Convert

“ In ancient times, when men were plainly told to convert—turn—to God and do works worthy of repentance, when the mists and mysticles of the schoolmen and dogmatists of all sects and parties had not, as yet, beclouded the minds of men, nor corrupted the simplicity of the Gospel, thousands were converted in a day. ”

“ But you urge, that perhaps that startling might issue in amendment of life; that it might be the beginning of a new course, though it passed away itself; that a miracle would not indeed convert you, but it would be the first step towards thorough conversion; that it would be the turning point in your life, and would suddenly force your path into the right direction, and that in this way shocks and startlings, and all the agitation of the passions and affections, are really the means of conversion, though conversion be something more than they. ”

“ Having thus briefly spoken of the character of some of the actors and agents in the work of conversion, we will now glance at the character of some of the religions and religious ideas, and moral course of conduct, to which the sinner is converted. It is evident that if an All-wise God had anything to do in the process of converting people to any system of religion, he would also convert them to correct moral habits. ”

“ To the convert, conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no longer present in his consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He wants to do things. His soul is fired with overmastering impulses to action. ”

“ Private profession of faith is made when the reception of a convert is made before the priest and two witnesses, but the fact of the conversion is not made known to others on account of circumstances. ”

“ We take only what we find—the genuine letters of an early convert to Christ, which were certainly written less than thirty years after the death of Christ, which contain internal evidence on the part of their writer to his belief in the central facts they proclaim, at an interval of little more than five years after those facts occurred. ”

“ CONVERT. Synonyms:
The name disciple is given to the follower of a certain faith, without reference to any previous belief or allegiance; a convert is a person who has come to one faith from a different belief or from unbelief. A proselyte is one who has been led to accept a religious system, whether with or without true faith; a convert is always understood to be a believer. A neophyte is a new convert, not yet fully indoctrinated, or not admitted to full privileges. The antonyms apostate, pervert, and renegade are condemnatory names applied to the convert by those whose faith he forsakes. ”

“ When a young convert, at home or abroad, takes up decided ground for Christ, coming out from the world and becoming separate, very blessed tokens of God's nearness and of God's interest are usually given him. ”

“ That's what you have got to be converted to. 'Except ye be converted and become as little children'—You hear much of conversion now-a-days; but people always seem to think they have got to be made wretched by conversion,—to be converted to long faces. No, friends, you have got to be converted to short ones; you have to repent into childhood, to repent into delight, and delightsomeness. ”

“ It was such a sudden transition that I, as onlooker, experienced: the gathering of the congregation at the water-side was beautiful; the [Pg 85] holy songs seemed more holy there; the black-gowned pastor and the convert wading out in the stream while the hymn was being sung; the pause, the solemn words; the yielding body as the minister started to immerse the convert—up to this point the scene filled me with religious awe; but from that point onward it was most repellent—the convert’s rigidity and the struggle at contact with water ”

“ You will often notice in old books that when people were converted, that is to say, when they either took up a new religion or turned from bad ways to good ones, the people who persuaded them to be converted gave them a new name, very often the teacher's own name. ”

“ He believed that good on the whole would result from his decisive measures; that many, to say the least, of the conversions would be sincere, and that the children of the converts in general would be educated in the true religion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities. ”

“ Much as he praised God when he heard of conversion, he knew how feeble the young converts were, and how for their establishing nothing would avail without the grace of the Spirit prayed down. If we notice some of the principal of [p161] these prayers we shall see what he asked and obtained. ”

“ But are your congregations composed exclusively of this description of hearers? No; you may sometimes see all the varieties of the human character sitting around you when you are in the pulpit; the Sabbath-breaker, the swearer, the debauchee, the seducer, the scoffer, and the mere formalist in religion. Must not these persons be converted before they can enter the kingdom of heaven? And how is their conversion to be effected? You employ your arguments to convince them of the Divine origin of Christianity, and they are convinced of it, but still go on in a course of sin. ”

“ Their converts must not only reform their lives, but give indubitable proofs that they are reformed; they are taught so as to understand thoroughly the sound principles of Christianity; and they must give an account of their faith, and a reason for the hope that is in them, before they are admitted as members of the Christian community. ”

“ One thing I have noticed, that some conversions don’t amount to anything; that if a man professes to be converted without conviction of sin, he is one of those stony-ground hearers who don’t bring forth much fruit. The first little wave of persecution, the first breath of opposition, and the man is back in the world again. ”

“ You will be converted—you will be converted just as soon as every effort to compass pardon, commutation, or reprieve has failed—and then!—Why, then, every morning and every afternoon, the best and purest young ladies of the village will assemble in your cell and sing hymns. ”

“ Who alone performs conversion in us? The Holy Ghost brings us to Christ, or converts us, only through the Gospel. When can the Holy Ghost not perform this work in us? What should we therefore diligently do? ”

“ In most countries the converts seem to be brought to a knowledge of their evil ways, and to perceive the beauties of the Christian religion through the medium of material assistance provided from the mission. ”

“ It may be said,—Why are not our religious principles aggressive?—Why, if they be true, do they not find converts among the various Christian communities of our land?—Why, as in the early times of our Society, are there not numerous conversions, and fresh bodies of warm-hearted, and sound-minded believers, added to our numbers?—These are deeply important and very interesting questions, and we are willing to offer a few thoughts upon them, with the seriousness and modesty with which it becomes us to speak on the subject. ”

