ON CONVERSION.
Returning with Mr. Roscoe and his brother from a survey of some ancient ruins, which reminded us of the departed heroes of olden times, and of the legendary tales of their strange and adventurous life, which are still rife amongst the people who reside in this vicinity, we overtook Mr. Stevens, who consented to spend the evening with us, and we walked on together to Mr. Roscoe's mansion.
After tea our conversation turned on the rise, progress, and character of Methodism, when the Rev. Mr. Roscoe gave it as his unqualified opinion, that its introduction into this kingdom was no less fatal to the honour and harmony of the church, than the irruptions of the Goths and Vandals from the trackless deserts of the North, were to the literature and sovereignty of the Roman empire. "It came," he observed, "at a period when no danger was apprehended; and from the meanness of its appearance, and its entire want of the attractions of intelligence or of taste, no one could calculate on its exciting that commotion, or acquiring that degree of influence over the popular mind, which its history records, and which we all ought deeply to deplore. To extirpate this fatal heresy, or to arrest it in its destructive course, I fear is now impossible; but we ought certainly to be on our guard, lest we should accelerate its march, either by that supineness which neglects to defend the passes, or that neutrality which looks with indifference on the conquests of an enemy, if he leaves us in the undisturbed possession of our own little territory. Though you cannot agree with the Rev. Mr. Cole in his opinions on baptismal regeneration, I think you must agree with him in his remarks on the preposterous conversions which are the boast of our modern fanatics. Indeed, what man of learning or of taste can read the periodical journals of enthusiasm without feeling disgusted, and if he were not thoroughly established in his belief of the Divine origin of our holy religion, he must, I think, become a sceptic."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Men of learning and of taste, with some few honourable exceptions, very rarely discover any strong attachment for the humiliating doctrines or the self-denying precepts of that holy religion, whose Divine origin they professedly admit. The religion which they admire is not the religion of the Scriptures, but one modified and adapted to their taste and propensities. Would the poets or prose writers of modern times, who praise, in harmonious numbers or well-turned periods, the religion of their country, welcome that religion if she were to disengage herself from the attractions of the mitre, and the associations of sacred altars and antique buildings, and rise up before them in the simplicity of her attire, and, with an authoritative voice, as when she first despoiled Greece and Rome of their elegant mythology, demanding from them repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ? If she were to speak to them of sin, of their sins, she would excite the smile of ridicule; if she were to urge on them the necessity of repentance, lest they perish, she would provoke their contempt; and if she were to require from them that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ which by its own reaction purifies and ennobles the human soul, she would be despised and rejected, no less than the enthusiasm of Methodism. But though the Rev. Mr. Cole reprobated, in very strong terms, the preposterous conversions of the fanatics of modern times, he did not, I believe, deny the necessity of conversion, nor say that it was impossible."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"O no, he gave us the following quotation from the excellent and judicious tract[14] which the justly celebrated Dr. Mant has published on the question: 'Conversion, according to our notions, may not improperly be said to consist of a rational conviction of sin, and sense of its wickedness and danger; of a sincere penitence and sorrow of heart at having incurred the displeasure of a holy God; of steadfast purposes of amendment with the blessing of the Divine grace; of a regular and diligent employment of all the appointed means of grace; and of a real change of heart and life, of affections and conduct, and a resolute perseverance in well-doing.' And I may quote the next paragraph from this judicious tract, which says, 'The triumph of such conversion as this is not attended by alternations of extreme joy and despondency, of the most ecstatic rapture and the most gloomy despair; sometimes by heavenly exultation, and sometimes by the agonies of hell. It has little of what is brilliant and dazzling to decorate, little of what is magnificent and imposing to dignify and exalt it.'"
