From the words, thus opened, I shall take occasion to consider; First, The nature of conversion; Secondly, The temper that distinguishes this great change; Thirdly, I shall endeavour to shew, how much every individual among us is concerned in the subject, since our Lord declares, that, without conversion, we shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
I. As to the nature of conversion, it essentially consists in an inward and universal change of heart, wrought by the gracious operation of the Spirit of God; by which new principles are established in the mind, new inclinations are imparted, and new objects pursued. The word conversion signifies the being turned away from an object of former attachment, in order to contemplate and enjoy one, that had been previously disregarded and despised. In the work, which this word is adapted to describe, there occurs this twofold change. The heart is turned away from the love of sin, the love of self, and the love of the world, and becomes captivated with the love of God, and turns to him as its chief good. Sin loses its dominion, the world appears in its true colors, stript of all that false beauty, in which a depraved heart is apt to paint it. Pleasure, that fatal enchantress, can allure no longer. She spreads all her nets, and gilds all her baits, in vain. The converted sinner perceives no melody in her syren voice, and feels no attraction from all her studied blandishments. Conversion removes the scales from his eyes, and rends the veil from his heart, that prevented him from seeing through the false disguise that covered all her lying vanities. And he turns away with disgust and disappointment from that cup, of which he once drank so freely. He nauseates what he once imbibed so eagerly; and in that draught, from which he once hoped to derive such happiness, he now sees poison and death concealed. The love of God having vanquished the love of the world in his heart, he now heartily coincides with that wise man, whose experience taught him, that “all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” Eccles. i. 14.
As it is a very common case for one, who has been a profligate, to commence Pharisee, or to turn from sin to self, which is but a refined species of wickedness; it is necessary to observe, that in the great change of which the Holy Spirit is the author, it is the principal office of that divine Agent, to convince of sin, and to drive the sinner from the false refuge of self-dependance, to the glorious righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without this, a sinner would take down one idol only to set up a worse in its stead. And, as there is none so injurious to the honor of the Redeemer, or so deeply prejudicial to a sinner’s immortal interests, as self-righteousness; this idol, as the leader of all the rest, must be dethroned, that Christ might have in all things the pre-eminence. “In him shall all the seed of Israel be justified.” Isa. xlv. 25. When a man, therefore, is truly converted, the Holy Spirit never teaches him to turn in upon himself, and contemplate with proud self-complacency his own worthiness, or to admire his own performances; while, like the Pharisee in the gospel, he looks down with conscious superiority upon a poor publican at the footstool of mercy. No. With Job, he abhors himself, and repents as in dust and ashes. Job, xiii. 6. With Isaiah, he cries, “Woe is me! for I am undone.” Isa. vi. 5. And, with St. Paul, he desires to “be found in Christ, not having on his own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness of God by faith.” Phil. iii. 9. So that, as naturalists say, it is the peculiarity of the heliotrope or sun-flower to expand its beauties to the rays of the sun, and always to keep its face turned towards that bright luminary; in like manner, the converted soul spontaneously turns to the Sun of Righteousness, by the light of whose countenance it is cheered and attracted, and to whose merits it is indebted for all its prospects in time and eternity. The love of Jesus is the load-stone that draws, and his perfect righteousness the object which the happy sinner contemplates with delight and admiration. To that exhaustless spring of all the hopes and comforts of God’s people he turns, and from him he looks for wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. 1 Cor. i. 30.
Where conversion is genuine, it may be discovered by the universality of its influence, and the depth of its operation. It begins at the heart, and extends its salutary effects to all the sublime faculties of the mind, and the whole tenor of the outward conversation. The understanding is renewed in knowledge. Col. iii. 10. The contrariety of the will is broken, and is changed into a passive acquiescence in the sovereign will of God. “The carnal mind, which is enmity against God,” Rom. viii. 7, is subdued by the superior influence of divine grace. All offences at the gospel-plan of salvation cease; for, when the veil of unbelief that covers the heart is rent, it then “turns to the Lord.” 2 Cor. iii. 15. The languid affections are quickened, and are set on things above. Col. iii. 1. The desires are turned into a right channel, and directed to proper objects. The eye of the understanding being illuminated to “behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord Jesus,” 2 Cor. iii. 18; the heart, enraptured with a view of his matchless excellency, cries out, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth, that I desire besides thee.” Psal. lxxiii. 25. The desire of the soul is to him, and to the remembrance of his great name and glorious salvation. Isa. xxvi. 8. The thoughts, that formerly wandered upon subjects of the most trivial, or the most pernicious nature, are now turned to the interesting concerns of eternity, and are often employed in meditating upon that sweetest, most sublime, and most copious of all topics, the stupendous love of God manifested in the unspeakable gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. The strain of conversation becomes very materially altered, from froth and levity, or, what is worse, from perhaps indecency and gross profaneness, to seriousness, purity, and spirituality. The aversion to engage in religious converse ceases; and no company appears so honorable or so delightful, as that which is composed of persons, who love to talk of the great things that belong to their peace. Prayer is deemed an exalted privilege, as well as a duty; and praise is considered as the employ of heaven. The hands are lifted up, and the knee is bent in supplication before the divine throne; and the tongue, which is the glory of man, awakes to vindicate the honor of truth, to recommend the Friend of sinners, or to publish the preciousness of his salvation. The feet, turned away from crooked and perverse ways, are swift to bear the converted sinner to the house of God; where, as he sits rejoicing in the name of Jesus, and happy in the sound of that blessed gospel, that charms his ear, and captivates his heart, he joins issue with the sweet Psalmist of Israel, and says, “How amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of Hosts! One day in thy courts is better than a thousand.” Psal. lxxxiv. l, 10.