“ Some of the converts have honoured their confession of faith by most honest, faithful, and consistent lives from beginning to end; some have been, and still are, weak in their Christian course, whilst others have often to be reminded, and have even had to be put under Christian discipline, in consequence of backslidings and sins ”

“ In the early ages of the Church the fervour of the first converts, strengthened and purified by the fierce persecutions they had to endure for religion, enabled them, or a considerable number of them, to reach this high standard without withdrawing from the world, its business, or society. ”

“ In another passage he points out how greatly profitable to the faith was the conversion of such persons, because not only were they obliged to betray their fellows and the hiding-places and conventicles of darkness, but those whom they had influenced were more ready to acknowledge their errors and seek in turn to be converted. ”

“ The converts in the earliest ages were gathered from those whose hearts God had touched, and who, having been brought to a true knowledge of the Saviour, were ready to make any sacrifices and to endure any persecutions for His name's sake. ”

“ I never told my own religion, nor scrutinized that of another. I never attempted to make a convert, nor wished to change another's creed. I have ever judged of the religion of others by their lives, and by this test, my dear Madam, I have been satisfied yours must be an excellent one, to have produced a life of such exemplary virtue and correctness. For it is in our lives, and not from our words, that our religion must be read. ”

“ When a person is converted they are turned from persuing the love of this world and seek after that holy love that is in them which is Christ and let all their actions be constrained by that love. After a person is converted they commence running after a prize, which is Christ, and in Christ is all the Godhead bodily, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Again, Christ will thoroughly purge his floor, cast out unclean spirits out of your heart and you enter the second time without sin unto salvation. ”

“ Again, we kept praying that the Lord would give us converts from the very beginning. We had heard of missionaries in India, China, and elsewhere, who had worked for many years without gaining converts; but we did not believe that this was God's will for us. We believed that it was his pleasure and purpose to save men and women through his human channels, and why not from the beginning? So we kept praying and working and expecting converts, and God gave them to us. ”

“ Their converts, by a wonderful change of manners, became in a moment new creatures. Those who had been the most bitter enemies, long bent to lust and passion, became the most loving, forgiving, and chaste persons in the world. Has grace wrought in us so perfect a conversion? ”

“ Your converted children, who teach their parents; your converted convicts, who teach honest men; your converted dunces, who, having lived in cretinous stupefaction half their lives, suddenly awaking to the fact of there being a God, fancy themselves therefore His peculiar people and messengers ”

“ It has been often remarked that our higher schools can show very few converts. The conversions have not been many, and yet they have not been so inconsiderable in number as they have been represented. ”

“ And here we must keep close to the veritable teaching of holy Scripture. We can accept nothing less, nothing different. It is greatly to be feared that very much of what passes, now-a-days, for conversion is not conversion at all. Many so-called cases of conversion are published and talked of, which cannot stand the test of the word of God. Many profess to be converted, and are accredited as such, who prove to be merely stony-ground hearers. ”

“ Indeed, the converted, at the moment when the revelation takes place, seem little concerned with divinity, or dogmas, or rites; they are persons given over to a violent commotion, who seem forgetful of all their physical and intellectual life, and who are absorbed in contemplation of themselves in relation to a central point of their consciousness, which seems to be illuminated by some prodigious radiance. ”

“ Scores, yea hundreds, have, during their connection with them, been soundly converted to God. Hundreds and thousands date their conversion from the instructions and admonitions received at those noble institutions; and not a few of the most devoted missionaries, illustrious divines, laborious commentators, and translators of the Bible, and most popular preachers of the age, have been among those very persons who owed—and have rejoiced to own that they owed—their conversion to Sabbath-school instrumentality. ”

“ Character of the Converts Occasionally there was one who had joined the Church who was in possession of an abundance of this world’s goods, and big enough to share with his less fortunate neighbor, for the converts were not confined to the poor and the needy, the unlearned and the ignorant. ”

“ He shows them how sad their case was, who were not let into the meaning of the doctrine of Christ; To you it is given, but not to them. Note, It will help us to put a value upon the privileges we enjoy as disciples of Christ, to consider the deplorable state of those who want such privileges, especially that they are out of the ordinary way of conversion; lest they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them. v. 12. Those only who are converted, have their sins forgiven them: and it is the misery of unconverted souls, that they lie under unpardoned guilt. ”

“ Let people contrive to cover or excuse their sin as they will, there is no way effectually and finally to hide it but by forsaking it. Some make the sense of this text to be, that conversion shall prevent a multitude of sins; and it is a truth beyond dispute that many sins are prevented in the party converted, many also may be prevented in others that he may have an influence upon, or may converse with. ”

“ It is not to be wondered at that these new converts should frequently build, or select, their cells in the neighbourhood of that of the teacher whom they had followed into the desert, and should continue to look up to him as their spiritual guide. ”

“ God frequently conceals the part which his children have in the conversion of other souls. Yet one may boldly say, that person who long groans before him for the conversion of another, whenever that soul is converted to God, is one of the chief causes of it. ”