Archibald Alexander
Eminent piety will make you mighty in prayer, and this will give success to all your other labours. The most accomplished minister is entirely dependent on God for every degree of success in his ministry. Even the apostles could not convert a single soul by all their miraculous gifts and their inspiration, by all their fervent zeal and indefatigable labours. This heavenly birth is not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Paul may plant and Apollos water, but God giveth the increase; “so then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase”.
Since then you are entirely dependent on the grace of God for your success in your work, is it not exceedingly important that you should have skill and energy in using the instrument by which divine influences may be brought down upon your ministrations? And you need not be informed that the prayer of faith is the instrument by which the kingdom of heaven may be, as it were, invaded and taken by violence. God cannot resist (I speak it with reverence) the force of a holy, believing, untiring importunity which resolves to give Him no rest, until He grants the blessing. Why are the labours of ministers so frequently barren of fruit? Why are they still destined to cry, “Who hath believed our report?” The fault is not principally in the preaching: this is sound and evangelical; but probably the great deficiency lies in the feebleness of our prayers. God is waiting to be gracious; but He will be inquired of by the house of Israel for these things, that He may do it for them. If the good seed of the Word were soaked in prayer before it is dispensed, and then watered with prayer after it is sown, it would oftener be seen to spring up and bring forth abundant fruit.
The man of God must be a man of prayer – he must be instant, unceasing and fervent in prayer – and then he will be able to open heaven and call down showers of divine influences upon his other labours. But how otherwise can this grace and gift of prayer be obtained but by attaining to eminence in piety? On this subject Christ Himself, who is the fountain of life and Himself the giver of all spiritual blessings, has set us a perfect example that we should follow His steps. At this day especially we need men, not only mighty in the Scriptures, but mighty in prayer.
In conducting the public prayers of the congregation, how much the comfort and edification of the pious depends on the spirit of him who is their
1The third point of an address to students for the ministry, “On the Importance of Aiming at Eminent Piety”, reprinted from Princeton and the Work of the Christian Ministry, vol 1. This two-volume set is reviewed on page 58.
mouth, to speak unto God, must be obvious to all. Our mode of offering up our prayers without a preconceived form can commend itself to enlightened and spiritual men only when our ministers shall possess the true spirit of prayer and shall pray with the spirit and with the understanding. Cultivate piety then in all its parts, for prayer is nothing else but the natural language of the pious heart; it is the breathing of the new man, or rather the inexpressible groaning and sighing of a soul sick of sin and panting for deliverance. O that young men who seek to be useful in the ministry would spend more time in communion with God in prayer than they commonly do! To be eminent in piety and mighty in prayer are identical.