# Our New Departure (Brooks)/Chapter 8

Theoretically, the Bible doctrine of Conversion has no more strenuous advocates than Universalists. No faith in what is called 'miraculous conversion' is pretended, for the reason that we have no faith in the doctrine of Human Depravity from which it logically comes. Nor does the Bible authorize any such theory of conversion. Were we to judge from the manner in which the subject is commonly urged, indeed, it would be supposed—as many do suppose—that the Scriptures are full of the doctrine of conversion as a supernatural process, enforced by some word having a single fixed meaning, standing for just this and nothing else—as it ought to be, if the traditional teaching as to its nature were correct, since, on this theory, there is nothing in the universe analogous to it. But the fact is quite otherwise. Not only is conversion, as enjoined in the Bible, as simple and as easy to be understood as any other change of purpose, but the word is used "in all manner of connections, for all sorts of purposes and with the utmost freedom; is just as common a word as turning, or going. It signifies simply, to turn from one state or condition to another, and is used of one who turns from duty as well as of one who turns to it, having just as many uses as the word turn, physical, moral, secular, religious." When it is said, "Let your laughter be turned to mourning," precisely the same word is used as when our Lord says to Peter, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." When it is recorded that "Jesus turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?" the same word is used as when we read, "He which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death," and as when our Lord says, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."
​Nor is this all. As a verb, the word is always put by our translators in the passive form, implying that the thing is done to, or for, and not by us. Thus we read, "And sinners shall be converted unto thee,"—and of the Jews, that they had closed their eyes, "lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and be converted," and in the passage above cited, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children." But the original, those who have studied the subject assure us, gives no warrant for this, and one writer says that he does "not recall an instance where the verb in the original has this passive form." Instead, therefore, of the statement, "And sinners shall be converted unto thee," we should read, "And sinners shall turn, or return, unto thee;" and instead of, "Repent ye, therefore, and be converted," we should read, "Repent and turn, or return." When the translators give us the word turn instead of convert, they put it in this active form, implying that the action is on our part, as when we read that "a great number believed and turned—or as the expression is made elsewhere, were converted—unto the Lord."
What, then, is the conclusion, these things being so? This, clearly,—that, as one turns his body from one attitude to another, or, if away from home, may return to it,—as one, even, who is going the right way, may turn about and pursue the wrong; so, in the same sense of simple turning, involving nothing more strange or supernatural, and implying a precisely similar exercise of one's choice, conversion is the turning of a soul from a state of unbelief, or indifference, or worldiness, or sin, to a condition of faith and religious resolve and endeavor. It is something as purely voluntary on our part,—something as entirely depending on the personal exercise of our own faculties, and therefore as much within our own election and determination as the change of an idler into studiousness,—as the reform of one who resolves on abstinence instead of drunkenness,—or ​as is anything else of which we are accustomed to say that it is wholly at our option. God has furnished the means, in all that He has taught us, and especially in all that He has given us in His Son; and amidst these instructions, appeals and awakening agencies, supplemented always by the strivings and pleadings of God's Holy Spirit, as Christ says, "Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven," it is for us to say whether we will turn or not, and when we will turn, and how far we will turn, and therefore to what extent we will be converted, or will convert ourselves, and enter upon a new and nobler life.
The single idea of conversion, it thus appears, is that it is a quickening of the soul to spiritual consciousness and activity; an awakening to a sense of our relations, interests and obligations, in consequence of which we resolutely set ourselves God-ward,—turning, according to our particular state and needs, from a life somehow below what we should live, to the life which God and our own welfare demand. Hence, naturally, "Wash you; make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well," is the manner in which it is enforced in the Old Testament; and the New Testament, in different words, enjoins precisely the same thing. This is illustrated in the words of our Lord just now mentioned, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." The disciples had been ambitiously disputing who should be greatest in the kingdom. Thereupon the Master placed a little child before them, telling them that, unless they renounced all such selfish ambition, and returned to the simplicity and guilelessness of their childhood, they could not even enter into his kingdom, much less be greatest in it. His words, no doubt, had a special application to them; but they very distinctly set forth the radical idea of conversion, in its Bible sense. Though one who has battled with temptation, and who is pure through conflict and victory, has qualities which cannot pertain to the untried innocence of a little child, childhood is, nevertheless, a fitting type of that simple, docile, loving state of mind and heart becoming the Christian disci​ple. As children, our hearts had not become hardened or cold. We were not sordid, worldly, or artificial. Our affections were uppermost in us, and were tender and true. And to this state, so far as we have fallen from it, Christ teaches us, in his doctrine of conversion, we must return as men and women, if we would be members of his spiritual family, subjects and citizens in the kingdom of God.
