obliged to more decency in apparel. We live in the light, in the company of angels, of God, and Jesus Christ; and therefore should not act any thing that is low or mean, unbeseeming the rank we keep, and the presence of those with whom we associate. When the king passes through the country in progress, they who see him seldom, being either to attend him in his way, or to receive him into their houses, will labour to have all things in the best order they can for the time; but they that live at court, and are daily in the king's presence, are constantly court-like in their habit and carriage, and all about them. O followers of the Lamb, let your garments be always white; yea, let Him be your garment; clothe yourselves with Himself; have your robes made of his spotless fleece.

Put on the Lord Jesus. No resemblance is more usual than that of people's customs to their clothes, their habitudes to their habits. This the Apostle used in the foregoing words, Put on the [furniture, or] armour of light, having cast off the works of darkness, as clothes of darkness, nightclothes. And the word, walking decently, has something of the same resemblance contained in it. And here we have the proper beauty and ornament of Christians, even the Lord Jesus, recommended to them under the same notion, Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Him we put on by faith, and are clothed with him as our righteousness. We come unto our Father in our Elder Brother's perfumed garments, and so obtain the blessing which he, in a manner, was stripped of for our sakes. He did undergo the curse, and was made a curse for our sakes: so the Apostle speaks of him, Gal. iii. 13. We put him on, as the Lord our righteousness, and are made the righteousness of God in him. This investiture is first, when our persons are made acceptable, and we come into court. But there is another putting of him on, in the conformity of holiness, which always accompanies the former; and that is it which is here meant. And this I declare unto you, that whosoever does not thus put him on, shall find

themselves deceived in the other, if they imagine it belongs to them.

They who are the sons of God, and have the hope of inhe riting with Christ, do really become like Him, are even heirs in some degree now; and that blessed expectation they have, is to be fully like him. 1 John iii. 3. When He appears, we shall be like Him, saith the Apostle. And in the meanwhile, they are endeavouring to be so, and somewhat attaining it; as he adds, Every one that hath this hope, purifieth himself, as He is pure. He is the only begotten Son, and we are so restored in him to the dignity of sons, that withal we are really changed into his likeness. He is the Image of the Father that is renewed upon us.

It is the substance of religion, to be like him whom we worship*. Man's end and perfection is, likeness to God. But Oh, the distance, the unlikeness, yea, the contrariety, that is fallen upon our nature! The carnal mind is enmity to God: the soul is, as it were, become flesh, and so most unsuitable to the Father of Spirits; it is become like the beast that perishes. Now, to repair and raise us, this was the course taken : we could not rise up to God, He came down to us, yea, into us, to raise and draw us up again to Him. He became like us, that we might become like Him. God first put on man, that man might put on God. Putting on the Lord Jesus, we put on man; but that man is God, and so, in putting on man, we put on God. Thus, putting on Christ, we put on all grace: we do this, not only by studying him as our copy and example, but by real participation of his Spirit; and that, so as that daily the likeness is growing, while we are carried by that Spirit to study his example, and enabled in some measure to conform to it; so that these two grow together, growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He is the armour of light before spoken of: all our ornament and

* Summa religionis imitari quem colis.

safety is in him. Some pictures of great persons you have seen, with arms and robes on at once: thus we, when clothed with Christ, have our arms and robes both on at once, yea, both in one, for He is both. So, this is the great study of a Christian, to eye and read Christ much, and, by looking on him, to become more and more like him, making the impression deeper by each day's meditation and beholding of him. His Spirit in us, and that love his Spirit works, make the work easy, as sympathies do. And still the more the change is wrought, it becomes still the more easy to work it. This is excellently described by this Apostle, 2 Cor. iii. 18.

