We have shown that the new birth has a higher signification than simply to be converted from the evil of our doings, as was required under the first dispensation.  The new birth, so far as it concerns the present existence, embraces not only conversion, but the whole spiritual life of the christian’s soul, denominated the kingdom of heaven within.  This mental felicity—­this “weight of glory,” cannot be enjoyed, but by the exercise of a living faith in Christ.  Such a faith begets a sincere obedience in our life and conversation.  It is a faith “that works by love, purifies the heart and overcomes the world.”  The great apostle to the Gentiles exclaims—­“the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  We therefore “walk by faith, not by sight."

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.