aside. So you see that difficulties are multiplying on our hands, and unless we can start off upon another foot, we must be lost in the mystical and incomprehensible. As reformers, our greatest work is to clear away mystical and false notions of men in reference to themselves and their God; to make men sensible of their dignity and responsibility, as beings endowed with God-like attributes.

We have succeeded, in most communities, in killing the tap-root of the mystical tree of conversion—i.e., the tenet of total hereditary depravity, but the tree still stands erect, and men claim that a wonderful outpouring of the Spirit of God has, in many days and nights, resulted in 100 or 200 or 300 conversions. But what is conversion? It is lexically defined "to turn upon, to turn towards." In a moral sense, "to turn upon or to, to convert unto, to convert from error, to turn to the service and worship of the true God." "And all who dwelt at Lydda and Saron saw him and turned to the Lord." Acts ix, 35. The word turned, in the above text, is a translation of the Greek term that is nine times rendered convert in its forms and thirty-eight times turn in its forms. They, the people of Lydda and Saron, turned, converted to the Lord. Did they do it? Then they were active and not passive. It was an act of their own. "Repent and turn yourselves."—Eze. xviii, 30. Here the Lord commanded sinners to convert themselves. "Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?" Eze. xviii, 31. "If the wicked will turn, convert, from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die." Eze. xviii, 31. Here we discover that the burden of conversion and the entire responsibility of an unconverted state is thrown upon the sinner.

The Apostles taught men to convert themselves. See Acts xiv, 15. "We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you, that ye should turn, convert, from these vanities to the living God." Paul says, "He showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should turn, convert, to God, and do works meet for, worthy of, repentance." Acts xxvi, 20. Speaking of the unbelieving Jews he said, "But their minds were blinded; for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn, convert, to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away." 2d Corinthians, iii, 14–16. Here we find that the heart must do its own turning, converting. Poor Jews! Could they help themselves? Yes, it all depended upon their own actions. The Infinite One did as much for them as for any others. They closed their eyes and stopped their ears, lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and be converted and healed. Why did the Master not say, "And I should convert and heal them?" Ans. Conversion is a commandment of God, and sinners must obey it or perish.

The above quotation is made from Isaiah vi, 10, where it reads: "Lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and convert, and I should heal them." Paul, speaking of the disciples in Macedonia and Achaia, says: "They themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned, converted, to God from idols to serve the living and true God." 1 Thess., i, 8, 9. "Repent ye therefore and be converted," is passive in our translation, but imperative active in the original. In the Geneva text it reads: "Amend your lives and turn. So conversion is a commandment of God. If there is anything necessary to conversion that is not in the power of the sinner, why should he be commanded to convert? If the trouble is in his corruption, through inborn depravity, why are some converted and others not? If there is anything in conversion that is not in the power of the sinner, then he must of necessity be saved without it, or remain unavoidably in sin—doomed to misery."

Webster defines the term convert "to change from one state to another, as to convert a barren waste into a fruitful field; to convert a wilderness into a garden; to convert rude savages into civilized men; to change or turn from one party or sect to another—as to convert Pagans to Christianity, to turn from a bad life to a good one, to change the heart and moral character from enmity to God and from vicious habits to the love of God and to a holy life." Hence the ancient commandment: "Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will you die." Eze. xviii, 32. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." Is this out of your power? Then who is to blame? Does the blessed Father command you to do what you can not? Are you thus lost without remedy? Does the Lord mock you with commandments that you can not obey? The importance of conversion is in the fact that it is the turning point or dividing line between those who serve God and those who serve him not.

I. The Lord commands sinners to convert.

II. The Lord's commandments are duties that sinners owe to God.

Therefore, conversion is a duty that the sinner owes to God. It is the sinner's duty; then he must perform it. We have seen that the Lord commands it, and that sinners did perform it. Do you say it is a work begun upon them and accomplished by them? Then sinners must be passive in the beginning of this work, and the beginning is most essential, for unless the thing is begun it will never be accomplished. Is this beginning the work of God wrought upon the sinner by a special operation of the Holy Spirit? If this be so it follows that the entire Christian life is of necessity, and not of choice, for the root always bears the tree, and not the tree the root. If the cause is the unconditioned power of God, the effects growing out of that cause are the fruits of necessity; and so the Christian is a necessitated creature, and entitled to neither praise or reward, for it was not he that did it, but God. And in this case the sinner is not a moral agent, for in moral agency the sinner, with a knowledge of the right and the wrong, begins the work himself and does it himself. This does not exclude the instrumentality of Christ, the Apostles, prophets and Christians, who, by the words of the Holy Spirit, have placed before sinners all the knowledge necessary to give them correct ideas of duty, and also the motives to be accepted. An agent is one who has power to begin action, and moral agency in conversion is the exercise of that power, with a knowledge of the right and the wrong, and so it comes to pass that conversion to God always makes a Christian, provided, however, that the man, knowing what to turn from and what to turn to, honestly turned from the wrong to the right, which is the same as to say that he was a moral agent in his conversion. A man may turn without a knowledge of the right and the wrong, but it is turning round and round and remaining in the same place, i.e. in ignorance of God's will, and so remaining in disobedience. Such may be and often is.

In all such cases the person has been the creature of passion, wrought upon by excitement, and left in ignorance of duty in disobedience to the gospel of Christ. A