Of faith and love, he says. Here he glances at life and doctrine. He has shown what it is to watch and be sober, to have the breastplate of faith and love. Not a common faith, he says, but as nothing can soon pierce through a breastplate, but it is a safe wall to the breast—so do thou also, he says, surround your soul with faith and love, and none of the fiery darts of the devil can ever be fixed in it. For where the power of the soul is preoccupied with the armor of love, all the devices of those who plot against it are vain and ineffectual. For neither wickedness, nor hatred, nor envy, nor flattery, nor hypocrisy, nor any other thing will be able to penetrate such a soul. He has not simply said love, but he has bid them put it on as a strong breastplate. And for a helmet the hope of salvation. For as the helmet guards the vital part in us, surrounding the head and covering it on every side, so also this hope does not suffer the reason to falter, but sets it upright as the head, not p...
