Conversion an Object of Power

Luke xviii. 27. — “The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God.”

These words follow our Lord’s memorable saying of the camel and the needle’s eye. Various attempts have been made to escape the harshness of the declaration. Men have read “cable” for “camel,” as if it were easier for a cable to thread the narrow orifice; and some have talked of a little gate, named the “needle’s eye.” But the impossibility remains an impossibility, after all. Such was the intention of our great Teacher; and such was the understanding of the apostles, who did not say, “How hard for a rich man to be saved,” but, “Who, then, can be saved?” in other words, it is impossible. And to this their conclusion, the words before us were addressed. “You say it is impossible for auy to be saved; remember, that the things which are impossible with men, are possible with God.” The plain meaning is, that but for Divine efficiency interposed, the worldly, man is under an impossibility of being saved; nay, that independently of supernatural power, the same is true of every unconverted man. Though the hindrance is of that peculiar sort which belongs to things moral, and so is different from material obstacles or difficulties, it is absolute, and none but God can take the impossibility out of the way. And the proposition of the text, under which this falls as a case, is general, and imports, that God is able to do that which is impossible to man, and this more particularly in the way of saving the soul.

I. The power of man is very much limited. The things which are “impossible with men,” are innumerable. All human power is derived, and is afforded in small proportions, and with reference to a very narrow circle of effects. Especially is this power scanty and utterly insufficient in regard to the spiritual world. That strength, which resided in the first Adam, has been diminished since the fall; and in consequence there is nothing in which a reflective man more feels his impotency, than in changing moral resolutions, dispositions, or character, in others, or in himself. Here the things which are impossible with men meet us at every turn. In the instance before us, it is perfectly plain to any unbiased mind, that the power in question is the power to save a soul; that is, to convert it; that is, to remove the insuperable moral obstacle out of the way. That obstacle is the love of wealth. Here is a most amiable and exemplary young ruler, who is grieved at the necessity, and casts many a longing look behind, but who nevertheless refuses to follow Christ, and goes away; all for a reason which is given — “for he was very rich.” That settled the question. He trusted in riches; he gave his heart and love to riches. This constituted the impossibility. This led to Christ’s terrible utterance, which ought to ring in the ears of the rich, as long as there remains a wealthy sinner upon earth. Now the problem is, how to break this influence — to neutralize this attraction — to turn this perverse and idolatrous heart; for till this is done, salvation is impossible. And our Saviour teaches, if there is any thing intelligible in language, that no human power is competent to work this revolution. In the matter of converting a soul to God, all power of man is reduced to zero. This is true of ability to convert a fellow-creature, and of the sinner’s ability to convert himself

1. There is no power in man to convert his fellow. Those are best aware of this, who have made the most frequent and strenuous efforts to remove the leopard’s spots, or change the hue of the Ethiopian. “We may argue, we may adduce motives, we may persuade, we may coerce or bribe to external performance; but convert we cannot.

2. There is no power in man to convert himself The text, if it has any meaning, has this. I know very well how much this differs from the philosophy of our age, and the dictates of proud human nature. It is not the doctrine of Pelagius merely, but of the natural heart, that a man is able to convert himself at any moment. The doctrine of the text, and of all the Ircriptures, is that he has no such ability. You may denominate this inability moral, and it certainly concerns moral subjects, and so differs from the inability to create or annihilate a world; but by such epithet you do not bring the effect sought any more within reach. No man feels himself any nearer to the object, after hearing such a distinction. You say it is a culpable inability; and we agree with you: but this does not lessen it. Joseph’s brethren hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him; the greater their hatred, the more their guilt — but, at the same time also, the more their inability. Theorists on the side of human power sometimes plead for a human ability which nevertheless leaves the sinner utterly indisposed to holy acts. An ability which does not make one able, is fit only for derision. If, overleaping distinctions, you argue for a complete or plenary ability to change the heart, you are clearly at issue with the Word of God, which declares it to be impossible. It is impossible for the camel to pass the needle’s eye; it is impossible for the imregenerate sinner to regenerate himself; it is impossible with men. After a little reflection ujDon what passes within us, it becomes apparent, that the human soul has no power to change its own nature. Change of nature, or even of dispositions, is not a direct object of human power. Willing does not reach it. We may ply the will, with all effort, against the affections or the radical principles; but there is no fulcrum. By mere volition, we cannot change hatred to love, or love to hatred. The feelings direct the will, rather than the will the feelings. But we make a violent supposition, when we allow even for a moment that the sinner wills in the right direction. The very thing he needs, is something which shall make him will aright. Every man wills according to his disposition and nature. The good tree brings forth good fruit, and the evil tree evil fruit. Make the tree good, and the fruit will be good. But the depraved soul has no power of transporting itself, as it were, against the force of gravity, up beyond the atmosphere of sinning. Such is the humbling truth enunciated by Scripture, and confirmed by the experience of every soundly converted man.