But our Lord's most impressive illustration of the true doctrine of conversion is given us, perhaps, in the parable of the prodigal son. In his self-sufficiency, the prodigal had gone away from his father, and from all the privileges and plenty of his father's house, forgetting alike his duty and his interests as a son. But at last, in "a far country, he came to himself." How much there is in these four words expressive of the insensibility and moral unconsciousness of a soul away from God, and lost to all sense of obligation to Him,—"he came to himself"! Famishing, he began to think. Conscience and affection, so long benumbed, asserted themselves. Becoming self-conscious, his eyes were opened to see where and what he was, in painful contrast with what and where he should be. He thought of his father, and of the love which had sheltered and blessed him, but which he had so trampled and forgotten. He thought of his home and its abundance, while, the companion of swine, he was perishing with hunger. And what thereupon did he do? Did he wait for some magic influence outside himself to transform him into a loving and obedient son? Did he say, When 'tis time, my father will somehow make me penitent and dutiful, or some kindly power will take me home? No. He felt that the responsibility was with himself; that he had strayed, and squandered, and sinned; and that it was for him to repent, and to resolve and act towards amendment. So he said, "I will arise, and go to my father." "And he arose, and came to his father." That was his conversion, his turning back, his return to his duty and its joy. Nor, as we see him restored to the dear old home, clasped, forgiven, in his father's arms, and rich once more in all the bounties of his father's house, have we occasion to look for anything beyond this simple resolve, "I will arise, and go to my father," and the ​rising and going which followed, to explain how and why he is a converted man.
In this work of conversion, there may be a violent and remorseful experience, a marked crisis, when one is aware of being brought to a stand, and of being born out of the lower into the higher life, or not, according to one's moral temperament, or the nature of the antecedent life. If the life has been godless, vicious, unprincipled, such a crisis is inevitable; and the hour of spiritual awakening, of reflection, self-condemnation, repentance and resolve, such as is represented in the prodigal's case, and through which only can one who has so lived pass out of the bad into the good, or into an attempt towards the good, is this crisis. But if one has been living an upright life, animated by honorable and conscientious motives, only has not been religiously awakened,—has not been affected by the thought of God's love, and by the power of Christ's cross, and so has not been moved to prayer and a determined self-dedication to God,—then there is no occasion for any such violent crisis. The thing needed is a profound and thorough awakening of the heart—a subduing sense of the sinfulness of all withholding of one's self from the love of God and the religious life, in a consciousness of direct and personal obligation. One may say, At such a time, pointing to place and date, I was aroused to reflection, penitence and religious concern, and resolved, God helping me, to turn directly about, and give myself to a life of prayer, and spiritual culture, and Christian endeavor. Another may say, As I compare my feelings and the present tone and aims of my life with what they were one year, or five, or ten years ago, I am sensible that a marked change has taken place in me; but it has been so gradual, and, amidst the influences by which I have been surrounded, I have been led so imperceptibly and almost unconsciously to be more thoughtful, prayerful, and religiously dutiful, that really I cannot fix any time when the change occurred. And still another may say, I do not remember when I did not love God and pray to Him, or when the thought of Him was not precious to me, or when I was without the resolve to try to serve and enjoy Him. But such differences as to how or when are of no importance. ​The vital question is, Is the man or woman pure, devout, religiously consecrated? Is he or she like a little child, in the sense Christ intended, loving God, loving the Saviour, and making it a constant thought and effort to be good and to do good in a religious spirit? If so, then no matter about the how, the when, or the where. If one was never other than such a person, then conversion was not needed,—only persistence and growth, as one going right does not need to turn, only to press forward. If one has been different, and is now thoughtful, reverent, unselfish, godly, then this transition, whether sudden or gradual,—whether so marked in the book of experience and memory that time and place can be exactly named, or otherwise,—is the conversion required.
