Nuttall Encyclopedia Quotes

Nuttall encyclopedia quote, no. 11743

REGENERATION, THE

"new or second birth" required of Christ before any one can become a member of His kingdom, and which, when achieved, is a resolute and irreversible No to the spirit of the world, and a no less resolute and irreversible Yea to the spirit of Christ, the No being as essential to it as the Yea. For as in the philosophy of Hegel, so in the religion of Christ, the negative principle is the creative or the determinative principle. Christianity begins in No, subsists in No, and survives in No to the spirit of the world; this it at first peremptorily spurns, and then disregards as of no account, what things were _gain_ in it becoming _loss_. A stern requirement, but, as Carlyle says, and knew, one is not born the second time any more than the first without sore birth-pangs. See HIS "EVERLASTING NO" IN "SARTOR," LAST PARAGRAPH.