^ Successful resistance of temptation seems to consist of three fairly distinct movements of the mind. The first step is obviously, and always, of the nature of a recoil. The mind starts back from the evil suggestion at least so far as to plant itself more firmly down in the attitude of resistance. The next step in resistance is obviously the reaching for and grasping one's weapon. First the mind recoils, next the mind recalls. Opposite the alluring suggestion it places the steadying word from the mind of God. " Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour ? " said our tempted Lord. But His recoiling mind recalls, " For this cause came I unto this hour." Now, what shall we recall? For us all the mind of God is gathered up in Christ ; the full glory of that mind shines in the face of Christ. In a moment we may recall the loving-kindness, holy purity, strong sympathy, and present grace of the Supreme. For the Christian man who believes in the ubiquitous, ready presence of "grace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," the claim of goodness is instantaneously recalled, the help of Divine strength instantaneously summoned, by one single gesture of the spirit. Thirdly, to work for its
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translation into redeemed lives of men ana' redeemed nature — that is the last part of successful resistance of temptation. It is the hardest bit of all, for it means thinking of others' needs as much as of one's own. Yet it is notorious that for real healing a man must come forth and step out into sympathy with others, and in that kindly preoccupation discover the secret of a quiet spirit. So it is in temptation : the field of victory is the field of battle for others' good.^
2. Salvation is ours by " the grace of God." What is the grace of God ? It is the forth-putting of His power for the good of mankind, the motive of which is mercy born of love. It is God Himself, moved by a deep, tender compassion, which has its source and support in His own infinite affection, coming down to the fallen race, and, departing from the strict ground of justice and retribution, dealing with it not according to its sins, but according to His mercy. Divine grace, we may say, is the child of love, and the parent of mercy. It is because God is Love that He is disposed to assume a favourable attitude towards those whose sins have merited His wrath, and must ever of necessity be contemplated by Him with disfavour. The essential love of the great Father's heart takes definite form, and accommodates itself to our need; reveals itself in facts and presents itself for our acceptance ; and then we call it grace.
^ That word " grace " played a much larger part in the thoughts of our fathers than it does in ours ; and I am not sure that many things are more needed by the ordinary Christian of this generation than that he should rediscover the amplitude and the majesty of that old-fashioned and unfashionable word. Eor what does " grace " mean ? It means a self -originated love. Grace is love that has no motive but itself. Grace is a self- motived love that is in full energetic exercise. Grace is a self- motived, ever-acting love that delights to impart. Grace is a self-motived, ever-acting communicating love which bends in tenderness over and floods with gifts those that stand far beneath itself. Grace is a self-motived, ever-acting, communicating, and stooping love which brings in its hands the gift of forgiveness, and deals with those on whom it lavishes this tenderness, not according to their merits, but according to the pulsations of its own heart. And thus grace is the shorthand word for the self- motived, ever-acting, communicating, stooping, and pardoning ^ G. A. Johnston Koss, in Youth and Life, 175.
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mercy which has its very home and throne in the heart of God Himself.^
3. The grace of God " hath appeared." St. Paul does not say it awoke or sprang into existence, but it appeared, it was made manifest, Grace for sinners dwelt in the heart of God from the beginning, but it was a secret hidden from the world. The nations of the earth walked in ignorance, without the knowledge of God's grace ; in Israel alone did God shed forth rays of His grace in the promises of the prophets and the manifold types of the Levitical law. The fathers lived in the dawn ; they had to sigh and did sigh for the breaking of the day ; but when God's time had come the day did break and His grace appeared in all its fulness and glory. When, where, how ? Here is the fountain of our Christmas joy. The grace of God appeared in its fulness when the Virgin gave birth and the angels chanted over the fields of Bethlehem. " In this," says St. John, " was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him." In the birth of Jesus Christ it is become manifest, clear as the noonday, that God is graciously minded towards men, because this Infant is the own and only begotten Son of the Father.