Conversion of Christians

“ For instance, if, after conversion, the Holy Spirit reveals to him something which is inconsistent—which he did not before see—the condition of his advance another step is the renunciation of that thing!—the reception of the light, and obedience to it; and, if he shrinks from and does not receive and obey the light, he will never advance any more until he does. There are thousands of Christians, who, instead of advancing, have gone back since their conversion, because they would not comply with the condition, "THAT" they might prove the good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. ”

“ I hold that Christians are ill-employed, who spend their strength in missionary attempts to change the creed of other branches of the Christian Church, while their efforts at conversion might be much better utilised in behalf of the heathen, or, what is the same thing in effect, the untaught multitudes in our midst who know nothing whatever of the teachings of the Gospel of Christ. ”

“ In other words, the increase of Christians does not begin to equal those who are not Christians; and at this rate, when will the world be converted? Many will reply that the result is sure according to the Word of God; but is not a single promise that the end will be reached by the agencies, instrumentality's and means now employed.
WORLD CONVERSION IS IN THE AGE TO COME
If God is not converting the world through the agencies now at work, what is his purpose in sending the gospel? ”

“ The change we call "conversion" thus residing neither in the transfer of ecclesiastical relations to the church, nor in the growth of ritualism into the external conduct, nor yet even in the adoption of Catholic doctrine as the individual's creed, must have its sphere of action in regions deeper and more fundamental than we have yet explored. The church of God looks with the eyes of God upon the souls of men. ”

“ On the other hand, all who really hate sin, mourn over it, strive against it, trust in and cling to Christ as their personal Redeemer, need no conversion. No matter whether they can tell where and when and how they were converted or not. All who know by blessed experience that they now have in their hearts the elements of penitence and faith, are in a state of conversion, and if they earnestly ask God, may have the assurance that their sins are forgiven and they are accepted in the Beloved. ”

“ There is the hindrance of an abuse of the evangelical doctrine of conversion, and the idea that springs up in many hearts that if once a man has 'passed [Pg 241] from death unto life,' and has managed to get inside the door of the banqueting-hall, that is enough. And there are numbers of people in our Nonconformist communities especially, where that doctrine of conversion is most distinctly preached, whose growth is stopped by the abuse that they make of it in fancying if they have once exercised faith in Jesus Christ they may safely and sinlessly stand still. ”

“ With every truly converted soul the relation to God and to eternal things will be the great topic of life. But where, in the popular churches of to-day, is the spirit of consecration to God? The converts do not renounce their pride and love of the world. They are no more willing to deny self, to take up the cross, and follow the meek and lowly Jesus, than before their conversion. Religion has become the sport of infidels and skeptics because so many who bear its name are ignorant of its principles. The power of godliness has well-nigh departed from many of the churches. ”

“ We need hardly say we believe in the absolute, the indispensable, the universal necessity of divine conversion. Let a man be what he may; be he Jew or Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond or free, Protestant or Roman Catholic; in short, whatever be his nationality, his ecclesiastical position, or his theological creed, he must be converted, else he is on the broad and direct road to an everlasting hell.
There is no one born a Christian, in the true sense of that word. Neither can anyone be educated into Christianity. ”

“ External union with the church is the best possible primâ facie evidence of conversion, but it alone is not conversion. That men have came into the body of the Catholic Church from motives of business, or of politics, or of family sympathy there can be no doubt. But in these cases there was no real conversion. The deep, radical changes which so thoroughly unmake and then remake the spiritual man, never could have taken place in such souls as these. ”

“ Yet no definition of conversion could be more totally erroneous. Belief in Catholic doctrines is often chronologically precedent to a real conversion; but it is not always so. It certainly operates as a powerful antagonist of prejudice, and determines the interest and sympathies of the believer toward the church. Candor, humility, and earnestness being equal, such a believer is far more likely to become a Catholic than another who does not believe. But, for all that, such faith does not result in conversion as its necessary, scarcely as its probable, consequence. ”

“ Of the various corollaries which might be drawn from this demonstration of the real nature of conversion, there is but one which time and space allow us to notice. That one is this: That the whole question between Catholics and Protestants is one of fact and not primarily of doctrine; and can, like any other fact, be investigated and proved by human evidence. On one side, it is asserted that faith and morals are of comparative indifference to salvation, and that no source of divine light exists on earth higher than that of scripture, interpreted and judged by reason. ”

“ At present it suffices, by these statements and illustrations, to have made it clear that belief in Catholic doctrine is not conversion to the Catholic Church. No, not if a man can tell over on his fingers, one by one, the definitions of the councils and the traditions of the fathers, and pronounce a credo over every one of them, is he necessarily a Catholic, nor must he have passed through that vital transformation without which there never has been and never can be a true conversion. ”

“ An Exhortation to Ministers IF all who labored for the conversion of others sought to reach them BY THE HEART, introducing them immediately into prayer and the interior life, numberless and permanent conversions would ensue. On the contrary, few and transient fruits must attend that labor which is confined to outward matters, such as burdening the disciple with a thousand precepts for external exercises, instead of leading the soul to Christ by the occupation of the heart in Him.
If ministers were solicitous thus to instruct their parishioners, shepherds, while they watched their flocks, would have the spirit of the primitive Christians, and the husbandman at the plough maintain a blessed intercourse with his God; ”

