The door of salvation opened by the key of regeneration

Now if thou wouldst be gathered to thy father in peace, examine and prove thy self; make sure that there be some good thing in thee towards the Lord thy God: O how sad will it be for thee, who art now asleep, to awake (like the Jailer) at the midnight of death, and to find thy evidences for the new birth (as he his prisoners in his own apprehension) missing! what an earthquake and heartquake will then possess thee! how pale and trembling wilt thou spring into the presence of God, in the other world for thy particular judgement! Ah, how sad will it be to err to mistake then, when an error can never, never be mended, when a mistake will prove soul murder, an everlasting miscarriage! O, 'tis bad for the vessel of thy soul to leak, to mistake in the shallow waters of life and time; but, O how sad will it be to be mistaken at an hour of death, and thereby to leak in the Ocean of Eternity! Speed in his Chronicles observeth, that in the days of Henry the eighth, Campius, the ⟨p. 142⟩Popes Legate came through the streets of London with twenty mules laden, to show his pomp; but as the triumph passed through Cheapside, the beasts stumbled, brake their collars, cast their coffers, and then the lids flying open, discovered his riches to be nothing but old shoes and boots, torn stockings, old iron, and tottered rags. I tell thee, Reader, though now thou mayst be wondered at for thy spiritual wealth; yet as soon as thou stumblest into the other world, 'twill be tried, 'twill be known whether they be real or imaginary riches.

Now if thou wouldst be gathered to thy father in peace, examine and prove thy self; make sure that there be some good thing in thee towards the Lord thy God: O how sad will it be for thee, who art now asleep, to awake (like the Jaylor) at the midnight of death, and to finde thy evidences for the new birth (as he his prisoners in his own apprehension) missing! what an earthquake and heartquake will then possess thee! how pale and trembling wilt thou spring into the presence of God, in the other world for thy particular judgement! Ah, how sad will it be to err to mistake then, when an error can never, never be mended, when a mistake will prove soul murther, an everlasting miscarriage! O, 'tis bad for the vessel of thy soul to leak, to mistake in the shallow waters of life and time; but, O how sad will it be to be mistaken at an hour of death, and thereby to leak in the Ocean of Eternity! Speed in his Chronicles observeth, that in the dayes of Henry the eighth, Campius, the ⟨p. 142⟩