“By the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was
bestowed upon me was not in vain.”—1 Cor. xv. 10.
We can hardly conceive that grace, such as that given to the great
Apostle who speaks in the text, would have been given in vain; that is,
we should not expect that it would have been given, had it been
foreseen and designed by the Almighty Giver that it would have been in
vain. By which I do not mean, of course, to deny that God's gifts are
oftentimes abused and wasted by man, which they are; but, when we
consider the wonderful mode of St. Paul's conversion, and the singular
privilege granted him, the only one of men of whom is clearly recorded
the privilege of seeing Christ with his bodily eyes after His
ascension, as is alluded to shortly before the text; I say, considering
these high and extraordinary favours vouchsafed to the Apostle, we
should naturally suppose that some great objects in the history of the
Church were contemplated by means of them, such as in the event were
fulfilled. We cannot tell, indeed, why God works, or by what rule He
chooses, we must always be sober and humble in our thoughts about His
ways, which are infinitely above our ways; but what would be
speculation, perhaps venturous speculation, before the event, at least
becomes a profitable meditation after it. At least, now, when we read
and dwell on St. Paul's history, we may discern and insist upon the
suitableness of his character, before his conversion, for that display
of free grace which was made in him. Not that he could merit such a
great mercy—the idea is absurd as well as wicked; but that such a one
as he was before God's grace, naturally grew by the aid of it into what
he was afterwards as a Christian.
His, indeed, was a “wonderful conversion,” as our Church in one
place calls it, because it was so unexpected, and (as far as the
appearance went) so sudden. Who of the suffering Christians, against
whom he was raging so furiously, could have conceived that their enemy
was to be the great preacher and champion of the despised Cross? Does
God work miracles to reclaim His open malevolent adversaries, and not
rather to encourage and lead forward those who timidly seek Him?
It may be useful, then, to mention one or two kinds of what may be
called sudden conversions, to give some opinion on the character of
each of them, and to inquire which of them really took place in St.
Paul's case.
1. First; some men turn to religion all at once from some sudden
impulse of mind, some powerful excitement, or some strong persuasion.
It is a sudden resolve that comes upon them. Now such cases occur very
frequently where religion has nothing to do with the matter, and then
we think little about it, merely calling the persons who thus change
all at once volatile and light-minded. Thus there are persons who all
of a sudden give up some pursuit which they have been eagerly set upon,
or change from one trade or calling to another, or change their
opinions as regards the world's affairs. Every one knows the impression
left upon the mind by such instances. The persons thus changing may be,
and often are, amiable, kind, and pleasant, as companions; but we
cannot depend on them; and we pity them, as believing they are doing
harm both to their temporal interests and to their own minds. Others
there are who almost profess to love change for change-sake; they think
the pleasure of life consists in seeing first one thing, then another;
variety is their chief good; and it is a sufficient objection in their
minds to any pursuit or recreation, that it is old. These, too, pass
suddenly and capriciously from one subject to another. So far in
matters of daily life;—but when such a person exhibits a similar
changeableness in his religious views, then men begin to be astonished,
and look out with curiosity or anxiety to see what is the meaning of
it, and particularly if the individual who thus suddenly changed, was
very decided before in the particular course of life which he then
followed. For instance, supposing he not merely professed no deep
religious impressions, but actually was unbelieving or profligate; or,
again, supposing he not merely professed himself of this creed or that,
but was very warm, and even bitter in the enforcement of it; then, I
say, men wonder, though they do not wonder at similar infirmities in
matters of this world.
Nor can I say that they are wrong in being alive to such changes; we
ought to feel differently with reference to religious subjects, and
not be as unconcerned about them as we are about the events of time.
Did a man suddenly inform us, with great appearance of earnestness,
that he had seen an accident in the street, or did he say that he had
seen a miracle, I confess it is natural, nay, in the case of most men,
certainly in the case of the uneducated, far more religious, to feel
differently towards these two accounts; to feel shocked, indeed, but
not awed, at the first—to feel a certain solemn astonishment and pious
reverence at the news of the miracle. For a religious mind is ever
looking towards God, and seeking His traces; referring all events to
Him, and desirous of His explanation of them; and when to such a one
information is brought that God has in some extraordinary way showed
Himself, he will at first sight be tempted to believe it, and it
is only the experience of the number of deceits and false prophecies
which are in the world, his confidence in the Catholic Church which he
sees before him, and which is his guide into the truth, and (if he be
educated) his enlightened views concerning the course and laws of God's
providence, which keep him steady and make him hard to believe such
stories. On the other hand, men destitute of religion altogether, of
course from the first ridicule such accounts, and, as the event shows,
rightly; and yet, in spite of this, they are not so worthy our regard
as those who at first were credulous, from having some religious
principle without enough religious knowledge. Therefore, I am not
surprised that such sudden conversions as I have been describing
deceive for a time even the better sort of people—whom I should blame,
if I were called on to do so, not so much for the mere fact of their
believing readily, but for their not believing the Church; for
believing private individuals who have no authority more than the
Church, and for not recollecting St. Paul's words, “If any man . . .
though we, or an Angel from heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you
than that ye have received, let him be accursed[1].”