IL That, however, which is impossible with men, is possible with God. And especially it is possible for him to change the heart, to save the soul, and to rescue even the slave and worshipper of Mammon. But it is like causing the camel to march through the eye of a needle. The fair construction of the passage leads us to look upon the salvation of the sinner as a work calling for omnipotence. So in a parallel place: “With God all things are possible.”

It is good for us to be often in contemplation of God as almighty. He ever accomplishes all that he wills. What are denominated natural impossibilities, are not objects of power, and commonly involve absurdity or self-contradiction in their very statement. Moral impossibilities, or such things as would involve God’s denying himself, are equally excluded from the scope of omnipotence. But there remains an infinite range for the sweep of this Divine perfection. The work is immediate. He wills, and it is done. We readily open our minds to the belief of this power, as terminating on the material universe; but it is equally operative in the vaster world of mind. He that could create the soul, can re-create it. And we do not find any class of Divine operations more frequently mentioned in Scripture than those by which he moulds and changes the spiritual nature, producing new directions of human thought and feeling, and new determinations of human will; all in perfect accordance with that constitution of moral freedom which he has himself ordained.

Here Pelagian error, among its Protean forms, springs up in a shape suited to the prepossessions of our age. We are taught that God himself cannot act causatively upon the will; that it is of the very nature of will to act without a cause, in a self-determining manner. To render this more plausible, a specious distinction is devised, between things natural, proceeding according to the sequence of cause and efi*ect, and powers supernatural, namely, moral or free, with which cause and effect have nothing to do. Hence every man is a god unto himself, in all that he wills; and not even the Almighty can cause him to will or do, by any influence other than presentation of motives. God himself cannot operate as a cause upon the soul of a sinner. To work upon an ungodly will, is not among the objects of power. Pelagius taught the same in a cruder form.

Suppose we should allow the vaunted distinction; suppose we should remove all that concerns volition, all that is moral, from the cycle and system of cause and effect; we should only be allowing Pelagius to beg the question in debate; that question being, whether God can operate directly upon the soul, to produce holy acts, or infuse a holy principle. If, with these eiTorists, we say. No, we fly in the face of Scripture, and yield all that is worth retaining in the system of grace. For what is grace, but a Divine communication to the soul of man, effecting that good which is beyond the power of unaided nature. Just put the proud assumption into plain language: God himself cannot cause holy sentiments in any creatm-e. For the moment (say they) you introduce the relation of cause, you expel the notion of freedom; thus inventing a condition of freedom, which philosophy does not accept, and which would make religion impossible. As if He who made the soul, and made it free, could not

SO act upon it, as to render certain its holiness, and yet leave its freedom untouched! To will, is in its very nature free. But God worketh in us both to will and do of his good pleasure. Therefore, it is possible for God to act causatively upon the will, without destroying its freedom.

They talk of moral suasion (as if, forsooth, there was any other sort); they vouchsafe to own that God can persuade; he converts the soul by arguing, and is the greatest persuader because he is the best reasoner. But as to any proper efficiency upon the souls of sinners to turn them unto God — No! away with it; it violates liberty; it brings natural laws into the domain of the supernatural; in a word, it is impossible with God. With such a belief, one must read the whole Bible backwards, and make conversion by God a fable. What an impertinence does the reply of Jesus become! They were considering the case of a sinner, whose conversion, on any human principles, is out of the question. Jesus replies: It is possible with God. How so? how possible with God, if it, is not in God to put forth a single influence wliicli shall act upon the will of that sinner — that will being really the mountain obstacle in the way? If every thing depends on the self determination of the sinner, with which God cannot interfere without destroying liberty, obligation, and morals, then ought we to invert the text, and read, “That which is impossible with God, is possible with man.”

