"Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God."
Whatever the ruling love of man is, that may be termed his life. In this love all his affections centre; and to the manner in which he may best indulge this love, all his intellectual powers are strained. If he be in the love of evil, his understanding is subjected to that love, and whatever accords with that love he calls wisdom, while whatever disagrees with it, is to him foolishness: hence to the evil man, virtue, religion, piety, and conscience, have no attractions; his life is "earthly, sensual, devilish;" and the end of that life is death: because in the next world he will retain his love, but the objects and pursuits which gratified that love will be lost for ever. In this state, then, we may plainly see how fallen the soul is.
The Creator designed the soul for the enjoyment of spiritual and eternal beatitude; but man has perverted the order or design of his creation, he has chosen what is earthly and vile in preference to what is heavenly and divine, he has turned away from God, he has become a form of disorder, has opened the mind to infernal influences, and entered into alliance with disorderly spirits. What, then, can be implied by a restoration of the soul, but a deliverance from this evil and fallen state? And do we put the question, how can this deliverance be effected? The answer is, by the love and wisdom of the Lord, by the holy influences of His love and truth—by these He restoreth the soul.
When by reading or hearing the Holy Word, by reflection, by the pleadings of truth, man is brought to perceive his fallen and dangerous state, is convinced