2. In the cases of sudden conversion I have been speaking of, when
men change at once either from open sin, or again from the zealous
partizanship of a certain creed, to some novel form of faith or
worship, their light-mindedness is detected by their frequent
changing—their changing again and again, so that one can never be
certain of them. This is the test of their unsoundness;—having no root
in themselves, their convictions and earnestness quickly wither away.
But there is another kind of sudden conversion, which I proceed to
mention, in which a man perseveres to the end, consistent in the new
form he adopts, and which may be right or wrong, as it happens, but
which he cannot be said to recommend or confirm to us by his own
change. I mean when a man, for some reason or other, whether in
religion or not, takes a great disgust to his present course of life,
and suddenly abandons it for another. This is the case of those who
rush from one to the other extreme, and it generally arises from strong
and painful feeling, unsettling and, as it were, revolutionizing the
mind. A story is told of a spendthrift who, having ruined himself by
his extravagances, went out of doors to meditate on his own folly and
misery, and in the course of a few hours returned home a determined
miser, and was for the rest of his life remarkable for covetousness and
penuriousness. This is not more extraordinary than the fickleness of
mind just now described. In like manner, men sometimes will change
suddenly from love to hatred, from over-daring to cowardice. These are
no amiable changes, whether arising or not from bodily malady, as is
sometimes the case; nor do they impart any credit or sanction to the
particular secular course or habit of mind adopted on the change:
neither do they in religion therefore. A man who suddenly professes
religion after a profligate life, merely because he is sick of his
vices, or tormented by the thought of God's anger, which is the
consequence of them, and without the love of God, does no honour to
religion, for he might, if it so chanced, turn a miser or a
misanthrope; and, therefore, though religion is not at all the less
holy and true because he submits himself to it, and though doubtless it
is a much better thing for him that he turns to religion than
that he should become a miser or a misanthrope, still, when he acts on
such motives as I have described, he cannot be said to do any honour to
the cause of religion by his conversion. Yet it is such persons who at
various times have been thought great saints, and been reckoned to
recommend and prove the truth of the Gospel to the world!
Now if any one asks what test there is that this kind of sudden
conversion is not from God, as instability and frequent change are the
test, on the other hand, in disproof of the divinity of the conversions
just now mentioned, I answer,—its moroseness, inhumanity, and
unfitness for this world. Men who change through strong passion and
anguish become as hard and as rigid as stone or iron; they are not fit
for life; they are only fit for the solitudes in which they sometimes
bury themselves; they can only do one or two of their duties, and that
only in one way; they do not indeed change their principles, as the
fickle convert, but, on the other hand, they cannot apply, adapt,
accommodate, modify, diversify their principles to the existing state
of things, which is the opposite fault. They do not aim at a perfect
obedience in little things as well as great; and a most serious fault
it is, looking at it merely as a matter of practice, and without any
reference to the views and motives from which it proceeds; most opposed
is it to the spirit of true religion, which is intended to fit us for
all circumstances of life as they come, in order that we may be humble,
docile, ready, patient, and cheerful,—in order that we may really show
ourselves God's servants, who do all things for Him, coming when He
calleth, going when He sendeth, doing this or that at His bidding. So
much for the practice of such men; and when we go higher, and ask
why they are thus formal and unbending in their mode of life, what
are the principles that make them thus harsh and unserviceable, I fear
we must trace it to some form of selfishness and pride; the same
principles which, under other circumstances, would change the
profligate into the covetous and parsimonious.
I think it will appear at once that St. Paul's conversion, however
it was effected, and whatever was the process of it, resembled neither
the one nor the other of these. That it was not the change of a fickle
mind is shown by his firmness in keeping to his new faith—by his
constancy unto death, a death of martyrdom. That it was not the change
of a proud and disappointed mind, quitting with disgust what he once
loved too well, is evidenced by the variety of his labours, his active
services, and continued presence in the busy thoroughfares of the
world; by the cheerfulness, alacrity, energy, dexterity, and
perseverance, with which he pleaded the cause of God among sinners. He
reminds us of his firmness, as well as gentleness, when he declares,
“What mean ye to weep, and break my heart? for I am ready not to be
bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord
Jesus,” and of his ready accommodation of himself to the will of God,
in all its forms, when he says, “I am made all things to all men, that
I might by all means save some[2].”
3. But there is another kind of sudden conversion, or rather what
appears to be such, not uncommonly found, and which may be that to
which St. Paul's conversion is to be referred, and which I proceed to
describe.
