Ephesians 6:15

that is, for your little faith He gives you the earth of so great extent to till, water to drink and also to sail on, air to breathe, fire to do your work, a world to dwell in; and He has permitted you to conduct a colony from here to heaven: with these important works of His hand, and benefits in such numbers, He has rewarded your little faith. Then, those who have put faith in necromancers, receive from them amulets and charms, to ward off evil forsooth; and will you not allow the heavenly Word, the Saviour, to be bound on to you as an amulet, and, by trusting in God’s own charm, be delivered from passions which are the diseases of the mind, and rescued from sin? for sin is eternal death. Surely utterly dull and blind, and, like moles, doing nothing but eat, you spend your lives in darkness, surrounded with corruption. …

Let there, then, be in the fruits of thy hands, sacred order, liberal communication, and acts of economy. “For he that giveth to the poor, lendeth to God.” “And the hands of the manly shall be enriched.” Manly He calls those who despise wealth, and are free in bestowing it. And on your feet let active readiness to well-doing appear, and a journeying to righteousness. Modesty and chastity are collars and necklaces; such are the chains which God forges. “Happy is the man who hath found wisdom, and the mortal who knows understanding,” says the Spirit by Solomon: “for it is better to buy her than treasures of gold and silver; and she is more valuable than precious stones.” For she is the true decoration.

“And put shoes on his feet,” for “the preparation of the Gospel of peace,” and the whole course that leads to good actions.

This interpretation of ours will derive confirmation, when, on your supposing that Christ is in any passage called a warrior, from the mention of certain arms and expressions of that sort, you weigh well the analogy of their other meanings, and draw your conclusions accordingly. “Gird on Thy sword,” says David, “upon Thy thigh.” But what do you read about Christ just before? “Thou art fairer than the children of men; grace is poured forth upon Thy lips.” It amuses me to imagine that blandishments of fair beauty and graceful lips are ascribed to one who had to gird on His sword for war! So likewise, when it is added, “Ride on prosperously in Thy majesty,” the reason is subjoined: “Because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness.” But who shall produce these results with the sword, and not their opposites rather, deceit, and harshness, and injury, which, it must be confessed, are the pro …

8. For the secular contest men are trained and prepared, and reckon it a great glory of their honour if it should happen to them to be crowned in the sight of the people, and in the presence of the emperor. Behold a lofty and great contest, glorious also with the reward of a heavenly crown, inasmuch as God looks upon us as we struggle, and, extending His view over those whom He has condescended to make His sons, He enjoys the spectacle of our contest. God looks upon us in the warfare, and fighting in the encounter of faith; His angels look on us, and Christ looks on us. How great is the dignity, and how great the happiness of the glory, to engage in the presence of God, and to be crowned, with Christ for a judge! Let us be armed, beloved brethren, with our whole strength, and let us be prepared for the struggle with an uncorrupted mind, with a sound faith, with a devoted courage. …

In the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians: “Our wrestle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and princes of this world, and of this darkness; against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places. Because of this, put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to resist in the most evil day; that when ye have accomplished all, ye may stand, having your loins girt in the truth of the Gospel, putting on the breastplate of righteousness, and having your feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace; in all things taking the shield of faith, in which ye may extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

2. But our armour is Christ; it is that which the Apostle Paul prescribes when, writing to the Ephesians, he says, “Take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day;” and again, “Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked: and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” Armed with these weapons, King David went forth in his day to battle; and taking from the torrent’s bed five smooth rounded stones, he proved that, even amidst all the eddying currents of the world, his feelings were free both from roughness and from defilement; drinking of the brook by the way, and therefore …

10. To take, for example, this requirement on which Faustus ignorantly grounds his charge against the Old Testament, that a man should take his brother’s wife to raise up seed for his brother, to be called by his name; what does this prefigure, but that every preacher of the gospel should so labor in the Church as to raise up seed to his deceased brother, that is, Christ, who died for us, and that this seed should bear His name? Moreover, the apostle fulfills this requirement not now in the typical observance, but in the spiritual reality, when he reproves those of whom he says that he had begotten them in Christ Jesus by the gospel, and points out to them their error in wishing to be of Paul. "Was Paul," he says, "crucified for you? Or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?" As if he should say, I have begotten you for my deceased brother; your name is Christian, not Paulian. …

11. “Into Idumæa I will stretch out my shoe” ( ver. 8 ). The Church speaketh, “I will come through even unto Idumæa.” Let tribulations rage, let the world boil with offences, even unto those very persons that lead an earthly life (for Idumæa is interpreted earthly), even unto those same, “even unto Idumæa, I will stretch out my shoe.” Of what thing the shoe except of the Gospel? “How beautiful the feet of them that tell of peace, that tell of good things,” and “the feet shod unto the preparation of the Gospel of peace.”…In these times we see, brethren, how many earthly men do perpetrate frauds for the sake of gain, for frauds perjuries; on account of their fears they consult fortune-tellers, astrologers: all these men are Edomites, earthly; and nevertheless all these men adore Christ, under His own shoe they are; now even unto Idumæa is stretched out His shoe. …

Ephesians vi. 14-17 “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” “ Having girded your loins,” saith he, “with truth.” What can be the meaning of this? I have stated in the preceding discourse, that he ought to be lightly accoutered, in order that there should be no impediment whatever to his running.

3. But now, which is above all things most necessary, I wish to remind you, and myself with you, how that the command would have us come to the Paschal feast not profanely and without preparation, but with sacramental and doctrinal rites, and prescribed observances, as indeed we learn from the historical account, ‘A man who is of another nation, or bought with money, or uncircumcised, shall not eat the Passover.’ Neither should it be eaten in ‘any’ house, but He commands it to be done in haste; inasmuch as before we groaned and were made sad by the bondage to Pharaoh, and the commands of the task-masters. For when in former time the children of Israel acted in this way, they were counted worthy to receive the type, which existed for the sake of this feast, nor is the feast now introduced on account of the type. …

4. Bonosus, your friend, or, to speak more truly, mine as well as yours, is now climbing the ladder foreshown in Jacob’s dream. He is bearing his cross, neither taking thought for the morrow nor looking back at what he has left. He is sowing in tears that he may reap in joy. As Moses in a type so he in reality is lifting up the serpent in the wilderness. This is a true story, and it may well put to shame the lying marvels described by Greek and Roman pens. For here you have a youth educated with us in the refining accomplishments of the world, with abundance of wealth, and in rank inferior to none of his associates; yet he forsakes his mother, his sisters, and his dearly loved brother, and settles like a new tiller of Eden on a dangerous island, with the sea roaring round its reefs; while its rough crags, bare rocks, and desolate aspect make it more terrible still. …