The Fundamentals.
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said: “Pray ye the Lord for me, that none of these things which ye have spoken come upon me.” Conversion may be the result of a conviction that, after all, a change of life may be profitable for the life that is to come, as well as for the life that now is; that in the future world a man gets what he earns in this life. It does not imply a heart in love with God and the things of God. Men of the world are converted many times. They change their minds, and often change their mode of living, for the better; not be cause they have been regenerated and brought into sacred relations with God in Christ, being renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit. One of the most imminent dangers of the religious life of today is the putting of conversion in the place of regenera tion, and counting converted men as Christian men, counting “converts” in revival meetings as regenerated and saved, be cause they have mentally, and, for the moment, changed. Men are converted, politically, from one party to another; from one set of principles to another. Christians, after regenera tion, may change their religious views and pass from one denomination to another. Few Christians pass through many years without a need of conversion. They grow cold of heart, blind to the things of God, and wander from the straight path to which they once committed themselves; and they need con version. Most revivals of religion begin with the conversion of saints. Rarely are souls, in considerable numbers, regen erated while regenerated men and women are unconscious of their high calling and are in need of conversion, in order to their hearty engagement in efforts for those around them. First, a converted church, then regenerated and converted souls. REFORMATION implies conversion, but it does not im ply regeneration. Regeneration insures reformation, but ref ormation does not imply regeneration. Reformers have been abroad in all ages, and are known to paganism as well as to
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