When men change their religious opinions really and truly, it is not
merely their opinions that they change, but their hearts; and this
evidently is not done in a moment—it is a slow work; nevertheless,
though gradual, the change is often not uniform, but proceeds, so to
say, by fits and starts, being influenced by external events, and other
circumstances. This we see in the growth of plants, for instance; it is
slow, gradual, continual; yet one day by chance they grow more than
another, they make a shoot, or at least we are attracted to their
growth on that day by some accidental circumstance, and it remains on
our memory. So with our souls: we all, by nature, are far from God;
nay, and we have all characters to form, which is a work of time. All
this must have a beginning; and those who are now leading religious
lives have begun at different times. Baptism, indeed, is God's time,
when He first gives us grace; but alas! through the perverseness of our
will, we do not follow Him. There must be a time then for beginning.
Many men do not at all recollect any one marked and definite time
when they began to seek God. Others recollect a time, not, properly
speaking, when they began, but when they made what may be called a
shoot forward, the fact either being so, in consequence of external
events, or at least for some reason or other their attention being
called to it. Others, again, continue forming a religious character and
religious opinions as the result of it, though holding at the same time
some outward profession of faith inconsistent with them; as, for
instance, suppose it has been their unhappy condition to be brought up
as heathens, Jews, infidels, or heretics. They hold the notions they
have been taught for a long while, not perceiving that the character
forming within them is at variance with these, till at length the
inward growth forces itself forward, forces on the opinions
accompanying it, and the dead outward surface of error, which has no
root in their minds, from some accidental occurrence, suddenly falls
off; suddenly,—just as a building might suddenly fall, which had been
going many years, and which falls at this moment rather than that, in
consequence of some chance cause, as it is called, which we cannot
detect.
Now in all these cases one point of time is often taken by religious
men, as if the very time of conversion, and as if it were sudden,
though really, as is plain, in none of them is there any suddenness in
the matter. In the last of these instances, which might be in a
measure, if we dare say it, St. Paul's case, the time when the formal
outward profession of error fell off, is taken as the time of
conversion. Others recollect the first occasion when any deep serious
thought came into their minds, and reckon this as the date of their
inward change. Others, again, recollect some intermediate point of time
when they first openly professed their faith, or dared do some noble
deed for Christ's sake.
I might go on to show more particularly how what I have said applies
to St. Paul; but as this would take too much time I will only observe
generally, that there was much in St. Paul's character which was not
changed on his conversion, but merely directed to other and higher
objects, and purified; it was his creed that was changed, and his soul
by regeneration; and though he was sinning most grievously and awfully
when Christ appeared to him from heaven, he evidenced then, as
afterwards, a most burning energetic zeal for God, a most scrupulous
strictness of life, an abstinence from all self-indulgence, much more
from all approach to sensuality or sloth, and an implicit obedience to
what he considered God's will. It was pride which was his inward
enemy—pride which needed an overthrow. He acted rather as a defender
and protector, than a minister of what he considered the truth; he
relied on his own views; he was positive and obstinate; he did not seek
for light as a little child; he did not look out for a Saviour who was
to come, and he missed Him when He came.
But how great was the change in these respects when he became a
servant of Him whom he had persecuted! As he had been conspicuous for a
proud confidence in self, on his privileges, on his knowledge, on his
birth, on his observances, so he became conspicuous for his humility.
What self-abasement, when he says, “I am the least of the Apostles,
that am not meet to be called an Apostle, because I persecuted the
Church of God; but by the grace of God I am what I am.” What keen and
bitter remembrance of the past, when he says, “Who was before a
blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious; but I obtained mercy,
because I did it ignorantly in unbelief[3].” Ah! what utter
self-abandonment, what scorn and hatred of self, when he, who had been
so pleased to be a Hebrew of Hebrews, and a Pharisee, bore to be
called, nay gloried for Christ's sake in being called, an apostate, the
most odious and miserable of titles!—bore to be spurned and spit upon
as a renegade, a traitor, a false-hearted and perfidious, a fallen, a
lost son of his Church; a shame to his mother, and a curse to his
countrymen. Such was the light in which those furious zealots looked on
the great Apostle, who bound themselves together by an oath that they
would neither eat nor drink till they had killed him. It was their
justification in their own eyes, that he was a “pestilent fellow,” a
“stirrer of seditions,” and an abomination amid sacred institutions
which God had given.
And, lastly, what supported him in this great trial? that special
mercy which converted him, which he, and he only, saw—the Face of
Jesus Christ. That all-pitying, all-holy eye, which turned in love upon
St. Peter when he denied Him, and thereby roused him to repentance,
looked on St. Paul also, while he persecuted Him, and wrought in him a
sudden conversion. “Last of all,” he says, “He was seen of me also, as
of one born out of due time.” One sight of that Divine Countenance, so
tender, so loving, so majestic, so calm, was enough, first to convert
him, then to support him on his way amid the bitter hatred and fury
which he was to excite in those who hitherto had loved him.
And if such be the effect of a momentary vision of the glorious
Presence of Christ, what think you, my brethren, will be their bliss,
to whom it shall be given, this life ended, to see that Face eternally?
[1] Gal. i. 8, 9.
[2] Acts xxi. 13. 1 Cor. ix. 22.
[3] 1 Tim. i. 13.