Here again may be seen, in the highest degree of certainty, the absolute necessity of immediate divine inspiration through every part of the Christian life. For if a birth of the Spirit is that alone that can enter into, or receive the kingdom of God come amongst men, that alone which can find Christ to be the way, the truth and the life, then a continual life or breathing of the Spirit in us, must be as necessary as the first birth of the Spirit. For a birth of the Spirit is only to make a beginning of a life of the Spirit: birth is only in order to life; if therefore the life of the Spirit continues not, the birth is lost, and the cessation of its breathing in us is nothing else but death again to the kingdom of God, that is, to everything that is or can be godly. Therefore the immediate continual inspiration of the Spirit, as the only possible power and preservation of a godly life, stands upon the same ground, and is as absolutely necessary to salvation, as the new birth.