many of us, I am afraid, very hard and remote and technical. And
there are not wanting people who tell us that all that terminology in
the New Testament is like a dying brand in the fire, where the little
kernel of glowing heat is getting covered thicker and thicker with
grey ashes. Yes; but if you blow the ashes off, the fire is there all
the same. Let us try if we can blow the ashes off.

This text seems to me in its archaic phraseology, only to need to be
pondered in order to flash up into wonderful beauty. It carries in it
a magnificent ideal of the Christian life, in three things: the
Christian place, 'access into grace'; the Christian attitude,
'wherein we stand'; and the Christian means of realising that ideal,
'through Christ' and 'by faith.' Now let us look at these three
points.

I. The Christian Place.

There is clearly a metaphor here, both in the word 'access' and in
that other one 'stand.' 'The grace' is supposed as some ample space
into which a man is led, and where he can continue, stand, and
expatiate. Or, we may say, it is regarded as a palace or
treasure-house into which we can enter. Now, if we take that great
New Testament word 'grace,' and ponder its meanings, we find that
they run something in this fashion. The central thought, grand and
marvellous, which is enshrined in it, and which often is buried for
careless ears, is that of the active love of God poured out upon
inferiors who deserve something very different. Then there follows a
second meaning, which covers a great part of the ground of the use of
the phrase in the New Testament, and that is the communication of
that love to men, the specific and individualised gifts which come