brought forth into life.

I believe in all the reformation or new birth here that others do, and
believe in much more to come. That change _here_, which they call the
new birth, I call the new birth in faith, or being born of faith,
while the solemn reality is yet to transpire, and that is to be born
from the dead in Christ our head. These facts we will now make plain
to every reader by the following example, so that our views on this
subject may not be misrepresented.

Suppose that before we were born, we had been able to conceive ideas.
And suppose it had been spoken to us by the Son of God--except you are
born of the flesh, you cannot see the natural world, which is most
beautiful to to behold, having sun, moon, and stars, and songsters,
fields and groves. It has never entered your heart to conceive the
glory to be revealed in you. Now suppose some of us had believed this
revelation, we would that moment, have been born of faith, and
rejoiced in hope of the glory to be revealed in us; and by faith have
looked forward to the reality. This, however, would not have made our
birth any more certain, because it must have been an absolute truth
before we could have, with any propriety, believed it. Suppose,
further, that some of us had rejected it; would this circumstance have
prevented our being born? Certainly not. All of us, who believed,
would have been born of faith, having an earnest of the reality, and
the unbelievers would have come short of that enjoyment by faith; but
their unbelief could in no sense make the truth of none effect. The
moment we were born, belief and unbelief would be lost in certainty.

Now suppose that some of had said--the Son of God has declared "except
we are born of the flesh, we cannot see the natural world." This must