es of His glory,' and that the latter expression
is substantially identical with the former, is plain from the
combination of the two in an earlier verse of this chapter: 'To the
praise of the glory of His grace.' Thus we come to the blessed thought
that the glory of God is essentially the revelation of that stooping,
pitying, pardoning, enriching love. Not in the physical attributes, not
in the characteristics of the divine nature which part Him off from men,
and make Him remote, both from their conceptions and their affections,
but in the love that bends to them is the true glory of God. All these
other things are but the fringes; the centre of glory is the Love, which
is the mightiest and the divinest thing in the Might Divine. The
sunshine is far stronger than the lightning, and there is more force
developed in the rain than in an earthquake. That truth is what
Christianity has made the common possession of the world. It has thereby
broken the chains of dread; it has bridged over the infinite distance.
It has given us a God that can love and be loved, can stoop and can
lift, can pardon and can purify. 'According to the good pleasure of His
goodness,'--there is the foundation of our salvation. 'According to the
riches of His grace,'--there is the measure of our salvation.

II. We have another form of the same measure in another set of verses
which speak of the present working of God's power.

The Apostle speaks in regard to his own apostolic commission of its
being given 'according to the working of His power'; and he speaks of
all Christian men as receiving gifts 'according to the power that
worketh in us.' So there we have a standard that comes, as it were, a
little closer to ourselves. We do not need to travel up into the dim
abysses above, or think of the sanctities and the secrecies of that
divine heart in the light which is inaccessible, but we have the measure
in ourselves.

The standards of length are kept at Greenwich, the standards of capacity
are kept in the Tower; but there are local standards distributed
throughout the land to which men may go and have their measures
corrected. And so besides all these lofty thoughts about the grace and
the glory which measures His gift, we can turn within, if we are
Christian people, and say, 'According to the power that worketh in us.'

Ah, brethren! there are few things that we want more than to revive and
deepen the conviction that in every Christian man, by virtu