‘First, I charge thee that thou dost hereafter keep more white and clean the liveries which I gave thee before my last withdrawing from thee. Do it, I say, for this will be thy wisdom. They are in themselves fine linen, but thou must keep them white and clean. This will be your wisdom, your honour, and will be greatly for my glory. When your garments are white, the world will count you mine. Also, when your garments are white, then I am delighted in your ways; for then your goings to and fro will be like a flash of lightning, that those that are present must take notice of; also their eyes will be made to dazzle thereat. Deck thyself, therefore, according to my bidding, and make thyself by my law straight steps for thy feet; so shall thy King greatly desire thy beauty, for he is thy Lord, and worship thou him. ‘Now, that thou mayest keep them as I bid thee, I have, as I before did tell thee, provided for thee an open fountain to wash thy garments in. Look, therefore, that thou wash often in my fountain, and go not in defiled garments; for as it is to my dishonour and my disgrace, so it will be to thy discomfort, when you shall walk in filthy garments. Let not, therefore, my garments, your garments, the garments that I gave thee, be defiled or spotted by the flesh. Keep thy garments always white, and let thy head lack no ointment. ‘My Mansoul, I have ofttimes delivered thee from the designs, plots, attempts, and conspiracies of Diabolus; and for all this I ask thee nothing, but that thou render not to me evil for my good; but that thou bear in mind my love, and the continuation of my kindness to my beloved Mansoul, so as to provoke thee to walk in thy measure according to the benefit bestowed on thee. Of old, the sacrifices were bound with cords to the horns of the altar. Consider what is said to thee, O my blessed Mansoul. ‘O my Mansoul, I have lived, I have died, I live, and will die no more for thee. I live, that thou mayest not die. Because I live, thou shalt live also. I reconciled thee to my Father by the blood of my cross; and being reconciled, thou shalt live through me. I will pray for thee; I will fight for thee; I will yet do thee good. ‘Nothing can hurt thee but sin; nothing can grieve me but sin; nothing can make thee base before thy foes but sin: take heed of sin, my Mansoul. ‘And dost thou know why I at first, and do still, suffer Diabolonians to dwell in thy walls, O Mansoul? It is to keep thee wakening, to try thy love, to make thee watchful, and to cause thee yet to prize my noble captains, their soldiers, and my mercy. ‘It is also, that yet thou mayest be made to remember what a deplorable condition thou once wast in. I mean when, not some, but all did dwell, not in thy walls, but in thy castle, and in thy stronghold, O Mansoul.