Now we see our business: Oh that we had hearts to it! It is high, it is sweet, to be growing more and more Christ-like every day. What is the purchase or conquest of kingdoms to this? Oh, what are we doing, who mind not this more? Even they whose proper work it is, how remiss are they in it, and what small progress do they make! Are we less for the world and ourselves, and more for God, this year than the former ?-more meek and gentle, abler to bear wrongs, and to do good for them, more holy and spiritual in our thoughts and ways, more abundant and fervent in prayer? I know there will be times of deadness, and winter seasons, even in the souls of living Christians; but it is not always so, it will come about yet; so that, take the whole course of a Christian together, he is advancing, putting on still more of Christ, and living more in Him. There is a closer union betwixt the soul and this its spiritual clothing, than betwixt the body and its garments: that doth import a transformation into Christ, put on as a new life, or a new self. The Christian by faith doth this: he puts off himself, old carnal self, and instead thereof, puts on Jesus Christ, and thenceforward hath no more regard of that old self, than of old cast clothes, but is all for Christ, joys in nothing else.

This is a mystery

which cannot be understood but by by partaking of it.

My brethren, learn to have these thoughts frequent and occurrent with you on all occasions. Think, when about any

thing, How would Christ behave himself in this? Even so, let me endeavour.

You will possibly say, They that speak thus, and advise thus, do not do thus. Oh, that that were not too true! Yet there be some that be sincere in it, and although it be but little that is attained, yet, the very aim is excellent, and somewhat there is that is done by it. It is better to have such thoughts and desires, than altogether to give it up; and the very desire, being serious and sincere, does so much change the habitude and usage of the soul and life, that it is not to be despised.

Now follows, And make no provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. And it will follow necessarily. We hear much to little purpose. Oh, to have the heart touched by the Spirit with such a word as is here! It would untie it from all these things. These are the words, the very reading of which wrought so with Augustine, that, of a licentious young man, he turned a holy faithful servant of Jesus Christ. While you were without Christ, you had no higher nor other business to do, than to attend and serve the flesh; but once having put Him on, you are other men, and other manners do become you. Alia ætas alios mores postulat.

This forbids not eating, and drinking, and clothing, and providing for these, nor decency and comeliness in them. The putting on of Christ does not bar the sober use of them: yea, the moderate providing for the necessities of the flesh, while thou art tied to dwell in it, that may be done in such a way as shall be a part of thy obedience and service to God. But to lay in provisions for the lusts of it, is to victual and furnish His enemy and thine own; for the lusts of the flesh do strive against God's Spirit, and war against thy soul. Gal. v. 17. 1 Pet. ii. 11.

This was the quarrel betwixt God and His own people in the wilderness. Bread for their necessities, He gave them, but they required meat for their lusts, (which should rather have been starved to death than fed,) and many of them fell in

the quarrel. He gave them their desire, but gave them a plague with it, and they died with the meat between their teeth. Many who seem to follow God, and to have put on Christ, yet, continuing in league with their lusts, and providing for them, they are permitted a while so to do, and are not withheld from their desire, and seem to prosper in the business; but, though not so sudden and sensible as that of the Israelites, there is no less certain a curse joined with all they purchase and provide for that unhallowed use. It is certainly the posture and employment of most of us, even who are called Christians, to be purveyors for the flesh, even for the lusts of it; (ad supervacuum sudare;) these lusts comprehending all sensual, and all worldly, fleshly, self-pleasing projects. Even some things that seem a little more decent and refined, come under this account. What are men commonly doing, but projecting and labouring, beyond necessity, for fuller and finer provision for back and belly, and to feed their pride, and raise themselves and theirs somewhat above the condition of others about them? And where men's interests meet in the teeth, and cross each other, there arise heartburnings and debates, and an evil eye, one against another, even on a fancied prejudice, where there is nothing but crossing a humour. So, the grand idol is their own will, that must be provided for and served in all things, that takes them up early and late, how they may be at ease, and pleased, and esteemed, and honoured. This is the making provision for the flesh and its lusts, and from this are all they called who have put on Christ; not to a hard, mean, unpleasant life, instead of that other, but to a far more high and more truly pleasant life, that disgraces all those their former pursuits which they thought so gay while they knew no better. There is a transcendent sweetness in Christ, that puts the flesh out of credit. Put on Christ, thy robe royal, and make no provision for the flesh; surely thou wilt not then go and turmoil in the kitchen. A soul clothed with Christ, stooping to any sinful delight, or an ardent pursuit of any thing earthly, though