clearly that the will cannot create new emotions, or open the blind eyes of the soul to see unimagined visions. These come, and claim us with a heavenly authority, and we imperfectly follow whither duty leads. Hence it is quite true that eternal life is purely the gift of God, and it cannot be earned in the sense of placing God under any obligations to us by our good works; and, nevertheless, the gift may be imparted upon certain moral conditions which we may voluntarily fulfil or disregard. The notion of irresistible grace is, indeed, probably founded on a genuine experience. Not only are spiritual gifts obviously bestowed in very different measures, and it is impossible to believe that Christ and Nero could have changed places, but there are times when the soul seems transported into a higher region, where the breath of pure emotion fills it with a new life, and the power of the will seems to be suspended, and to lie passive in the hand of God. But even then the warning is needed, 'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.'1 The overwhelming emotion will pass away, and a time of depression and weariness will come, when our faithfulness is tested, and the will must take up its appointed task. Hence it is possible to fall from grace, and, denying the voice of the Spirit, to turn once more to an earthly and selfish life. But if in its earnest efforts to be true to the heavenly vision the will sometimes fails, then we can rest in the full assurance of God's pardoning love, which visits us, neither for our own poor merits nor for the extraordinary merits of another, but from its own overflowing abundance. God's eternal nature is love; and it has neither been created nor purchased by Christianity; and if Christianity has proclaimed it with a depth and power of appeal which belong to no other religion, it has proclaimed it as a universal truth, and broken the barriers which seemed to confine the grace of God within arbitrary limits. It is the glory of genuine Christianity that it does not raise a partition wall to exclude the mass of

1 I Cor. x. 12.

men from the kingdom of heaven, but reveals the great spiritual laws which, whether men acknowledge them or not, encircle the world.

3. Conversion

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The order in which the effects of grace manifest themselves, or the order of salvation as it has been technically called, has been described with great precision by theologians; but we need not follow them in all their minute and somewhat pedantic divisions. The first obvious effect is conversion, the turning of the affections and purposes to God and his righteousness. This turning implies a previous 'call,' whether external or only internal, and illumination,' or a new or more vivid perception of the reality of spiritual things. The operative call is properly inward, a consciousness of a Divine attraction, a voice in the sanctuary of the soul summoning one to a nobler life. It is probable that it generally comes on the occasion of some striking event: it may be the actual invitation of the Christian preacher, as he proclaims the sanctity of God's moral law and the beseeching of Divine love; or it may be indirectly, through the words of a book, or a saintly example, or some incident that drives us to serious reflection, or possibly from a multitude of gentle influences which evade our scrutiny. There is no single method by which God finds the hearts of his children; and the assumption, so natural to one who has undergone a momentous change, that all must conform to one fixed pattern, and pass through precisely the same experiences, is sometimes productive of great mischief, inducing despondency, and consequent callousness, because the feelings will not run into the accepted mould.

Conversion, according to Melanchthon, who represents, I think, the ordinary evangelical doctrine, contains two parts, contrition and faith, to which may be added the worthy fruits of penitence, a change of life for the better.1 Contrition

1 In the Latin this division refers only to poenitentia; but that this is equivalent to conversion is shown by the German, Buss oder Bekehrung.

consists of the terrors of conscience, which feels that God is angry with sin, and which grieves that it has sinned. Human nature could not sustain this horrible wrath of God, unless it were supported by the Word of God. Hence the need of the subsequent faith1 that sins are freely forgiven for Christ's sake. This faith strives against sin, and is followed by love.2

