I am.' Now that word 'grace' has got
to be worn threadbare, and to mean next door to nothing, in the ears
and minds of a great many continual hearers of the Gospel. But
Paul had a very definite idea of what he meant by it; and what he
meant by it was a very large thing, which we may well ponder for a
moment as being the only thing which will transform and ennoble
character and will produce fruit that a man need not be ashamed of.
The grace of God, in Paul's use of the words, which is the scriptural
use of them generally, implies these two things which are connected
as root and product--the active love of God, in exercise towards us
low and sinful creatures, and the gifts with which that love comes
full charged to men. These two things, which at bottom are one, love
and its gifts, are all, in the Apostle's judgment, gathered up and
stored, as in a great storehouse, in Jesus Christ Himself, and
through Him are made accessible to us, and brought to bear upon us
for the ennobling of our natures, and the investing of us with graces
and beauties of character, all strange to us apart from these.

Now it seems to me that these two things, which come from one root,
are the precise things which you and I need in order to make us
nobler and purer and more Godlike men than otherwise we could ever
become. For what is it that men need most for noble and pure living?
These two things precisely--motive and power to carry out the
dictates of conscience.

Every man in the world knows enough of duty and of right to be a far
nobler man than any man in the world is. And it is not for want of
clear convictions of duty, it is not for want of recognised models
and patterns of life, that men go wrong; but it is because there are
these two things lacking, motives for nobler service, and power to do
and be what they know they ought to be. And precisely here Paul's
gospel comes in, 'By the grace of God I am what I am.' That grace,
considered in its two sides of love and of giving, supplies all that
we want.

It supplies motives. There is nothing that will bend a man's will
like the recognition of divine love which it is blessedness to come
in contact with, and to obey. You may try to sway him by motives of
advantage and self-interest, and to thunder into his ears the pealing
words of duty and right and 'ought,' and there is no adequate
response. You cannot soften a heart by the hammers of the law. You
cannot force a man to do right by brandish