Owen suggests that there are, however, two things in general which precede the consummation of conversion work: — the first is a conviction of sin that makes the individual conscious that he is under the curse of the law; the second is a realisation that there is no other way of salvation for him than that offered in the Gospel of Christ. How then is such an enquirer to be directed? His responsibility is to seek for Christ.

It is something of a commonplace in these days to read about the ‘psychology of conversion’ or the ‘anatomy of a soul’, and often enough what masquerades under such titles is but an onslaught on faith and a denigration of both conversion and the notion of the soul. It is in stark contrast to this approach that John Owenprovides us with his anatomy and analysis of conversion throughout the many volumes of his writings, but pre-eminently in a chapter entitled ‘The manner of conversion explained in the instance of Augustine’.1 In it he uses the self-analysis of Augustine in his Confessions as an illustrator and illuminator of the Scriptural teaching, and the Scriptural teaching as a flood of light upon the depth and intensity of that great saint’s experience of God.

We need not concern ourselves with the details of Augustine’s life, except incidentally — but the teaching with which we are provided by Owen is of singular benefit for our appreciation of what is involved in becoming a Christian. Perhaps too, when the teaching of the 17th-century Puritans is decried as scholastic and a tragic admixture of Calvin and Aristotle, and when we discover a continuing trend to return to the early Fathers, it is salutary to remember that Owen himself did this, and found a hearty concurrence between his own view of Scripture teaching and that of so eminent a Father of the Church as St Augustine.

It is axiomatic in Reformed writings that a true view of regeneration, conversion, and the progress of holiness is intimately related to a true view of sin and inherent corruption. So Owen is at pains to lay before his readers ‘the effects of that depravation’2 which is discovered in the heart of the unconverted man. These effects are five-fold:–

1. Corruption is at work in the human soul from the earliest years of our lives; it is ‘original’ and its depravity is universally evident, preventing all the ‘actings’ of God’s grace. Psalm 58:3 provides a striking proof and illustration of this — where infants are described as ‘speaking lies’ from their birth, and going astray ‘from the womb.’ While few today would follow Owen so confidently when he affirms the high infant mortality rate as an evidence of such an imputation and outworking of original sin, many still find the most striking illustration of Romans 5:14 — death reigning over those whose transgression was not like that of Adam — in the painful fact of the death of little ones.
2. As the capacity of a person develops, so his native corruption is enabled to exert its influence with greater frequency and potency. Again Owen is able to draw on the O.T. Scriptures, this time Ecclesiastes 11:10 — ‘childhood and youth are vanity.’ Augustine, like ourselves, was well able to recall those ‘vagaries’ of his childhood. Regarded by the carnal mind as mere trifles, part of the process of evolution and maturation, these have never been so regarded by the Christian mind. For it is these ‘childish innocencies’ which when ‘carried over unto riper age and greater occasions bring forth those greater sins which the lives of men are filled withal in the world.’ `By this means is the heart prepared for a further obduration [hardening] in sin.’3
3.  Following these ‘irregularities’ come immoralities. Such are the actual sins of lying and deceitfulness, exercised even against parents. As it was in the Garden of Eden, it ever has been, so that ‘They rob their father and mother and say, It is no transgression’ (Prov 28:24). How many blush to remember the sins that once held them captive! How many have thus sinned and hardened their hearts against the voice of common conscience and the law of God, saying ‘It is no transgression?’

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