The mind also may sustain a great change upon moral subjects, as honesty, chastity, generosity, &c. This change is effected by moral truths. Whatever conscience is, every one feels that it has nothing to do with mathematical demonstrations, nor is it affected by any truth purely intellectual and without moral relations. Here, again, the change is decided, entire, evident, and lasting. On moral subjects the man is changed; and where he was once the terror or the disgust of his neighbors, he is now a new creature, completely altered, and another man. This is moral conversion, and is accomplished by means adapted to the moral constitution of his original nature.

The scriptures reveal to us, that the mind may pass through another great change upon subjects which are spiritual, especially subjects about God, and about the interests of its own immortality. All these spiritual subjects have moral relations: probably it would not be improper to denominate them spiritual morals, to distinguish them from civil and natural ethics. This is the highest and the greatest change of which the soul is susceptible. This conversion is not effected by intellectual truths, nor by the moral principles of the law which is written on his heart, but by a class of truths beyond and above all these, truths which are beyond his intellectual and moral con stitution, but truths which have been revealed by the Spirit of God expressly adapted to him, not only as an intelligent and accountable, but as a sinful and ruined spirit. The conversion is not about intellectual subjects, nor about social and civil morality only, but upon spiritual interests; it is about revealed subjects. By this change he rises decidedly above his original nature as he found it, he is a new creature in Christ Jesus, altered by the new truths presented in the Christian revelation, which are truths not known before revelation was given, or where the revelation has not reached.

Some Christians, for the sake of expressing their high sense of its vast importance, and of impressing the world with its grandeur, have described this spiritual conversion as miraculous. This epithet, which was at first, perhaps, used popularly and oratorically, came, at last, to be interpreted literally. It is indisputable, that miraculous conversions, like that of Saul of Tarsus, for instance, have taken place; but these are not the class or kind of conversions to which the Holy Spirit invites the co-operation of the church. Though many divines assert the miraculousness of conversion, we

have no instance of a church acting on that belief. Were a man to propose himself as a candidate for admission into the communion of a church, and assert gravely and soberly that he was converted miraculously, without the use of means, the persons, who are most startled at the proposition, that conversion is not miraculous, would be the first to disbelieve him, and to reject his application. The rejection of such a convert would be as apostolic as it is rational; for, the miraculous conversion of Paul was much and long suspected by the primitive church, and it required all the influence and persuasiveness of Barnabas, accompanied by his clear statement of facts, and evidences of the conversion, to bring them to believe its reality: until then, "they were all afraid of him, and believed not that he was a disciple."

1. There is no ground in the facts of the case, or in scripture testimony, or in Christian observation and experience, to support the opinion that conversion is miraculous. When we, in the common affairs of life, change the minds, inclinations, and habits of others on great points, and subjects of immense importance, we never suppose that we have wrought a miracle, even in subduing the most stubborn and obstinate, and in reforming the most depraved and obdurate. Conversion from evil to good is no more miraculous than conversion from good to evil; for the conversion of our first parents from holiness to sin was not miraculous, but accomplished by the operations of well-adjusted means. In the sacred scriptures, conversion is enforced as the duty of the sinner himself. The human mind knows of no data, on which God can found the obligation of any man to work a miracle. Jesus Christ commissioned and commanded his disciples to go forth and to work miracles, which only meant, that when they felt the suggestions of the Holy Spirit to work a miracle, they should comply with his impulse. This was having faith to remove mountains. They were never under this obligation, but when they felt that impulse; they had no power to discharge this obligation at their own pleasure, and at any season; nor could they produce any miracle in themselves. The New Testament states distinctly that it is the duty of the church to convert sinners from the error of their way; but if conversion be miraculous, they have no power to achieve it without a miraculous impulse; and for the absence of this miraculous conversion they are not at all accountable. Conversion is always described as the result of the use and operation of appoint

ed means. A miracle is not the result of means; nor is it a phenomenon produced by their adaptations and combinations. Who can conceive of means contrived and adapted to produce a miracle? What mind can believe a production to be miraculous, when it is seen to be the result of means? Water is turned to wine every year by the processes of nature, through the means of moisture, sap, and juice of the vine, but no one supposes this to be miraculous: the effect is as wonderful as the miracle in Cana, but it is not miraculous. So conversions are mirabilia, sed non miracula, they are the wonders of his grace, but not the miracles of his power.