It has been suggested in the beginning of this head of the discourse, that to turn the heart of a sinner is the work of God. And most certainly, whatever conversion is, the scriptures authorize us to believe, that it is not the work of man; and indeed cannot be, since the extreme depravity and helplessness of his nature render him altogether insufficient to any good word or work. If conversion consisted in nothing more than the breaking off some outwardly vicious courses, or the mere adopting a line of regular attendance on the external forms of devotion; if it implied no more than decency of manners, and an exemption from gross indulgencies, or the relinquishing of former excesses; in those cases, perhaps, man might exert his power with considerable success, and, in part at least, claim the honor of being instrumental to his own salvation. But as conversion hath, for its subject, the immortal soul, with all its strong propensities, intemperate desires, irregular passions, impetuous appetites, and depraved principles; as it comprehends a work that gets at the very root of sin, and cleanses the fountain of corruption, that renovates the very constituent faculties of the human mind, and forms a radical cure in the very centre and seat of the malady; it is evident, that the change necessary to produce this effect must be the result of a divine agency; or, in plainer terms, that He who made the heart, and He alone, can change it. A truth this, confirmed by the express authority of the word of God. “Without me,” says Christ, “ye can do nothing.” John, xv. 5. And he says again, “No man can come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me, draw him.” John, vi. 44. In that solemn prayer uttered by the church in her distress, and recorded in the lamentations of Jeremiah, she acknowledges the same truth, when she cries, “Turn THOU us unto thee O Lord, and we shall be turned.” Lam. v. 21. And this is the language of Ephraim bemoaning himself in Jer. xxxi. 18. Where, after having bewailed the refractoriness of his heart, that made him feel, under the discipline of Jehovah’s rod, like “a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke,” he cries out, “Turn THOU me and I shall be turned.” And when the great change was effected, in retrospect, as before in prospect, he attributes the accomplishment of it to the power of God, saying, “Surely, after that I WAS TURNED, I repented,” &c. verse 19. And, indeed, the passive form of the words of the text fully implies the truth I am contending for, especially when compared with similar language in Acts, iii. 19. Psal. li. 13. As for those passages of scripture, which seem to make the power of turning to be the sinner’s sole act, or to rest in the efforts of the ministers of the gospel, as Ezek. xiv. 6. and Mal. iv. 6. Acts, xxvi. 18. they are to be interpreted, in consistency with the general maxim already laid down, as only declarative in one case, of the instrumentality, which divine wisdom useth in the accomplishment of its purposes; and, in the other, of the derived influence, which the sinner himself is enabled to exert, but by a power, originally not his own. Thus, ministers are said to turn others from darkness to light, and sinners to turn themselves, only in consequence of the blessing and power of God, which enable them to do the one and the other respectively. For, when the great Apostle of the Gentiles reviewed the success of his ministrations, or when he contemplated the evidences of his conversion, he resolves both into the agency and sovereignty of divine grace, saying, “Not I, but the grace of God which was with me.—By the grace of God I am what I am.” 1 Cor. xv. 10.
