N00526:176
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.
(II.)
But, Awake, Awake, Ye secure Souls, that have no Assurance yet, of a Name Written in this Book of Life. It was reckoned, a lamentable plight, in Deut. 28.66. Thy Life shall hang in Doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear Day and Night, and shalt have none Assurance of thy Life. This, This is the portraiture of the Condition, wherein multitudes are perishing every Day. But, What meanest thou O Sleeper! Perhaps, Your Books of your Accounts, may show that you have a clear and a fair Estate: but what signifies all, if you have not a Name in the Book of Life? You may have Books, in your Studies, which may furnish you with the Knowledge of an Angel; ⟨p. 137⟩but again I say, what avails it, if you have not, a, Name in the Book of Life? 'Tis the first Question, in a famous Catechism, What is your Name? Yea, but Let men Catechise themselves, I pray, with another Question, which is, Where is your Name? I say, Is it in the Book of Life, or no? They are fast asleep indeed, whom the Fire, will not Awaken? Let me then break off, as I began; my Text, makes that Loud Cry, Fire, Fire! in the Ears of them that have not a Name, in the Book of God. Know it then, and be Assured of this; Till you have some Assurance of a Name written in the Book of Life, you have No Assurance of your Life. You have, No Assurance, that you shall not Go down into that Lake of Fire, where the Smoke of the Torment Ascends for ever and ever. You have No Assurance, that you shall not be shortly Doomed unto, Everlasting Fire with the Devil and his Angels. You have No Assurance that you shall not be Weltering under the Scalding Wrath of God, like the Fire of Lightning, preying upon you, in the Fiery Bottom of Hell, till the very Heavens be no more. Forlorn Souls, you know not but you are to Roar among the doleful Citizens of Sodom and Gomorrah for Ever. O Retire, and ponder with your ⟨p. 138⟩selves, What is like to be my Eternal Portion: and Let the Dread of that Fire, which all that are not found in the Book of Life shall be Cast into, cause you to be in Restless Agonies of Soul, till you have Attained some Assurance of a Name in that Book. I Entreat you to be, Persuaded knowing the Terror of the Lord; Or, At least, let the ETERNITY of the Fire, cause in you a due Terror of it. A person once having spent some time in Unlawful Games, could not sleep the Night following;