4. Christ's strength loves to work in weakness, only the weakness must be conscious, and the conscious weakness must have passed into conscious dependence. There, then, you get the law for the Church, for the works of Christianity on the widest scale and in individual lives. Strength that counts itself strength is weakness: weakness that knows itself to be weakness is strength. The only true source of power, both for Christian work and in all other respects, is God Himself ; and our strength is ours but by derivation from Him. And the only way to secure that derivation is through humble dependence — which we call faith — on Jesus Christ. And the only way by which that faith in Jesus Christ can ever be kindled in a man's soul is through the sense of his need and emptiness. So when we know ourselves weak, we have taken the first step to strength; just as, when we know ourselves sinners, we have taken the first step to righteousness. In all regions of life the recognition of the doleful fact of our human necessity is the beginning of the joyful confidence in the glad, triumphant fact of the Divine fulness. All our emptinesses
1 J. B. Mayor, The World's Desire, 74. 2 COR. & GAL. — 20
3o6 POWER IN WEAKNESS
are met with His fulness that fits into them. It only needs that a man should be aware of what he is, and then turn himself to Him who is all that he is not, and into his empty being will flow rejoicing the whole fulness of God.
^ Many modern Englishmen talk of themselves as the sturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan Fathers. As a fact, they would run away from a cow. If you asked one of their Puritan fathers, if you asked Bunyan, for instance, whether he was sturdy, he would have answered with tears, that he was as weak as water. And because of this he would have borne tortures.^
^ If an electric car stands motionless on the tracks, it is nothing against the power of electricity. If an invalid has no appetite, and cannot go out of doors at night, it is no argument against things to eat and the joy of starlit air. If a man does not know a flower by name, or a poem by heart, it is no indictment of the beauty of a rose, or the charm of poetry. If we bear the name of Christ but give no other sign of Him, if we go through the forms of godliness, but live powerless lives, it is a thousand reproaches to us. To be powerless when Christ has all power, and we can have all we want, is an arrangement to which we can make no answer that is not self-incriminating.^
Thou knowest, Lord, that we alone
Should surely fail ;
We have no wisdom of our own
That could prevail;
Yet Thou, through human helplessness.
Canst work Thy will — canst help and bless.
Take these weak hands, and hold them. Lord;
Our Helper be,
In Thee is all our fulness stored;
We come to Thee,
And know that, by Thy Spirit's might,
We must be victors in the fight.*
^ G. K. Chesterton, Heretics.
' M. D. Babcock, ThougUsfor Every -Day Living, 32.
» Edith H. Divall, A Believer's Best, 54.
The Apostolic Benediction.
3^
Literature.
Alford (H.), Quebec Chapel Sermons, iv. 290.
Bishop (J. W.), The Christian Year, 277,
Bonar (H,), Light and Truth : Acta and Epistles, 410.
Brooks (P.), Sermons for the Principal Festivals and Fasts, 303.
Chadwick (S.), Humanity and God, 337.
Conwell (R. H.), How to Live the Christ Life, 72.
Grimley (H. N.), The Temple of Humanity, 106.
Grubb (E.), The Personality of God, 62.
Hatch (E.), Memorials, 327.
Holden (J. S.), Fulness of Life, 68.
„ „ The Pre-eminent Lord, 235.
Home (C. S.), The Doctrine of the Trinity,
Huntingdon (F. D.), Christ in the Christian Year : Trinity to Advent, 1. Ingram (A. F. W.), The Love of the Trinity, 27, 47. Joynt (R. C), Liturgy and Life, 35. Knight (G. H.), Divine Upliftings, 63. Lynch (T. T.), Three Months' Ministry, 313. McKim (R, H.), The Gospel in the Christian Year, 331. Morgan (J.), The Ministry of the Holy Ghost, 308. Muspratt (W.), ITie Work and Power of the Holy Spirit, 190. Myres (W. M.), Fragments that Remain, 50. Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, iv. 98. Roberts (W. P.), Our Prayer Book, 278. Steel (T. H.), Sermons in Harrow School, 200. Thorn (J. H.), A Spiritual Faith, 78. Vallings (J. F.), The Holy Spirit of Promise, 123, Welldon (J. E. C), The School of Faith, 49. Wilberforce (B.), Following on to Know the Lord, 35. Williams (T. R.), God's Open Doors, 238. Christian World Pulpit, xiv. 260 (J. T, Stannard) ; xxiiv. 56 (J. Hall);
1. 344 (A. Whyte) ; Ixxxix. 131 (M. Barwell). Churchman's Pulpit : Trinity Sunday, ix. 410 (W. M. Richardson), 415
(J. M. Wilson), 418 (J. LI. Davies). Expositor, 2nd Ser., ii. 152 (G. Matheson). Expository Times, xviii. 257 (B. Rainy).
308
The Apostolic Benediction.
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the com- munion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. — 2 Cor. xiii. 14.
1. Such is the blessing with which the Apostle concludes his Second Epistle to the Church at Corinth. It is the longest and fullest of all the salutations which he was accustomed to use, each of which was by his own appointment to be the token that the letter in which it occurred came from him. This we have expressly stated to us in one of the earliest of the Epistles of St. Paul. It was the custom for the author to employ a clerk, or writing servant, who copied down the words as they were uttered, and who at times was permitted himself to send a message in the letter of his master. Such a servant was Tertius, who, in the sixteenth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans and the twenty- second verse, tells us that he wrote the letter : " I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord." But though St. Paul dictated his Epistles to secretaries, yet he always added the salutation with his own hand. Hear his own words as given in his earliest Epistle but one (the second to the Thessalonians) : " The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle : so I write." And upon examination of the thirteen Epistles to which the name of St. Paul is prefixed — as well as that to the Hebrews (which has in it many characteristic Pauline phrases) — we find that they all contain near their con- clusion— with some slight verbal variations — the expression, " The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all." During St. Paul's lifetime this blessing appears to have been considered pre- eminently his. After his death we find it employed by St. John to conclude the Eevelation — as the final salutation and blessing which the Holy Spirit inspired him to give to the Church of Christ through all ages.