They were never therefore “born of God:”—they never partook of the birth of the Spirit. “They went out from us,” St. John says again of some who had been nominal members of the Christian Church, “they went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us.” (1 Ep. ii. 19.) The only _seminal_ principle of grace which the Scripture recognizes, is that, which this same Apostle speaks of; (iii. 9.) “Whosoever is born of God _doth not commit sin_, _for his seed remaineth in him_; _and he cannot sin_, _because he is born of God_.” This is in perfect harmony with Christ’s words to Nicodemus;—“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and _thou hearest the sound thereof_:” thou knowest that it is blowing by the effects which it produces: “_so_ is every one who is born of the Spirit.” (v. 8.) But to believe that “the wind bloweth,” when a leaf is not shaken, nor the slightest murmur in the air heard, is so contradictory to the evidence of the senses, that after this we might believe anything. Transubstantiation itself need not be rejected by us. Why not believe a _material_ as well as a _moral_ change, if the exercise of the understanding and of the senses is to be excluded? Nay, transubstantiation has a greater show of Scripture-authority in its favour. Christ _did say_ of the bread and wine, “This is my Body;” “This is my Blood:” but He never said, “Every one who is born of water is born also of the Holy Spirit.” The uniform tenor of His teaching was, that men’s profession and principles and privileges should be tried by their practical effects. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matt. vii. 20.) And as transubstantiation might as well be believed, as that every baptized person is necessarily “born of the Spirit,” so, to claim the power of absolutely setting God on work to new-create the soul in baptism, is little short of the presumption of the Church of Rome, which asserts the power of her priests to turn the bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Supper into Christ’s real Body and Blood! It would _not_ then be true, (as declared in John i. 13,) that “the sons of God we born, _not of the will of man_;” for baptism is administered _at the will of man_;—whensoever and to whomsoever he pleases.