Keeping your garments clean


1. Be persuaded of your own utter inability to keep your garments clean by your own power, or the strength of created grace: for "the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his own steps."
2. Take care that you be united to Christ, the fountain of holiness; for you do but wash the Ethiopian, while you attempt to make yourselves clean and holy, while you grow on the root of the old Adam. You may indeed "wash the outside of the cup and platter," but you will remain "filthy still" in the sight of God, till you be created in Christ, the true root of sanctification: "Can a man gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" The tree must be good before the fruit be good.
3. Being united to Christ, you must make daily use of him by faith. Do not think, that, when you have first believed in Christ, your work is done; no, your life must be a life of faith. By faith we live, by faith we stand, by faith we work, by faith we fight; and "whatever we do, in word or deed," we must "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." You must be always "building up yourselves in your most holy faith," and going on from faith to faith; and whenever you have, through infirmity, or the prevalency of temptation, defiled your garments, be sure to run by faith unto the blood of sprinkling, that you may get your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
4. Set God continually before you, and keep up the impression of his all-seeing eye on your spirits: Psal. 16:8: "I have set 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 sin; how it did cast angels out of heaven, Adam out of Paradise, and brought God's curse upon all his posterity; how it brought a deluge on the old world, Sodom and Gomorrah burnt by fire and brimstone; how it made the earth to swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.
6. If you would keep your garments clean, O then beware of going to the utmost length of Christian liberty; it is dangerous to come too near God's marches. We should 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." You would shun every "appearance of evil;" do not stand in the way of temptations, or occasions of sin. And, in particular, take care to avoid evil company; for "can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burnt?"
7. Beware of giving your consent and countenance to the sins of others; for hereby ye shall be "partakers with them in their sins." We may not only defile our garments by personal sins, but by the sins of others, when we encourage them in an evil way, when we assent or consent to them, or do not faithfully warn and reprove them, or endeavour to reclaim them.
8. Lastly, 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." Unless his "grace be sufficient for" us, we will soon be carried down the stream of temptation and corruption; for "the way of man is not in himself." And therefore, I say, plead hard at the throne, that the Lord would keep you, who "keeps the feet of his saints." And for this end plead the promise that he has made to his people, Jer. 32:40: "I will make an everlasting 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. 10:12: "I will strengthen them in the Lord, and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord."




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