' with
which it was 'apparelled' when it first came. Now that word 'grace,' I
have no doubt, sounds to you hard, theological, remote. But what does it
mean? It gathers into one burning point the whole of the rays of that
conception of God, with which it is the glory of Christianity to have
flooded and drenched the world. It tells us that at the heart of the
universe there is a heart; that God is Love, that that love is the
motive-spring of His activity, that it comes and bends over the lowliest
with a smile of amity on its lips, with healing and help in its hands,
with forgiveness for all sins against itself, with boundless wealth for
the poorest, and that the wealth of His self-communicating love is the
measure of the wealth that each of us may possess.

God gives 'according to the riches of His grace.' You do not expect a
millionaire to give half-a-crown to a subscription fund; and God gives
royally, divinely, measuring His bestowments by the abundance of His
treasures, and handing over with an open palm large gifts of coined
money, because there are infinite chests of uncirculated bullion in the
deep storehouses. 'How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast manifested
before the sons of men for them that fear Thee. How much greater is Thy
goodness which Thou hast laid up in store.' But whilst He gives all, the
question comes to be: What do I receive? The measure of His gift is His
measureless grace; the measure of my reception is my--alas!
easily-measured faith. What about the unearned increment? What about the
unrealised wealth? Too many of us are like some man who has a great
estate in another land. He knows nothing about it, and is living in
grimy poverty in a back street. For you have all God's riches waiting
for you, and 'the potentiality of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice'
at your beck and call, and yet you are but poorly realising your
possible riches. Alas, that when we might have so much we do have so
little. 'According to the riches of His grace' He gives. But another
'according to' comes in. 'According to thy faith be it unto thee.' So we
have to take these two measures together, and the working limit of our
possession of God's riches comes out of the combination of them both.

Let me remind you, before I pass on, of what I have already suggested is
but another phase of this same thought, Paul says in this epistle that
God gives not only 'according to the riches of His grace,' but
'according to the rich