As Peter preached to the Jews in Acts 3, when under a divine influence, he charged the audience with having been the murderers of the Son of God. No doubt but the charge entered deep into their conscience, and the apostle lets them know that great as their sin was, it was not unpardonable; thus he points out in the text, “Repent ye therefore,” says he, “and be converted,” and adds, “that your sins may be blotted out.” Though they are but few words, they are weighty; a short sentence this, but sweet: may God make it a blessed sweetness to every one of your hearts!

    But must we preach conversion to a professing people? Some of you perhaps are ready to say Go among the savages and preach repentance and conversation there; or, if you must be a field-preacher, go to the highways and hedges; preach conversion to the drunkards: would to God my commission might be renewed, that I might have strength and spirit to take the advice!

    Repentance and conversion are nearly the same, but reformation and conversion are not.  I may have the outside of the platter washed; I may be turned from profaneness to a regard for morality; and because I do not swear, nor go to the places I used to; or I have left my vices, and perhaps put on plain dress; and so believe, or rather fancy, that I am converted. All these things are right in their place; yet the old man remains unmortified, and the heart is unrenewed still. Comparing myself with what I once was, and looking on my companions with disdain, I may there stick faster in self, and get into a worse and more dangerous state than I was before.

    All these conversions you may have, and yet never be truly converted at all. What is conversion then? I will not keep you longer in suspence, my brethren: man must be a new creature, and converted from his own righteousness to the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ; conviction will always precede spiritual conversion: and therefore you may be convicted and not converted, but you cannot be converted without being convicted; and if we are truly converted we shall not only be turned and converted from our sinful self, but we shall be converted from our self-righteous self.

            To be washed in his blood; to be clothed in his glorious imputed righteousness: the consequence of this imputation, or application of a Mediator’s righteousness to the soul, will be a conversion from sin to holiness. They that are truly converted to Jesus, and are justified by faith in the Son of God, will take care to evidence their conversion, not only by the having grace implanted in their hearts, but by that grace diffusing itself through everyfaculty of the soul, and making an universal change in the whole man.

    I am preaching from a Bible that saith, “He that is in Christ is a new creature, old things,” not “will” be, but “are passed away, all things,” not only “will”, but “are become new.” As a child when born has all the several parts of a man, it will have no more limbs than it has now, if it lives to fourscore years and ten; so when a person is converted to God, there are all the features of the new creature and growth, till he becomes a young man and a father in Christ; till he becomes ripe in grace, and God translates him to glory. Any thing short of this is but the shadow instead of the substance; and however persons may charge us with being fanatics, yet we need not be moved either to anger or sorrow, since Paul says, “I travail in birth till Christ be formed in your hearts.”

    The author of this conversion is the Holy Ghost: nothing short of the influence of the Spirit of the living God can effect this change in our hearts; therefore we are said to “be born again, born of God, of the Spirit, not of water only, but of the Holy Ghost; that which is born of the flesh, is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit”: and though there is and will be a contest between these two opposites, flesh and spirit, yet if we are truly converted, the spirit will get the ascendency; and though for a while nature and grace may struggle in the womb of a converted soul, like Jacob and Esau, yet the elder shall