any one imagine that he is prepared to withstand the assaults of the powers of darkness, if his mind is stored with his own theories or with the speculations of other men. Nothing but the truth of God clearly understood and cordially embraced will enable him to keep his feet for a moment, before these celestial potentates. Reason, tradition, speculative conviction, dead ortho- doxy, are a girdle of spider-webs. They give way at the first onset. Truth alone, as abiding in the mind in the form of divine knowledge, can give strength or confidence even in the ordinary conflicts of the Chris- tian life, much more in any really “ evil day.”
Καὶ ἐνδυσάμενοι τὸν ώρακα τῆς δικαιοσύνης, and hav- ing put on the breast-plate of righteousness. The ϑώραξ was the “armour covering the body from the neck to the thighs, consisting of two parts, one covering the front and the other the back.” A warrior without his S@pa& was naked, exposed to every thrust of his enemy, and even to every casual dart. In such a state flight or death is inevitable. What is that righteousness, which in the spiritual armour answers to the cuirass? Many say it is our own righteousness, integrity, or rectitude of mind. But this is no protec- tion. It cannot resist the accusations of conscience, the whispers of despondency, the power of temptation, much less the severity of the law, or the assaults of Satan. What Paul desired for himself was not to have on his own righteousness, but the righteousness which is of God by faith; Phil. 8, 8. 9. And this, doubtless, is the righteousness which he here urges believers to