66 was

he himself also confidently affirmed, in nothing behind the very chiefest Apostles"-this was the man, who had been favoured with a special and miraculous "revelation of Jesus Christ" the Lord": --this was he, who had preached the Gospel over the world, "not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power this was he, who had set an unerring" seal to his Apostleship'," and had "wrought the signs of an Apostle among his converts in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds." Certainly if St. Paul had been disposed to glory in his spiritual gifts, he had enough to be vain-glorious of: “in the abundance of the revelations" vouchsafed to him, he had enough, humanly speaking, to be " exalted above measure":" -in the dispensations of Providence, of which he was the object, the pride of a worldly and carnal mind might have discovered enough to raise its opinion of its own dignity, and to suppose that God had

& Gal. i. 12.

2 Cor. xii. 11. f1 Cor. ix. 2. 8 2 Cor. xii. 12.

e 1 Cor. ii. 4.

ho Cor. xii. 7..

bestowed upon it such marks of distinction, in reward for some meritorious qualities of its own. Widely different from this were the sentiments of St. Paul: instead of filling his imagination with false ideas of his own fancied dignity, he fixed his thoughts upon his real unworthiness; and contrasting the sins, of which he was conscious, with the stupendous instances of divine mercy vouchsafed towards him, he sunk as it were into himself; and far from elaiming any merit on account of the apostolical commission intrusted to him, he pronounced himself unworthy to be invested with so honourable and holy an office.

II. "I am not meet" (said he)" to be called an Apostle." Do we ask, wherefore he was not meet? The question might be answered in general terms; that inheriting a nature essentially corrupt, and polluted withal with actual sins, he could not be worthy in himself of those glorious evidences of almighty love vouchsafed towards him. But more specifically he returns an answer to the question for himself, declaring at the same time both his unworthiness, and

the ground of it. "I am not meet to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." This appears to have been the offence, which in the estimation of St. Paul rendered him the most unworthy of a distinguished office in the church of Christ, that he had beyond measure persecuted the church and wasted it1;" that he had been, with respect to it and to its divine Founder, "a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious *."

k

Now it is highly remarkable, and it serves to set the humility of this holy Apostle in a more striking light, that he explicitly avows his sinfulness and his consequent unworthiness to be admitted to God's favour, and does not pretend to plead in justification of his sin that excuse, which the circumstances of the case might have seemed to admit. It might have been expected that he would plead the goodness of his intentions, the sincerity of his heart, in doing erroneously and under a belief that it was right, what he afterwards

was convinced was wrong. That he did think that he was right in persecuting the church of Christ and in being "exceed

ingly mad" against the learn from the undeniable

Christians, we testimony of his

own deliberate and solemn assurance: "I verily thought with myself," he avers, verily thought with myself," I was sincerely persuaded, "that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth". It is a favourite maxim, that an action is to be estimated by the sincerity of the agent: admit the justness of the maxim; and the conduct of St. Paul in persecuting the church was irreproachable, for he "verily thought with himself that he ought" to do so. What then becomes of his own declaration, that for this very reason, because he did that which he was sincerely persuaded he ought to do, he was "not meet to be called an Apostle," he was "less than the least of all saints ?"The truth of the case appears to lie in this that St. Paul was guilty of sin, not because he followed the dictates of his conscience; but because he did not first Acts xxvi. 9.

1 Acts xxvi. 11.

take the necessary measures for informing his conscience aright. The evidences of the Christian faith were within his reach, and had indeed solicited his attention. "When the blood of the first martyr Stephen was shed, he himself was standing by, and consenting to his death "," instead of weighing the arguments by which Stephen justified his conversion to the Christian faith. Had St. Paul at that time given his attention to these evidences, to these arguments, instead of yielding to the bias of his Jewish prejudices, he might possibly have been thereby converted to the truth in Christ; at least he might have avoided the error of following the dictates of his conscience, without having been previously anxious to inform it aright. His error however may serve for our admonition; it may serve to caution us against admitting sincerity alone as a plea and a justification for our conduct: it may serve to convince us, that it is not sufficient for us to " verily think," to be sincerely persuaded, that we ought to act in any

Acts xxii. 20.