And this being, as we believe, the Bible doctrine of conversion, it is for this reason the doctrine on which, theoretically, we insist—insist with great pertinacity whenever it is attacked, or we hear the necessity of "a miraculous change of heart" asserted. But how is it with us practically? Are we, in our labors, systematically aiming at the conversion of the unawakened, as really the thing of primary and commanding importance we theoretically allege it to be? Are we anxiously training our children, in our homes and Sunday-schools, and directing and toning our own lives, and doing all we do with eager and engrossing concern towards this end, counting all other success as no success except as this is realized? Of not a few, these inquiries can be answered in the affirmative; but can they be so answered to any such extent as the conditions of our spiritual vitality and power as a Church undeniably require? Who will venture to say that they can be? And if they cannot be, conceding that there is any reality in what the New Testament teaches on this point, and what we, theoretically, so contend for as the truth, is it not entitled to a larger and more prominent place in our thought and life, and are we not summoned, in a more urgent and personal administration of the Gospel call, "Repent ye, therefore, and turn" to God, to make a New Departure in this regard? What but this, in fact, should be the end of our labors?
Is there any doubt what was the end for which Christ and ​the Apostles labored? Go to the New Testament, and see. Constantly, under one name or another—sometimes as Repentance, sometimes as Conversion, sometimes as the New Birth, or the birth from above, sometimes as simple Quickening,—this generic idea of spiritual awakening and return to God was the burden of our Lord's teachings; and as invariably his one word was, Only through this is there, or can there be, for any soul, anywhere, entrance into my kingdom. So with the Apostles. Wherever they went, "testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," their incessant message was, whatever other message they might bear, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins;" "Repent and be converted [turn, convert yourselves], that your sins may be blotted out." And, seeing thus what their ministry was, can we for a moment question what it would be, were they bodily on the earth to-day? The state of things to which they then addressed themselves was, in substance, not at all exceptional. Special circumstances and exposures were different; but essential facts and needs were the same as now. Just as much now as then, men are wandering from God, perishing in their absence from Him. Now, as then, spiritual things are forgotten, and flesh is absorbing soul. Sin is no whit less a curse now than it was then; error is no less a calamity; worldliness is no less a mistake and a wrong; souls are no less in peril. In no respect, on no account, did men then need to be aroused, stimulated, converted, more than this very hour. The same interests are at stake; the same motives appeal; the same necessities press; and as I take my New Testament, and follow our Lord and his chosen ones in their work, and then think of them as preaching among us to-day, I hear their voices ringing out the same rebuking, pleading, awakening message as of old. No doubt they would expose error. No doubt they would frame arguments, and set forth doctrine. No doubt they would carefully adjust themselves to existing conditions, intellectual and social, and appropriate for their purpose all that science discloses, all that philanthropy has achieved, all that our improved civilization sug​gests. But underneath and above all, their one most important word everywhere would be, O souls immortal! O harassed, misguided, wandering ones! awake from your mammon-worship, your selfishness, your love of pleasure; awake from your engrossment in this world, your dull content amidst your social and political corruption, your sin; repent, turn, and give yourselves to God. How else could they do their work of spiritual quickening and regeneration? And if this would be their method of labor, and we, having their Gospel, have succeeded to their work, is it for us to content ourselves with mere criticisms and arguments, with moral homilies and pretty essays, with textual explanations and doctrinal enforcements, however able or eloquent? Are we in the line of duty if we do not take up the message that would so certainly be theirs, and make it with equal emphasis ours? How else are we to prove ourselves Christ's followers, or to fulfil at all the ends for which he came, or the errand with which, in his behalf, we are charged?
For the sake of others, we need to make this New Departure. The spiritual interests of all Christendom are seriously suffering for the theory of conversion which we represent, duly put to use. The disastrous results of the traditional doctrine can scarcely be exaggerated. Let us gladly admit all that can justly be said in its favor. Admit the high character and spiritual earnestness of many of those who think themselves examples of the supernatural renewal, the necessity of which it affirms. Admit that by means of revivals and excitements, engineered on the assumption of periodical visitations by the Holy Spirit to work this renewal, considerable numbers are, from time to time, religiously awakened, so that the churches of the several 'evangelical' sects, thus recruited, are, as the rule, much larger than ours, or any others organized on a like basis. But all this, alas! is only one side—and a very small side—of the case. It is as nothing compared with the record for evil which the received theory has made, and is making, against itself.
