Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

² Therefore He would that “our loins should be girded, and our lights burning.” What is, “our loins girded”? “Depart from evil.” What is to “burn”? What is to have our “lights burning”? It is this, “And do good.” What is that which He said afterwards, “And ye yourselves like men that wait for their Lord, when He will return from the wedding:” except that which follows in that Psalm, “Seek after peace, and ensue it”? These three things, that is, “abstaining from evil, and doing good,” and the hope of everlasting reward, are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, where it is written, that Paul taught them of “temperance and righteousness,” and the hope of eternal life. To temperance belongs, “let your loins be girded.” To righteousness, “and your lights burning.” To the hope of eternal life, the waiting for the Lord. So then, “depart from evil,” this is temperance, these are the loins girded: “and do good,” this is righteousness, these are the “lights burning;” “seek peace, and ensue it,” this is the waiting for the world to come: therefore, “Be like men that wait for their Lord, when He will come from the wedding.”