her they are likely to come, to hear His voice, and
to follow Him; again, whether they will, generally speaking, prove as
consistent and deeply-taught Christians as those who, compared with
them, have never departed from God at all; and here all the advantage,
doubtless, is on the side of those who (in the words of Scripture) have
walked in the ordinances of the Lord blameless[26]. When sinners truly
repent, then, indeed, they are altogether brothers in Christ's kingdom
with those who have not in the same sense "need of repentance;" but
that they should repent at all is (alas!) so far from being likely,
that when the unexpected event takes place it causes such joy in heaven
(from the marvellousness of it) as is not even excited by the ninety
and nine just persons who need no such change of mind[27]. Of such
changes some instances are given us in the Gospels for the
encouragement of all penitents, such as that of the woman, mentioned by
St. Luke, who "loved much." Christ most graciously went among sinners,
if so be He might save them; and we know that even those open sinners,
when they knew that they were sinners, were nearer salvation, and in a
better state, than the covetous and irreligious Pharisees, who added to
their other gross sins, hypocrisy, blindness, a contempt of others, and
a haughty and superstitious reliance on the availing virtue of their
religious privileges.

And, moreover, of these penitents of whom I speak--and whom, when they
become penitents, we cannot love too dearly (after our Saviour's
pattern), nay, or reverence too highly, and whom the Apostles, after
Christ's departure, brought into the Church in such vast
multitudes--none, as far as we know, had any sudden change of mind from
bad to good wrought in them; nor do we hear of any of them honoured
with any important station in the Church. Great as St. Paul's sin was
in persecuting Christ's followers, before his conversion, that sin was
of a different kind; he was not transgressing, but obeying his
conscience (however blinded it was); he was doing what he thought his
duty, when he was arrested by the heavenly vision, which, when
presented to him, he at once "obeyed;" he was not sinning _against
light_, but _in_, darkness. We know nothing of the precise state of
his mind immediately before his conversion; but we do know thus much,
that years elapsed after his conversion before he was employed as an
Apostle in the Church of God.

I have confin