happened to him. He heard a voice speaking, and saying unto him in the Hebrew tongue, "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." The very first question which the suddenness of this arrest prompted his agonized spirit to ask was, "Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest." It was that very Jesus whose humble disciples had been so outrageously assailed, who now stopped short the persecutor in his career of vengeance. O with what an air of majesty did the Redeemer make his appearance! Did the lightnings flash, or the thunders roll, to speak the presence of the incarnate God? No; although the all-gracious Saviour left the throne of his glory for a while, and descended low enough to be visible, yet no terror clothed his brow; he approaches near enough to be heard, but his words are not spears and arrows, neither be they very swords. His language is not, "O thou child of the devil! O thou enemy of all righteousness! I have found thee." No; nothing but the most tender and most affectionate expostulation: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? O give me a reason for this conduct of thine; what have I done to deserve it at thine hand? For three and thirty years did I live amongst thy nation; I constantly went about doing good; I opened the eyes of the blind; I unstopped the ears of the deaf; I gave feet to the lame, health to the diseased, life to the dead: O why persecutest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest; the Saviour of others, the Saviour of thee." In one moment all the wrath of Saul of Tarsus was gone; all the fabric of selfrighteousness which the Pharisee had been building up for a whole life-time, was struck to the ground for ever. One word, uttered by Jesus, came home to his heart; and did that which no circumstance in all his previous life had been able to do; and he had witnessed many things that we should have said had a tendency to soften him: we have already seen he witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen, when he was a young man, for "they laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man, whose name was Saul." A tenderness of spirit peculiarly befits the young; but he was a hard-hearted young man. He had heard without emotion, that dying prayer of the faithful martyr" Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." He had seen portrayed on Stephen's countenance, that serene tranquillity, which swallowed up the agony of a cruel death. But he remained unmoved until the splendour of the heavenly vision, to which he could not be disobedient, changed the whole complexion of his life, and consecrated him at once to the service of the Son of God.

This, then, is the summary of this interesting story. His heart is changed; "behold he prayeth." The man is no longer dead in trespasses and sins. He breathes; breath is the sign of life: he prays; prayer is the sign of conversion: and he has consecrated in that prayer the remainder of that life to the service of that Redeemer whose disciples he had been so cruelly persecuting. Faith now takes that place in his heart which was formerly filled by unbelief; and love succeeds to rage and malice. The lion is turned into the lamb, and the little child may lead him. The persecutor becomes the Apostle; he is straitway in the synagogue; and he who not more than three days before, he who within the short period of less than a week, was a remorseless destroyer of the faith, appears now the most unwearied and intrepid advocate of it.

Observe, in the third place, THE RICH FOUNTAIN OF CONSOLATION WHICH

IS OPENED IN THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL TO EVERY PENitent, con

TRITE SINNER.

Had we beheld Saul of Tarsus in the career of his unchecked fury, and witnessed his exceeding madness against the disciples of Jesus, we should have assuredly said, that if there were heavier chains, or a deeper dungeon in the world of woe, they would certainly be reserved for such an implacable enemy of true godliness. And yet (I charge you to admire the inexhaustible riches of the grace of God) even to this man, even to this Saul of Tarsus-this man, of all blasphemers the most blaspheming, of all persecutors the most persecuting, of all injurious men the most injurious—this man is admitted to the goodly fellowship of the prophets, he is numbered with the noble army of martyrs, and makes a distinguished figure in the glorious company of the apostles. If you ask why all this was done; what was the great end of the Head of the Church in this conversion of St. Paul; I come to my text for an answer: "For this cause," he says, "all this was done. For this cause I, such a cruel man, such an injurious man, obtained mercy, that in me first" (not first in point of time, the stream of mercy did not begin to flow with the conversion of St. Paul)— "first in guilt, first in blasphemy, first in persecution, first in injury, first in touching the apple of the Redeemer's eye—in me first, who had sinned more daringly than others, who stand in the first class of the lost-in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering;" such long-suffering as none but a God can shew; the obstinacy of kindness (if you will pardon me the phrase) opposed to the obstinacy of transgression: "for a pattern" something you may look at, and copy-" to them which should hereafter believe to life everlasting." And, blessed be our God, this conversion of St. Paul, is a pattern for the most abandoned blasphemer in church, if such a man has strolled by what is called chance into the sanctuary, just to see what was doing and saying. Though he may have sunk into the lowest depths of wickedness, here is something to which he may look for comfort, in hope of the mercy of his offended God.

I might stop the discourse here, and leave you just to see the encouragement you have from this one instance alone, to entertain the highest hope from the loving-kindness and long-suffering mercy of God. But St. Paul is not the only specimen of this mercy. Let me point you to one or two cases; and I will go back to the Old Testament for one of them.

