A miracle of grace
by J. C. Philpot
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.