Think of the mischievous effect of the reliance on revivals and special occasions thus encouraged, as illustrated in ​the statement of Catharine Beecher, "that when revivals came, it was [thought] best to read the Bible, and pray, and go to meeting, but that, at other times, it was [held to be] of little use."
Think of those naturally devout and thoughtful, anxious to 'be converted,' but hopelessly perplexed, baffled, thrown back upon themselves, confounded and disheartened in all their religious endeavors. So, Miss Beecher tells us, it was with her. Desiring nothing so much as 'to become a Christian,' and yet assured that it was her 'obstinate unwillingness to do what was required' that stood in the way, she at length, in her fruitless wrestlings and agony, reacted into 'an outburst of indignation and abhorrence,' disgusted with God and everything pertaining to religion, as she had been taught concerning them. And she only represents an innumerable company of others. An intelligent friend, reared in 'orthodoxy,' said to me not long since, None but one educated in these ideas can begin to understand the confusion and wretchedness they occasion those at all sensitive and religiously disposed. Those who care nothing about religion get along well enough. But the more earnest and thoughtful people are, the more confounded and distressed they are likely to be, as, praying and struggling for the 'change of heart' supposed to be necessary, they fail to obtain it, and wonder why. It was so in my case, she continued. I was scarcely more than eleven years of age when I became deeply exercised in respect to conversion. I was told that God alone could give me 'a new heart,' and, at the same time, that I must obtain it myself. So I prayed, and read, and agonized. I besought God to give me what I needed, and, if in anything I had failed to do my part, to show me what was required, and to help me do it. Still conversion did not come. At length, wearied and tortured, I became utterly discouraged, not knowing what I could further do, until finally I settled into a torpid and desperate state, in which the very mention of religion became offensive to me. I could not bear to be in any way even approached on the subject; and a dear old friend, my Sabbath-school superintendent, who used to call to talk with me, grew on this account to be so absolutely ​disagreeable, that it painfully excited me to see him coming towards the house. This was my condition for years—years the anguish and darkness of which I shall never forget. And I am but one of many such sufferers. Vast numbers have thus had their hearts wrung and their lives shadowed, while others have been driven into defiance or despair.
And then, still further, showing quite another work of evil, think of the multitudes trained in this common doctrine of conversion, some of whom are more or less identified with Christian congregations, but most of whom are outside all religious associations, in whom, so far as such a result is possible, it has destroyed all sense of personal responsibility touching a religious life. Teaching that man is impotent for his own conversion, and that the whole work is God's, to move when, where and in whom He pleases, it has infected the entire popular mind—including many who in terms reject it—with the idea that those who are to become Christians are somehow, at some time, to be arrested and wrought upon by God's omnipotent Spirit, and thus at once, without agency of theirs, transformed into regenerate souls. Naturally, so taught, the great mass, whether inside or outside the circle of religious influence, are stolidly indifferent to all religious appeals, feeling that, when God pleases to make them good, they will become so, and that, in the mean time, the domain of religion is altogether a foreign country to them. How else should they feel, the theory in which they have been educated being true? It is only surprising that such teaching has not been more universally disastrous, and that the religious instinct and the sense of religious responsibility have been strong enough to assert themselves in spite of it even to the extent they have. For when people have been drilled into the belief that any effective purpose towards a holy life is possible only as God miraculously creates or imparts it, what is there for them, acting at all on the lesson, except to renounce all concern about such a life, and to feel that there is nothing for them to do but to devote themselves to this world as inclination may prompt, until God shall be pleased to take them in hand? Catharine Beecher, from whom I have already twice ​quoted, and whose competency as a witness no one will dispute, giving her experience, testifies that this is the natural effect of the theory—to "lead to an entire neglect of all religious concerns." Is it too much to say, indeed, that this idea, directly or indirectly, lies at the bottom of nearly all the religious procrastination and unconcern which occasion us so much regret? In the words of a good man now departed, "The two notions of the Innate Corruption of Human Nature and of Miraculous Conversion are actually consuming the religious life—of New England," he said; but with broader truth, we may say, of the whole Christian world: "i. e., they are filling our families and houses of worship, our towns and cities, with those who think that they have no interest in religion, or the church, except in the contingency" of this supernatural 'change of heart,' and who, in consequence, are postponing all religious thought or action on the supposition that, by and by, religion will come to them, and God's work of grace be instantaneously done within them.