Manasseh was a monster of barbarity—perhaps the most barbarous of men. We sometimes speak of Nero as a cruel monarch; but I very much doubt whether he was equal to Manasseh. Read the records of the atrocious wickedness that marked the earlier years of Manasseh. Behold him as soon as he succeeded, quite in the vigour of his youth, to the throne of Judea, tearing down that goodly structure of national religion and happiness, which the piety and zeal of his father Hezekiah had just brought to perfection. His father Hezekiah had not been permitted to die till he had established the form of divine worship of God in the land; and produced such an improvement in the minds of the people as seemed to give promise of better things for the time to come. It seemed to be the avowed and impious design of his son to undo all his father had done. No sooner did he ascend the throne, than the first thing he did was, to forsake the worship of the true God. From being a believer in Jehovah he turned to be a believer in Baal. He set up the image of Baal in the temple; not in the

outer court of the Gentiles, nor in the holy place, but in the very "holy of holies," in the place of the ark of the covenant, that particular part of the sanctuary where Jehovah had fixed his peculiar residence. The next thing he did in barbarity was consenting to devote his own children to a heathen god. Conceive of a father doing this. We have heard of Herod signing an edict to destroy all the male children in Bethlehem under two years: but never did we hear of a father, till we hear of Manasseh, devoting his own children to death, and causing them to pass through the fire to Moloch. He put to death an immense number of the Lord's prophets, and shed innocent blood till the streets of Jerusalem floated down with human gore. Among the prophets whom he slew was the venerable and evangelical prophet Isaiah—the very man whose sermons he had heard over and over again-the very man who had been admitted to his father's intimacy, who had been his friend and counsellor, Manasseh caused to be sawn asunder between two planks of wood, in order to testify his abhorrence of the doctrines of Isaiah, and the religion of his father. He not only multiplied his crimes to this extravagant degree, but he poisoned the princes, perverted the manners of his subjects, and did them more injury than the most detestable of the Roman emperors ever did. I think the records we have of Manasseh's barbarity, of his scenes of iniquity, exceed the horrid doings of the Roman Nero.

But I am not going to stop here. Here is horror: but I am only pointing to the shadows of the picture; it has a bright side also. This haughty rebel was subdued; aye, and converted. The way of God's providence often leads to the manifestation of his mercy. The Assyrians, who had kept their forces away during the time of his father, invaded the land: Manasseh was taken prisoner, deprived of his kingdom, and led captive to Babylon. His imprisonment, under the blessing of God's Holy Spirit, awakened him to reflection; he saw and confessed the baseness of his former life, and cried to God for mercy; that mercy which is vouchsafed to all whom the Holy Spirit inclines to ask for it in the way of God's appointment, was granted to Manasseh: and he who had once exhibited as sad a specimen as ever was exhibited, of the desperate depravity of human nature, became the child of forgiving love, and the heir of immortal life. Who then after this shall despair?

But I have not yet done. Look next at the case of the Corinthian Church. I need not tell you, that the inhabitants of Corinth were proverbially abandoned and corrupt. Some of them indulged in such abominable vices, and were habituated to such outrageous acts, as were a reproach to human nature, bad as human nature is. And yet even these sons of iniquity, these slaves of sensuality, were washed, were justified, were sanctified. They were washed in the precious blood of the dying Redeemer; they were sanctified by the powerful operation of his blessed Spirit; and justified through the righteousness of the Son of God. Those who were once the burden of the earth, are now the joy of heaven, and the delight of angels.

The time would fail to tell of all the triumphs of redeeming mercy; I will only mention one other instance which loudest of all proclaims the Lord as "the Lord God, merciful and gracious, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin." And it is an instance which exceeds, not only all I have mentioned, but all that can be imagined: and which, if I were to be so careless as to forget,

the very stones might cry out, and sound it in your hearing: I mean the case of those who murdered the Prince of Life, and the Lord of Glory. If any sin were unpardonable, we may surely think theirs was: if any transgressor deserved to be consigned to inexorable wrath and severest torments, these deserved it. They had not the shadow of an excuse for their crime-hardly a single circumstance to extenuate it. They had been well acquainted with the exemplary conversation of Jesus of Nazareth: they had often heard his heavenly doctrines they were almost daily witnesses of his miracles: they had, therefore, all possible reason to honour him as the most exalted of beings, and to receive his gospel as the most inestimable blessing. And yet they seized his person, dragged him before a heathen tribunal, and extorted a sentence of death against him. Never was the vilest slave so cruelly treated, nor the most criminal malefactor so barbarously executed. The sun was confounded, the earth trembled, at the horrid sin; and we wonder much how the avenging lightning could have withheld its flashes. But behold the triumphant goodness of God: many even of these murderers obtained mercy; for at the subsequent descent of the Holy Ghost, they were convinced of their sin, wounded with penitential remorse, fled to the sanctuary of the cross, and received full, free, and eternal pardon; and now are shining in the kingdom of heaven as so many everlasting monuments of mercy, and are receiving of blessedness past utterance from that very Redeemer whom once, with wicked hands, they crucified and slew. Well, then, might the prophet cry out in rapturous amazement-"Who is a God like unto thee, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin!" Truly it may be said that He "keepeth mercy for thousands;" that his mercy is " from everlasting to everlasting;" that it is "higher than the heavens"-yea, more extensive than the dimension of the skies.

