Religious conversion

“ The study of religious experience has shown the power of religion (and certainly for the most part its power for good) in the life of the individual and of society. The psychologists have thrust upon our attention with unmistakable emphasis the fact of conversion, however they may theorize about the fact. The recorded experiences of saints, reformers and missionaries, the testimony collected by the questionnaires and the cases of conversion described in such books as Begbie's "Twice-Born Men" have shown beyond a peradventure that men can be born again. ”

“ Conversion to Christianity which is effected by such means produces no change in the human heart. The man remains the same, though his professed belief may vary. The circulation of the Scriptures, the distribution of religious treatises, and the preaching of the gospel, are the only means which we employ to accomplish this great design. ”

“ The one, just as surely as the other, if not savingly converted, will find his portion in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.
Again, conversion is not a turning from one religious system to another. A man may turn from Judaism, Paganism, Mahometanism, or Popery, to Protestantism, and yet be wholly unconverted. ”

“ The believers in the non-natural character of sudden conversion have had practically to admit that there is no unmistakable class-mark distinctive of all true converts. The super-normal incidents, such as voices and visions and overpowering impressions of the meaning of suddenly presented scripture texts, the melting emotions and tumultuous affections connected with the crisis of change, may all come by way of nature, or worse still, be counterfeited by Satan. ”

“ Third: we may see the influence of humanism upon our preaching in the relinquishment of the goal of conversion. We are preaching to educate, not to save; to instruct, not to transform. Conversion may be gradual and half-unconscious, a long and normal process under favorable inheritance and with the culture of a Christian environment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ But faith presupposes regeneration. Hence, as truth is the instrumentality employed by the Holy Spirit in the production of regeneration, and faith, as baptism is to be added after the great moral change, conversion has been effected in adults, it follows that the truth or word is the grand and principal means of grace, and not secondary to baptism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And to-night we want to get some hint of how to have this infilling, which shall also be an anointing of power and a seal of ownership and an earnest of greater things at Jesus' return.
Broken Couplings.
But perhaps some one is saying, "Have not we all received the Holy Spirit if we are christians?" Yes, that is quite true. It is the Holy Spirit's presence in us that makes us christians. His work begins at conversion. Conversion and regeneration are the two sides of the same transaction. Conversion, the human side: regeneration, the divine side. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is the regeneration which comes about through union with Christ which constitutes the primary and most essential element in ecclesiology. “We do not stand, first of all, for restricted communion, nor for immersion as the only valid form of baptism, nor for any particular theory of Scripture, but rather for a regenerate church membership. The essence of the gospel is a new life in Christ, of which Christian experience is the outworking and Christian consciousness is the witness. Christian life is as important as conversion. Faith must show itself by works. ”

“ To the heathen and infidel conversion is absolutely and always necessary to salvation. The baptized Christian may by God’s grace so continue in that state of salvation in which he was placed in baptism, (see Church Catechism,) that conversion, in this sense, is not necessary to him: still even he, day by day, will fall into sins of infirmity, and he will need renewal or renovation: and all these—the daily renewal of the pious Christian, the conversion of the nominal Christian, and the conversion of the infidel or heathen—are the work of the Holy Spirit of God on the hearts of men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have examined, as you requested, the book entitled ‘The Higher Christian Life,’ with a view of gaining the author's definition of ‘conversion,’ or ‘regeneration,’ and his directions for securing it, and also his idea of what the ‘second conversion’consists in. His view of the first conversion, or regeneration, is the generally entertained one, i.e., it is the pardon of our sins. This pardon is instantaneous and entire. The moment a soul believes in Christ, and accepts his atonement, that moment it experiences a complete sense of pardoned sin. ”

“ The fact is, the conversion of a heathen is always a matter of wonder, if not of curiosity, to the Christian public; and it was just natural that I too was asked to tell them some vivid accounts of how "I threw my idols into the fire, and clung unto the Gospel." But mine was a more obdurate case than those of many other converts. ”

“ Conversion may come to him through the successive adoption of Catholic dogmas, through fondness for external rites and forms, through personal friendship and familiarity, through any of those myriad ways by which God leads the steps of his elect toward heaven; but, when it comes, it is the same change for each, for every one—the abnegation of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection of the heart and will to the obedience of faith. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Upon the whole, how should we lay out ourselves with all possible concern for the conversion of sinners! It will be for the happiness and salvation of the converted; it will prevent much mischief, and the spreading and multiplying of sin in the world; it will be for the glory and honour of God; and it will mightily redound to our comfort and renown in the great day. Those that turn many to righteousness, and those who help to do so, shall shine as the stars for ever and ever. ”

“ This is the great divine law that Christ will re-establish among men, and by his holy religion reduce men to the obedience of, That God only is to be served and worshipped; and therefore whoever set up any creature as the object of religious worship, though it were a saint or an angel, or the virgin Mary herself, they directly thwart Christ's design, and relapse into heathenism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nowadays, we speak of conversion with pity and amusement, but it is the greatest word the Christian Church can boast, and the Scripture miracles were long ago entombed had they not lived again in their legitimate descendants. ”

“ The Church with its sacramental gifts, and the personal faith of the converted heart, are no more to be set in antithesis than food and digestion, or the 'virtue which went out of Christ' and the faith in Him which made men whole. The sacraments certainly do not save us without conversion and faith, and faith which leaves us voluntarily isolated from the visible communion of the one body is not what St. ”

“ The Christ Church method of Conversion is very well for Infallibles, who have only to denounce, and for “ordained Clergymen,” who, with a simplicity of extravagance approaching the sublime, shrink from no consequences of their first principles, and boldly assert that the Holy Spirit is their Interpreter of Scripture,—but it displays a strange ignorance or contempt of the only avenues by which the minds of their fellow Christians can be approached, and of the moral and argumentative means by which alone conviction can be produced. ”

“ It is said to be their fulness (v. 12) , that is, the addition of them to the church, the filling up again of that place which became vacant by their rejection. This would be the enriching of the world (that is, the church in the world) with a great deal of light and strength and beauty. (2.) It is called the receiving of them. The conversion of a soul is the receiving of that soul, so the conversion of a nation. They shall be received into favour, into the church, into the love of Christ, whose arms are stretched out for the receiving of all those that will come to him. ”