The door of salvation opened by the key of regeneration

Secondly, The Conscience is also renewed; to this Faculty the Spirit makes its address in the next place; the Conscience of the man naturally was so hard and obdurate, that as ice, through the extremity and continuance of a great frost, you might have drive••carts heavy laden over it and it would not break; though mountains of lusts more heavy then lead lay upon him, he complained not, Jer. 8.6. But now his Conscience is as the water which hath such a tender film of ice upon it, that yieldeth at the least touch; a small stroke of sin maketh an impression upon it; before it was seared with a red hot iron, 1 Tim. 4.2. and past feeling, Ephes, 4 17, 18, 19. as that member which the Chirurgeon intendeth to cut off is so mortified by means applied to it for that end, that it feeleth not the Saw or Instrument which parts it from the body; so the conscience was by custom in sin so cauterised, that it felt not the sword of the Spirit; neither Ministry, nor Misery, nor Miracle, nor Mercy could prevail with it; but now it becomes tender and flexible, a little prick with a pin is painful to it; as the eye it is offended with the smallest dust, 2 Chron. 22.19. it is void of offence towards God and man, Acts 24.16. Before, it (like Micaiah to Ahab) never spake good to the man, but frighted him ⟨p. 28⟩with fears, and terrified him with the preapprehensions of his eternal torments; it followed him to bed and board, and dogged him day and night like a Sergeant to arrest him, at the suit of the most High, for the vast debts which he owed to the Divine Majesty. The man and his conscience were like fire and water; they never met (if the hands of conscience were not tied down by force) but they fought: Like some contentious couple they were always scolding one with another, and striving for the mastery: The endeavour of conscience was as the Angel to Balaam to stand in the sinners way with a drawn sword, and stop him in his cursed course; the care of the sinner was to serve conscience as Herod did the Baptist, even to cut off its head, for having a tongue in it so bold as to check him for his crimes,