This is illustrated by many not uncommon experiences. In the beginning of a genuine friendship, for instance, we have learned to have so thorough a belief in a person that we cannot help loving him. We have studied his character and principles; we have trusted often and have never been deceived, and our faith ripens into a love based upon it. But afterward, when we know our friend still better, and have touched the deeper chords of his nature, and have found our sympathies intertwined on the most vital points, love becomes the controlling element of our friendship. We do not now so much love him because we have thorough faith in him, but we have faith in him because our sympathies touch at every vital point, thus because we love him.
To believe in the Lord and the life which He commands, because we have gained a clear and living knowledge of Him and it, and to love them from such faith, is a near approach to the goal of regeneration. But to enter into such an intimate communion with Him that we are all aglow with a loving realization of his nature, and thence to have a most perfect faith in Him, is regeneration. The one is the flowering of the beautiful tree of life; the other is its fruitage. The first is represented in the parable under consideration by the creation of creeping things and birds; the second by the creation of beasts.
