hrone of God. Yea,
therefore it is that their good works stand in such a place.' 'Nor must
we think it strange,' says John Howe, in his _Blessedness of the
Righteous_, 'that all the requisites to our salvation are not found
together in one text of Scripture. I conceive that imputed righteousness
is not here meant, but that righteousness which is truly subjected in a
child of God and descriptive of him. The righteousness of Him whom we
adore as made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him, that righteousness has a much higher sphere peculiar and
appropriate to itself. Though this of which we now speak is necessary
also to be both had and understood.' Emmanuel's livery, then, is the
righteousness of the saints. Emmanuel puts that righteousness upon all
His saints; while, at the same time, they put it on themselves; they work
it out for themselves, and for themselves they keep it clean. They work
it out, put it on, and keep it clean, and yet, all the time, it is not
they that do it, but it is Emmanuel that doeth it all in them. The truth
is, you must all become mystics before you will admit all the strange
truth that is told about Emmanuel's livery. For both heaven and earth
unite in this wonderful livery. Nature and grace unite in it. It is
woven by the gospel on the loom of the law--till, to tell you all that is
true about it, I neither can nor will I. Albert Bengel tells us that the
court of heaven has its own jealous and scrupulous etiquette; and our
court journalist and historian, John Bunyan, has supplied his favoured
readers with the very card of etiquette that was issued along with
Mansoul's coat of livery, and it is more than time that we had attended
to that card.

1. The first item then in that etiquette-card ran in these set terms:
'First, wear these white robes daily, day by day, lest you should at some
time appear to others as if you were none of Mine.--Signed, EMMANUEL.'

Now, we put on anew every morning the garments that we are to wear every
new day. We have certain pieces of clothing that we wear in the morning;
we have certain pieces that we wear when we are at our work; and, again,
we have certain other pieces that we put on when we go abroad in the
afternoon; and, yet again, certain other pieces that we array ourselves
in when we go out into society in the evening. After a night in which
Mercy could not sleep for blessing and praising God, they all rose in the