In this idea of quickening, there is a mystery. What is that invisible something which quickens a man? Who can unveil the secret? Who can trace life to its hidden fountain? Brother , you are a living child of God: what made you live? You know that it was by the power of the Holy Spirit. In the language of the text, you trace it to God, you believe your new life to be of divine implanta tion. You are a believer i n the supernatural; you believe that God has visited you as He has not visited other men, and has breathed into you life. You believe rightly , but you cannot explain it. We know not of the wind , whence it cometh or whithe r it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. He that should sit down deliberately and attempt to explain regeneration, and the source of it, might sit there til l he grew into a marbl e statue before he would accomplish the task. The Holy Spirit enters into us, and we who were dead before to spiritual things, begin to liv e by His power and indwelling. He is the great worker , but how the Holy Spirit works is a secret that must be reserved for God Himself. We need not wish to understand the mode; it is enough for us if we partake of the result.
It is a great mystery then, but whil e it is a mystery it is a great reality. We know and do testify, and we have a right to be believed, for we trus t we have not forfeited our characters, we know and do testify that we are now possessors of a lif e which we knew nothing of some years ago, that we have come to exist in a new world , and that the appearance of al l things outside of us is totally changed fro m what it used to be. "Ol d things have passed away, behold al l thingrf are become new." I bear witness that I am this day the subject of sorrows which were not sorrows to me before I knew the Lord , and that I am uplifted wit h joys which I should have laughed at the very thought of if anyone had whis pered the name of them i n m y ears before the lif e divine had quickened me. This is the witness of hundreds of us, and although others disbelieve us, they have no right to deny our consciousness because they have not partaken of the like . If they have never tried it, what should they know about it?
If there should be an assembly of blind men, and one of the m should have his eyes opened, and begin to talk of wha t he saw, I can imagine the blind ones al l saying, "Wha t a fool that man is! There are no such things." "Her e I have lived i n this worl d seventy years," says one, "and I never saw that thing which he calls a colour, and I do not believe i n his absurd nonsense about scarlet and violet, and black and white ; it is al l foolery together." An other wiseacre declares, " I have been up and down the world , and a l l over it, for forty years, and I declare I never had the remotest conception of blue or green, nor had my father before me. He was a right good soul, and always stood up for the grand old darkness. 'Give me,' said he, 'a good stick and a sensible dog, and a ll your nonsensical notions about stars, and suns, and moons, I leave to fools who like them.' " The blind man has not come into the worl d of light and colour, and the unregenerate man has not come into that worl d of spirit, and hence neither of them is capable of judging correctly.
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