aul does not say, 'Work it out; _yet_ it
is God that worketh in you'; not 'Work it out _although_ it is God that
worketh in you'; not 'Work it out, but then it must always be remembered
and taken as a caution that it is God that worketh in you!' He blends
the two things together in an altogether different connection, and
sees--strangely to some people, no contradiction, nor limitation, nor
puzzle, but a ground of encouragement to cheerful obedience. Do you
work, '_for_ it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His
good pleasure.' And does the Apostle limit the divine operation? Notice
how his words seem picked out on purpose to express most emphatically
its all-pervading energy. Look how his words seem picked out on purpose
to express with the utmost possible emphasis that all which a good man
is, and does, is its fruit. It is God that _worketh in_ you. That
expresses more than bringing outward means to bear upon heart and will.
It speaks of an inward, real, and efficacious operation of the
Indwelling Spirit of all energy on the spirit in which He dwells.
'Worketh in you _to will_'; this expresses more than the presentation of
motives from without, it points to a direct action on the will, by which
impulses are originated within. God puts in you the first faint motions
of a better will. 'Worketh in you, doing as well as willing'; this
points to all practical obedience, to all external acts as flowing from
His grace in us, no less than all inward good thoughts and holy desires.

It is not that God gives men the power, and then leaves them to make the
use of it. It is not that the desire and purpose come forth from Him,
and that then we are left to ourselves to be faithful or unfaithful
stewards in carrying it out. The whole process, from the first sowing of
the seed until its last blossoming and fruiting, in the shape of an
accomplished act, of which God shall bless the springing--it is all
God's together! There is a thorough-going, absolute attribution of every
power, every action, all the thoughts words, and deeds of a Christian
soul, to God. No words could be selected which would more thoroughly cut
away the ground from every half-and-half system which attempts to deal
them out in two portions, part God's and part mine. With all emphasis
Paul attributes all to God.

And none the less strongly does he teach, by the implication contained
in his earnest injunction, that human responsibility, that human cont