own very influential congregation: (1) he pro-
posed that the Lord’s Supper was not merely a
grace-strengthening, but a grace-begetting ordi-
nance, a means of conversion; (2) he therefore
admitted to the sacrament all persons of non-
scandalous behavior who desired to receive it;
and (3) he required no public relation of the
special signs of God’s grace working upon the
souls of those seeking full church membership.
Such apostasy ‘‘gastered’’ Edward Taylor, as he
would have put it, and he turned his pulpit into a
bastion from which to repulse the attacks of
Stoddard’s popular religion.
Chief among his retorts to Stoddard are his
eight sermons preached in 1694 and later revised
into a ‘‘Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper.’’
These are not, like Taylor’sChristographia, sac-
rament-day sermons, but their main subject is
the sacrament, and because of the scriptural
parable which yields their central doctrines,
they fall naturally into the imagery of ‘‘Huswif-
ery.’’ The ‘‘Treatise’’ explores the parable of the
king who sends out messengers to invite guests to
the wedding feast of his son. (Matt. XXII.1–14).
One of the invited guests comes without a wed-
ding garment, is discovered by the king, who
reprimands him and has him bound hand and
foot and cast into utter darkness. Taylor makes
verse 12, that point at which the king asks the
dumbfounded guest why he is present without
the proper garment, the working text of his trea-
tise. From it he draws four central doctrines,
each developed in a separate sermon or chapter:
(1) only the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper fits
all the conditions of the parable of the wedding
feast; (2) a wedding garment is absolutely neces-
sary for attendance at the sacrament; (3) God
will judge most harshly those who appear with-
out the garment; and (4) there is no reason for
approaching the sacramental feast without the
wedding garment. The remaining four sermons
‘‘apply’’ these truths.
One would rightly expect Taylor’s second
sermon to pertain most directly to ‘‘Huswifery,’’
but it is the first sermon that introduces relevant
imagery. ‘‘Why,’’ asks Taylor, ‘‘is there a Wedden
Feast to which all under the Gospell are urged to
Come?’’ To this question he offers two answers.
One is that the marriage of Christ to a human
soul—the mystical and hypostatical unions men-
tioned above—is a marriage of great concern and
must be celebrated in worthy human activity.
The other answer, significantly joined with the
question of union and the natural image of mar-
riage to represent it, is that the feast is designed to
stir men up to acts of preparation. And it is an
aspect of preparation that calls forth the ‘‘Hus-
wifery’’ imagery: ‘‘The fitting of a Person for the
Celebration of this Wedden, is bought out of the
Shops of Divine Grace. The trimmings are not of
natures Husswifry. The Web that the Wedden
Cloaths are made of is the rich and Well wrought
Broadcloath of the Holy Ghost. The pure fine
Cloath of Grace’’ (p. 12).
But the second sermon raises the question of
most concern to ‘‘Huswifery.’’ What exactly is
this garment that makes it so necessary to the
sacrament? Taylor answers by first declaring
what the garment isnot. It is not a civil, sober
life and conversation (which forces us to reex-
amine Taylor’s use ofconversationin ‘‘Huswif-
ery’’). If it were, we should have to conclude that
the unfortunate wedding guest of the parable
suffered eternal condemnation for mere uncivil-
ity. The garment is also not a doctrinal profes-
sion, that is, a belief in salvation through Christ,
for the wedding guest’s being at the feast indi-
cates he probably has this. Affirmatively, Taylor
then insists, ‘‘this Wedden Garment is nothing
below a Sanctifying Work of the Spirit upon the
Soule’’ (p. 22). And more particularly, ‘‘It is the
Robe of Evangelicall Righteousness Constitut-
ing the Soule Compleat in the [Sight] of God.
This is that which I take to be the Wedden Gar-
ment’’ (p. 22).
Thus we return to the idea of righteousness,
but what does it mean to Taylor? He explains by
calling Biblical witness to its existence, citing
among other texts Revelation III.5, which he
developed in terms of weaving and cloth-making
imagery a year and a half earlier in Meditation
I:46. This righteousness is called ‘‘imputed’’
when it refers to God’s ‘‘accepting of Christ in
our Stead for the fulfilling the Law and also for
the Satisfying the Law broken by us, doth
reckon Christs keeping the Law, and his Satisfy-
ing of it for us to be ours. And the Soule by faith
receiving the Same, becomes hereby acquitted
from the Guilt of his Sin: and Stands righteous
before God’’ (p. 23). It is called ‘‘implanted’’
righteousness when it refers to ‘‘The Sanctifying
Graces of the Spirit Communicated to the Soul’’
(p. 23). Sanctifying grace, then, adorns the souls
of God’s Elect and beautifies them. Imputed and
implanted righteousness ‘‘both put together
make up this Wedden Garment, in which the
Soul Stands Complete before God’’ (p. 23).Huswifery