"White Robes".

The term "white robes," as used in the Scriptures, has a much broader meaning and is more real than we at first imagine. It is not merely a metaphor or phrase of poetry. There is a spiritual "clothing upon" just as truly as a physical clothing; and there is a soul whiteness just as really as there is a visible whiteness. The expression "white robes" is a compound one, and presents to our minds as in a picture the compound or twofold form of holiness which is so often set forth in Scripture. Holiness is both negative and positive; negatively it is freedom from sin, positively it is the possession of love and exercise of the graces of the Spirit, the exercise of the purified faculties of our being. Both of these ideas are blended in the term "white robes."

1. The word "robe" does not of itself indicate purity, for the Bible speaks of "filthy garments" (Zech. iii. 4); but the word as applied to the soul does indicate the activity of our powers, whether for good or evil. The word "habit" will serve to illustrate what the Bible means by soul-robing. "Habit" originally meant our clothing, and is still occasionally used in that sense, as a "court habit," a " riding or walking habit." The word "habit (or "robe") was gradually transferred to the garniture of the soul, to the daily carriage, the ever-repeated walk and accustomed behavior of the soul. And now the term "habit," or "soul-robe," expresses the thought of the constant repeated action of any or all of the soul's faculties along any-particular line. As the tree from its own interior action of sap adorns itself with leaves; as the spider from the mechanism and motion of his body twines around him a delicately-threaded castle, or the silk-worm is enshrouded in a covering of its own weaving, so the soul by the ever-repeated action of its various faculties and powers along the lines of holiness or sin, is ever accumulating around itself that fixedness of spiritual conduct, that ever-thickening garment of habit, which forms the interior clothing of the soul. Habit is the subtle and incessant loom which weaves out the robing of the immortal soul.

The expression that "the wicked shall be driven away in his wickedness," seems to indicate that he will be forever enveloped with the wretched robe of his own sinful habits. And when it is said of the saints that they stood before the throne clothed in white robes, we learn from it that their nature had been purified, and that by the exercise of sanctified faculties they had woven around themselves white habits —the repeated habits of submission, of faith, of love, of prayer, of long-suffering, of reading the Scriptures, of worship and benevolence, — these constituted the traveling dress of their souls; they were habited in white because their habits were white.

2. Having noticed the term "robe," let us look particularly to the word "white." This word indicates a visible representation of purity. A robe, or habit, implies the idea of gradual accumulation, but whiteness, or purity, is an effect that can be wrought instantaneously. The robe woven by habit is the work of the creature, but the whiteness, the cleansing from defilement, is a supernatural work, a Divine act, to be received in a moment by simple trust in the promise. So far as the robe is implied, it is our weaving; so far as it concerns the whiteness, it is of Divine cleansing; and as to the thickness and foldings of the robe, it is gradual; but as to its spotlessness, it is instantaneous.

3. We see in the Scripture use of this term "white robes," the proper conjunction of the Divine and creature working, and the utter un truthfulness of the idea that Christ covers us over with His own personal robe of holiness. The saints "washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Surely Christ's own personal habits and powers needed no washing, and the thought of washing His own robe in His own blood is absurd; but our habits are sinful, and even after we have been regenerated our interior heart-habits are not all white till by faith we wash them from all sin in the blood of the Lamb. The robe is our own personal robe, the whiteness is Divine; and then the length, the thickness, the beauty of the robe, will depend upon the rapidity and fervor of our habits of holiness.