a mostly german debate on conversion and salvation lar to others in the bible, such as David and St Peter, that were generally good persons close to God, that ”par malheur” happened to commit a single crime or sin, before seriously repenting and then being pardoned.691 Therefore the example of the criminal at Golgotha is not suitable for a professional criminal while the generally good man that murders in anger can find hope in the story.692 A few decades later the francophone Reformed minister in The Hague, Jacques Saurin, that thoroughly treated the same subject in three long sermons and concluded there was a possibility of a late conversion, warned against using the idea to postpone one's own conversion.693 Thomas Newman, an English independent presbyterian, devoted a publication to the criminal on the cross, St Dismas, and what he means for later Christians. Newman founded his reasoning on a few fundamentals. The story is history, not dogmatics, therefore we cannot assume how Christ would treat anybody else.694 The story is not about repentance or penitence, but about a non-believer coming to faith and confessing it.695 For all those that already are Christians, salvation is the result of following the rules for life and manners that we have received.696 Nobody can therefore see this story as providing hope for repentance close to death.697 Newman here followed the ideas of Nicholson. The English Presbyterian Edward Harwood sharply questioned the possibility of a late conversion. Life is a preparation for heaven and conversion is a process, thus those who lack in preparation by failing to convert and to live a Christian life, and thereby also lack taste for heaven will not feel at home or be happy there.698 He wrote: ”Every one knows, that 691 Bernard 1712 p 324, ’by accident’ (the translation chosen because Bernard continues ”de tomber” ’to fall’). Theologically interesting is how Bernard divides repentance and pardon into two acts of God – the grace of the Holy Spirit that converts and the Grace of the Mercy of God that forgives, Bernard 1712 p 338. 692 Bernard 1712 p 325 sq. 693 Saurin 1744 p 1 sqq. 694 Newman 1751 p 6 sqq. 695 Newman 1751 p 9 sqq. 696 Newman 1751 p 20, 22, 29. 697 Newman 1751 p 6, 19 sq. 698 Harwood 1793 p 28, 32 sq. 196
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