This being so, it will come to pass that half of the world will be saved, inasmuch as about that number die in what may be, justly termed an infant state.  But of those, who come to years of accountability, they believe but few will be saved.  So the greater proportion of those, who will finally surround the throne of God, will be those, who have never been born again according to their views.  It will not, I presume, be contended, that infants who, they believe, are totally depraved, ever exercise faith, or experience the new birth in this life.

From the above views, I shall take the liberty to dissent, and may probably differ some from the expositions given by others.  It is evident that Jesus Christ in his instructions frequently brought forward some natural facts plainly understood by those whom he addressed, in order more clearly to illustrate his subject, and then made his illustrations so nearly resemble that natural 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,