_ of holiness." Consider here that as holiness
is necessar for the saints of God, so all God's courtiers they are full
of beauty. God Himself is full of beauty, and we have no power, beauty
nor holiness but in His power, beauty, and holiness. Holiness, it is the
beauty of the Son of God, Jesus Christ; and to Him it is said in Esay,
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty": and the Holy Ghost has this style
to be called Holy. And the angels in heaven, they are clothed with
holiness; and the saints who are in heaven, this is the long white
robes wherewith they are clothed. And they who are begun to be
sanctified here, they strive to be more and more clad with holiness.
Beloved, I would have you to count this to be your beauty, even
holiness; for if ye have not this beauty, then all your other beauty
will degenerate in a bastard beauty.

Now follows the marvellous _multiplication_ of thir people. "From the
womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth." The words are
somewhat obscure even to the learned ear, but look to the 133d Psalm,
and there ye will see a place to help to clear them. Always (however)
observe here, "from the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy
youth," that as in a May morning, when there is no extremity of heat,
the dew falls so thick that all the fields are covered with it, and it
falls in such a secret manner that none sees it fall, so the Lord, in
the day of His power, He sall multiply His people, and He sall multiply
them in a secret manner; so that it is marvellous to the world, that
once there should seem to be so few or none of them, and then
incontinent He should make them to be through all estates.

We have first to learn here, that the Kirk of God, she has a morning;
and in the morning the dew falls, and not in the night, nor in the heat
of the day. So it is not in the night of defection, nor in the heat of
the day of persecution, when the Lord's people are multiplied, but it is
in the morning of the day. Beloved, I wish you may be a discerning
people, to know the Lord's seasons. Sall we be as those, of whom our
Saviour complains, who can discern the face of the sky, but cannot
discern the day of the Lord's merciful and gracious visitation towards
them? Men indeed may be very learned and know things very well, and yet
in the meantime be but ignorant of this; for there are sundry gifts
bestowed upon men, and ilk are has not this gift, to discern the Lord's
merciful visitation. And t