III.— CONVERSION.
"Henceforth I live."—St. Paul
"To be awakened," writes one[1] who both from individual and ministerial experience, well knew the difference between convictions and conversion, "you need to know your own heart, To be saved, you need to know the heart of God and of Christ."
Hitherto Hedley Vicars had been the subject only of the awkening work of the Spirit. In later days, when he looked back on that period of his life, he distinctly stated, "I was not then converted to God." He was seeking, but he had not found, "the grace of life." Thank God! there is no such asking eye directed upward, to which He does not, sooner or later, "reveal His Son." After all his anxious alarms, which had resulted in efforts succeeded by failures, he was now to be taught that the strength to preserve would be found, when the God of Hope should have "filled him with all joy and peace in believing;" and that he was to continue "diligent to be found of Him in peace," as the one way of being "without spot and blameless."
It was in the month of November, 1851, that while awaiting the return of a brother officer to his room he idly turned over the leaves of a Bible which lay on the table. The words caught his eye, "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."
- ↑ Rev. Robert M'Cheyne.
