The door of salvation opened by the key of regeneration

Reader, if thou dost take a brief view what things are wrought when any one is new made, and how little he doth contribute to them, nay, how opposite he is against them, thou mayst perceive that neither Regeneration nor salvation are easy.

Reader, if thou dost take a brief view what things are wrought when any one is new made, and how little he doth contribute to them, nay, how opposite he is against them, thou mayst perceive that neither Regeneration nor salvation are easie.

Thy mind must be enlightened to see both sin and the Saviour; now is it easy to open the eye of the blind? who can do it, but he whom Augustine calleth totus oculus all eye? When Jesus gave sight to one that was born blind, the Jews themselves could not but acknowledge him a worker of miracles, John 9.6.16. What then will the scattering the mists of ignorance, and dispersing the clouds of darkness which gather and thicken about our understandings by nature, speak the sun of righteousness to be! Eph. 5.8. Thy heart also must be throughly humbled; stone must be turned into flesh. And O 'tis not easy to melt such hard metal, when thy heart naturally is like clay hardened both by the Sunshine ⟨p. 112⟩of mercies, and fire of judgement, that no change of weather can make that stone to weep. Ezek 36.26.

Thy mind must be enlightened to see both sin and the Saviour; now is it easie to open the eye of the blind? who can do it, but he whom Augustine calleth totus oculus all eye? When Jesus gave sight to one that was born blind, the Jews themselves could not but acknowledge him a worker of miracles, John 9.6.16. What then will the scattering the mists of ignorance, and dispersing the clouds of darkness which gather and thicken about our understandings by nature, speak the sun of righteousness to be!