And yet once more, reflect on the spectacle presented on almost every gallows as murderers and criminals, hardened in their lives of sin, and without the remotest conception of the real work of religion in the heart, boastfully tell of the change which has come to them, and protest their assurance that they are to swing at once into glory! Such spectacles are an offence and a disgust to all thoughtful people, and burlesquing the sacred name of religion, are serving, as often as they occur, to bring it into contempt as a thing only of talk and shallow cant. But every such spectacle is the legitimate product of the common doctrine of conversion; and multitudes of the depraved and abandoned, so far as they ever think of God or the future, are expecting, on the authority of this doctrine, to get into heaven through just such an instantaneous change, which, as they imagine, will wipe out all their sins, unpunished, transform them into blood-washed saints, and put them safely at God's right hand.
These, then, being some of the deplorable results of the current theory, are we not, for the sake of all the interests thus affected for evil, urgently called to make our doctrine of conversion more vitally a power for the ends it is de​signed to serve? There is nothing else that can supplant the common doctrine and correct its false impressions; and except as this is supplanted, it will go on begetting the same ruinous misconceptions, filling our communities with the same chronic irreligiousness, expecting God to make it religious, and sowing the same seed-tares that, these many generations, have borne such melancholy fruit, in lives knowing so little of God, and Christ, and spiritual sensibility, and so invincibly wedded to indifference and the world. The only remedy for the evils of error is the truth.
But we need, also and especially, to take this New Departure for our own sake—that we may fitly express and duly honor the faith we profess, and make our Church the living instrument of awakening and saving men which, as a Church of Christ, it ought to be. What, finally, does this Church of ours stand for? Immediately, it stands for many things:—for warfare against error, and for the exposition and defence of the truth; for God's Fatherhood; for man's brotherhood; for God's instant and constant moral rule in the life of souls and the life of the race; for the unescapable retributions of sin; and, sublime climax of all, for the everlasting unity of our race, and for Christ's certain ultimate triumph in bringing all souls home to God. Valiant and effective service, as has been said in preceding pages, has our Church done, standing for these things in the past; and not one of them is a thing to be overlooked or forgotten. Any New Departure that should propose to ignore or forget them, or any one of them, would be a departure for evil and not for good—a sacrifice of principle and a waste of power. But why does our Church stand for these things? For no mere purpose of theory or argument, of attack or defence, surely; but only because they are so many means for something beyond. Our Church, if indeed it be a Church of Christ, as we insist, stands finally for just what the Bible stands for; for just what the cross of Christ stands for; for just what God's loving and holy spirit is always pleading and striving for:—for the awakening of the indifferent; for the conversion of the sinful; for the salvation of the perishing; to put the light of a Divine life into dull and earth-bound eyes; and for anything else only as helps to these ends. And standing for ​these ends, everything in our condition and in the condition of the church and the world is conspiring to summon us to give them the prominence they deserve. We have been doing one great work—that of doctrinally enlightening and leavening the church and the world. God is now calling us to another and greater—that of spiritually quickening souls, that the tides of a Diviner life may flow into them.
