November 20

We are his workmanship. - Ephesians 2:10.

WHEN we consider what the Scriptures say concerning the depravity and corruption of our nature, and which we know to be true from all history, observation, and experience, how wonderful is it that any of the fallen race should be found in possession of moral excellence, or what the Scriptures call true holiness! The cause may naturally awaken and engage our attention. From whence comes this transformation? It cannot arise from the creature; for how can the remedy spring from the disease? “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.” “That which is born of the flesh is flesh,” and, however modified, cannot be otherwise. The stream cannot rise higher than the fountain.

There is no effect without a cause, and an inadequate cause, say the Schoolmen, is no cause at all. As man could not produce it in himself, so neither could others for him. Neither men nor angels, nor men and angels combined, could have produced this transformation. It is above the power of education, or of moral suasion; and if we turn to the Scriptures, we shall find the sacred writers (and in language too plain to require the aid of philosophy to explain) ascribe this new creation to the agency of God. They, without exception, acknowledge this great moral change, from the beginning to the end, to be the work of God’s Holy Spirit; therefore we read of Christians “living in the Spirit,” “walking in the Spirit,” and of their being “led by the Spirit.” So we read of “worshipping God in the Spirit,” and of “praying in the Holy Ghost.” He may, as the God of grace, and he does, make use of instrumentality. And to carry into effect his own gracious purposes in the salvation of sinners, he employs agency; for, so far from excluding it, he absolutely enjoined it.

The book is not written without the pen, nor can the pen write without the hand to hold it. “Who, then, is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So, then, neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.” Let us observe, also, how this operation is represented. It is called a creation; and who can create but God only? It is called a resurrection; and who can raise the dead, God only excepted? “But you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Every believer is ready to acknowledge that God alone can change the heart and produce this transformation; and when the question is put to him, “Who maketh thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?” he will, without any hesitation, reply, “Not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” “By the grace of God I am what I am.” But his desire will be that the work begun may be carried on until the day of redemption, and he will pray, with the Psalmist,

“Forsake not the work of thine own hands.”