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Today’s post comes from the spiritual classic by Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience. In his list of “practical directions how to grow in grace or make progress in piety” — a list of steps which the faithful Christian would do well to apply in life — Alexander makes a point especially worth pondering.
While you determine to be assiduous in the use of the appointed means of sanctification, you must have it deeply fixed in your mind, that nothing can be effected in this work without the aid of the Divine Spirit. “Paul may plant and Apollos water, but it is God that giveth the increase.” The direction of the old divines is good: “Use the means as vigorously as if you were to be saved by your own efforts, and yet trust as entirely to the grace of God, as if you made use of no means whatever.”
It may be inquired, Who were some of those old divines? These are possibly some examples which Alexander had in mind:
Thomas Shepard, The Sincere Convert (1641): “Use thy duties as Noah's dove did her wings, to carry thee to the ark of the Lord Jesus Christ, where only there is rest. If she had never used her wings, she had fallen into the waters; so, if thou shalt use no duties, but cast them off, thou art sure to perish.”
Isaac Ambrose, The Practice of Sanctification (1650) in Prima, Media, & Ultima: the First, Middle, and Last Things, in Three Treatises: “Use thy duties as Noah's dove did her wings, carry thee to the ark of the Lord Jesus Christ where only there is rest: if she had never used her wings, she had fallen into the waters; and if she had not returned to the ark, she had found no rest.”
Thomas Brooks, The Privy Key of Heaven (1665): “My fourth advice and counsel is, Take heed of resting upon closet duties, take heed of trusting in closet-duties. Noah's dove made use of her wings, but she did not trust in her wings, but in the ark; so you must make use of closet-duties, but you must not trust in your closet-duties, but in Jesus, of whom the ark was but a type.”
These directions remain profitable for Christians today. We are tempted to work hard at the Christian life and give ourselves the credit, but it is by grace alone that we can do the least good thing, and we must always remind ourselves of that. The old divines spoke wisely, as Alexander says.
