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Note here, 1. What a prodigious sinner St. Paul represents himself before conversion; I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious; a blasphemer, the highest sin he could commit against God; a persecutor, the highest sin he could commit against saints; injurious, the highest wickedness against mankind: sins of such aggravated and accumulated guilt, that they wanted but one ingredient, namely, sufficient knowledge, to render them the sin against the Holy Ghost.
Be astonished, O heavens, at the great and infinite mercy of God towards great sinners! Even persecutors and blasphemers may be, and sometimes are, converted, and brought home to God.
Note, 2. That reason asigned by him, why such distinguishing mercy was dispensed to him: he obtained mercy because he did it ignorantly in unbelief. The word because doth not import or imply that ignorance in the apostle was the proper cause of mercy in God, but that it made St. Paul a more capable subject for receiving mercy than he would have been, if he had maliciously sinned against knowledge; nor that St. Paul by less sinning did merit the mercy of God, but his ignorance and unbelief being in a sort invincible, through the prejudice of education, they did much abate the malignity of his sin; for he was bred a Pharisee, which was a sect that had an implacable enmity against Christ and his holy religion.
Observe lastly, The end and design of St. Paul in relating that his bitter persecution of Christianity was in the time of his ignorance, and not done deliberately, knowingly, and maliciously; partly, to justify the divine mercy and free grace of God, which pardoned his fury, his rage, and madness against Christ and his saints; for, had he done thus deliberately and maliciously, for secular ends and worldly advantages, it had been the sin against the Holy Ghost, which was unpardonable; and partly he mentions his ignorance, to prevent the abuse of the divine mercy in men, and to let the world know that none might or ought to take encouragement from his example, to be of a persecuting spirit, and yet hope for mercy, when at the same time they sin against light and knowledge.
I would to God the persecuting spirit amongst us would consider this, which is as bitter as ever in the breasts of some against their protestant brethren; but, blessed be God, legally restrained. They cannot now afflict those whom they do not affect; yet it is evident they do not rejoice, and are not so thankful for their own liberty as they should, because those whom they hate enjoy theirs: their case is vastly different from our apostle's; they cannot pretend to do it ignorantly, though through infidelity in some sort they may.