The new birth lies at the very foundation of salvation. We must be diligent to make certain we really are born again, for there are many who fancy they are, who are not. Be assured: the name of a Christian is not the nature of a Christian! Being born in a Christian land, being recognized as professing the Christian religion—it is of no avail whatever unless something more has been added to it.

The being "born again" is a matter so mysterious that human words cannot describe it. "The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." Nevertheless, it is a change which is known and felt: known by works of holiness, and felt by a gracious experience.

This great work is supernatural. It is not an operation which a man performs for himself! A new principle is infused, which works in the heart, renews the soul, and affects the entire man. It is not a change of my name, but a renewal of my nature, so that I am not the man I used to be, but a new man in Christ Jesus.

To wash and dress a corpse is a far different thing from making it alive: man can do the one, God alone can do the other.

If you have then, been born again, your acknowledgment will be, "O Lord Jesus, the everlasting Father, thou art my spiritual Parent; unless thy Spirit had breathed into me the breath of a new, holy, and spiritual life, I had been to this day dead in trespasses and sins. My heavenly life is wholly derived from thee, to thee I ascribe it. My life is hid with Christ in God. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who liveth in me."

May the Lord enable us to be well assured on this vital point, for to be unregenerate is to be unsaved, unpardoned, without God, and without hope.