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CONVERSION AND GROWTH IN GRACE
religious growth. According to our own belief they are:
education and awakening, conversion, justification, new birth and
perfection.
These stages must not be thought of in any mechanical way.
Transition from one to another occurs through the Grace of
God, but the process of development is profoundly affected by
the person’s own state. Incomplete surrender, opposition,
negligence, neglect of the means of Grace, hinder its work.
Behind the whole process is God, working through the Holy
Spirit. His action necessarily has profound psychological
effects, and the changes that occur can be observed. Processes
of regeneration and transformation can be judged and valued
from a psychological point of view. Nevertheless the assurance
of the man of faith that God’s action is necessary before the
process can occur, and is revealed in it, is borne out by the
witness of all who have known the experience.
The Mystical Conversion
Human experience stubbornly refuses to conform to type.
John Wesley believed in instantaneous conversion, though he
also speaks of a gradual process; and he believed, as we have
said, that there are degrees of faith. About John Wesley’s own
conversion there has been much discussion and perplexity. The
question is often asked: ‘When did it occur?’ The answers that
have been given have usually indicated that the term
‘conversion’ was understood in its most extended sense as a collective
term. Laura Petri has insisted very strongly that John Wesley
never experienced what was once popularly called a ‘Methodist’
conversion—an instantaneous inward transformation. She says
also that recent Methodist research acknowledges that ‘a
mistake has been made’. Wesley was in fact always a Christian.
It should perhaps be mentioned that Wesley himself very
seldom uses the word conversion, ‘because it only meagrely
occurs in the New Testament’. But when he does use it he follows
the older dogmaticians, employing the terms ‘conversion’ and
‘new birth’ to designate different aspects of the one process or
occurrence. Nevertheless he clearly distinguished the different
states. By conversion he meant ‘The first appeal with one’s
whole heart to God in repentance and prayer.’
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