“ For that, the Holy Spirit must be invoked in order that he may develop the interior life of the church, and that this development may be rendered visible to the persecutors themselves, who hitherto see nothing in her but what is terrestrial and human. Already a certain ideal conception of Christianity exists amongst non-Catholics of England and of the United States, and puts them in the way of a more complete conversion. ”

“ Considerable difference of opinion has always existed, and still exists, within the Christian Church as to the true nature and the causes of conversion, especially in the sense last described. Some have held that man is merely the passive recipient of the Divine Grace, a view based largely on the rendering of the Authorized Version of Isaiah vi. ”

“ Such lives in the churches of mission lands are the weightiest arguments for Christianity. But conversion to Christ goes, in its influence, farther than the individual. It has a far-reaching social influence. ”

“ Conversion is to turn from the love and practice of sin, and through faith in the Son of God to the love and practice of holiness. When a man has conviction of sin, believes in, and depends on, Jesus as His Savior, he is converted, and it matters not how, when, or where. ”

“ While the Church would, first of all, use every endeavor to preclude the necessity of conversion, by bringing the children to Jesus that He may receive and bless them through His own sacrament; and while she would use all diligence and watchfulness to keep them true to Christ in their baptismal covenant, yet, when they do fall away, she solemnly assures them that except they repent and be converted, they will eternally perish. ”

“ For all this hath been under the notion of ministers feeding their flocks, not of preachers sent to convert the unconverted and unbelieving.
To preach mainly for conversion of that people to whom a man stands shepherd, as to a converted people and flock of Christ, a dangerous disorder. God’s people must seek after a ministry sent by Christ to convert. ”

“ If the Lord brings about the salvation of some, through a mighty outpouring of his Spirit, then we shall never comprehend his ways. Why is it that he does not give us one general outpouring, one grand revival all over our country, and bring about the long prayed for millennial day? Answer.—Conversion is a commandment of God. It must be obeyed or the country lie, in direct opposition to the will of God, in sin. ”

“ Let, then, the reformed examine strictly into their lives, as to whether they exhibit decisive proofs of a genuine conversion; of conversion, not used in its limited sense, as implying a sudden or even violent change, but in the more extended sense, of a recovery from sin, and of a full development of the Christian character:—a conversion which, in its completion, is equivalent to the renewal of the soul in righteousness; the progress of which may be, in some, so gradual, as almost to be imperceptible, but must be, in all, so certain, as to be unquestionable. ”

“ The utter falsehood of those definitions of conversion which we have denied, becomes apparent from this description of what conversion is. There is no inherent impossibility that a pure Protestant, exercising to the fullest extent the right of private judgment, should arrive at doctrines identical with those which the church teaches, and should, as a result of this identity, accept even her formularies as expressive of his faith. ”

“ It requires but little investigation and reflection to convince any person that what is called conversion, and "repentance for sin," is nothing but the revival of early educational impressions resuscitated by the influence of mind on mind. No person has ever been known to get or embrace a religion he was not biased in favor of prior to the time of his conversion, unless we except a few weak-minded persons negative to any influence, and convertible to any religion the priest may urge upon their attention. ”

“ We see here the spirit in which we ought to labor for the conversion of others. There is certainly a great deal of good to be done around us. How many in this country are out of the Ark of safety, the Catholic Church of Christ! How many in her fold need our efforts and labors to make them better! Why are we not more active in laboring for them? We say it is of no use; we have tried and failed. Those whose conversion we had most at heart seem farther off from the truth than ever. It is no use hoping for the conversion of those who are not Catholics; they are too set in their ways. ”

“ For notwithstanding the great love which the converts to these different faiths expressed at the time of their conversion, and the great zeal manifested by the respective clergy, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of religious feeling, in order to have everybody converted, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what sect they pleased—yet when the converts began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the priests and the converts were more pretended than real ”

“ For all our religion is turned into questions, in so much that there are some that call all religion into question, and in a little while will lose all religion in the crowd of questions. There was a time not many years ago, when God did bless our ministry in the city, to the conversion of many people unto God; but now there are many that study more to gain parties to themselves, than to gain souls to God. The great work of conversion is little thought on, and never so few, if any at all, converted as in these days wherein we talk so much of reformation. And is this to keep covenant with God? ”

“ If it be true, as the words of the prophet and, indirectly, of the apostle seem to indicate, that one result of that spiritual quickening by the Holy Spirit called conversion or regeneration is to bring about union between all who call themselves disciples of Christ, then that regeneration cannot be regarded as complete or normal which does not produce fellowship with all other believers; neither can any Church be said to have attained a state in any great degree approaching its ideal which is not in union with the whole Church of Christ. ”

“ To the heathen, and infidel, conversion—a change of heart and life—is absolutely and always necessary to salvation; but the baptized Christian may, by God's grace, so continue in that state of salvation (see Church Catechism) in which he was placed in baptism, that conversion, in the above sense, is not necessary to him; but inasmuch as all fall into sin day by day, he will need renewal, or renovation—the quiet and continuous work of the Holy Spirit upon his heart. There is not a single reference to sudden conversion in any of the formularies of the Church of England. ”