As was intimated at the close of our first chapter, the one imperious demand of this time—as, indeed, it has been of all former times, is religious sensibility; a profounder consciousness of God; spiritual arrest and guidance. The locomotive, shaking our towns and cities beneath the thunder of its wheels, and finding no wilderness too dense or inaccessible to be pierced with the shrill scream of its whistle, fitly symbolizes the material enterprise that is mastering the globe, making or stealing money, and pushing everywhere for 'more.' But the locomotive is only force, and without the controlling presence of mind, rushes to certain ruin. And so all these things that so signalize our time—our science, so bold and inquisitive, and much of it so godless,—our inventions, so fruitful,—our literature, so copious,—our trading, so eager,—our industries, so manifold, and some of them so titanic,—our material energy so many-sided, so restless, so unconquerable, are but so many expressions of another kind of force, which quite as much needs the controlling presence of religion, and can only result in moral collapse and decay without it. It is the sad but significant warning of history, that the periods most marked by the triumphs of art and intellect have been among the periods of most terrible social wreck and national overthrow. The question of engrossing concern to-day is, Is this period to repeat the warning? Great reason have we to be thankful for its intellectual reach and conquests, and for its material scope and vigor. But yonder, so sure as God's throne stands, is the vortex into which we are to plunge if these be not possessed and sanctified. Science, behind all law, must see something more than law, and kneel. Business must be conscious of interests more real and enduring. Politics must be made clean. Industry must toil in reverent dependence on an unseen Hand. Literature must make ​itself a minister to something deeper than taste or mere knowledge. All material energy must confess a spiritual control. In a word, God must be the central fact in life, or disaster and death will ensue. And the work of our Church, freighted with truths so broad, so rational, so satisfying alike to the intellect and the heart, is to put the thought of God as a living power, as no other Church can, into the life of this eager, restless, world-ridden time—so drifting away from the old faiths, and so needing anchorage and inspiration in what is better. But this, in its very nature, is a work of religious awakening and impulse, and can be done only as, making ourselves everywhere an incarnate call to repentance and consecration, we emphasize what Christ means by conversion as the sole gateway to the highest order of character, and seek to make every finger we point heavenward a conductor to bring down among us the electric life of God. We do nothing, we can do nothing towards the most vital administration of the Gospel, or towards answering the deepest needs of souls or the hour, except as we thus labor. "One of the things," said Ward Beecher, not long ago, in his second series of Lectures on Preaching, "that measure the power of the pulpit is the magnitude of living power it develops among the people." And for like reasons, the thing which finally determines the worth of a church to the world is the measure of spiritual power it puts into it. For this reason, conversion, as the New Testament enforces it, being the key to the whole process of Christian experience,—the cardinal fact in the Christian life, our usefulness depends finally upon our earnestness and fidelity at just this point, and the use we make of whatever else we believe or preach with reference to this end.
In the prominence they give to the necessity of conversion, notwithstanding they are so seriously mistaken in their conception of its nature, is one of the explanations of whatever religious effectiveness our brethren of other churches have. Their errors concerning it are the occasions of wide-spread harm, as we have seen; but we cannot deny that, despite their errors, they are doing something to arouse and religiously impress souls: and for whatever genuine Chris​tian work they are doing, let us thank God. Have we not much to learn from them in this particular? Our theory of conversion is different from theirs; but no whit should we be behind them, on this account, in the constancy and earnestness with which we urge the thing itself. We should rather exceed them in these things: for who see in sin, in spiritual deadness and unconcern, in absence from God and unconsciousness of Him, things in themselves so terrible as we? Even so distinguished an expositor of 'orthodoxy' as Dr. Enoch Pond, in a late paper on the growing "evangelical" "disposition to fraternize with Universalists," protests against it for the reason, that if the idea is relinquished that men are "all under sentence of eternal death and exposed to suffer forever for their sins," "the exigency which demanded the interposition and death of the Son of God" is "quite removed," and "no man can see why Christ should have died"! And this but illustrates the chronic blindness and insensibility of our 'evangelical' brethren to the intrinsic curse of sin. It is not sin, but the punishment of sin that seems to them the terrible thing, furnishing, as Dr. Pond avers, the sole reason why all heaven should be moved for human redemption. We see the terrible thing in sin itself, and are thus furnished with corresponding reason to plead with men to repent of and abandon it. And as to the means whereby souls are to be reached, awakened and turned to God, who, if we will but use them, have motives so potent, or can begin to do so much as we?
What we most want is reality and intensity of faith in the theories we talk, and the zeal born of such a faith. "You Universalists," said a Baptist minister at one of our General Convention Conference Meetings, "have the grandest ideas; and if you were only true to them, you would sweep the world." And this is what we are here for—spiritually to master and possess the world. Do we actually believe in conversion as a requirement of the Gospel, or as a necessity for souls? If so, it is for us to show it by methods of labor, and an ardor, and an amount of results corresponding. "Hast thou faith?" said the Apostle, to the Romans; "have ​it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth." And these are God's words to us as a Church, to-day. Our period of simple preparation is over. Our period for fruitage is here. Mere talk about conversion, and the glorious things that are to come of Christ's saving work through it, will no longer do. We must give evidence of the thing itself, and show ourselves practically in earnest to induce and promote it. The right kind of talk has its use, and argument, if really argument, seldom fails to make itself duly felt; but Christ was not born to modify opinions simply, nor merely to leaven the world with larger and freer thought, or with broader conceptions of God, or clearer conceptions of immortality. He was born to regenerate souls and change life; born 'that he might bear witness to the truth,' indeed, but only that those believing the truth might be sanctified through it; and if his kingdom is ever to triumph, it must triumph, not through doctrinal assent, or any amount of theoretical assertion, however strenuously or ably argued, but through the aggregation and earnest effort of souls converted to God, and quickened to newness of life in His service. On no other terms can we, to deepest or widest effect, compel the world's attention, command its respect, or make ourselves felt as a recreative spiritual force in it.
