of life, but by passing into it from the latter. They were not natives of this blessed region, but migrated or travelled to it from an opposite one. And who are those remaining in a state of death? "He who loveth not his brother;" that is, who loveth not Christians as Christians, which is certainly the character of all the unrenewed and unregenerate. We are justified then in applying this description "dead in trespasses and sins," to every person who has not been renewed by the grace of God. It is time to proceed, in the next place, to explain the import of this representation, or to unfold some of the leading particulars included in a state of spiritual death. 1. It implies a privation, or withdrawment, of a principle, which properly belongs, and once did belong, to the subject of which it is affirmed. It would be quite improper to speak of any thing as dead which was never endued with a living principle. We never speak of the inanimate parts of creation, such as earth and stones, as dead, because they are as they ever were; no living powers are extinguished in them. But from whatever once had life, when that life is withdrawn which it formerly possessed, we affirm that it is dead. Thus we speak of plants, of animals, and men, when bereft of the vital principle, as dead. The death that overspreads the souls of the unregenerate consists in privations, in the withdrawment of what originally belonged to the soul of man, that gracious communication from God which is life. As the life of the body is derived from its union with the immortal spirit, and continues no longer than while that union subsists, so the life of the soul is derived from its union with God. Sin dissolved that union. In consequence of sin the blessed [God] withdrew from the soul, and the effect of that is, that though it is not deprived of its natural powers, as the body even after death still continues to subsist as matter; its life and happiness are gone. The withdrawment of God is with respect to the soul, what the withdrawment of the soul is in relation to the body. In each case the necessary effect is death; and as that which occasioned that withdrawment is sin, it is very properly denominated a "death in trespasses and sins." Now this 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 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 carcer 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. ཏི 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."P "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. T1 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. Let 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 : 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. 1. 9. + John xii. 32. |