. Zech. x. and laft. I will frengthen them in the Lord, and they shall walk up and down in his name, faith the Lord.

· The