The angels and the Church are the beauty and adornment of God. Understand: as I. For he clothes himself with comeliness, of which it is written: 'The Lord hath reigned, he is clothed with beauty' (Ps. 92:1). He himself is raised on high among us, when he is shown to be impenetrable to our minds in his own nature. He himself is glorious, who, while he delights in himself, is not in need of any added praise. He himself is clothed with beautiful garments, because he has taken up the choirs of holy angels, which he created, for the use of his own adornment, and he presents to himself as a certain glorious garment the Church, not having wrinkle or stain (Eph. 5:27). Whence it is said to him through the prophet: 'Thou hast put on confession and beauty, clothed with light as with a garment' (Ps. 103:1-2).
Here indeed he puts on confession, there beauty, because those whom here he has made confessing through penance, there he will show resplendent through the beauty of justice. With light therefore as with a garment is he clothed, because he will be clothed in that eternal glory with all the saints, to whom it was said: 'You are the light of the world' (Matt. 5:14). Whence also it is said through the Gospel that, when the Lord was transfigured on the mountain, his garments became white as snow (Matt. 17:2). In which transfiguration what else is announced than the glory of the final resurrection? For on the mountain his garments became as snow, because on the summit of supernal brightness all the saints, shining with the light of justice, will cleave to him.
But because by the name of beautiful garments he intimates how he joins the just to himself, he also shows how he disjoins the unjust from himself. There follows: