Eversley. 1856.
St. John i. 16, 17. "Of His fulness have all we received, and grace for
grace. For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ."
I wish you to mind particularly this word GRACE. You meet it very often
in the Bible. You hear often said, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be
with you all. Now, what does this word grace mean? It is really worth
your while to know; for if a man or a woman has not grace, they will be
very unhappy people, and very disagreeable people also; a torment to
themselves, and a torment to their neighbours also; and if they live
without grace, they will live but a poor life; if they die without grace,
they will come to a very bad end indeed. What, then, does this word
mean? Some of you will answer that grace means God's Holy Spirit, or
that it means what God gives to our souls by His Spirit. But what does
that mean? What does God's Spirit give us? What is the grace of Jesus
Christ like, and how is it the same as the grace of God's Spirit?
Now, to know what grace means, we must know what St John and St Paul
meant by it, and what the word meant in their time, and what the
Ephesians, and Corinthians, and Romans, to whom they wrote, would have
understood by this word grace.
Now these heathens, to whom the apostles preached, before they heard the
gospel, knew that word grace very well indeed, often used it; and saw it
written up in their heathen temples all about them. And they meant by it
just what we mean, when we talk of a graceful person, or a graceful tree
or flower; and what we mean, too, when we say that any one is gracious;
that they do things gracefully, and have a great deal of grace in their
way of speaking and behaving. We mean by that that they are handsome,
agreeable, amiable, pleasant to look at, and talk to, and deal with. And
so these heathens meant, before they were Christians. The Romans used to
talk about some one called a Grace. The Greeks called her CHARIS; which
is exactly the word which St John and St Paul use, and from it come our
words charity and charitable. But more; they used to talk of three
Graces: they fancied that they were goddesses--spirits of some kind in
the shape of beautiful, and amiable, and innocent maidens, who took
delight in going about the world and making people happy and amiable like
themselves; and they used to make images of these graces, and pray to
them to make them lovely, and happy, and agreeable. And painters and
statuaries, too, used to pray to these graces, and ask them to put
beautiful fancies into their minds, that they might be able to paint
beautiful pictures, and carve beautiful statues. So when St Paul or St
John talked to these heathens about grace, or Charis (as the Testament
calls it), they knew quite well what the apostles meant.
Did the apostles, then, believe in these three goddesses? Heaven forbid.
They came to teach these heathens to turn from those very vanities, and
worship the living-God. And so they told them,--You are quite right in
thinking that grace comes from heaven, and is God's gift; that it is God
who makes people amiable, cheerful, lovely, and honourable; that it is
God who gives happiness and all the joys of life: but which god? Not
those three maidens; they are but a dream and fancy. All that is lovely
and pleasant in men and women--and our life here, and our everlasting
life after death, in this world and in all worlds to come--all comes from
Jesus Christ and from Him alone. God has gathered together all things in
Him, whether things in heaven or things on earth; and He bestows
blessings and graces on all who will ask Him, to each as much as is good
for him. He is full of grace--more full of it than all the human beings
in the world put together. All the goodness and sweetness, and all the
graciousness which you ever saw in all the men and women whom you ever
met; all the goodness and sweetness which you ever fancied for
yourselves, all put together is not to be compared to Him. For He is the
perfect brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's person;
and in Him is gathered together all grace, all goodness, all which makes
men or angels good, and lovely, and loving. All is in Him, and He gives
it freely to all, said the apostles; we know that He speaks truth, we
have seen Him; our eyes saw Him, our hands touched Him, and there was a
glory about Him such as there never could be about any other person. A
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. A
person whom we could not help loving; could not help admiring; could not
help trusting; could not help giving ourselves up to--to live for Him,
and if need be, die for Him.
And, said the apostles, there was a grace of truth in another of your
heathen fancies. You thought that these goddesses, because they were
amiable and innocent themselves, liked to make every one amiable,
innocent, and happy also. Your conscience, your reason were right there.
That is the very nature of grace, not to keep itself to itself, but to
spend itself on every one round it, and try to make every one like
itself. If a man be good, he will long to make others good; if tender,
he will long to make others tender; if gentle, he will long to make
others gentle; if cheerful, he will long to make others cheerful; if
forgiving, he will long to make others forgiving; if happy, he will long
to make others happy. Then said the apostles, only believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ, just because He is full of grace, wishes to fill you with
grace, ten thousand times better grace than you ever fancied those false
goddesses could give you--of His fulness you may all receive, and grace
for grace. All the grace of this world comes from Him--health, and
youth, and happiness, and all the innocent pleasures of life, and He
delights in giving you them. But, over and above that, comes a deeper
and nobler grace--spiritual grace, the grace of the immortal soul, which
will last on, and make you loving and loveable, pure and true, gracious
and generous, honourable and worthy of respect, when the grace of the
body is gone, and the eye is grown dim, and the hair is grey, and the
limbs, feeble; a grace which will make you gracious in old age, gracious
in death, gracious for ever and ever, after the body has crumbled again
to its dust. Whatsoever things are honourable, lovely, and of good
report; whatsoever tempers of mind make you a comfort to yourselves and
all around you; Christ has them all, and He can give you them all, one
after the other, till Christ be formed in you, till you come to be
perfect men and women, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ. Come, then, boldly to His throne of grace, to find mercy, and
grace to help you in the time of need.
This was what the apostles taught the heathen, and their words were true.
You may see them come true round you every day. For, my friends, just as
far as people pray for Christ's grace, and give themselves up to be led
by God's Spirit, they become full of grace themselves, courteous and
civil, loving and amiable, true and honourable--a pleasure to themselves
and to all round them. While, on the other hand; all rudeness, all ill-
temper, all selfishness, all greediness are just so many sins against the
grace of Christ, which grieve the Spirit of God, at the same time that
they grieve our neighbours for whom Christ died, and cut us off, as long
as we give way to them, from the communion of saints.
Well would it be for married people, if they would but remember this.
Well for them, for their own sake and for their children's. "Heirs
together," St Peter says they are, "of the grace of life." Think of
those words; for in them lies the true secret of happiness. Not in the
mere grace of youth, which pleases the fancy at first; that must soon
fade; and then comes, too often, coldness between man and wife; neglect,
rudeness, ill-temper, because the grace of life is not there--the grace
of the inner life, of the immortal soul, which alone makes life pleasant,
even tolerable, to two people who are bound together for better or for
worse. But yet, unless St Peter be mistaken, the fault in such sad case
is on the man's side. Yes, we must face that truth, we men; and face it
like men. If we are unhappy in our marriage it is our own fault. It is
the woman who is the weaker, says St Peter, and selfish men are apt to
say, "Then it is the woman's fault, if we are not happy." St Peter says
exactly the opposite. He says,--Because she is the weaker you are the
stronger; and therefore it is your fault if she is not what she should
be; for you are able to help her, and lead her; you took her to your
heart for that very purpose, you swore to cherish her. Because she is
the weaker, you can teach her, help her, improve her character, if you
will. You have more knowledge of life and the world than she has. Dwell
with her according to knowledge, says St Peter; use your experience to
set her right if she be wrong; and use your experience and your strength,
too, to keep down your own temper and your own selfishness toward her, to
bear and forbear, to give and forgive, live and let live. Remember that
you are heirs TOGETHER of the grace of life; and if the grace of life is
not in you, you cannot expect it to be in her. And what is the grace of
life? It must be the grace of Christ. St John says that Christ IS the
Life. And what is the grace of Christ? Christ's grace, Christ's
gracefulness, Christ's beautiful and noble and loving character--the
grace of Christ is Christ's likeness. Do you ask what will Christ give
me? He will give you Himself. He will make you like Himself, partaker
of His grace; and what is that? It is this--to be loving, gentle,
temperate, courteous, condescending, self-sacrificing. Giving honour to
those who are weaker than yourself, just because they are weaker; ready
and willing, ay, and counting it an honour to take trouble for other
people, to be of use to other people, to give way to other people; and,
above all, to the woman who has given herself to you, body and soul.
That is the grace of Christ; that is the grace of life; that is what
makes life worth having: ay, makes it a foretaste of heaven upon earth;
when man and wife are heirs together of the grace of life, of all those
tempers which make life graceful and pleasant, giving way to each other
in everything which is not wrong; studying each other's comfort, taking
each other's advice, shutting their eyes to each other's little failings,
and correcting each other's great failings, not by harsh words, but
silently and kindly, by example. And if the man will do that, there is
little fear but that the woman will do it also. And so, their prayers
are not hindered.
Married people cannot pray, they have no heart to pray, while they are
discontented with each other. They feel themselves wrong, and because
they are parted from each other, they feel parted from God too; and their
selfishness or anger rises as a black wall, not merely between them, but
between each of them and God. And so the grace of life is indeed gone
away from them, and the whole world looks dark and ugly to them, because
it is not bright and cheerful in the light of Christ's grace, which makes
all the world full of sunshine and joy. But it need not be so, friends.
It would not be so, if married people would take the advice which the
Prayer Book gives them, and come to Holy communion. Would to God, my
friends, that all married people would understand what that Holy
communion says to them; and come together Sunday after Sunday to that
throne of grace, there to receive of Christ's fulness, and grace upon
grace. For that Table says to you: You are heirs together of the grace
of life; you are not meant merely to feed together for a few short years,
at the same table, on the bread which perishes, but to feed for ever
together on the bread which comes down from heaven, even on Christ
Himself, the life of the world; to receive life from His life, that you
may live together such a life as He lived, and lives still; to receive
grace from the fulness of His grace, that you may be full of grace as He
is. That Table tells you that because you both must live by the same
life of Christ, you must live the same life as each other, and grow more
and more like each other year by year; that as you both receive the same
grace of Christ, you will become more and more gracious to each other
year by year, and both grow together, nearer and dearer to each other,
more worthy of each other's respect, more worthy of each other's trust,
more worthy of each other's love. And then "till death us do part" may
mean what it will. Let death part what of them he can part, the
perishing mortal body; he has no power over the soul, or over the body
which shall rise to life eternal. Let death do his worst. They belong
to Christ who conquered death, and they live by His everlasting life, and
their life is hid with Christ in God, where death cannot reach it or find
it; and therefore their life and their love, and the grace of it, will
last as long as Christ's life and Christ's love, and Christ's grace last-
-and that will be for ever and ever.