we cannot

Now, let me request you to consider, for a moment, your own condition, lest you be overwhelmed with much despair on account of your sin. Lift up your eyes to the azure canopy hanging over your heads, embroidered with sparkling stars, spacious enough to form a covering for unnumbered worlds. Where does it begin? Where does it end? What is its extent? "O," say you, answer these questions." Then carry the questions to angels; they are perpetually traversing its immense circuit; and yet even angels cannot measure the bounds of space, because space is boundless and unknown. What then shall we say of the mercy of God, which is greater than the heavens, which pardons crimes the most atrocious with perfect freeness, because of the Redeemer's mediation; yea, pardons them more completely, if possible, than the wide-spread arch of heaven covers within its circle the ridge of mountains, or even a single grain of sand. Let all flesh know assuredly, and rejoice, that with the Lord there is such mercy, and with Christ such plentiful redemption. O for the voice of an archangel to circulate the glad tidings throughout the world, that, through the infinite mediation of the adorable Redeemer, all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men.

If these things be so, brethren, let me, in conclusion, address to you a few words, that seem to spring out of the whole subject.

The first remark will apply to those who have experienced the long-suffering of the Lord, and can, in some humble degree, take the language of the text as

their own: "For this cause, I," a worthless, helpless, ruined sinner, "obtained mercy, that in me," added to the other instances of long-suffering, "Jesus Christ might show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them who should hereafter believe.". O how this text calls upon you to renew your vows! It bids you to remember where you were, and what you were, when you obtained mercy. "Hearken unto me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord; look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." Retrace in your memory the circumstances of your conversion to God. The book of your personal history ought to be a book of easy reference; and you ought to be able, if you are living a life of thanksgiving to God, to be able to turn to that page of the book without difficulty. Open, then, the volume of your life: turn back till you come to the rise of religion in your own soul. Call to mind the deadness of your heart, when you came to church, and heard as though you heard not; when you used the words "miserable sinners," but never felt that you were a miserable sinner, though you confessed you were a lost and miserable sinner, and that you must be saved, if saved at all, by the mercy of Christ. Compare your lot then with your state now, when the words which you utter are the out-bursting of a broken and contrite heart. Recollect how the Lord found you, when, perhaps, like Saul, you were not seeking him ---when you were hurrying on from crime to crime, and you were arrested, you could not tell how nor why. O now you recollect who it was arrested you, brought you by a way that you knew not, led you in paths that you had not known, and made darkness light before you, and crooked things straight. These things he has done unto you, and he has not since forsaken you; notwithstanding your many provocations, he has been constantly doing you good; he still bears with you, still treats you with kindness, still designs your everlasting happiness; he has hedged you about, and you cannot escape the arms of his everlasting covenant, for it is "ordered in all things, and sure."

There is a second lesson I am anxious to inculcate: No man can be saved but upon the principle of mercy. There are but two ways-the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace-in which you can be saved. The covenant of works is the principle of merit; the covenant of grace is the principle of mercy. You say, "Are we not saved on the principle of merit?" Yes, you are; but the merit of another, not your own. There are many Pharisees, formalists, and others, who will say that they are expecting mercy on the principle of merit. The Saviour (they say) has certainly infinite merit, but something is to be added by them, which is to qualify them to receive the abundant merit of Christ. Now, which of these principles do you receivethe principle of merit, or the principle of mercy? Be assured of this, the principle of merit will not do, because the law of God is the most unrelenting law : I mean by that, it must have perfect obedience, it must have perfect payment : "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the law to do them :" "If a man offend in one point, he is guilty of all." The law of God must be like the nature of God-perfect: the nature of God is perfect and immutable; so is the law of God; it must be perfect as his nature. Then if you are thinking to go to heaven on your own self-righteousness, and are imagining that your respectability of character will weigh at all in the scale of your acceptance, let me remind you what the character of St. Paul was