The treatment which Christ, his disciples, and his converts experienced from the Jews, would, (if other proofs were wanting,) sufficiently convince us of the obstinate adhesion. of that people to the religion of their ancestors, and demonstrate how soon their watchful jealousy, on such a subject, would break out into cruel persecution. The Pagans were, upon the whole, not merely tolerant, but careless in matters of religion: Poets vilified their gods; comedians ridiculed them upon the stage; philosophers denied their existence; the priests continued to sacrifice, the people to believe, and the government was content: but the religion of the Jews was deeply fixed, and eagerly defended; It was their creed, that God had singled them out from the whole earth as the people of his providence, and protection; they considered themselves as separated from the darkened hemisphere

of the

Pagans; they believed that they had been prophets, and approached by God: They fed by angels, guided by miracles, taught by

were

proudly mindful of these distinctions,

thy studied their law with active inves

SERMON XXV.

ACTS IX. VERSES XX. XXI.

And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the son of God: But all that heard him were amazed, and said is not this he that destroyed them which called on his name in Jerusalem.

Of all the arguments dwelt on for the defence of Christianity, none have been more forcibly, or more successfully urged, than the conversion of St. Paul; and it certainly is a circumstance which cannot be explained, without the supposition of something improbable, or the belief of something miraculous.

multitude who were of the same creed, but an extended system, disciplined by regular learning, and defended with scholastic acuteness. The pride of the scholar was added to the bigotry of the Jew, and he would resist conviction from vanity, as well as from faith.

If Saint Paul had remained quiet, at the first propagation of Christianity, if he had taken no active part at this interesting period; if he had viewed its progress with indifference; if he had suspended his conviction till the sensation of novelty, too active for reason, had subsided, and left him to the free exercise of his understanding; we could not have been so much surprised that the result should have terminated in his conversion, but from the first appearance of Christianity, he was its decided foe; at the first dawn of this new light he rose up in bitterness, and in anger to extinguish it; and to bear witness that it was from men, and not from God. In the above-mentioned chapter, Saint Paul says, "I persecuted this way unto the death, binding, and delivering into prison, both men, and women; as

also the high priest doth bear me witness, and the estate of the elders, from whom I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring them which were bound unto Jerusalem for to be punished." And yet this is he, whom bondage could not make less zealous, who under all varieties of misfortune,. and in every species of sorrow remained steadfast in faith, and immoveable in conviction; who, with that high-principled courage, which always keeps fortune beneath its feet, and rises superior to every event, preached, from the midst of guards, and swords, and chains, the truths of the gospel; those truths which shook the heart of Felix with fear, and drove Agrippa to the brink of conversion. This is the fact which comes home to the bosoms of men; this is the history which represses the confidence of infidelity, and breaks the slumber of indifference: The enmity of St. Paul is turned to protection; the bitterness of persecution is exchanged for the zeal of friendship; and he is made an humble instrument for promoting the gospel, whose ardent spirit had most powerfully impelled him to its destruction.

After this general sketch of his life which I have already quoted, St. Paul proceeds to state the particular circumstances of his conversion: "Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority, and commission from the chief priests; at mid-day, oh king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me, and them which were with me, and when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice from heaven." And he then proceeds to relate the command he received from heaven; a passage in the scriptures too well known to need quotation.

These are the facts respecting the conversion of St. Paul, and from these facts it must follow, as an inevitable consequence, (if this miracle be not true,) that St. Paul deceived himself, or that he deceived others; that he was either a dupe, or an impostor: We will first enquire, if it be probable that St. Paul endeavoured to impose on the world a miracle in which he himself had not a thorough belief, and the obvious mode of beginning such an investigation, will be, to examine into the motives which, under