a change from one state or character to another. Conversion,
considered theologically, consists in a renovation of the heart and
life, or a being turned from sin and the power of Satan unto God, Acts
xxvi, 18; and is produced by the influence of divine grace upon the
soul. This is conversion considered as a state of mind; and is opposed
both to a careless and unawakened state, and to that state of conscious
guilt and slavish dread, accompanied with struggles after a moral
deliverance not yet attained, which precedes our justification and
regeneration; both of which are usually understood to be comprised in
conversion. But this is not the only Scriptural import of the term; for
the first _turning_ of the whole heart to God in penitence and prayer is
generally termed conversion. In its stricter sense, as given above, it
is, however, now generally used by divines.
considered theologically, consists in a renovation of the heart and
life, or a being turned from sin and the power of Satan unto God, Acts
xxvi, 18; and is produced by the influence of divine grace upon the
soul. This is conversion considered as a state of mind; and is opposed
both to a careless and unawakened state, and to that state of conscious
guilt and slavish dread, accompanied with struggles after a moral
deliverance not yet attained, which precedes our justification and
regeneration; both of which are usually understood to be comprised in
conversion. But this is not the only Scriptural import of the term; for
the first _turning_ of the whole heart to God in penitence and prayer is
generally termed conversion. In its stricter sense, as given above, it
is, however, now generally used by divines.