GRACE ABOUNDING. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."-EPH., iii., 20, 21. THIS is a doxology. A doxology is an inscription of praise. It usually deals with some title of God. The more common phrase in doxology is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to whom praises are sung. But you observe that the peculiarity of this doxology is that it has no title-that is, no single word, such as we are accustomed to associate with the idea of God. The whole of the twentieth verse, with the exception of the last clause, is a title of God; and as it is a complex title, it becomes, from its singularity, more striking. "Now unto"whom?-"him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." That is the title. That is a name of God, to whom is to be glory in the Church throughout all ages. You will observe that this title indicates not simply power, but disposition. It points us not so much to God's majesty and dominion, not so much to his relations, to the framework of creation, or to the laws by which it is regulated, as to the disposition of God in the administration of that kingdom which every where is ascribed to him. "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think." Notice further that it is an inscription to God, of the habit and disposition of doing abundantly not only, but exceeding abundantly, and not only exceeding abundantly, but exceed ing abundantly more than we ask or think-more than it is in man to want, or to know that he wants; more than he can compass by that ever-weaving thought that lies behind. words. But that is not all. It might be well said that the great majority of men are themselves but feeble thinkers; and what could they think that would be worthy of such an administration as that of a God who does more than the highest orders of men can think? Of course I do more than any babe asks, and that may be a very little, because a babe can ask nothing. I do more than a child one year old can ask or think; but a child of one year old can ask very little, and think still less. But it is said, "Unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us." When men's thoughts are touched; when men's natures are awakened and inspired; when, in their noblest moments, with their best faculties under the divine influence, they are lifted up as in a transfiguration, and behold all things in their plenitude of beauty, and glory, and truth-then, in those moments when God is working powerfully in them, and teaching them to think by teaching them to feel (and feeling is the truest mother of feeling) -even then it is said that God does exceeding abundantly more than we ask or think. When the soul is on its wings; when it follows the illumination of faith; when it enters into the secret of divine existence; when it takes the noblest conception of its own destiny, and has the truest sense of its own wants; when it is most cleansed from the selfishness of the earth-from its pride, from its vanity-and is in nearest sympathy with those things which make heaven, then will it speak till language shall fail, and then will the words flow on till thoughts fail, then will feeling flow still beyond thought, and still beyond that God does for us not merely up to the measure of our thinking and asking, but exceeding abundantly beyond that. Language can give no farther conception of the amplitude of divine generosity than is conveyed |