which his followers reposed in him. To counteract the sad effects of their representations, St. Paul, in the very introduction to his Epistle to the Galatians, declared, that he had received his Gospel, " not of men (as the authors), nor by man (as an instru- ment), but directly from the Lord Jesus Christ, and from God the Father, who had raised him from the dead3 :" and then, after expressing his " wonder that they had been so soon turned away from him who had called them into the grace of Christ," he pro- ceeds to vindicate more fully his apostolic authority: " I certify you, brethren," says he, " that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man : for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ V Then, after specifying the time when it was revealed to him, namely, in his way to Damascus, he asserts, that he studiously avoided every thing which might be con- strued into a reception of it from men ; for he had not gone at all at that time to Jerusalem, where the other Apostles were, but into Arabia, where there was none but God to teach him.
In the account which he thus gives of himself, he gives us an insight into the work of conversion, and into that line of conduct which all converted persons should pursue. It is for the elucidating of these two things that we have selected the passage which we have just read : from which we shall take occasion to shew,
I. Wherein our conversion must resemble Paul's —
Certainly it is not at all necessary that our con- version should resemble his in the external circum- stances ; for in respect of them he stands alone, not so much as one of his attendants being, as far as we know, converted with him. Nor even in respect of the suddenness of it, is it at all necessary that we should resemble him : our conversion may be so gradual that we cannot trace it to any particular time ; and yet it may be as certain and as evident as
a ver. 1. b ver. II, 12.