We have shown that Christ was the _"first born_ from the dead" to show
light to the people and to the Gentiles, and that the whole creation
is groaning in travail-pains, and that it shall be delivered from the
bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of
God, and that we shall then be as the angels of God in heaven. We have
shown that all mankind--infants, idiots and heathen, shall be brought
to realize this birth, and that the believer, only, can only enjoy it
in this state of existence through _faith_ in the truth, and that this
_faith_ has a most powerful influence on his life and conversation,
"being born of incorruptible seed by the word of God that liveth and
abideth forever." We have shown that neither this birth, nor any of
the spiritual changes, can be experienced in this life only through
_faith_ in their correspondent truths, even as they are revealed to us
in the gospel of Christ. We have shown that by the phrase, "kingdom of
heaven" we were to understand, _first_, a holy, happy and immortal
existence "beyond the grave, incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth
not away, reserved for us in heaven," and which, with all its
perfections and joys, was revealed to us by Jesus Christ; and
_second_, a sincere and living _faith_ in this interesting _reality_,
produced that divine enjoyment, called "the kingdom of heaven within
us," the kingdom of heaven among men, &c. This kingdom the Pharisees
"shut up"--they "neither entered it themselves, nor suffered those
that were entering to go in." That is--they prevented the people from
_believing_ those interesting _realities_--those sublime doctrines of
a future world that their Messiah had brought to light through the
gospel for the present happiness of men.

We have shown that water baptism is but a _figure, a shadow_ of our
death and resurrection, or of the washing of regeneration and renewing
of the Holy Spirit, and that this figure is of but little consequence