» J. Dennay. ' Phillips Brooks.
292 POWER IN WEAKNESS
I feel so happy in the many blessings of being able to do His work, so strong now that for a time the self-mist has rolled off my soul, so ready for war, as if a great war was coming which God by His revelation of Himself to me, and of myself to myself, has been preparing me to fight in quiet, humble, unselfish faith. Not that the old temptations will not come back, but the memory of the clearer vision in my spirit to-night will come too, and the power to endure patiently the wounds to vanity and self-assertion, to resist idleness, and to rejoice in the blessings of my home and Christ's service. May God keep me and mine for ever. Amen.^
^ There was an element of morbidness in all the development of his sensitiveness. But it was a morbidness which had not grown upon him from without like a fungus on a tree, but which was the natural outcome of his constitution and temperament. It was born with him. He never could have been entirely free from it, unless he had been a soldier in constant warfare. It was increased by physical disease, till it threatened to become a tyrannous power. But here, where his greatest weakness lay, appeared his greatest strength. If he could not exactly say, " Most gladly, therefore, will I glory in mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me," yet those who have closely known his character can say for him that he turned his necessity to glorious gain. He transmuted the dross of his nature into gold by the alchemy of Christian effort. " He was the most inflexible person," says an intimate friend, "with all his almost morbid dehcacy of feeling — an iron will, impossible to move when it was fixed by principle." *
The Reassukancb.
"My gfrace is sufficient for thee."
1. The collocation of " grace " and " strength " in the present text is characteristic of the New Testament, and very significant. There are many to whom " grace " is a holy word with no par- ticular meaning ; " the grace of God," or " the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ," is only a vague benignity, which may fairly enough be spoken of as a " smile." But grace, in the New Testament, is
^ Life of Edward Thring, i. 218.
' Stopford A. Brooke, Life and Letters of F, W. Eohertson, 163.
2 COR. XII. 9 ^93
force: it is a heavenly strength bestowed on men for timely succour ; it finds its opportunity in our extremity ; when our weakness makes us incapable of doing anything, it gets full scope to work.
Is grace the same as love ? Yes, at the heart of it, it is the same as love. When we get deep enough down to the heart of it, love and grace are indistinguishable. The difference is that love can travel anywhere, upwards, or on the levels of equality but grace can travel downwards only. A king can always be gracious to his subjects ; a subject can never be gracious to his king. He may love his king, and be intensely loyal, but he can never be gracious to his king ; for grace is love able to condescend to men of low estate, leaning down with royalty of pity to the lowly and wretched and lost. That is why we call it sovereign grace ; it is a peculiar prerogative of sovereignty. That is why we talk of free grace. That is why, when we think of the grace of God, our thoughts go out immediately to Christ, for it is in Christ and Christ alone we learn the love of God to sinful men.
^ Grace (in the Old Testament) means the immense honour — and sometimes even outward beauty — which God's goodness confers on a man. It refers to the unspeakable ennoblement of the whole of human nature by its contact with God. So it may come to mean as in Psalm xc. — the sort of " beauty " or " glory " (in the New Testament) which passes upon Christians from the presence of their Master, clothing them with radiance, winning- ness, and power.^
^ Grace has been excellently defined as " God's love in action," or otherwise as a " gift of spiritual strength." Man's kindliness too often evaporates in feeling, or in a few sympathetic words. With God to will is to act, and so His goodwill must needs energize in bounty.^
As Thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved
Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved !
He who did most, shall bear most ; the strongest shall stand
the most weak. 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my flesh, that
I seek In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. 0 Saul, it shall be A Face like my face that receives thee ; a Man like to me,
' R. W. Barbour, Thought), 114. ' W. Bright, The Lom of Fmth, 14.
294 POWER IN WEAKNESS
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever: a Hand like this
hand Shall throw open the gates of new life, to thee! See the