Conversion; that wonderful turning about of the inward man which corresponds as nearly as possible in its idea to the great Scripture word Repentance.1 For let it never be forgotten that Repentance means more, very much more, than regret, or even remorse, or even "godly sorrow." 2 It is a deep, decisive alteration in the attitude of the soul towards God, and His glory, and His claim, and His salvation. "The sinner that repenteth" is the sinner Luke xv. 7-10. that is converted, turned back, brought back from loss to salvation, from the wilderness to the fold, from the far-off land to the Father's home.

This however is by the way. I was recalling the fact that we have already considered some of the main phenomena of that blessed change which is as to its divine secret and agency New Birth, and as to its human experience Conversion. And thus we take in some sort a step backward to consider now the great initial step of that work as wrought by the

Spirit, whether for the world or the soul, that step which is called Conviction of Sin. This line of inquiry, however, will not be retrograde in any unreasonable way. Not seldom a great subject is best studied first by a brief view of its whole, and then by closer attention to its parts. In this chapter and in some subsequent pages we will deal thus with the decisive work of our blessed Life-Giver, looking for His merciful light.

The Scripture which puts prominently forward the convincing work of the Holy Spirit is, I hardly need say, John xvi. 8-11; part of that divine Discourse to which we owe, as we have remembered already, our central revelations about the blessed Spirit's Personality, and about very much of His work. The wording of this particular passage calls of course for most careful study. And so I would not fail to notice two leading features of it; first, that it speaks of the Spirit's convincing work as done in and on "the world," distinguished from the disciples of Jesus; secondly, that it connects that work in the closest way with the Lord

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Jesus Christ Himself :-" because they believe not on Me;" "because I go to My Father." Nor do I forget that "conviction of sin" is only one of three convictions spoken of in the passage; I do not lose sight of the "righteousness" and the "judgment." But on this latter point it will appear, I think, as we go on that so close is the relation of the two latter convictions to the first, and that they are in some respects so subordinated to the first, that we may venture lawfully to group the whole work under the title of Conviction of Sin.

Now first a few words on the reference or this great work to "the world," that is to the mass of unregenerate humanity. It has been thought by some interpreters that this mention of the world excludes from the passage a distinct reference to the Spirit's saving operation in individual souls. And so the point and bearing of the Saviour's sentences here has been supposed to be directed towards what I may call public human opinion about Christ's character and work, and about the momentous awfulness of sin, as the great contradiction to righteousness (now glorified in Christ), and as the sure subject of coming judgment to be exercised by Christ, who has already given earnest of His final exercise of judgeship in His victory over the world's Prince. In this view we are to look for the fulfilment and explanation of the words in such great phenomena as, for instance, the awe which fell upon the Jews as a nation when the Pentecostal effusion came and the Gospel work began ; an awe indicated in one way or another all through the Acts. Or again, to take a yet larger example, we may look for the fulfilment in that greatly deepened sense (for such it is) of the shame of wrong, and the glory of righteousness, and the depth and solemnity of coming retribution, which has pervaded mankind as a mass wherever Christianity has been, even inadequately, proclaimed. And certainly this is one of the greatest facts of human history, however it is explained. And to the believer no explanation of it will be adequate which does not connect it with the work of the Holy Spirit upon the human conscience, as He makes the human soul able to interpret to itself, however dimly, the moral and spiritual

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significance of the Person, Character, and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And it is perfectly true that such public, general, universal conviction may, and alas continually does, fall quite short in individuals of the conviction which "worketh repentance unto salvation; " and that therefore it may be studied as a work which moves out side the inner circles of the Spirit's saving action upon souls; as a work emphatically in "the world."

But all this says only, at most, that the words of our Master in John xvi. do, or may, refer to a so to speak indefinite and diffused operation of the Spirit, but it does not say that they do not also, and in a special and central degree, refer to His inner circles of effectual blessing. For surely wherever that effectual blessing takes place, wherever a soul in its mysterious individual personality is awakened from the sleep of sin and born of the Spirit, it is a case in which a member of "the world" has been dealt with, in the world, to be brought out of the world. It is a case in which the blessed Agent, like Him whom He glorifies, has gone into the outer wilderness.