Galatians 1:15-16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace,… You felt a conviction as to duty, but you determined to take time for consideration, and the conviction cooled. It was a golden moment, but in your prudence — the prudence when a leak is found out in the ship of waiting till to-morrow before trying to stop it — you determined to do nothing hastily, but to wait and see whether the conviction was aught else but a transient feeling. Of course it proved a transient feeling. The first touches of God's Spirit are meant to be transient unless attended to. The Spirit is likened to the wind, and the soul is breathed upon rather than struck. It is your business to prevent the impression being transient. If you would keep the dew on the grass you must keep the sun from it. If you would keep the impression of the heart you must keep the world from the heart. But because you have paused to confer with flesh and blood, you have given the world time to rally its forces, and therefore by the next day the impression is gone, and you have perhaps secretly felt pleased that second thoughts were so different from the first. Second thoughts tie men to the world where first thoughts would have devoted them to God. (H. Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, |
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