[[279]]
How many of them, may it be supposed, have any clear knowledge of what grace is, or of what the works of darkness are which they hope to have grace to cast away; or will feel themselves, in the coming year, armed with any more luminous mail than their customary coats and gowns, hosen and hats? Or again, when they are told to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them,”—what fellowship do they recognize themselves to have guiltily formed; and whom, or what, will they feel now called upon to reprove?
In last Fors, I showed you how the works of darkness were unfruitful;—the precise reverse of the fruitful, or creative, works of Light;—but why in this collect, which you pray over and over again all Advent, do you ask for ‘armour’ instead of industry? You take your coat off to work in your own gardens; why must you put a coat of mail on, when you are to work in the Garden of God?
Well; because the earthworms in it are big—and have teeth and claws, and venomous tongues. So that the first question for you is indeed, not whether you have a mind to work in it—many a coward has that—but whether you have courage to stand in it, and armour proved enough to stand in.
Suppose you let the consenting bystander who took care of the coats taken off to do that piece of work on St. Stephen, explain to you the pieces out of St. Michael’s [[280]]armoury needful to the husbandman, or Georgos, of God’s garden.
“Stand therefore; having your loins girt about with Truth.”
That means, that the strength of your backbone depends on your meaning to do true battle.
“And having on the breastplate of Justice.”
That means, there are to be no partialities in your heart, of anger or pity;—but you must only in justice kill, and only in justice keep alive.
“And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of Peace.”