d for help, but still it is he in his strength,
helped by God, who is to do the work. In the Epistles to the Romans, and
Corinthians, and Galatians, we know how Paul tells them that they have
not received the spirit of bondage again, that they are free from the
law, that they are no more servants but sons; that they must beware of
nothing so much as to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Everywhere it is the contrast between the law and grace, between the
flesh, which is under the law, and the Spirit, who is the gift of grace,
and through whom grace does all its work. In our days, just as in those
first ages, the great danger is living under the law, and serving God in
the strength of the flesh. With the great majority of Christians it
appears to be the state in which they remain all their lives. Hence the
lack to such a large extent of true holy living and power in prayer.
They do not know that all failure can have but one cause: _Men seek to
do themselves what grace alone can do in them_, what grace most
certainly will do.

Many will not be prepared to admit that this is their disease, that they
are not living "under grace." Impossible, they say. "From the depth of
my heart," a Christian cries, "I believe and know that there is no good
in me, and that I owe everything to grace alone." "I have spent my
life," a minister says, "and found my glory in preaching and exalting
the doctrines of free grace." "And I," a missionary answers, "how could
I ever have thought of seeing the heathen saved, if my only confidence
had not been in the message I brought, and the power I trusted, of God's
abounding grace." Surely you cannot say that our failures in prayer, and
we sadly confess to them, are owing to our not living "under grace"?
This cannot be our disease.

We know how often a man may be suffering from a disease without knowing
it. What he counts a slight ailment turns out to be a dangerous
complaint. Do not let us be too sure that we are not, to a large extent,
still living "under the law," while considering ourselves to be living
wholly "under grace." Very frequently the reason of this mistake is the
limited meaning attached to the word "grace." Just as we limit God
Himself, by our little or unbelieving thoughts of Him, so we limit His
grace at the very moment that we are delighting in terms like the
"riches of grace," "grace exceeding abundant." Has not the very term,
"grace abounding," from Bunyan's book downwar