Unum necessarium awakenings for the unregenerate. Or, The nature and necessity of regeneration. Handled…

I. In the first place then, Be very sensible of your own Inability to accomplish your own Regeneration. Lie humbly under the Awe of that Assertion, in Phil. 2.13. It is God, who Works in you, both to Will and to Do, of His own Good Pleasure. It is God, who not only gives us the Power of Turning ⟨p. 41⟩to Himself, but every Act of Turning also, must be of His production. Without such an Humiliation in your Souls, the Regeneration of your Souls, is utterly to be despaired. How apt will men be to put off all cares about their own Regeneration, if they imagine that they can always have within their own reach, The Things that accompany Salvation, or that they have a Key in their own Hands with which they can Unlock Heaven at their own Arbitrary Leisure? How unlikely will the Sovereign God also be, to bestow Regeneration upon those who do not own that Sovereignty, or do not feel that we are, Saved by Grace, through' Faith; and this not of our selves, 'tis the Gift of God? Indeed, the Natural and Essential Freedom of our Will, remains unto us; it wills freely, wherever it Wills at all: but alas, 'tis no better than, Free among the Dead: only Dead Works are grateful to the Will of the Unregenerate: his Will, as well as the rest of his whole Soul, is corrupted in him. Tis very true, that God Commands us to Return unto Himself; yea, there is both Infinite Justice and Infinite Wisdom, in his giving of that Command: there is Justice in it, because we Owe unto God our Maker all manner of Obedience, and tho' we in the Apostasy of our First Father, justly Imputed unto us, have sinned away our Ability to yield that Obedience, yet ⟨p. 42⟩Gods Right is not impaired by our Crime; there is Wisdom in it, because God Requires nothing of us, but what our Natural faculties were Originally suited unto; because […] have new such an occasion to be convinced of our own Impotency, as may fitly engage us to acknowledge the Help of God; and because the Calls which God gives us to Do what we Can't, are made proper Vehicles for his Divine Assistances to be therein conveyed unto them whose Names are in the Book of Life. But still, 'tis as true that we are of our selves utterly Unable to Return unto our God: and that He will not Look in mercy upon us, till He make us to be Sensible of our being thus unable.