2. Conversion restores not only God to the heart, but also reason to her throne. Time and eternity are now seen in their just proportions — the one in its littleness, and the other in its greatness. When the light of heaven rises on the soul, what grand discoveries does she make — of the exceeding evil of sin, of the holiness of the Divine law, of the infinite purity of Divine justice, of the grace and greatness of Divine love. The Saviour and Satan, the soul and the body, holiness and sin, have competing claims. Between these reason now holds the balance even, and man finds what the demoniac found in Jesus' advent. The man whose dwelling was among the tombs, whom no chains could bind, is seated at the feet of Jesus, " clothed, and in his right mind." By this change the will is renewed, changed, and sanctified. The attainments of a believer are always beneath his aims ; his desires are nobler than his deeds ; his wishes are holier than his works. Give other men their will, full swing to their passions, and they would be worse than they are ; give that to him, and he would be better than he is. And if we have experienced the gracious change it will be
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our daily grief that we are not what we know we should be, nor even what we wish to be. To be complaining with Paul, " When I would do good, evil is present with me " ; " the good which I would I do not ; but the evil which I would not, that I do," is one of the best evidences of a gracious, saving change.
3. It has been said, change the man and you change his world. The new self will make all around it as good as new, though no actual change should pass on it ; for, to a very wonderful extent, a man creates his own world. We project the hue of our own spirits on things outside. A bright and cheerful temper sees all things on their sunny side. A weary, uneasy mind drapes the very earth in gloom. Lift from a man his load of inward anxiety, and the aspect of the universe is changed to that man ; for, if " to the pure all things are pure," it is no less true that to the happy all things are happy. Especially is the world revolutionized and made new to a man by a noble and joyous passion. Any great enthusiasm which lifts a man above his average self for the time makes him like a new man, and transfigures the universe in his eyes. Now, this power of human nature, when exalted through high and noble emotion, to make its own world, will be realized in its profoundest form when the soul is re-created by the free Spirit of God. Let God lift us above our old selves, and inspire us with no earthly, but with the pure flame of a celestial, devo- tion ; let Him breathe into our hearts the noblest, freest of all enthusiasms, the enthusiasm for Himself ; and to us all things will become new. We shall seem to ourselves to have entered another world where we breathe lighter air, see an intenser sun- light, and move to the impulses of a more generous spirit.
Tf One peculiarity of the assurance state is the objective change which the world often appears to undergo. " An appearance of newness beautifies every object," the precise opposite of that other sort of newness, that dreadful unreality and strangeness in the appearance of the world, which is experienced by melancholy patients. This sense of clean and beautiful newness within and without is one of the commonest entries in conversion records. Jonathan Edwards thus describes it in himself : —
"After this my sense of divine things gradually increased, and became more and more lively, and had more of that inward sweet- ness. The appearance of everything was altered ; there seemed to
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be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or appearance of divine glory, in almost everything. God's excellency, His wisdom, His purity, and love, seemed to appear in everything ; in the sun, moon, and stars ; in the clouds and blue sky ; in the grass, flowers, and trees ; in the water and all nature ; which used greatly to fix my mind. And scarce anything, among all the works of nature, was so sweet to me as thunder and lightning ; formerly nothing had been so terrible to me. Before, I used to be uncommonly terrified with thunder, and to be struck with terror when I saw a thunderstorm rising ; but now, on the contrary, it rejoices me." x
TJ Billy Bray, the Cornish evangelist, whose wonderful work in the West of England is well known, speaks thus of the sense of newness that he experienced on his conversion : — " I said to the Lord : ' Thou hast said, they that ask shall receive, they that seek shall find, and to them that knock the door shall be opened, and I have faith to believe it.' In an instant the Lord made me so happy that I cannot express what I felt. I shouted for joy. I preached God with my whole heart. ... I think this was in November, 1823, but what day of the month I do not know. I remember this, that everything looked new to me, the people, the fields, the cattle, the trees. I was like a new man in a new world. I spent the greater part of my time in praising the Lord." *