Drawing of the Spirit

Of the Spirit. The word calls men externally, and by that external calling prevails with many to an external reception and profession of religion; but if it is left alone it goes no further. It is indeed the means of sanctification and effectual calling, as John 17:17, Sanctify them through your truth; but it does this when the Spirit, who speaks in the word, works in the heart, and causes it to hear and obey.

The heart or soul of a man is the chief and the first subject of this work, and it is but slight false work that doesn’t begin there; but the Spirit here is rather to be taken for the Spirit of God--the efficient cause of this sanctification. And therefore our Savior in that place prays to the Father, that He would sanctify His own by that truth; and this He does by the concurrence of His Spirit with that word of truth--which is the life and vigor of it, and makes it prove the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes. It is a fit means in itself, but it is a prevailing means only when the Spirit of God brings it into the heart. It is a sword, and sharper than any two-edged sword, fit to divide, yes, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit; but it does not do this without being in the Spirit’s hand, and Him applying it to this cutting and dividing. The word calls, but the Spirit draws, not severed from that word, but working in it, and by it.

It is a very difficult work to draw a soul out of the strong hands and chains of Satan, and out of the pleasing entanglements of the world, and out of its own natural perverseness--to yield up itself to God—to deny itself, and live to Him, and in so doing, to run against the mainstream, and the current of the ungodly world without, and corruption within. The strongest rhetoric, the most moving and persuasive way of discourse, is all too weak; the tongue of men or angels cannot prevail with the soul to free itself, and shake off all which holds it captive. Although it is convinced of the truth of those things that are represented to it, yet still it can and will hold out against it, and say—You shall not persuade me, even though you convince me. The hand of man is too weak to pluck any soul out of the crowd of the world, and to set it in among the elect number of believers. Only the Father of spirits has absolute command the souls of men, to work on them as He pleases, and where He will.

This powerful, this sanctifying Spirit knows no resistance. He works sweetly, and yet strongly. He can come into the heart, whereas all other speakers are forced to stand without. The still voice within persuades more than all the loud crying without; as he who is within the house, though he speaks softly, is better heard and understood, than he who shouts outside the doors.

When the Lord Himself speaks by this His Spirit to a man, selecting and calling him out of the lost world, he can no more disobey than Abraham did, when the Lord spoke to him in an extraordinary manner, to depart from his own country and kindred—Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him. There is a secret, but very powerful, virtue in a word, or look, or touch of this Spirit upon the soul, by which it is forced, not with a harsh, but a pleasing violence, and cannot choose but to follow it. How easily did the disciples forsake their callings and their dwellings to follow Christ! The Spirit of God draws a man out of the world by sanctified light sent into his mind:   Leighton