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 a still more 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 fellowcreatures; 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. 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. Of all the events which can befall us in this transitory state, there is none which deserves 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 welldoing." 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."‡ 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. There is in every instance of real conversion another and inward call by which the Spirit applies the general truth of the gospel to the heart. By this interior call, Christ apprehends, lays hold on the soul, stops it in its impenitent progress, and causes it to "hear his voice." The methods of the Divine operations in this inward and effectual calling are various; sometimes alarming and awakening providences are made use of for this purpose. The solemnities of death and judgment are forcibly presented to the attention: judgment appears nearly to commence, and the awful scenes of eternity appear near; the careless creature is awakened to perceive his guilt and danger, and is compelled to cry out, "What must I do to be saved?-as when the earthquake, and the opening of the prison doors, accompanied with unspeakable terrors, impressed the obdurate mind of the jailer, and made him fall down at the feet of his prisoners, trembling and amazed. Of the three thousand at the day of Pentecost, we read, that "they were pricked in their heart.” Others, like the eunuch and Lydia, are wrought upon in a more gentle manner-drawn with the "cords of love, and the ties of man." That there is such a change produced by the Spirit of God will not be questioned by a diligent and attentive peruser of the Scriptures; he will observe, the Spirit is always affirmed to be the author of a saving change; and the regenerate are particularly affirmed to be "born of God," "born of the Spirit." In applying the term " called," to such persons in a peculiar sense we have the clearest authority of the Scriptures: "To them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." "All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also 2 Tim. i. 9. § 1 John iv. 7. † 1 Pet. i. 2. 1 Rom. viii. 30. π 1 Cor. i. 24. called,"* &c. This calling is by grace: "Who hath called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace."t II. The means by which conversion is effected: "Revealing his Son in me." The principal method which the Spirit adopts in subduing the heart of a sinner is a spiritual discovery of Christ. There is an attractive force in the Saviour, when beheld by faith, which commands. Christ crucified possesses a drawing power: "When the Son of man is lifted up, he will draw all men unto him." No radical and saving change is effected, without the exhibition of this object; nor are the terrors of the law alone ever sufficient for that purpose: they are sufficient to show the heinousness of sin, and the extreme danger to which the sinner is exposed, but have no tendency to produce a complete renovation. "By the law is the knowledge of sin :" the law will discover our disease, but the knowledge of Christ is the discovery of the remedy. The law denounces its awful sentence: the discovery of Christ points out the method of deliverance and escape. The law at most is but a pedagogue, or "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." All saving influence and solid consolation spring from him, and from him alone. "The law kills," as the ministration of condemnation; it is "Christ who makes alive." The revelation of Christ is found in the Scriptures; but in conversion the Spirit removes "the veil on the heart," dispels prejudice, and affords that inward and divine light by which alone Christ is discerned to saving purposes. St. Paul speaks of Christ being revealed in him, in distinction from that external record of him which is contained in the Word. As there is an external call and an internal; the former universal, but often ineffectual; the latter personal, but always efficient; so there is an outward revelation of Christ and an internal, of which the understanding and the heart are the seat. Hence it is, with the utmost propriety, said to be a revelation "IN US." The minds of men, until they are renewed, resemble an apartment, shut up and enclosed with something which is not transparent; the light shines around with much splendour, but the apartment remains dark, in consequence of its entrance being obstructed. Unbelief, inattention, love of the world and of sin, hardness of heart, form the obstructions in question. these be removed, and the discoveries of the Word penetrate and diffuse a light and conviction through the soul: "The light shined in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." Thus it was with St. Paul before his conversion: his prejudices against the gospel were inveterate; his animosity violent and active; but no sooner was Christ renewed in him than all was changed. The spirit of God reveals the following things in Christ : Let 1. His greatness and dignity. Men in their unrenewed state have very low and contemptible thoughts of Christ. Whatever compli *Rom viii. 28-30. Rom. iii. 20. † 2 Tim. i. 9. || John. i. 5. John xii. 32. a mentary epithets they may bestow upon him, they have in their hearts no [elevated] conception of him, but just the contrary: he is to them " root out of a dry ground." St. Paul had the most mean thoughts of Christ previous to his conversion; but after that these mistaken views were entirely corrected. The majesty and power of Christ were exhibited to him with such effect, that he fell at his feet, exclaiming, "What wilt thou have me to do?"* He was from that moment fully convinced that Jesus Christ had "all power in heaven and on earth," that he was seated at the right-hand of God, and that he was in all respects that great and glorious person which the Scriptures represent him to be. His views were extended and enlarged; an interest in him appeared supremely valuable, his approbation supremely desirable. The knowledge of him appeared to be the most excellent knowledge. 2. The Spirit reveals his transcendent beauty and glory. The Scriptures speak much of the transcendent excellency of Christ, the perception of which has laid a foundation for that ardent attachment which the faithful have borne to him in every age. There is a surpassing beauty in the Saviour, which needs but to be perceived in order to eclipse every [other] object, and make it appear insipid and contemptible in the comparison. This beauty is visible in every part of the Saviour's character. In whatever light he is viewed, he is "fairer than the sons of men." "Grace is poured into his lips." "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, wherein they have made thee glad."† "Because of the savour of thy good ointments; thy name is as ointment poured forth; therefore do the virgins love thee." It is of him that Isaiah speaks when he foretels the high esteem in which he should be held in a future age: "In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely to them that are escaped of Israel."‡ 3. The Spirit reveals the suitableness, fulness, and sufficiency of the Saviour to supply all our wants and relieve all our miseries. The fitness of his office to our situation, and his complete competence to discharge these offices, the richness and perfection of that provision which there is in Christ, is a principal part of what the Spirit reveals in conversion. In consequence, the soul is imboldened to venture upon him, and, extinguishing all other hope and confidence, to rely upon him alone. This is that reception of Christ which, whosoever gives, is entitled to the privilege of becoming the child of God. III. We proceed to remark the effect of St. Paul's conversion. Immediately, "I conferred not with flesh and blood." He was not "disobedient to the heavenly vision." He set himself, without hesitation or demur, to discharge the duties of his heavenly vocation. 1. His compliance with the will of Christ was instant, immediate, not like the eldest son in the parable, whom the father commanded to work in his vineyard.§ 2. It was universal and impartial. selection of the more easy duties He did not make choice and and less costly sacrifices, but |