“Your broadcloth can lap me round two or three times; but the mantle of Divine love, the precious fine robe of Jesus’s righteousness, can cover your soul a thousand times. The cloth, fine and good as it is, will not keep out a hard shower; but that garment of salvation will keep out even a shower of brimstone and fire. Your cloth will wear out; but that fine linen, the righteousness of saints, will appear with a finer lustre the more it is worn. The moth may fret your present, or the tailor may spoil it in cutting it; but the present, which Jesus has made you, is out of the reach of the spoiler, and ready for present wear. Let me beseech you, my dear friend, to accept of this heavenly present, as I accept of your earthly one. I did not send you one farthing to purchase it: it came unsought, unasked, unexpected, as the seed of the woman came. It came just as I was sending a tailor to buy me cloth for a new coat, and I hope when you next see me, it will be in your present; now let Jesus see you in His. Accept it freely. Wear no more the old rusty coat of nature and self-righteousness. Send no more to have it _patched_. Make your boast of an unbought suit, and love to wear the livery of Jesus. “You will then love His work. It will be your meat and drink to do it; and, that you may be vigorous in doing it, as I shall take a little of your wine for my stomach’s sake, take you a good deal of the wine of the kingdom for your soul’s sake. Every promise of the Gospel is a bottle, a cask that has a spring within, and can never be exhausted. Draw the cork of unbelief, and drink abundantly. Be not afraid of intoxication; and if an inflammation follows, it will only be that of Divine love. Be more free with the heavenly wine, than I have been with the earthly, which you sent me. I have not tasted it yet, but whose fault is it? Not yours certainly, but mine. If you do not drink daily out of the cup of salvation, whose fault is it? Not Jesus’s, but yours. Jesus gives you His righteousness to cover your nakedness, and the consolations of His Spirit to cheer and invigorate your soul. Accept and use. Wear, drink, and live to God.”[128] Footnote 128: Letters, 1791, p. 178.