April 18

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. - 1 Corinthians 3:6.

SO we see that Spiritual influences, as well as natural, operate in connection with human means and exertions. The husbandman knows that he cannot produce an ear of corn; but he equally knows that he can manure, and plough, and sow; and he knows that it would be egregious folly were he to look for a crop without these. For though he well knows that God could produce a crop without human culture, he knows he never does. While he knows that all these efforts would be nothing at all without the snow and the rain from heaven, he equally knows that the rain and the snow from heaven would be nothing without these. The one in the economy of God is as necessary as the other. Instrumentality never excludes agency, never detracts from it, yea, displays it the more.

Ministers cannot of themselves convert their hearers, yet they can study hard and give themselves to meditation, and seek to find out not only words of truth, but acceptable words, and then retire and pray, “O Lord, I beseech thee, send now prosperity.” Although parents cannot convert their children, yet they can train them up in the admonition of the Lord. And we should all be working “out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who worketh in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure.” “For all these things,” says God, after promising them, “will I be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them.”

Here, indeed, now is some difference between these natural and Spiritual influences, but then it is in our favour. We are not sure that our prayers will always move the clouds, but we know Him who has said, “Ask, and it shall be given; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened.” We know, also, who has said, “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him? “The fertility produced by natural influences in the fields and in the gardens is always limited, but there are no bounds to control the Spiritual progress. God “giveth more grace.” He is the “God of all grace.” We are exhorted to “go on unto perfection;” and we may “increase with all the increase of God,” and be “filled with all the fulness of God.”