Daily Inspiration Quote by Bishop Robert South

Innocence, here, isn’t a soft virtue; it’s gear. South’s metaphor does double duty: “polished armor” is decorative and tactical, suggesting that moral purity is both a public signal and a practical safeguard. The shine matters. Polished metal catches the eye, announces status, and implies discipline. In a culture where reputation functioned as a kind of social currency, innocence “adorns” by making a life legible as trustworthy, almost aristocratic in its self-command.

But armor also presumes threat. South is writing as an Anglican divine in a post-Civil War, post-Restoration England where politics and faith had taught people to read danger into everyday life. The subtext is anxiety: the world is not neutral, and the soul is not safe by default. Innocence becomes a defensive technology against temptation, scandal, and the corrosive suspicion that attends public life. It’s an argument for prophylaxis, not naïveté.

The phrase also quietly disciplines the listener. Armor is maintained; it must be kept polished. Innocence, then, isn’t merely a state you possess, but a regimen you perform. That’s classic pulpit rhetoric: it flatters the congregation with the nobility of the image while pressing an obligation underneath it. South makes virtue aspirational without making it abstract. You can see armor, feel its weight, imagine its care - and by doing so, you’re nudged into treating moral life as something you actively wear, not something you casually claim.