When empty terrors overawe,
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!"
Yes, we can "put Him on" as our "Panoply of Light." We can put Him on as "the Lord," surrendering ourselves to His absolute while most benignant sovereignty and will, deep secret of repose. We can put Him on as "Jesus," clasping the truth that He, our Human Brother, yet Divine, "saves His people from their sins" (Matt. i. 21). We can put Him on as "Christ," our Head, anointed without measure by the Eternal Spirit, and now sending of that same Spirit into His happy members, so that we are indeed one with Him, and receive into our whole being the resources of His life.
Such is the armour and the arms. St Jerome, commenting on a kindred passage (Eph. vi. 13), says that "it most clearly results that by 'the weapons of God' the Lord our Saviour is to be understood."
We may recollect that this text is memorable in connexion with the Conversion of St Augustine. In his Confessions (viii. 12) he records how, in the garden at Milan, at a time of great moral conflict, he was strangely attracted by a voice, perhaps the cry of children playing: "Take and read, take and read." He fetched and opened again a copy of the Epistles (codicem Apostoli), which he had lately laid down. "I read in silence the first place on which my eyes fell; 'Not in revelling and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in its lusts.' I neither cared, nor needed, to read further. At the close of the sentence, as if a ray of certainty were poured into my heart, the clouds of hesitation fled at once." His will was in the will of God.
Alas, there falls one shadow over that fair scene. In the belief of Augustine's time, to decide fully for Christ meant, or very nearly meant, so to accept the ascetic idea as to renounce the Christian home. But the Lord read His servant's heart aright through the error, and filled it with His peace. To us, in a surrounding religious light far clearer, in many things, than that which shone even upon Ambrose and Augustine; to us who quite recognize that in the paths of homeliest duty and commonest temptation lies the line along which the blessed power of the Saviour may best overshadow His disciple; the Spirit's voice shall say of this same text, "Take and read, take and read." We will "put on," never to put off. Then we shall step out upon the old path in a strength new, and to be renewed for ever, armed against evil, armed for the will of God, with Jesus Christ our Lord.
Omitte mirari beatæ
Fumum et opes strepitumque Romæ. (Horace.)
[228] Προέκοψε: literally, "made progress." The aorist may refer to the event of the First Advent, when our eternal Sun was heralded by Himself the Morning Star. But perhaps it is best represented by the English perfect, as in the A.V. and above.