the grace then given. Now, the importance of
particular moments in men's lives differs exceedingly in different
persons; but yet in all may be exaggerated. I suppose that if ever in
any man's life a particular point was of immense importance, it was the
point of his conversion in the case of St. Paul. There were here united
all that grace which according to one view accompanies baptism
especially, and all which according to the other view accompanies
conversion and justification. Here was a point which separated St.
Paul's later life from his earlier with a broader line of separation
than can possibly be the ease in general. There can be no doubt that he,
if ever man did, received at that particular time the Holy Ghost. But
if, ten or twenty years afterwards, St. Paul had been asked concerning
what the Holy Ghost had done for him, he would not certainly have
confined himself in his answer to the grace once given him at his
conversion and baptism, but would have spoken of that which he had been
receiving since every hour and every day, carrying forward and
completing that work of God which had been begun at the time of his
journey to Damascus. And as he had received more and more grace, so was
his confidence in his acceptance with God at the last day more and more
assured. For he writes to the Corinthians, many years after his
conversion and baptism, that he kept under his body, and was bringing it
into subjection, lest that by any means, after having preached to
others, he should be himself a castaway. And some years later still,
though he does not use so strong an expression as that of becoming a
castaway, yet he still says, even when writing to the Philippians from
Rome, that he counted not himself to have apprehended, nor to have
attained his object fully; but forgetting what was behind, even the
grace of his conversion and baptism, he pressed on to the things which
were before, even that continued and increasing grace which was required
to bring him in safety to his heavenly crown. But if we go on some years
yet farther, when his labours were ended, and the sure prospect of
speedy death was before him; when the past grace was everything, and
what he could expect yet to come was scarcely any other than that
particular aid which we need in our struggle with the last enemy--death;
then, his language is free from all uncertainty; then, in the full sense
of the words, he could say that he had received the Holy Ghost, that