-not a mere power of self-determination. Only the dogma must be regarded as false in as far as it regards the supernatural gift, the positive determination of the will, as something brought in or superadded subsequently to the creation, and therefore not belonging to the proper being of man; as though God had, at first, for awhile left him without it, in order to see what he would make of himself, and then, when He found that the poor creature could not make anything, come to his assistance with the supernatural gift. Adam in the first moment of his creation was endowed with the power of will, in a state of positive determination in reference to the good, or to God and His law. And yet that will, which was substantially good from the beginning, was required to determine itself also in reference to God's will or law, and thus to be good by its own. choice. What Adam was substantially from the beginning, that he was required subsequently to make himself by a conscious act of his own freedom; which, however, he failed to do, not through want of ability, or because God, for a wise purpose, deprived him again of his original righteousness, but "through the instigation of the devil and his own wilful disobedience." So now, in the case of the regenerate person, a time must come when he is required to make himself, by his own free act, what he already is by divine grace; a time when he must become conscious of his deliverance from the power of the devil, of his own gracious relation to God and His kingdom, and of God's holy law, and when he must consciously and freely resolve to abide in that relation and to live in obedience to that law. He can only do that, of course, in consequence of that regenerating grace, which has already principially broken the power of sin within him, and delivered him from its bondage; or, as St. Paul says: "freed him from the law of sin and death," and thus restored to him the full and free use of his own will. And when he has done it, then we say he is converted. In the case of persons baptized as adults, this subjective act of conversion may coincide in time with the objective act of regeneration. But, in the case of infants, the two acts must necessarily be more or less separated in time; and this is the normal

order, unless infant baptism is an unwarranted innovation. contrary to the will of the Lord; and it is with the normal order of salvation, as it holds in the Church, that we have now to do, and not with any possible exceptions to it.

But now it is to understand

The Heidelberg Catechism is evidently constructed after the idea of this order. The Catechism is not a book designed for the children of Pagans and Baptists, but for the children of the Church. The baptized child of the Church is at once recognized as a child of God, and as belonging to Christ. The Catechism does not begin, as some suppose it ought, by telling the child what it must do in order to become a Christian, and in order to obtain the forgiveness of sin, and deliverance from the power of the devil. The child is a Christian. It belongs not to itself but to Christ, with body and soul, both in life and in death. It has been delivered from the power of the devil, and is now not a child of wrath, but of grace. to become conscious of all this. It is to learn what it all means. Here it finds itself existing in an order of grace, surrounded by gracious powers and influences, into which it has come in a way unknown to itself, and at a time of which it remembers nothing. But now it is to be taught how this has come to pass, and how much it means. "How many things are necessary for thee to know, that thou in this comfort mayest live and die happy? Answer: Three things-First, the greatness of my sin and misery. Second, how I am (not may be, which is a false translation of the German werde) redeemed from all my sins and misery. Third, how I am to be thankful to God for such redemption." In other words: The Christian child is now to become conscious of that kingdom of evil from which it has been delivered, and of the negative relation in which it has thus been brought to stand to it; and of that kingdom of grace in which it has its present being, and whose blessings and benefits it is now enjoying; and, finally, of the attitude or bearing which it must assume in reference to both, in order that it may continue to enjoy the comfort which is now its own. It is now by an exercise of its own mind and will to renounce, and turn away from, sin and the devil, on the one hand,

which is penitence, or repentance in the narrower sense; and, on the other hand, it is to turn unto God in Christ, to confess Him, to accept and own Him, together with all His benefits, which is conscious or developed faith. And these two together, namely, penitence and faith, in their interaction, form the essence of conversion.

