the happy instrument of saving her soul alive. Her name, her occupation, her character, and the place of her nativity, are all distinctly noticed : she was called " Lydia ;" and was " of the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple" clothes ; and a worshipper of the true God. We forbear, however, to dwell on these circumstances, in order that we may consider more fully the means and evidences of her conversion : —
I. The means of her conversion —
Lydia was, by nature, like all the rest of mankind : her heart was shut against the truths of the Gospel : nor could she either receive or know them, because she possessed not a spiritual discernment. But the Lord " knocked, as it were, at the door" of her heart, and constrained her to open to him : he fixed her attention to the subject which Paul insisted on ; gave her an insight into it ; inclined her cordially to embrace the truth ; and thus " subdued her to the obedience of faith."
Now this is the way in which the work of conversion is always effected —
[We say not that every person is wrought upon as suddenly as she was ; or that there are not many subordinate points in which the conversion of others may differ from hers : but we are sure that every natural man is blind to the Gospel of Christ d; that both the sublimity of its doctrines and the purity of its precepts is offensive to him; that an effort of omnipotence also is exerted to overcome the reluctance of his soul ; and that, till that influence is felt, he will hold fast his delusions, " confound- ing good and evil, sweet and bitter, light and darkness."]
Nor can it be effected by any other means what- ever—
[If good dispositions would effect it, or if human eloquence could effect it, she might have been converted without any such exercise of the Divine power; seeing that she was already " a worshipper" of the true God, and had Paul for her instructor. But we are expressly told, that the work of conversion depends not on any such circumstances, but that it is altogether the effect of a divine operation on the soule. The Disciples, who had the peculiar advantage of our Lord's instructions for above three years together, and that in private as well as in public,
d 1 Cor. ii. 14. e John i. 13.