Words whereby we may be saved. By Thomas Vincent, sometime minister of Maudlins milk-street,…

Direction 5. You must get a new Nature, if you would be saved: You must be made partakers of the Divine Nature, if you would be made partakers of this salvation: You have brought unholy and impure natures into the world with you, which must be changed and renewed after the Image of God, in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, before you can be in a state of salvation, and see the Kingdom ⟨p. 54⟩of God: This new nature, which is absolutely necessary unto salvation, is begun in the work of regeneration, and carried on in the work of sanctification: In regeneration the work of grace is begun, the habits of grace are infused; a new principle of spiritual life is put into the soul; and sin (which before lived, and had dominion over the man, employing all his members as instruments of unrighteousness, to make provision for the satisfaction of its affections and lusts) doth receive its deaths wound, and loseth its force and reigning power: In sanctification, the work of grace is carried on, the habits of grace are strengthened and increased; the new man doth grow, and the old man doth decline and decay; there is a vivification or quickening more and more of grace, by the influence of the Word and Spirit, and a mortification or subduing more and more of remaining iniquity. What our Saviour tells Nicodemus, Joh. 3. 3. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God: I may tell you, that unless ye be born again, unless ye be regenerated, ye cannot be saved, no possibility of entering into the Kingdom of Heaven, without you get this new nature: A man must be born the first time, before he can possess a temporal inheritance; and a man must be born again, before he can possess the eternal inheritance: You must be children, before you can be heirs, Rom. 8. 17. children not only by adoption, but also by regeneration: Ye must be Saints, before meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the Saints in light, Col. 1. 12. You must have the new nature, before you can enter into the New Jerusalem: You must be made like to God in holiness, before you can be admitted to live with God in the place of everlasting ⟨p. 55⟩happiness; God doth suffer the wicked that are unclean and unholy, to live before him in the Outhouse of the Earth; but he will not permit any except such as are sanctified to live with him in the Palace of Heaven.