Solemnly pondered, this one verse, without any other, were enough to establish the doctrine of God’s power over the soul. For what is it which it declares God able to do? You answer at once. To secure the sinner’s salvation; that is, to convert his soul; that is, to change his purposes. And be it observed, whether this be done mediately or immediately, by one act on the willing subject, or by a series of acts terminating in volition, liberty must be equally endangered, in the view of those who dread any such Divine action as infallibly terminates in a given and predetermined choice. When the text teaches that it is possible for God to convert the most hopeless sinner, it declares that conversion is an object of power. God does not say in his counsels, “I ^ldll throw in light, I will offer motives, I will outbid the world, I will make an experiment of suasion upon that wealthy foe, not, however, meddling with the sacredness of his inviolable will.” No — but “I will convert that Pharisee. I will envelope that soul in a cloud of overpowering glory. I will act upon the very seat and source of all choices. I will renew that persecutor’s nature, and bring him to my feet.” Now I put it to every unprejudiced and simple mind, whether this is not the very impression which is derived from the reading of the Scriptures for a course of years? Do we not find them everyihere referring regeneration and conversion to the power of God — a power operating immediately on the human will; and is not the opposite doctrine constructed inferentially, from foregone conclusions in philosophy? The truth is, philosophers themselves have not been at one on this point; a large proportion of them, and those not the least acute, having maintained the perfect consistency between Divine concurrence and human liberty. We argue purely ad ignorantiam when we object, that if God operates as a cause upon the will, he impairs or destroys moral freedom. This is not a truth of intuition, to be assumed without proof; nor can it be demonstrated. From the very nature of the case, it cannot be an object of consciousness, whether we are actuated by a higher power or not. We are indeed conscious that we act fieely, and this is a truth which we cheerfully avow. But we possess no such certainty on the other side, as should justify the contempt which some cast on the Scripture teaching of God’s proper and gracious influence on the soul. To say that, in turning unto God, we act without spiritual influence, is to say more than we know, or can know, without revelation; and all the teaching of revelation is so clearly the other way, that the greatest ingenuity is in request to explain away this clear language. The convert knows, by consciousness, that he acts, that he acts from motives, that he never acted more freely in his life. But he cannot know from consciousness that God acts. Of this, God must testify, which he does, when he assures us by his servant, that it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his owti good pleasure. It is therefore possible with God!

Age after age this doctrine has been a target for assailants, while it has been precious in the esteem of evangelical believers. The controversy first took a definite shape in the days when Augustine, Jerome, and Prosper, in Africa, Palestine, and Gaul, raised the standard against Pelagius and his followers. The writings of Augustine in particular have been the arsenal of theologians in this warfare; and for many years they succeeded in keeping the decisions of the so-called Catholic Church on the right side. But the mystery of iniquity was continually though secretly working against grace. Various schools of error within the Church, but especially the Franciscans, and above all the Jesuits, laboured for a scheme so favourable to human nature, until, at length, the determinations against the Jansenists and Port Royal showed the body of Popish doctors to have become radically corrupt — as they have gone on to be more and more every day. All that was pure, holy, venerable, and seraphic, in the prejudiced but lovely recluses of Port Royal, was founded on these doctrines of Augustine, of Paul, and of grace. All their persecutions, resulting in the ruin, even to utter razing, of the Port Royal des Champs were because these holy persons would not condemn Antipelagian doctrines. The corps of extraordinary Titers, male and female, who as a body have never been surpassed, wielded their polished swords in defence of these truths. And Pascal, who unites the wit of Moliere, the logic of Leibnitz, and the eloquence of Bossuet, begins his immortal Provincial Letters with a piece of irresistible satire on the Jesuit opposers of grace. So likewise we find it the palladium of the Keformation. It had been taught by Wiclif and Huss, when Luther took up the championship, in his controversy with Erasmus. In this matter there was no division among the Reformers. Down to our own day, jDure evangelical piety has been uniformly found associated with high views of Divine spiritual power and direct efficiency, in the conversion of the sinner. While, on the other hand, wherever we observe a breaking of the Protestant and Puritan line, a retreat from Reformation ground and the confessions of the Reformed churches, and a deserting of the ranks of liberalism and Socinian heresy, we find a coiTesponding and proportional disposition to fritter away the meaning of Scripture declarations concerning man’s helplessness and the power of the Holy Spirit. And these two antagonist systems will not end their great campaign, till Truth shall sound her trumpet in ultimate victory.

If, then, my brethren, there is any creed which can be called Catholic, as having commanded the suffrages of the best Christians, in all generations of the Church, it is, that conversion by any human agent is impossible; that God converts the sinner; that the Divine act in regeneration and conversion is an act of power; that such agency does not overbear or obliterate human freedom; and that the power of God, in this field of grace, is infinite.

1. We must all admit, that there is much in this to humble and alarm the impenitent sinner; which may account for some of the opposition which the doctrine has encountered. ISTo man likes to hear that he is poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked. To be a pensioner, is humiliating, if not galling. Human greatness, by pufiing up the depraved dispositions, indisposes men to submit to God’s method of saving sinners.

