A miracle of grace
A miracle of grace
Every regenerated soul is a miracle of grace. To quicken, to convince of sin, to bring to the bar of judgment, and thence, by pouring out a Spirit of grace and supplication, to the throne of mercy, to reveal Christ, to deliver the soul from death, the eyes from tears, the feet from falling, is as much an operation of Divine power as to create a world—or to raise the dead from the grave!
But there are cases where the Lord seems to work these miracles of grace with a more abundant and unusual display of Divine power. To call the crude fisherman of the Galilean lake to be a disciple and an apostle was really as much a miracle of grace as to convert the learned pupil of Gamaliel. But the conversion of Paul was accompanied by circumstances outwardly more supernatural and miraculous than the call of Peter. Augustine was directed to take up and read the Bible that lay at his side by a voice from heaven so audible to his outward ears that he at first thought it was that of a boy calling in an adjoining garden. Huntington, in his little tool-house, had a manifestation of Christ clothed in garments dipped in blood. Who can doubt the veracity of these men, when the whole tenor of their subsequent lives bore the strongest witness to the genuineness and reality of their Christianity? It is true, that in these extraordinary cases we want stronger evidence than seems requisite in the more usual and ordinary operations of Divine grace. But where that evidence is given, and there is no reason to believe the individual is a deceiver or deceived, to refuse assent to unusual displays of God's grace, merely because they differ from or surpass our own experience, would seem to be a refined species of infidelity.
Every regenerated soul is a miracle of grace. To quicken, to convince of sin, to bring to the bar of judgment, and thence, by pouring out a Spirit of grace and supplication, to the throne of mercy, to reveal Christ, to deliver the soul from death, the eyes from tears, the feet from falling, is as much an operation of Divine power as to create a world—or to raise the dead from the grave!
But there are cases where the Lord seems to work these miracles of grace with a more abundant and unusual display of Divine power. To call the crude fisherman of the Galilean lake to be a disciple and an apostle was really as much a miracle of grace as to convert the learned pupil of Gamaliel. But the conversion of Paul was accompanied by circumstances outwardly more supernatural and miraculous than the call of Peter. Augustine was directed to take up and read the Bible that lay at his side by a voice from heaven so audible to his outward ears that he at first thought it was that of a boy calling in an adjoining garden. Huntington, in his little tool-house, had a manifestation of Christ clothed in garments dipped in blood. Who can doubt the veracity of these men, when the whole tenor of their subsequent lives bore the strongest witness to the genuineness and reality of their Christianity? It is true, that in these extraordinary cases we want stronger evidence than seems requisite in the more usual and ordinary operations of Divine grace. But where that evidence is given, and there is no reason to believe the individual is a deceiver or deceived, to refuse assent to unusual displays of God's grace, merely because they differ from or surpass our own experience, would seem to be a refined species of infidelity.
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