ural fact, that no
man could possible misunderstand him, unless he had been led into
tradition by blind guides. In the context, he makes allusion to
natural birth, of which every man knows the meaning, and says to
Nicodemus, "that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which
is born of the spirit is spirit."

Natural birth pre-supposes the perfect formation of the human body by
that secret energy of nature, God only can comprehend. But that
formation, itself, is not birth. Birth is that operation, that
introduced us into this world. We are now flesh and blood, which
cannot inherit the kingdom. What is born of the flesh is flesh. We
must now be born again from mortal to immortality, otherwise we could
not see the kingdom of God.

Must not man be born of a woman in order to see this world? Can he
look upon the beautiful objects of creation, or contemplate these
countless wonders of the Almighty before he is born into being? He
cannot. All without exception will admit, that it is impossible for
any man to enter this natural world, in which we live, without birth.
So it is equally impossible to enter the kingdom of God without being
born _again_ in the strictest sense of the word. A man cannot "be born
again" ten, or twenty years, nor even _one day_ before he sees the
kingdom of God, any more than he could be born twenty days before he
came forth out of the womb. As natural birth cannot take place any
given time before we enter this world, but is the _circumstance_ that
introduces us, so a _second birth_ cannot take place any given time
before we enter the kingdom of God in the next world but is the _very
thing_, that shall introduce us into it; and the moment we are born
again, we shall see it,--we shall be spirit, and beyond the dominion
of death and sin. He that is born of the flesh, _is flesh_, so long as
he lives; and he that is born of the spirit _is spirit_. As we now
"bear the image of the earthly" through a _natural_ birth, "so we
shall also bear the image of the heavenly" through a _spiritual_
birth. And as no man in this world is a spirit, so no man has in
reality passed the new birth. When we were born into this world, we
were brought from insensibility to an existence entirely new. So in
order to enter the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, we must
be born again from the insensibility of death into a new and happy
existence beyond the grave.

The question now arises, when does this new birth