66

resurrec

2. The descriptions and representations which the Holy Spirit gives of conversion, do not necessarily suppose it miraculous. Metaphors are intended for illustration, not for argument. To turn metaphor into an argument, is to turn the hue into the flower, or the shade into the substance. Such illustrations as a 66 new creation," "being born again," tion," &c. are merely figurative, and are therefore to be explained accordingly. They are used in the same scriptures for things evidently not miraculous. For instance, in the formation of the Jewish church, God is said to have "created Jacob and formed Israel;" and in war, to "create the waster to destroy ;" and in the restoration from Babylon, to "create Jerusalem a rejoicing;" and in the consummation of Christianity to "create new heavens and a new earth;" in none of which are we to interpret the word "create" literally, as meaning what is beyond means, and what is produced without the use of means. To be born again, according to the interpretation of Nicodemus, would be truly miraculous ; but in the sense of our Saviour, it was to come to pass by the use of the water and of the Spirit; and this is represented as being the bounden duty of men, a duty which "must" be discharged. Besides, the Holy Spirit blames Ephraim, and every sinner, for not being born again. "He is an unwise son, for he should not," or ought not, to "stay long in the place of the bringing forth of children." As the birth of a child is not supernatural, the new birth of a sinner is not miraculous; but both are the results of well-adjusted means. Though conversion is illustrated by the miracle of the resurrection, or quickening the dead, it is evident that the Holy Spirit did not intend the imagery to teach the miraculousness of the change, from the fact, that such a resurrection is enforced as the duty of the sinful dead. He commands it as

what man ought to do, "Awake," or rather, resuscitate thyself, "thou that sleepest, arise from the dead!" The Holy Spirit, therefore, by using this image, means nothing that cannot be enforced upon men as a duty.

3. The proposition that conversion is not miraculous does not derogate from the glory of God; for it is more glorious to produce grand results by multiplicity of means, than without any nor does it diminish the importance of the influences of the Holy Spirit, any more than tillage lessens their importance in renewing the face of the earth. This non-miraculousness does not impair the grandeur of conversion; for as a production and phenomenon, it is equally splendid whether it be miraculous or not; just as the wine is of the same character, whether produced by miracle, as in Cana, or generated by the beautiful operations of nature: or as water is of equal value, whether brought forth miraculously from a rock, or gushing from a fountain according to established laws. The ministers of the gospel cannot err in presenting conversion to the attention of their hearers, in the same light in which the Holy Spirit exhibits it, and insisting upon it as the duty of man, as of immediate obligation, without waiting for mystic impressions and impulses, and as practicable to every sinner who hears the gospel. Ministers should, like the Holy Spirit, trace the entire guilt of non-conversion to the sinner's own fault exclusively, and inculcate upon every Christian, and upon every church, the obligation of attempting and accomplishing that purpose which the unconverted himself neglects.

4. In conversion, as in all his other works, God observes a certain order of process, which is the settled arrangement of his own wisdom and mercy. We have no authority to expect him to work out of that order. Take an illustration. In the granite quarries of India, immense blocks, six feet deep, and eighty feet in length, are separated from the solid rock by this simple process. In the direction of the intended separation, a groove is cut with a chisel, a few inches in depth. Along this groove a narrow line of fire is then kindled, and maintained till the rock below is thoroughly heated; immediately on which a rank of men and women, each provided with a pot of cold water, suddenly clear off the ashes, and pour the water into the heated groove, when the rock at once splits with a clean fracture.* In this beautiful and wonderful pro

*See HERSCHELL'S Disc. on the Study of Nat. Philosophy, p. 47.

cess, let us suppose either of the measures inverted, or suspended and neglected, it is evident the result would not take place. The result is produced by the influences which God has put already in fire and in water, but he will not let these influences operate to produce the phenomenon, without the agency of man and the use of means. Suppose these men poured the water before they heated the rock, or heated the rock before they made the groove; or suppose they did all, and neglected the water, the granite rock would never be displaced. In such a case, none would ascribe the failure to the absence of Divine influences from the fire or their withdrawment from the water, but all would ascribe it either to the unadroitness, and carelessness of the laborers, or to their inattention to the order of measures which God himself had adjusted. If they expected and prayed that the fire would do what the water was to effect, or God himself to do what they as laborers ought to do, they would inevitably fail. Just so is it in conversion. In the process of conversion there are four agencies in operation,-the agency of truth on the mindthe agency of the church in supplying truth-the agency of the sinner himself-and the agency of the Holy Spirit. If the operation of either of these agencies be inverted, or neglected; or if we make the truth, the Spirit, the sinner, and the church change place, or either to do the work of the other, it is a fact as certain as the existence of yesterday, that conversion will not take place. Neither God nor man can, without altering the moral order of the universe, convert the world without the instrumentality of truth, and the co-operation of the church and the Holy Spirit cannot convert by a direct act of physical Omnipotence, for he has limited his influences to the presence of truth, and to the agency of Christians. Hence, for the conversion of the world, it is of the last importance, that there be a union of method and order between the Holy Spirit and the church.

SECTION II.

On the Influence of Truth in Conversion.

Truth is the bond of the union between the Holy Spirit and the church; and it is the means of the union of the church with the spirits of an unconverted world. All influences adapted to conversion centre in the truth. Conversion is never supposed to be effected by any one class of influences