Mr. Roscoe.—"When I first read that tract, I very much admired it, and I have circulated many hundreds, thinking that it would check the progress of evangelical sentiments; but, on a recent perusal of it, I felt much astonished when I recollected the satisfaction and the pleasure which it once afforded me; and I fear that, by giving it circulation, I have assisted in perpetuating the delusion under which such a large proportion of all ranks in society are advancing to the eternal world. I certainly do not object to his definition of conversion; but the highly-wrought reflections which you have just quoted, are, in my opinion, an impeachment of the accuracy of his reasoning and of the fervour of his piety. If they have any meaning, they are intended to prove that the gentle excitement of the passions constitutes a legitimate evidence of conversion; but if the passions should be strongly excited—if they should overflow, and dare to wet the couch of a penitent with the fast-dropping tear—if they should touch on the borders of the joy which is unspeakable and full of glory—or if they ever should sink into despondency, or rise to a hope full of immortality, then they change their character, and become, not the evidences of conversion, but of fanaticism. I object to such a statement as unphilosophical, and calculated to produce the very evil it is intended to prevent. Two men, whose mental temperament varies from cool apathy to the highest degree of a nervous sensibility, may sincerely repent of having, by their sins, incurred the displeasure of God; but to suppose, with Dr. Mant, that they will both feel in the same exact proportion, and that proportion the lowest possible degree of excitement, would be to betray consummate ignorance of the constitution of the human mind. These two men, who feel a degree of sorrow for sin, and of joy for the promise of forgiveness, that accords with the exact susceptibility of their nature, are placed by the judicious Dr. Mant in very opposite columns—the one amongst the sincere penitents, the other amongst the deluded fanatics. But this is not the only absurdity which such a classification involves; for it necessarily tends to plunge the man of strong passions into despair, because he feels too acutely, while it keeps the man of more moderate passions in a state of uncertainty, lest he should not have felt quite enough."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"But will you not admit that the annals of Methodism record many instances of extravagant feeling, which neither a reference to the varying temperament of the mind, nor the sober language of Holy Writ, will account for or justify; such as extremes of weeping and of laughter, sobs, and shrieks, and groans, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth—the voice now stifled by agony, and now bursting forth in tones of despair; tremors, and faintings, and droppings to the ground, as if struck by lightning; paleness and torpor, convulsions and contortions; things terrible to behold, too terrible to be borne, and which words cannot describe. Can you suppose that such scenes are the effect of Divine truth producing a rational conviction of sin, and a keen sense of its wickedness and danger? are they not rather the consequences of fanaticism?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"The symptoms which you have enumerated are sometimes apparent, I have no doubt, even when the heart is untouched by the subduing power of the grace of God, and may be referred to the strong excitement of the animal passions, when stirred up from their dormant state by the impassioned eloquence of the preacher; but at other times we may regard them as the visible and audible signs of a genuine conversion to God, the utterances of a soul at the period of its new birth, when in the act of passing from death to life. And though I should prefer the truth being felt and received into the heart in the calm of composed and silent listening, yet I would rather see an entire congregation bathed in tears, sobbing, and even groaning aloud, while their minister is addressing them on the sublime and awful realities of the eternal world, than witness that apathetic indifference which is so generally apparent—a listlessness which is something like a judicial insensibility."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"I admit that there is too much apparent indifference in our congregations to the sermons of the clergy; but there may be a strong undercurrent of emotion, even when there are no floods. But to revert to what I call the extravagant symptoms of feeling in connection with Methodism, the line of distinction which you have drawn between the causes to which we may refer them may be substantially correct; but I presume you do not intend to maintain that they are ever, even in the most sober and modified degree, the necessary accompaniments of conversion?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"No, certainly not; but if there be sorrow in the heart for having incurred the displeasure of a holy God, ought we to be surprised if the eye be suffused with tears? and if there be a rational conviction of the danger to which the commission of sin exposes us, ought we to be surprised if the breast heave with tumultuous swellings of alarm and dread? Shall an apprehension of deserved wrath awaken no terror? or a hope of redeeming love inspire no joy? Why, a man must be metamorphosed into some other being, not to have his passions stirred, from the very depth of his soul, when such awful and transporting scenes are passing before his mental vision."
