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 and impurity of life; while garments are significative of the varieties of knowledge, truth, and doctrine, with which the soul is invested or clothed. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Truth, and the Word made flesh. Hence the Lord's garments denote the outward or literal truths of the word, in which are spirit and life.

To rend the garments, was an ancient custom denoting a manifestation of zeal for doctrine, truth, and knowledge! But we are called to the performance of a higher duty—"REND YOUR HEART"—that is, manifest an ardent zeal for purity of will, for holiness, charity, and the life of Religion! Whatever the Christian world may think to the contrary, it is not faith alone, but charity united with faith that saves the soul alive! It is a zeal for the heavenly life, and not for faith without life, that makes the Christian; it is the rending the heart, not the garments; "it is love," pure and ardent, "that makes religion sweet!" This is the hallowed fire that burns in every consecrated heart, and from whence the purest devotions ascend! It is holiness of life that draws to itself true doctrine: for "whoever doeth the will of the Lord, shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God."

We are constrained, then, spiritually to rend the heart, and turn to the Lord, because "He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil." That the Lord is gracious, requires no argument to prove; that he is merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, the constitution of nature—the earth teeming with plenty and fruitfulness—the creation of man formed exquisitely for the enjoyment of immortality, and for increasing pleasures in eternity, all powerfully declare.