That the foregoing describes truly one process of conversion no one can doubt who reads Melanchthon's earnest words, which are evidently the utterance of deep conviction, the result of his own experience. First come, as with Paul, the threatenings of the law, and the horror of an awakened and terrified conscience; and then the gospel steps in with its offer of grace, and heals the wounds which the law has inflicted. But conversion may come simply through the gospel. The sense of sin may be awakened, not only by the stern demands and curses of the law, but by the vision of the Divine and blessed life in Christ, and of the love of God which he taught and manifested. In this case there is no terror, but pure, unselfish grief that we have slighted the heavenly love, and that, while the Father's holy compassion has been close to us all our lives, seeking and saving, we, through our pride and self-will, have been too blind to see, too deaf to hear it. And surely it was so when Christ was on the earth. It was not by stormy threatenings, but by his holy love and sympathy, and his deep sorrow for the weakness and the sins of men, that he touched the heart, and drew the wayward will into submissive trust and devotion. Thus faith does not step in to assuage the previous terror of a guilty conscience, but is from first to last the operative principle, which draws the soul to God, and thereby awakens a calm and holy sorrow for past evil, and an earnest resolve to live henceforth in loving obedience to the Divine will.

1 That faith follows is expressly said, p. 172.

2 Apology, Art. v., pp. 165 sqq.

Two questions have often been raised in regard to conversion is it universally required? and can it come suddenly? Those who believe that children are born in a state of moral equilibrium can see no need for conversion except in the case of those who have wilfully given themselves to a life of sin. Those, on the other hand, who believe in the ruin of human nature must regard conversion as a prime necessity for every one who is to be saved from the general doom. In accordance with our doctrine of sin we may take an intermediate position. It is universally true that, unless a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God; but whether this spiritual birth always involves conversion may perhaps be questioned. We do not regard the dawning of the intellectual powers as a conversion from the mere sensory instincts of the infant; and so the spiritual awakening may come, not with convulsions and tremors, but as the slow unfolding of the normal life. Certainly there are men of heavenly mind who have no recollection of any such crisis as conversion, but seem to themselves to have had heaven around them from their childhood, and to have heard the pleadings of a Divine voice from their earliest years. There are also good and faithful men who have never reached the higher levels of spiritual life, and whose judgments of spiritual things are shallow and imperfect. To such men a change might come, withdrawing, as it were, a veil from the eye of the soul, and producing a revolution in their modes of thought; but to men of this type conversion seldom comes, and they cannot be reckoned among the religious heroes and inspirers of the world. God, however, distributes of his Spirit to every man severally as he will; and we cannot doubt that these men of simple life, so faithful to the light which has been granted them, are fulfilling their appointed work in the kingdom of heaven, and in the great assize will not be condemned because the storms of conversion have never disturbed the tranquillity of their souls.

Whether conversion can be sudden or not depends on the

extent of meaning which we assign to the term. If, regarding it chiefly from the outside, we make it include a complete change in natural temperament and acquired habit, it is likely to occupy a considerable time, though instances might be quoted to show that a change even of this far-reaching character can take place suddenly. But, properly speaking, outward reformation is a consequence, and might be a very slow consequence of conversion; the conversion itself is a change in the inward principle and purpose of life, an awakening of heart and conscience to the apprehension of God's love and the requirements of his righteousness. This alteration in the sentiments, consequent on a new spiritual perception, and resulting in a dedication of the life to the higher Will, may be sudden, and often can be dated from a particular moment; and, nevertheless, a long time may elapse before the new spiritual energy has reduced the old impulses to complete obedience, and made the visible life a pure expression of the hidden ideals of the soul. But while conversion may be, we cannot affirm that it must be, sudden. It may come gradually through the experiences of life and the exercise of thought, and it may be only after the lapse of years that one who has been indifferent or scornful towards. religion is able to say that his view is completely changed, and he has become conscious of a diviner life than he formerly recognized. God has many ways of finding the soul, and we must not deny or despise the enlightenment and faith which have come in a different way from our own.

4. Justification

Closely connected with conversion is justification. These are indeed different aspects of the same experience: conversion denoting the change in the affections and will; justification the change in our relations with God, which is coincident with the change in the inward springs of life. The doctrine of justification attempts to answer the question, what is it that makes us righteous in the sight of God, and