Mr. Stevens.—"I am astonished that any clergyman should condemn the strong and visible excitement of the passions at the period of conversion, when there are so many passages in the Scriptures which attest it. The writer of the book of Proverbs says, 'The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit who can bear?' And if a deep wound be inflicted on the soul of man, which he is incapable of healing or of enduring, shall we turn round upon him and aggravate the intensity of his anguish, by employing the strong symptoms of his grief as evidences either of insanity or fanaticism? The impiety of such an act would be no less censurable than its cruelty. And does not the prophet tell us that when the Spirit of grace is poured out on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that 'they shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born.' This prediction was fulfilled when the three thousand were pricked in their heart, and cried out at the close of Peter's address, Men and brethren, what shall we do? And shall the charge of fanatical extravagance and delusion be brought against these primitive converts, because they cried out, and asked aloud, in the hearing of all the people, what they should do to escape from the wrath they had deserved?"
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"Mr. Cole admitted that the penitents in former times were sometimes extravagantly affected, because their conversion was miraculous, but he maintained, and I think very satisfactorily, that there are no instantaneous conversions in modern times—the thing is impossible. If you recollect, he proved that the instantaneous conversions recorded in the Scriptures were effected by the force of miracles, but as these have ceased, men must be wrought on now by the more slow process of argument and persuasion; and he supported his opinion by the following quotation from Dr. Mant: 'When the conversion was sudden or instantaneous, it was the consequence of miraculous evidence to the truth. When the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost added to the church three thousand souls, they were men who had been amazed and confounded by the effusion of the Holy Ghost, and the supernatural gift of tongues.'"
Mr. Roscoe.—"Yes, they were confounded and amazed when they heard the apostles speaking in different languages, but this miracle, so far from effecting their conversion, merely excited the ridicule of many, who, mocking, said, 'These men are full of new wine.' But after they had listened to Peter's discourse, they were 'pricked in their heart, and then said unto Peter, and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?' Miracles attested the Divine mission of the apostles, but it was the truth which the apostles preached that became the means of the conversion of the people. And though the miraculous evidences of the apostolic commission have ceased, because they are no longer necessary, yet the truth, which is the instrument of conversion, is preserved pure and entire; and when it is faithfully and energetically preached, it is still the power of God to salvation. Shall we say that he, who has all power in heaven and earth, cannot, if he please, effect the conversion of sinners as suddenly in the present day as in the times of the apostles."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"If you recollect, he quoted Dr. Mant to prove the possibility of such sudden conversions. 'Not that I would be understood to assert that Providence may not, perhaps, even in the present day, be sometimes pleased to interpose in a manner more awful and impressive than is agreeable to the ordinary course of his proceedings, and to arrest the sinner in his career of infidelity or wickedness, and to turn him from darkness to light.' What he maintained was, that these sudden conversions are not to be expected by the clergy who preach to Christian congregations, which are composed of those who have been trained up in the belief of Christianity."
Mr. Roscoe.—"I have no doubt that many who have been trained up in the belief of Christianity have, in the process of their training, felt its moral influence in producing repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, though they may not know the time when they first felt its power in enlightening and renewing them, or when they passed from death unto life. The whole process of their conversion has been conducted so silently and so gradually—they have been led on by such imperceptible steps from one degree of knowledge and of grace to another, and it has been with so much hesitating precaution that they have embraced the consolatory promises of mercy—that they have erected no monumental pillars to commemorate any great moral revolution in their character, nor placed any sacred landmarks by which their progress in the life of faith can be traced. 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. You employ the force of moral suasion to induce them to turn from iniquity to righteousness, but such is the fatal obduracy of their hearts, that it makes no impression. What can you do now to insure success?"
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"Why, if people will not be converted by argument or persuasion, they must take the consequences upon themselves. I don't know anything more that can be done. We must leave them to take their own course, and if they perish, we can't help it. They doom themselves to perdition."
