N00526:161
Unum necessarium awakenings for the unregenerate. Or, The nature and necessity of regeneration. Handled…
Unum necessarium awakenings for the unregenerate. Or, The nature and necessity of regeneration. Handled in a discourse designed for the service of any that may be thereby assisted in the grand concern of conversion unto God; but especially the rising generation. : With an addition of some other sermons relating to that important subject. / By Cotton Mather. ; [Five lines from Ezekiel]
Boston printed: printed by B.H. i.e for Duncan Campbell, 1693
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Yea, but that I may carry this matter a little further; what says the Prophet, in Isa 44.5. One shall say, I am the Lords, […] another shall subscribe with his hand unto […] Lord? There are some who Read it, […] shall give an hand-writing to be the Lords. It has been the Judgment and Advice of many Divines, That it would be a profitable Thing, for men to have the Covenant of Grace in a writing summarily laid before them, and for them with deep Resentments of Soul, to Sign it with their Hands as well as their Hearts, and to keep this Act forever by them, as a Perpetual Remembrancer ⟨p. 120⟩unto them, that they are the Lords. Tis not easy to make any objection, against our being thus Explicit, in doing that, which must at least Implicitly be done by all Godly men. If this now be discreetly, sincerely, thoroughly done, you may safely conclude, The Name that I have now written at the bottom of this Covenant, •is as undoubtedly written in the Book of Life, before God for ever. When a man has thus by a deed• of Gift made over himself unto the God that made him, the Deed is presently Recorded as it were in a Book of God; the man when he comes to Heaven, will find it there. There was a multitude of Devout Souls who came to that Resolution in Neh. 9.•8. We make a sure covenant and write it, and sign it. And presently you have the Names of them in the Book of God; even more than fourscore of them together. Do something equivalent unto this Transaction; and then, if in any Temptation, afterwards you are prone to suspect, whether you have a Name written in Gods Book, you may have Recourse to this evidence, for your Eternal Satisfaction. This Indenture of yours, I tell you, has its Counterpane, in the Book of Life!
Yea, but that I may carry this matter a little further; what says the Prophet, in Isa 44.5. One shall say, I am the Lords, 〈…〉 another shall subscribe with his hand unto 〈…〉 Lord? There are some who Read it, 〈…〉 shall give an hand-writing to be the Lords. It has been the Judgment and Advice of many Divines, That it would be a profitable Thing, for men to have the Covenant of Grace in a writing summarily laid before them, and for them with deep Resentments of Soul, to Sign it with their Hands as well as their Hearts, and to keep this Act forever by them, as a Perpetual Remembrancer