Selection from Arcana Coelestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Spiritual birth is the acknowledgment of and faith in truth and good;
As nothing is acknowledged in faith until the man lives according to it, it is for this reason said, "the acknowledgment in faith and also in act."
Truths of faith which are not learned for the sake of doing, but only for the sake of knowing them, join themselves to the affections of evil and falsity; for which reason they are not of faith with the man who has learned them, but are interiorly contrary to faith.
(from Arcana Coelestia 3905)