N00526:208
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.
Yet more particularly,
First, A Resisting of the Holy Spirit, will provoke Him to leave us unto a Penal Blindness of Mind. It was the heavy vengeance of God, upon some in Isa. 44.18. He hath shut their eyes, they cannot see. The Spirit of God may so leave us, upon Resistance, that no Heresy, no Blasphemy shall come amiss unto us, but we shall swallow down very damnable Delusions as the Oracles of God. Perhaps all the Monsters of Quakerism or of Popery, or any other Disguised Paganism, shall Recommend themselves unto us, as the most beautiful Mysteries of Godliness.
Secondly, A Resisting of the Holy Spirit, will provoke Him to leave us unto a Penal Hardness of Heart. As it was of old said in Exod. 10.27. The Lord hardened the Heart of Pharaoh; Upon Resistance the Spirit of God will so leave us, that nothing shall melt us, nothing shall fright us, no calls, no cries, no counsels will cause us to turn from our Evil Ways; our hearts will be like the Nether ⟨p. 155⟩Millstone before the Lord; we shall now lay nothing to Heart, and there will be a seared Conscience in us: a Conscience that shall seldom, if ever sting us, for our sinful Omissions, or Commissions, or for any of our Doings against the Lord. Once more,
Secondly, A Resisting of the Holy Spirit, will provoke Him to leave us unto a Paenal Hardness of Heart. As it was of old said in Exod. 10.27. The Lord hardened the Heart of Pharoah; Upon Resistance the Spirit of God will so leave us, that nothing shall melt us, nothing shall fright us, no calls, no crys, no counsels will cause us to turn from our Evil Ways; our hearts will be like the Nether