N00526:19
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.
In the Text which thus falls into our Hands, there is first, An Affirmation; a most Solemn and Awful Assertion delivered by Him that cannot Ly. It is, Except a man be Born again.] Some Read it, Born from Above. But for the Translation of this Clause, tho' not for the clear and full Signification of it, we may allow Nicodemus himself to be our Interpreter; to be, Born Again, is to be, Born a Second Time. The Name which the Jews did use to put upon a Proselyte, namely, Recens natus, or, A newly-Born Person, seems here transferred unto a further Intent and Purpose, by our Blessed Jesus. He cannot see the Kingdom of God.] The Vision here imports Enjoyment, also; as the like Phrase often occurri••, elsewhere makes it Evident; thus among the Latins too, Cernere Hereditatem, is to Enter upon an Inheritance. But mark seriously, the Universality of this thing, Except a Man] whatever Man he be, whether ⟨p. 5⟩Jew or Gentile, whether Mean or Noble, whether Simple or Learned; it is true, of any One, of every One, whoever that One shall be.
In the Text which thus falls into our Hands, there is first, An Affirmation; a most Solemn and Awful Assertion delivered by Him that cannot Ly. It is, Except a man be Born again.] Some Read it, Born from Above. But for the Translation of this Clause, tho' not for the clear and full Signification of it, we may allow Nicodemus himself to be our Interpreter; to be, Born Again, is to be, Born a Second Time. The Name which the Jews did use to put upon a Proselyte, namely, Recens natus, or, A newly-Born Person, seems here transferred unto a further Intent and Purpose, by our Blessed Jesus. He cannot see the Kingdom of God.] The Vision here imports Enjoyment, also; as the like Phrase often occurri••, elsewhere makes it Evident; thus among the Latines too, Cernere Hereditatem, is to Enter upon an Inheritance. But mark seriously, the Universality of this thing, Except a Man] whatever Man he be, whether ⟨p. 5⟩Jew or Gentile, whether Mean or Noble, whether Simple or Learned; it is true, of any One, of every One, whoever that One shall be.