46 THE GREAT ABSOLVER. "Nothing in my hand I bring,- Wash me, Saviour, or I die." Then, deeper than the accusing tones of an upbraiding conscience, and beyond the wastes of a confused and misspent life, and through the mist of penitential tears, we shall by faith hear the voice of the great Absolver declaring to all those who, with hearty repentance and true faith, turn unto Him, the pardon and remission of their sins: "Son, be of good cheer, go in peace; thy sins are forgiven thee." CONVERSION AND REPENTANCE. IT cannot too carefully be borne in mind that the spiritual life is as varied and multiform as the natural life, and that each man varies from each as much spiritually as naturally. Every man immortally retains his distinctiveness and individuality. No two human faces are exactly alike, and it is even said that no two blades of grass are precisely similar. No religious experience exactly repeats the religious experience of another man. There will be indeed a common likeness, but it will be a likeness in diversity. God's work in redemption has all the facileness and freedom of His work in nature. In ecclesiastical history there have been disastrous attempts to reduce men to a dead level and a dull uniformity. Especially does this apply to the blessed processes of repentance and conversion. It has sometimes been attempted to impose a certain kind of religious test on the candidates for the ministry of religion. This was the case in the time of the Commonwealth, and we are most of us familiar with honest Fuller's experience with the Triers. A man was expected to give an exact 48 FULLER AND THE TRIERS. account of the most hidden and delicate processes of the spiritual life, to keep a register of his emotions, and to give the date of his second birth with the same accurate chronology which his parents had observed in reference to his natural birth. It is unnecessary to notice the mistakes of this system, the facilities afforded to imposture, and the violence done to memories and feelings of the most awful and tender kind. Repentance and conversion may be strictly referable to time and place and circumstance, or the case may be quite the reverse. It is quite supposable-and happiest those of human race to whom such a lot has fallen-that some may be ripe Christians, and yet only in a limited and secondary sense have shared in repentance and conversion. For it may have been that from the earliest dawnings of young intelligence they have yielded themselves to the blessed influences of the Divine Spirit; grace and knowledge may have grown with their growth and strengthened with their strength; they may have been enabled to walk unfalteringly in the blessed paths of faith and obedience; they have been so mercifully kept, that the destroyer has touched them not. The beloved little ones of the Saviour's flock, they may continue the Saviour's little children evermore. God has heard prayer, and granted the Holy Spirit in baptism, and they have led the residue of their lives according to this beginning. But these are hardly ordinary cases. Others KINDS OF CONVERSION. 49 again there are who, comparing this present period of their life with other periods, see indeed that old things are passed away, and that all things have become new; yet they would be very slow to assign any definite time or locality to this blessed change. That event may have deeply stirred the spirit, or a certain thought or a train of reflection may have modified the life. Very gradually Christian principles have supplanted worldly principles, and the Christlike life the selfish life of the world. A man might utterly be unable to satisfy the scrutiny of the Triers, and yet his experience might be summed up thus: "Whereas I was blind once, now I see." Again, it very commonly happens that conversion comes to pass with the sharpness and suddenness of a great surprise. Such was the great conversion, commemorated by all Christendom, when Saul the persecutor was changed into Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ. The sudden light which struck him down on the road to Damascus has been the shining of the Gospel throughout the world, and has irradiated the waste places of humanity. Next to the crucifixion of the Redeemer, there has been no earthly event which has so coloured human thought and shaped human destinies. How often has that marvellous conversion been repeated on varying scales! A sudden thought pierces to the heart of a man; keen as a sword some text of Holy Writ divides the very bones and marrow of spiritual life; some dark me 50 THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL. mory overwhelms with a sense of shame and weakness some remorseful regret of ancient love or vanished innocence - some fearful looking forward to judgment to come-troubles the spirit or imagination or conscience, and "Behold he prays," and Repentance and Conversion are the attendant angels of prayer. Such men often stand first and foremost in the battle against sin and Satan. It would almost seem that from those who have been persecutors and injurious are made chief saints and apostles of the Most High. Would that God would Would that God would every where breathe upon the dry bones, and thus mightily convert the hearts of men! But this is not the exclusive notion, and probably not the most general kind, of conversion. We must not be anxious to limit and define the work of grace. When a man is convinced of his own sinfulness and unworthiness-when he has placed his sole reliance on the finished work of the Saviour Christ-when the religion of Christ has become the great law of his being, the great thought which overshadows and absorbs all other thoughtswhen he feels that old things have passed away, and he is a new creature, this is repentance, this is conversion, this is regeneration. Repentance is the first step in the spiritual life. Let us endeavour to gather up an adequate idea of the nature of repentance. The call to repentance will evermore be the earliest declaration of religion. Repentance is incumbent on every man and attainable |