Page:History of Joseph and his brethren.pdf/20

20 voice replying, that it was Jesus whom he persecuted and that it was hard for him to kick agaiust the pricks, He again desired further instructions, Lord, said be, what wilt thou have me to do ? upon which he was bid to rise, and go to Damascus, and there expect what should be further revealed to him ; rising from the ground he found his sight gone. In this plight heing led to Damascus, he was there three days fasting, and probably then he saw that celestial vision mentioned by him, wherein he heard and saw things past utterance, and those divine, revelations, which gave him occasion to say, that the gospel he preached, he was not taught by man, but had it revealed to him by Jesus Christ. The three days being expired, Ananias, a devout man, and one of the seventy disciples came to him, according to the command he had received from our Lord, who appeared to him, to go and enquire for one Saul of Tarsus, and having laid his hands on him, told him his message, upon which his sight was restored to him, and the gift of the Holy Ghost conferred on him ; presently after he was baptized, and made a member of the church, to the great joy of the rest of the disciples, that he should become not only a professor, but a preacher of that faith, which he so lately was a bitter persecutor of His stay at this time at Damacus was not long, for being warned away by a vision from heaven, he took a journey into Arabia, where he preached the gospel for three years, aud then returned to Damascus, where the unconverted Jews eagerly sought his ruin, endeavouring to seize him, but he escaped through the help of the disciples, and the rest of his friends who were zealous for his safety.

Thus far we have made an entrance into the life and acts of this great apostle, with which there is scarcely any thing equally memorable in history, nor could the further prosecution thereof have been omitted, but that all the travels of this apostle in the pursuance of his minintry, from the time of his conversion to the last of his being at Rome, with the most principal transactions, and the severest accidents that happened to him therein, are already related in the exposition of the map of the voyages of the apostles, and more particularly those of St. Paul, in which, for avoiding needless repetitions, the sequel of his life may not