The door of salvation opened by the key of regeneration

READER,

IN how happy a time dost thou live, when God sendeth so many, and so powerful Messengers, to call thee from the ways of sin and death! And how miserable and unexcusable wilt thou prove, if thou be after all this a stranger to the life of faith, of holiness! If nature had made thee a spiritual person, a child of God, and an heir of heaven, this Doctrine of ⟨image 12⟩Regeneration might then be received as strangely as it was by Nicodemus, and as neglectfully as it is by careless worldlings, and as disdainfully as it is by unbelieving and malignant enemies of the Holy Ghost. But sooner may you hope to find a new way into the world or a state of nature, besides the way of humane birth, then to find another way into the state of grace, and the Kingdom of Heaven, beside the New birth, by the Spirit. Nature proclaimeth its own vitiosity, to every diligent observer. He that is so carnal as not to observe it, in the crossness and rebellion of his soul against God, and the worlds captivity to self and flesh, one would think should yet be so rational as to observe it, in the confusion and inordinate behaviour of men to one another; While self is exalted against the good of friends and Neighbours, yea and against the common good, and that so uncurably as the wars and calamities of the Nations do signify. For whence come wars and fightings among men? come they not hence? even of their lusts that war in their members? Jam. 4.1. But the corrupted soul is so conform to the worlds corrupted state, that it is no wonder if he perceive no need of a Restorer, and so be in heart an Infidel upon that account; As a man born blind, may think the world hath no great need of the Sun, because his eyes are so conform to a state of darkness, that the night seemeth to ⟨image 12⟩him as good as the day. As all the creatures which we daily see, condemn the Atheist that denieth their Creator: So all the spots and blemishes of the creatures, especially the universal pravity of mankind, condemneth the Infidel, that seeing not Original sin and misery, denieth the necessity of a redeemer: And the holiness of renewed souls about him, doth further condemn him, that doth not acknowledge the sanctifier, who is the Cause.