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view of the subject ought surely to fill us with the deepest concern. Had man never possessed a principle of divine life, there would have been less to lament in his condition. We are less affected at the consideration of what we never had, than by the loss of advantages which we once possessed. We look at a stone, or a piece of earth, without the least emotion, because, though it be destitute of life, we are conscious it was never possessed, But, when we look upon a corpse, it excites an awful feeling. Here, we are ready to reflect [and] say, dwelt an immortal spirit; those eyes were once kindled, those limbs were once animated by an ethereal fire, and a soul was once diffused throughout this frame. It is now fled, and has left nothing but the ruins of a man. Did we view things in a right light, we should be far more affected still in contemplating a dead soul. Here, we should remember, God once dwelt. The soul of man was once the abode of light and life. "How is the gold changed, and the fine gold become dim!" It is now overspread with carnality and darkness. It is now a lost, fallen spirit.

2. To be dead in trespasses and sins, intimates the total, the universal prevalence of corruption.

Life admits of innumerable degrees and kinds. There is one sort of vegetative life, as in plants, another subsists in animals, and in man a rational, which is still a superior principle of life. Where life is of the same sort it is susceptible of different

degrees. It is much more perfect in the larger sorts of animals than in reptiles. The vital principle in different men exists with various degrees of vigour, so that some are far more animated, alert, and vigorous than others. But there are no degrees in death. All things, of which it can be truly said that they are dead, are equally dead. There are no degrees in privation; thus it is with all who are dead in trespasses and sins. They are all equally dead. They may possess very estimable and amiable qualities, such as naturally engage the love of their fellow-creatures; but, being equally destitute of a principle of spiritual life, they are all in one and the same state of death; they are governed by the same carnal principle; they are in the flesh, and therefore cannot please God.* They are alike subjects of the prince of darkness; they serve the same master, and belong to the same kingdom. Every unsanctified person is totally "alienated from the life of God,"—is totally devoid of love to Him, and a perception of his true glory and excellence. How can it be otherwise, when he is under the influence of that "carnal mind which is enmity against God?"

There are some sinners who are of so winning and gentle a disposition, that we are ready to flatter ourselves it is easy to conduct them to God, and to form them to the love and practice of true religion; but, when the experiment is tried, we soon find ourselves undeceived. *Rom. viii. 8. + Rom. viii. 7.

Unless the Spirit of God pleases to operate, we find it as impossible to persuade them to seek the Lord by prayer, to mortify their corruptions, and set their affections on heavenly things, as persons of the most forbidding and unamiable tempers. We discover a rooted and invincible antipathy to whatever is spiritual. There are others who, by the influences of

XIII.

ON CONVERSION, AS ILLUSTRATED BY THAT OF ST. PAUL.

GAL. i. 15, 16. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood.

befall us in this which deserves

Or all the events which can transitory state, there is none equally to be devoutly reflected upon with our conversion to God. This is an event by far the most important and the most beneficial. In looking back upon it, the strongest motives arise to humility, to gratitude, and to "a patient continuance in well doing." We find the holy apostle frequently adverting to it; always in terms that bespeak the lively impression the review of it made on his mind. In the case of St. Paul, there were many circumstances not paralleled in the general

experience of christians; but in its essential features, in the views with which it was accompanied, and the effects it produced, it was exactly the same as every one must experience before he can enter into the kingdom of God.

As things of an internal and spiritual nature are best understood by examples, so we shall be at a loss, in the whole records of the church, to find a more striking and instructive example of the efficacy of divine grace in conversion, than that of St. Paul, to which he directs the attention of the Galatians, in the passage under present consideration. In this instructive passage he gives us a view of his conversion in its causes, its means, and its effects.

I. Its causes. "He separated me from my mother's womb." Thus he styles [himself]" separated to the Gospel of God.*" It is possible he may allude to the revelation to Jeremiah on his appointment to the prophetic office: "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and ordained thee to be a prophet to the nations."†

While he, Paul, was running a career of persecuting fury, the Saviour entertained designs of mercy towards him, agreeable to what he declared to Ananias:-" he is a chosen vessel to me to confess my name before nations, and kings, and the people of Israel."

*Rom. i. 1.

† Jer. i. 5.

Acts ix. 15.

We cannot suppose the purposes of God to be of recent date, or to have taken rise from any limited point of time. What he designs, he designs from eternity. Whatever he accomplishes is agreeable to his eternal purposes and word: "Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purposes and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began. "* Did he separate the apostle from his mother's womb? was he a chosen vessel? and must we not affirm [the same] of every one who is made partaker of the grace that is in Christ Jesus? Are not all genuine christians addressed as "elect of God," or chosen of God," through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ?" Why should not the real christian give scope to those emotions of gratitude which such reflections will inspire? Why should he not adore that mercy which preserved him in his unregenerate state, spared him while in his sins, and waited to be gracious?

The next cause, the more immediate one, to which the apostle ascribes his conversion, was his call by divine grace.

"Whom he predestinated them he also called."‡ There is a general call in the gospel, addressed to all men indiscriminately. Gracious invitations are given, without exception, far as the sound of the gospel extends; but this, of itself, is not effectual. 2 Tim. i. 9. † 1 Pet. i. 2. Rom. viii. 30.

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