Saul of Tarsus and His Seven Ships

“Saul of Tarsus and His Seven Ships,” an allegory by Christmas Evans, Welsh Baptist preacher (1766-1838)

Saul of Tarsus was once thriving merchant and an extensive shipowner. He had seven vessels of his own; the names of which were - ‘Circumcised the eighth day’; ‘Of the stock of Israel’; ‘Of the tribe of Benjamin’; ‘An Hebrew of the Hebrews’; ‘As touching the law, a Pharisee’; ‘Concerning zeal, persecuting the church’; ‘Touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless,’ The sixth was a man-of-war with which he set out one day from the port of Jerusalem, well supplied with ammunition from the arsenal of the chief priest, with a view to destroy a small fort at Damascus.

He was wonderfully confident, and breathed out threatenings and slaughter, But he had not gone far from port before the gospel ship with Jesus Christ Himself as Commander on board, hove in sight, and threw such a shell among the merchant’s fleet that all his ships were instantly on fire. The commotion was tremendous; and there was such a volume of smoke that Saul couldn't see the sun at noon

While the ships were fast sinking the Gospel Commander mercifully gave orders that the perishing merchant should be taken on board. ‘Saul, Saul, what have become of thy ships?’ ‘They are all on fire?’‘What wilt thou do now? ‘O that I may be found in Him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.’

As printed in The Baptist Waymark, Vol. IV, No. 1, Jan-Feb 1996, p. 2