N00526:202
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.
Proposition IV.
This Resisting of the Holy Spirit, is that which confirms men in their impenitent unbelief. And this there is too doleful Reason for.
The Reason of it is, in short thus much; The Resisting of the Holy Spirit proves the withdrawing of that Spirit: He says in Gen: 6:3. My Spirit shall not always strive; And if the Spirit shall cease to strive, the Sinner will never begin to turn. The Rule, the Old Rule, about the Evil Spirit, is too sadly verified in the motions of the Holy Spirit, if you Resist him he will Flee from you. The Dove will not care to tarr•, where no good entertainment is ever like to be afforded Him. Indeed the Power of the Holy Spirit, gives no bar to his converting of them, who may be Resisting of Him; He can if he will proceed and conquer the most obdurate Resistance in the World; He can cause the most obdurate Resistance to give way before Almighty Arm. But it is the Justice of the Holy Spirit that Countenances this order of things; when Men Resist the Spirit of God it is but just with him to desert them. It is but just if men resist him, that he should resolve concerning them, I will ease me of those ⟨p. 152⟩my Enemies, and avenge me of those my Adversaries! It was their woeful experience long ago, in Isa: 63:10. They rebelled and vexed his Holy Spirit, therefore He was turned to be their Enemy. The Holy Spirit becomes a terrible Enemy to them that will always resist him; and alas, now their Conversion is to be despaired of. Without the Efficacy of the Holy Spirit, no Conversion is to be hoped for; but when He is long Resisted, he withholds that Efficacy, and instead of Conversion there now ensues a nothing but a deplorable and Everlasting Confusion in the Soul.