God be thanked for all that tells of the progress we have made—for the literature we have created; for the schools and colleges we have founded; for the splendid church edifices that are bearing our name; for every sign of our growth in numbers, wealth, and material strength; and God be thanked even more for all that is indicating what we have been as a leavening influence among the creeds, and in the thought of the country and the world. All these have their importance. But sinful souls awakened, the thoughtless becoming thoughtful and penitent, the prayerless becoming prayerful, the worldly and unbelieving moved to cry, "What must I do to be saved?" and setting themselves to do what is required—these are more than books, or schools, or beautiful or costly temples,—more even than changed opinions, or broader and better conceptions of religious truth, as signs of the true life, and as ​means of Church-power. Other things are helps, steps towards the ends desired;—these are necessities, the ends themselves, without which no church can long fail to die out, or to be cut down, as the Lord of the vineyard asks, "Why cumbereth it the ground?"
On every principle of highest moral influence, and by virtue of every motive than can most affect hearts, we should be the people most electric with spiritual life, and the Church most effective in awakening and turning souls to God. Are we so in fact? Alas, can we say, Yes? How few of us, comparatively, are glowing with religious fervor, under the kindling baptism of the Holy Ghost! How many, failing to appreciate Universalism, are as yet content to be only servants and strangers, in the outer courts of the temple, instead of pressing on as sons and daughters into the innermost household of God!
Is it said that the proportion of such among us, all things considered, is not greater than among our 'evangelical' neighbors? Perhaps it is not; but this avails nothing for our excuse. There is no ground for comparison in this respect between us and them. Their theory of conversion, as we have seen, tends logically and necessarily to religious delay and unconcern, and every soul among them, awakened and striving towards the religious life, is so in spite of the hinderances and discouragements it interposes. Our theory, no less recognizing our dependence upon God and the agency of the Holy Spirit, tells us that it is for us, under God, to turn to Him, and, summoning us to the action required, presses us with the fact that, so long as we remain unawakened, we are ourselves at fault. How, then, can those professing to believe Universalism justify themselves to their own consciences in an unawakened, or non-religious life? Or, since in this same view we are shown how much the work of human conversion and amendment depends upon our efforts to promote it, how can they feel otherwise than constantly self-condemned if they fail to be earnest and active in their endeavors, according to their ability and opportunity, not only to convince those about them of the truth, but to awaken them to a sense of duty and to lead them to God? Alas! for the errors, misconceptions and ​half-beliefs which prevent so many from seeing and feeling the meaning of our truth, and which thus make them, instead of the earnest workers for themselves and others they ought to be, cold, inactive, without enthusiasm, caring nothing for harmony and intimacy with God and the Saviour for themselves, and caring as little for the conversion and happiness of others. How much such lose for themselves! How much our Church loses because of them!
O, for a just insight by Universalists into the meaning of Universalism as the Gospel of the world's quickening and redemption, and simple consistency with it! If we could but have these, what an awakening we should see! What a melting of hearts! What renunciations of indifference! What a bending of knees! What a clothing of lives in the beauty of new and higher purposes! What demonstrations of the spirit! What resolves and struggles towards personal holiness! What earnestness for the enlightenment and salvation of others! And as the result, how our ministers would all burn with Apostolic zeal and fervor, as some are burning! How our parishes would be increased and vivified! How our whole Church would be pervaded with the life of Christ, and become, beyond all precedents, a power to arouse and animate souls towards goodness, in his discipleship! Why cannot we have these things, the results of a becoming thoughtfulness, insuring the New Departure to which in this respect we are called, and so making us mighty for the conversion of sinners and the widening Christianization of the world?
* ↑ Rev. S. Judd, I think—in an excellent sermon, from which my notes had made the quotation in the preceding paragraph. I have looked for the sermon in vain. I wished to verify my impression as to the author, and to make other extracts,—possibly to give further credit.
* ↑ At Providence, R. I., 1858.