Mr. Roscoe.—"But if you read the New Testament with close attention, you will perceive that there is a power associated with a faithful and enlightened ministry, which makes it not the letter of instruction merely, but the spirit which giveth life. Did not the Saviour, when he gave the apostles their commission, say, 'Lo I am with you always, even to the end of the world?' Is it not to his immediate presence with the first preachers of the gospel, that the sacred historian everywhere ascribes the signal success which crowned their labours, and not to the force of miracles? If a great multitude at Antioch turned to the Lord, it was because the hand of the Lord was with them; if Lydia believed in consequence of giving attention to the things which were spoken, it was because the Lord opened her heart; if Paul planted, and Apollos watered with success, it was the Lord who gave the increase; and highly as they were endowed, they did not presume to rely on the efficacy of their own addresses, or the force of the miraculous attestations of their own mission, but confessed that it was through God that they became mighty and triumphant in all their ministerial labours. If, then, his presence is associated with a faithful ministry, and the apostles invariably ascribed their success to the concurring testimony of his power, and if he promise to be with his ministers through every succeeding age, ought you to overlook it? Will you boast of your uninterrupted succession in the ministerial office from the times of the apostles, while you undervalue the importance of the presence of the Lord to give success to your official labours? or do you suppose that now Christianity is grown venerable by her age, she can turn men from darkness to light—from the power of Satan to God—without the concurring testimony of that Almighty power on which she relied in the days of her youthful vigour?"
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"These quotations and references undoubtedly prove that our Saviour must give the success to our ministry; but I think it would be very injudicious to state such a fact to our congregations."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Why so?"
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"Because it would lower the clergy in their estimation if we were to say that we are not invested with a plenitude of power to accomplish the design of our appointment, and might lead the people to wait for a miraculous conversion, instead of trying for it in the regularly appointed way."
Mr. Roscoe.—"Then you must admit that the writers of the Scriptures, who wrote under the plenary inspiration of the Holy Spirit, acted a very injudicious part, and have set us a very improper example, as they have placed the fact of their personal insufficiency, and their entire dependence on their invisible Lord, in a prominent point of view. Indeed, the consequences of such an admission would be alarming, as in that case we should be compelled to pass a censure on the wisdom of the Divine Spirit for allowing such facts to be placed on record, if they are calculated to produce a pernicious effect on the popular mind. It is evident to me, from your last remarks, that you, in common with all the clergy of the anti-evangelical school, have imbibed some very fatal errors, which must render your ministrations worse than useless; must, in fact, render them pernicious, because deceptive, both to yourselves and to your people."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"And do you really think so? This certainly is a very grave imputation on our order, and one which ought not to be advanced unless you can maintain its correctness, with an array of very clear evidence. Why, you now insinuate that we are self-deceived, and are deceiving others. What proof can you bring of this?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"Your first error, and it is a capital one, is the self-sufficiency of the clergy to accomplish the design of their appointment. This may be true, if we view them merely as appointed by human authority to conduct a prescribed service and administer the sacraments. This you can do. But the more spiritual functions of the ministry you cannot perform by virtue of a self-sufficient power."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"To what spiritual functions do you refer?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"Why, to the conversion and spiritual renovation of sinners, and the administration of effective consolation to a wounded spirit. If any order of ministers, under the Christian dispensation, ever possessed the power of doing this, we must admit that the apostles of our Lord possessed it in a pre-eminent degree. But they disclaimed the possession of such a self-sufficient power, and acknowledged their absolute dependence on the concurring grace of God, and the fervent and effectual prayers of their pious lay brethren. The apostle Paul, when trying to allay the ferment which the spirit of contention had raised in the church of Corinth, and to detach the people from the popular idols of their admiration and confidence, speaks out boldly and explicitly on the question of ministerial insufficiency and dependence: 'For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase' (1 Cor. iii. 4-7). We know that opinion has a powerful influence in the formation and development of