Galatians 1:24

REFLECTIONS

SWEET testimony to my Lord in the account here given by his servant, of his call to the Apostleship! No man could commission to the office, Paul knew. And it was Paul's joy to consider, that he neither received it from man, nor was called to it by man, but by God his Savior! Jesus! who miraculously called to him from Heaven, made him an Apostle, and sent him to preach his Gospel. Oh! precious testimony, both to Paul's Apostleship, and to Paul's preaching; and to the Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Reader! listen to what Paul hath here again related, of his original state of nature, and unregeneracy. Oh! who to all appearance, more unpromising, more unlikely to be called by sovereign grace, when breathing out threatenings, and slaughter, against the disciples of the Lord! Listen to what he hath said of the Lord's call to him! See what God can accomplish, on the stoutest hearts of sinners! Behold him preaching the pure, unadulterated Gospel, of the Lord Jesus Christ! Ask Paul, from whence the wonderful change? A Persecutor, Blasphemer, Injurious! And now behold him, preaching the faith which once he denied. What cannot God accomplish? What will He not accomplish, to bring home his own to himself; and to rescue his whole Church from the hand of the enemy?

Reader! let you and I glorify God, in him, and for him, and for all the mercies and blessings the Church hath derived, and will derive from Paul's ministry, to the latest period of time. And, oh! for grace to keep always in remembrance, as the conclusion of all Paul's discourses, which he himself made, as the end, and consequence of his conversion: For this cause, (said he), I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long suffering, for a pattern to them, which should hereafter believe on him, to life everlasting.