We may compare the genesis of conversion to the genesis of the natural consciousness. By its natural generation and birth the infant comes to exist in the bosom of the world of nature. There exists at once a reciprocal relation between its own physical being and the forces and powers of nature by which it is surrounded. These act upon it and impress it; they nourish it and minister to its growth and development. And this they can do only because there is something akin, an inward correspondence between the life of man and the life of nature. But the child knows nothing of this relation. The light shines into its eyes, sounds strike its ears, objects touch its body, it sees, hears and feels, but it does not distinguish between the objects of its sensations and these sensations themselves, and therefore has no perceptions. It stands in a felt relation to the world, and has a sense of the world, but it has no consciousness of it. But this condition can not last always. The child's mind is growing. Its consciousness is developing in contact with the physical, mental and moral world by which it is surrounded. Gradually it begins to distinguish between itself and the objects of its sensations, and thus it begins to have perceptions. It becomes conscious of the world as an order of things distinct from itself, but to which it must now place itself in a free, self-chosen relation. Its previous passive, or merely felt, relation must give place to an active or conscious relation. It must penetrate the world by reflection; it must learn to distinguish between that which is beneficial and that which is hurtful, and it must by its voluntary activity appropriate the former and abstain from the latter. So now with the genesis of the Christian consciousness, or with the process of conversion. The Christian child exists in a world of grace. There is an inward felt relation between its own spiritual being

and the forces and powers of this world of grace, which impress it through the constitution of the Christian family and especially through the ordinances of the Church. But at first this relation is only felt. The child has no knowledge of it. If, however, it be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, according to the Apostle's injunction, the child will gradually become conscious of it. It will become conscious of God in Christ-which is something different from the general consciousness of God, as the heathen have this too. It will become conscious of the kingdom of God, but at the same time also of a kingdom which is the opposite of this, namely the kingdom of Satan; for the former exists in the midst of the latter and is everywhere surrounded by it; just as in the regenerate person itself the new man exists still within the "old." And between these two now, namely between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan, the child is compelled to make a voluntary choice, although as to its inward being it already stands in the bosom of the former. It must by its own free decision make itself what it already is in consequence of God's objective grace. Its direct or spontaneous faith, the inward rapport between its soul and Christ, must become self-conscious or intelligent faith; it must come to know that it believes and what it believes. And so on the other hand, the negative relation in which it has thus far stood to sin unconsciously, must now be taken up into its consciousness. It must learn to know sin as something both hurtful to itself and displeasing to God, and indeed as something hurtful to itself because displeasing to God. Hence also it must come to hate sin and turn from it with all the energy of its soul. And finding that, although now justified and in favor with God, sin nevertheless has an existence still in the periphery of its own. nature, that it is therefore still a sinful being, and in thought, word and deed continually offends, it must now be filled with penitence or sincere and godly sorrow. Penitence, however, must bloom into confession of sin and renunciation of the flesh, the world and the devil; while faith, on the other hand, must bloom into a confession of Christ, or into a profession of the articles

of our Catholic, undoubted Christian Faith. And here now the Church meets the subject with confirmation, in which he on his part renews and ratifies the promise and vow made in his baptism; whilst the Church, in God's stead, claims him publicly for the service of God, blesses him in the name, and confirms him in the covenant of God, invoking upon him in larger measure the Holy Ghost, by whose help alone he may be able to fulfill his vows by leading a holy and obedient life.

The Heidelberg Catechism makes no distinction between. conversion and sanctification, as is commonly done in modern Theological works. It uses the term sanctification as a designation for the entire process or order of salvation, or for the whole work of the Spirit in the appropriation of the grace of Christ to the individual soul through the Church. Conversion then it regards as a process reaching from the moment of regeneration forward to the end of the Christian's life on earth; and this process, as we have already seen, it defines to be "the mortification of the old, and the quickening of the new man." The expression old and new man is derived from St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians and Colossians. In regeneration the personality is centrally and principially renewed, but the law of sin still exists in the periphery of its nature, so that the appetites, desires, inclinations and passions are still more or less under its dominion. This is that "law of sin in the members," warring against the law of the spiritually renewed mind, or against the "law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," which has become the determining principle of the mind. Here there is a conflict. The old and the new are contrary to each other. But the old is to be more and more absorbed by the new, or converted into the new, in such way however that it loses its own properties and qualities and puts on those of the new. The parable of the leaven may be taken to illustrate this process. The leaven is hid in the meal. But the mass of the meal, for some time afterwards, is apparently the same as before. The leaven is hid within it. It does not at once manifest it self to the observation of the senses. At a certain point, however, it exists; and there a