character, and in no order of men does it operate with more direct and constant force than on the clergy; hence, if a clergyman thinks he is invested with a plenitude of power to accomplish the design of his appointment, he will live in a state of comparative, if not absolute independence of God: he will not be a man of prayer; I mean, he will not wrestle in prayer with God, to render his public ministry successful in the conversion of sinners; such a thing will not come into his mind. He thinks of himself more as a priest in the church, than as a minister of Christ, labouring for the spiritual good of the people. His self-sufficiency, which keeps him independent of God, tends to inflate him with spiritual pride; he becomes arrogant, and expects that the people will place themselves in submissive subjection to his authority—believe what he dictates, and celebrate what he prescribes. But when, like Paul and the rest of the apostles, a clergyman has a piercing conviction of his insufficiency to execute the trust committed to his charge, he will never enter a pulpit to preach till he has been in his closet with God—praying for assistance from him, and for the putting forth of his Divine power, through the medium of his otherwise ineffective agency. His opinion of himself, his feelings, and his retired devout exercises, all harmonize with the following quotation, which I will now read to you: 'Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart. Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth but the spirit giveth life' (2 Cor. iii. 3, 6). And while such a clergyman will depend on God for the success of his labours, rather than on any conceived self-sufficiency, he will also, in imitation of the apostles, place a subordinate degree of dependence on the fervent prayers of his believing brethren. 'Finally, brethren,' says Paul, who could work miracles to attest the Divine origin of the message he delivered to the people, 'pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you' (2 Thess. iii. 1)."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"And what is the second error which you think we hold?"
Mr. Roscoe.—"Why, you teach the people to depend on you for spiritual blessings, instead of directing them to look to God, from whom cometh every good gift, and every perfect gift; hence, they come to church, go through the order of the service, and withdraw when it is over, more like self-moving machines, whose movements are regulated by laws imposed on them by human skill and authority, than like intelligent beings, who feel their responsibility to God, and their dependence on him. And this is the great practical evil which is inflicted on the people, by the clergy assuming to themselves a sufficiency of power to accomplish all the purposes of their ministry—their hearers are not a praying people. Now, to me nothing is more obvious, if I take the meaning of the uniform language of the Bible, than this great important fact, that prayer on the part of a minister and his hearers, is made essential to their spiritual prosperity and happiness. Hence, after the promise of a new spirit and a new heart was given, to excite the eager expectation of the people of Israel: 'Thus saith the Lord God, I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them' (Ezek. xxxvi. 37). Hence the importance and necessity of prayer. Can we expect forgiveness unless we pray for it? and is not the moral renovation of our nature of equal importance? and if, in the economy of salvation, we are to be sanctified by the Spirit of God as well as justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, are we to be reprobated as deluded when we invoke his purifying agency? Let us look around us, and what shall we see? What!—a scene not less affecting than that which struck the eye of the prophet when he received his commission from above to enter the mystic valley of death. It was full of bones: 'And, behold, there were very many in the open valley; and, lo, they were very dry.' He was asked, 'Can these dry bones live?' and he answered, 'O Lord God, thou knowest.' What did he do? He prophesied as he was commanded; and when thus engaged, the Spirit of the Lord came upon them, and they lived. If, then, the ministers of grace wish to accomplish the great moral design of their appointment, and acquire the deathless honour of rescuing sinners from that state of guilt, degeneracy, and misery in which they are involved, let them preach the gospel in a clear and in a faithful manner, teaching them that every good thought, every holy desire, every sacred principle, must proceed directly from the Father of mercies, and God of all grace; and that, while they are employed as his servants, in administering the revelation of his will, if any good results from their labours, it must be in answer to the humble and fervent prayers of those who proclaim and those who hear the truth."
Rev. Mr. Roscoe.—"The clergy have fallen very low in your estimation."
Mr. Roscoe.—"The Tractarian clergy have. They sink themselves by their arrogance, and lofty assumptions of official dignity and power; they are haughty and overbearing, and have no resemblance in their spirit, or in their style of speech, to the prophets of the Old Testament or the apostles of the New; and if not an importation from Rome, they are in training to serve at her altars, and advocate her assumed infallibility."