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die among them unsuspected; and lastly, not vain for the people of God, as those with no other religion are yet sometimes such powerful preachers and such beautiful expounders of the Word of God that the church of God could not spare them.

It is no doubt of such false converts yet used of God to the true conversion of others, by the word which He gives them to preach and the faith He enables them to exercise in Him to bless it (just as Balaam had evidently exceedingly strong faith in the word which He gave him to speak, though his heart was so far from being in it, Ñum. xxiv.), that our Lord Jesus Christ says:

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Many will say to me in that day Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name cast out devils? And in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me ye that work iniquity" (Matt. vii. 22, 23).

It is plain that these were conversionists of great power, and they appeal to our Lord Himself-they do so three times over, saying " in thy name" after each of the three parts of their description of their work for Him-that it was all done in his name and that it had been eminently successful. And our Lord does not say a word to throw doubt upon this their statement of what they had done for Him and how they had done it, and the blessing attending it, but only says that for all that He never knew them ("My sheep hear my voice and I know them,' John x. 27), and that, as workers of iniquity, they must depart from Him.

"The Lord knoweth them that are his. And let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19).

CHAPTER XV.

IMPERFECTIONS OF TRUE CONVERTS.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, and considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye, and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.-Matt. vii. 3-5.

I HAVE spoken in the last few chapters about false conversions, which may in some degree explain, though by no means justify, the fear and dislike of many of the very word conversion.

But there are also the imperfections of true converts which, wrongly looked at, tend also to foster this wrong fear and dislike.

Everyone professing to be converted is watched by the unconverted as a mouse is watched by a cat, and is pounced upon at the least slip, real or supposed, as if it were something monstrous for one making such a profession to come short in anything, at any moment, of the very holiness of heaven.

I should think our Lord must have had partly in his mind these watchers for an opportunity to bring an accusation against his people when He spoke of the beam and the mote, and perhaps also in speaking of the camel and the gnat. For they do indeed look eagerly for the mote in the young con

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vert's eye, and are all eagerness to tell him of it, while that monstrous beam in their own, their unconverted state, which, while they remain in it, causes their whole life every day and all day long to be nothing but a mass of sin before God, is unheeded by them. This they manage to swallow, though such a camel in size, while making so much fuss about the true convert's failures, which are, comparatively, but as gnats, if, indeed, he have failed at all in the matters in which they suppose him to have done so.

This disregard of their own state is of course as foolish as it is wicked, and the excessive severity of their judgment of the young converts is not less foolish, for where do they find their authority for expecting them, though ever so truly converted, to be perfect in a moment?

For though it is true, as declared in the words already more than once quoted, that "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Cor. v. 17)-yet there is the old creation still in him as well, with its old things ready to crop up again at any moment of unwatchfulness, or even at any chance he may give them of doing so through mere ignorance.

TRUE CONVERTS OFTEN VERY IGNORANT,

I once had a Bible class on Sunday mornings before church time, for a few men who had recently been brought to Christ in an open-air meeting, which we then had every night, true, dear converts, but exceedingly ignorant. One strong young man, of whose conversion I may possibly speak further on in this book, after we had gone through one Sunday morning our Lord's words in the sermon on the mount, "But I say unto you, that ye resist

not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matt. v. 39), said, with great liveliness, as one who had much cause to be thankful for being saved from a great danger, "O, I am so glad we have had that bit, for I really thought it was, If anyone hits you on one cheek, you hit him on the other; and I should have done it, too." And so, undoubtedly, he would, and would have thought that in doing so he was standing up manfully for our Lord's cause in a wicked world, and exactly obeying his orders as to what he was to do in the particular circumstances in which he found himself.

But just fancy what some stiff and starched unconverted ones, perfectly proper in all their own outward conduct, and well instructed in the precepts of Christianity, would have thought and said of this young man, and of us who were accepting him and rejoicing over him as an undoubtedly true convert, if they had seen him knock down in the street someone who struck him for being a Christian, and then glory over it as a fine, faithful bit of service to Christ!

This of course is an extreme case of ignorance, but new converts are in general very ignorant, and, I am afraid, for that matter, we old ones too, and are only a mixture of flesh and spirit, and often with but little power of discerning between the two, so that they are ready to go, in their very new-born zeal for God, and slash away like Peter (John xviii. 10) in the power of the flesh, thinking, as he may have done, through misunderstanding our Lord's words (Luke xxii. 36), that they are exactly obeying them and doing good service beyond others to Him (Matt. xxvi. 33); while better-instructed

ones looking on can see that it is not really his Spirit that is prompting them in these particular acts (Luke ix. 55, 56), and so are led, perhaps, to doubt the reality of their conversion, or, what is yet much worse, if these lookers-on are still unconverted, to doubt whether conversion be of God.

CONFESSION OF MISTAKEN ZEAL IN THE
SERVICE OF GOD.

Almost all earnest workers for God have, I suppose, had to confess and to grieve over, later on in their course, such mistakes and defects in their earlier service to Him. Here is the word of one of them, looking back in age on his youthful service to God, and describing the blessed power to work for Him given in a bright, clear conversion, and yet confessing the mixture of merely human, and, therefore, wrong zeal in the work:

"When young, and full of sanguine hope,
And warm in my first love,
My spirit's loins I girded up,

And sought the things above.
Swift on the wings of active zeal,
With Jesu's message flew,
O'erjoyed with all my heart and will
My Master's work to do.

Freely, where'er I would, I went
Through wisdom's pleasant ways,
Happy to spend, and to be spent
In minist'ring His grace.
I found no want of will or power
In love's sweet task employed;
And put forth every day and hour
My utmost strength for God.

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