The doctrine of the text and context shows no complaisance to ungodly wealth. It announces the infinite peril of setting the heart on earthly good. The great danger is, that every hearer will be thinkins: of some one wealthier than himself. We have no reason to think that the young ruler was a millionaire; or that Jesus proposed the never-to-be-forgotten needle’s eye, to those only who were what we should denote by hundreds of thousands. The anow of conviction flies clear over your head, while you whisper. Who is this rich man? It is yonder eminent banker, or successful merchant, or happy heir; it is not I! And a second says, It is not I! And others add the echo. It is not I! Yes, it is you, and you, and you! Turn not the head; look no further. It is you who have already been kept away from Christ, by the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches. The group is vanished. Jesus and that kneeling, sorrowing, departing young ruler, have long since passed in body from this earth. But in reality, each of you passes before Jesus — each of you hears his proposal — each of you lias rejected it. Your condition is fearful. Each of you is in the hands of an offended God, Ibut for whose sovereign power, your salvation were impossible.

2. Believers ascribe their conversion to the power of God. It was impossible with men. Grace wrought it; and by the same mighty power which raised Jesus from the dead. Does it seem mysterious that Omnipotence should move the human will at regeneration? Scripture does not relieve the mystery.” The wind

bloweth born of the Spirit.” Those

who are so renewed, are “born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God “; which Paul confirms, saying: “So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.” All the saints in heaven agree in ascribing the original motion to God, and not to themselves; and in owning, that if he had not first sought them, they never would have sought him. The very dispositions towards being saved are from his free love: “By grace are ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” The difficulty of selecting passages is great, from their large number. Better than single proof- texts is the whole tenour of the New Testament, which ascribes the new nature and all holy thoughts, feelings, and choices, to the power of God. It is hardly possible for any man, whatever be his theory, to fall down upon his knees, and refer to his own conversion, without employing expressions which bear that the efficiency was of God, and that Divine grace operated u|)on the creature as a proper cause. This is implied in all our thanksgivings and all our confessions., This is that heavenly and effectual calling, of which such strength of expression is used by the apostles, and which is everywhere referred to God’s sovereign pleasure. Nor is there any temper of soul more congenial to true piety, than that in which the believer says, “We are the clay, and thou our Potter.”

. 3. The doctrine which we have been studying gives the greatest possible encouragement to prayer for the unconverted. Prayers of this kind have of late besieged heaven — agoing up in squadrons and mighty armies. All in vain, if God exercises no power antecedent to the sinner’s consent. Brethren, we have those who are dear to us as life, and for whom we intercede; perhaps they are beside us now; perhaps they are where no power but that of the Almighty can reach them. But it matters not whether God reaches them or not, if he is at the mercy of their stubborn hearts, and if his omnipotence cannot sway their will. If Jehovah can put forth no causation, in regard to human choices, then he cannot secure the holiness of those for whom we plead. It is not God, but they, who hold the arbitrament. To pray to them might be reasonable, but not to pray to God. For what can God do, unless they consent to do first? Let the impiety be with such as have broached and trumpeted the unscriptural tenet! No, beloved brethren, it is our comfort, and the lifting up of our head in prayer to God that he is able to influence the unregenerate soul with direct rays of converting power. The things which are impossible with men, are possible with God. He can breathe on the swollen tide of unholy volitions chafing in its rocky channel, and instantaneously turn back the free yet mighty river, so that its reflux shall be as sweetly heavenward as its flow was turbulently towards the lake of fire. Unless we mock the heavens, then, when we ask God to convert the rebel, we mean more than that he should do so, if the rebel agree to convert himself And our hope of the eventual illumination of the world, the future perseverance of holy angels, and the everlasting fidelity of ransomed saints, resides wholly in the power of God, exerted to keep them from falling. This earth of ours, ever since it was blessed with the Gospel, has seen little, comparatively, of the omnipotence of grace. She has not seen knowledge of God inundating her populations “as the waters cover the sea.” She has not seen nations born at once. She has not seen Israel restored, idolatry abolished, and all men knowing the Lord. But she shall see this, and more. She shall see it in answer to prayer. She shall see it as the consequence of God’s irresistible and gracious influence upon each individual soul. It is the glory of the Holy Ghost thus to work on the corrupt mass of humanity. These are the supernatural influences, without wliicli religion degenerates into a poor, deistical rationalism. Here we x ourselves; on this we hang, for ourselves and for others; for the bep-inninsfs of our new life, and for its consummation; for regeneration, for sanctification, and for glory. “O the depth of the riches, Loth of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen.” Rom. xi. 33, 36.