All the figures of baptism point to death—­all the sacrifices for sin, slain under the law for 4000 years, point to death, declaring that without the shedding of blood there is no remission.  There the reality lies.  There we are called upon to anchor our faith and hope even within the veil.  And it must be a certain truth that our sins are to be washed away through the Jordan of death, before we can be called upon to believe it.  It must be a certain reality that sin is there to be purged away, before we could, with any propriety, use baptism in water as a shadow of it; because the shadow cannot create the substance.

We have now shown that as man is naturally born into this world, so he shall be spiritually born into the kingdom of God.  We have shown by comparison that except a man be born of a woman, he cannot see this world; and as this does not mean that he must be born twenty days before he comes forth from the womb, as a preparation for entering this world, so the expression, “except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God,” does not mean that he must be born twenty days before death as a preparation for entering a future existence.  The new birth, no more means a reality that is to transpire here, than natural birth means some change we underwent prior to our being 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.