John Owen: How the Holy Spirit and Duty work together

John Owen addresses the age-old question is sanctification a work of the Holy Spirit or an effort of will. Owen would say both. Read it slowly and read it carefully. Owen wrote in the 17th century and his prose is prolix even for a Puritan; however, it is also very scriptural.

It is brutish ignorance in any to argue, from the effectual operations of the Spirit, that we may be slothful and negligent in our own duty. He who knows not God has promised to work in us, in a way of grace, what he requires from us in a way of duty, has either never read his Bible, or does not believe it; or never prayed, or never took notice of what he prayed for. He is a heathen, he has nothing of the Christian in him, who does not pray that God would work in him what he requires of him. This we know, that what God prescribes, we ought with all diligence and earnestness, as we value our souls and their eternal welfare, to comply with. And we know too, that whatever God has promised, that he himself will perform in us. It is our duty to believe that he will do so, and to fancy an inconsistency between these things, is to charge God foolishly.

If there be an opposition between these things, it is either because the nature of man is not meet to be commanded, or because it need not be assisted; both which suppositions are vain and false. The Holy Spirit so worketh in us, as that he worketh by us; and what he does in us, is done by us. Our duty is to apply ourselves to his commands; and it is his work to enable us to perform them.

He who can indulge sloth and negligence in himself, on account of the promised assistance of the Spirit, may look upon it as a certain evidence that he has no interest or concern it it. For where he affords his aids, he, in general, prepares the soul by diligence in duty. And as he works only in and by the faculties of our own minds, it is ridiculous, and implies a contradiction, for a man to say he will do nothing because the Spirit does all; for where he does nothing, the Spirit does nothing, except by the infusion of the first habit or principle of grace... (pp. 142-143), The Holy Spirit: His Gifts and Power by John Owen.