I cannot prevail upon myself to dismiss this branch of the subject, without observing further, in confirmation of what hath been already urged, that the change effected in the conversion of a sinner, is compared, in scripture, to some of those operations in nature, to accomplish which nothing short of an Almighty agency is requisite. It is, for instance, called “a new creation,” 2 Cor. v. 17;—a new birth, John, iii. 3;—a resurrection from the dead, Col. iii. 1;—a quickening from a death in trespasses and sins, Ephes. ii. 1;—the communication of light to the soul, by the same powerful voice that said in the beginning, “Let there be light.” 2 Cor. iv. 6;—a translation from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Col. i. 13. And the renovation which it produceth, is said to make believers “the habitation of God by his spirit,” Ephes. ii. 22;—“his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works,” Ephes. ii. 10;—branches, taken from a barren stock, and engrafted into the “true vine” by the operation of the Spirit, John, xv. 5;—sons of God by adoption, Gal. iv. 6;—and joint-heirs with Christ to an everlasting inheritance, purchased at the price of his blood.
Now, from such bold and striking metaphors, as make the power that created the universe, that arranged the elements when in a state of chaos, that formed the light, and that raised the dead, to be representative of that influence exerted in conversion, what are we to infer? but that, as an omnipotent agency is displayed in the works of nature, it is equally requisite in the operations of grace; and, in fact, that none but He who made the world, can convert a sinner. A truth this, to which the experience of every true believer bears an additional testimony. Reviewing himself as a brand plucked from the burnings, he cannot but stand astonished at the mighty power of that grace, which saved him from eternal perdition, when he was just upon its very brink. “How infinitely indebted,” he will often say, “do I consider myself to that gracious Saviour, whose mercy vanquished such a rebel! and whose blood was sufficient to expiate the guilt of such deep-dyed transgressions! When I reflect, with what impetuosity I was running in the road to ruin; with what obduracy of heart I defied Omnipotence, while I was trampling his law under my feet, and lived regardless either of his threatenings or his promises; what a contumacious resistance I made to all the overtures of divine mercy in the gospel, and with what blindness, unbelief, and hardness of heart, I quarrelled with the way of salvation through a crucified Saviour; in what a false security I was wrapt up, even when my headstrong corruptions were precipitating me to destruction; and how determined I was never to relinquish the fond but fatal prepossessions that only fed the pride of my heart, and kept it in a state of servile conformity to a world lying in wickedness;—when I revolve all these considerations in my mind, I rejoice with trembling, to think, how narrowly I escaped; and am constrained to attribute all to the sovereign and unsought interposition of divine grace. Surely nothing but a supernatural power could have softened a heart so hard as mine; and none but God himself could have saved a sinner so rebellious. Therefore, while life, and breath, and being, last, to Him I will offer up the glowing effusions of love and gratitude, and record through eternity what he hath done for my soul.”
A work of this nature, in which the hand of God is so conspicuous, must be productive of the most salutary effects to the highly favored sinner, who is the subject of it. For, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature (η’ καινη κτισις a new creation): old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” 2 Cor. v. 17. The renovation, intimated in this passage, having introduced new light into the understanding, and new desires into the heart and affections, it must consequently have a proportionable effect upon the temper; not wholly to eradicate the constitutional peculiarity of it, but to sanctify, and render it subservient to the glory of God and the good of society. Nor does this great change go merely to correct, regulate, and sanctify the natural temper, whatever in different constitutions it may happen to be, but it likewise establishes in the heart tempers, to which it was before an utter stranger; which I now proceed to consider under the second head; and that is,
II. The distinguishing mark of true conversion, that, of “becoming as little children.”
Although, in numerous instances, the work of conversion is attended with circumstances so striking as not only to obviate all doubt respecting the reality of it, but also to enable many to fix, with the utmost precision, the date of its origin, and to recollect perfectly the time and manner in which the light of conviction first dawned; yet, as in others, the work has been wrought at an early period of life, has been less perceptible in its first impressions, and has been carried on by degrees slow and progressive, like “seed cast into the ground, which springeth and groweth up, a man knoweth not how;” Mark, iv. 27. I prefer the consideration of what is essential to conversion, and common to all the subjects of it, to what is peculiar to some, and comparatively of little consequence. For the point of real moment with every sinner is, not so much to inquire how, when, and by what instrument he was converted, as to ascertain, that the work has really been wrought. And, indeed, as it is extremely possible for a man, busy in the former inquiry, and partial in his inferences respecting the safety of his state, to rest the great affair on circumstances rather uncertain in their nature, and at no time decisive, while he fatally overlooks what is essential to the work itself; in order to set us right in a matter of such vast concern, the text, and the whole tenor of sacred scripture, lead us to examine, whether we are “become as little children;” because this is the safest and most certain criterion of our being the children of God: and thus, in particular, St. Peter argues with the professors of Christianity in his day, saying, “If these things, (faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity,) be in you, and abound, they make you, that ye shall be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things, is blind, and cannot see afar off.” 2 Pet. i. 8, 9.