cted, will be completely, uninterruptedly, and eternally
realised. If that hope flickers and is sometimes all but dead, the
reason mainly lies in its flame not being fed by present experience.

II. The helmet of salvation.

This salvation in its present form will keep our heads in the day of
battle. Its very characteristic is that it delivers us from evil, and
all the graces with which Paul equips his ideal warrior are parts of the
positive blessings which our salvation brings us. The more assured we
are in our own happy consciousness of possessing the salvation of God,
the more shall we be defended from all the temptations that seek to stir
into action our lower selves. There will be no power in our fears to
draw us into sin, and the possible evils that appeal to earthly passions
of whatever sort will lose their power to disturb us, in the precise
measure in which we know that we are saved in Christ. The consciousness
of salvation will tend to damp down the magazine of combustibles that we
all carry within us, and the sparks that fall will be as innocuous as
those that light on wet gunpowder. If our thoughts are occupied with the
blessings which we possess they will be guarded against the assaults of
evil. The full cup has no room for poison. The eye that is gazing on the
far-off white mountains does not see the filth and frivolities around.
If we are living in conscious possession and enjoyment of what God gives
us, we shall pass scatheless through the temptations which would
otherwise fall on us and rend us. A future eagerly longed for, and
already possessed in germ, will kill a present that would otherwise
appeal to us with irresistible force.

III. Take the helmet.

We might perhaps more accurately read _receive_ salvation, for that
salvation is not won by any efforts of our own, but if we ever possess
it, our possession is the result of our accepting it as a gift from God.
The first word which the Gospel speaks to men and which makes it a
Gospel, is not Do this or that, but Take this from the hands that were
nailed to the Cross. The beginning of all true life, of all peace, of
all self-control, of all hope, lies in the humble and penitent
acceptance by faith of the salvation which Christ brings, and with which
we have nothing to do but to accept it.

But Paul is here speaking to those whom he believes to have already
exercised the initial faith which united them to Christ, and made His
salvation theirs, and t