N00526:92
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.
AWAKENINGS FOR THE UNREGENERATE. › Proposition 2: The Second PROPOSITION.
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.
Again, You have a Time, and it is a Fit Time. I may say to you, Arise, the Master calleth thee; and then I am sure, 'tis very unfit, that you should refuse or defer to come in at His Call! Shall that Lord of Lords, whom all the Angels in Heaven attend upon, wait the Leisure of a Despicable, a Refractory, a sinful Worm! In your own Distress, you cry, O Lord Hear, Defer not! Why then do you Defer, when you Hear of your Duty? I am to tell you, Old Age, and Sickness, are no Convenient Season, for a Regeneration to be put off unto; tho' of That you Dream, when you procrastinate until, A more convenient Season.
Yet again, You have a Time, and it is Short Time. Talk you of, To morrow? But Wisdom says, Boast not of To morrow, for thou knowest not, what a Day may bring forth. If you become not Regenerate in This Life, you will never be so at all; but what is This Life? 'Tis a Vapour; aye, and a Vapour is enough to carry it away. The Salvation work now pressed upon you, is that whereof it may be, and has been said, O Do it with thy Might, for there is none of this work to be done in the Grave, whither thou art Going. Going did we say? ⟨p. 69⟩Yea, Running, yea, Flying, every minute. ETERNITY, Eternity is just going to fasten its Iron Teeth upon you; it won't, it can't be long, before all the Opportunities of Regeneration will be at an end.
And yet again; You have a Time, but it is an Only Time. God has not Entrusted you, with so much as one Moment; if you do not now this Moment become Regenerate, it is possible that you may not have another; it is less probable that you will in another. Stay but a little more, Delay a little more, Dally a little more, cry, A little more Slumber! and you'll be gone where, O Lord, They cannot Hope for thy Truth! But if once you are gone down, into the Floods of ardent Sulphur, then, ye Foolish Ones, 'twill avail nothing to cry, Lord, Lord, Open yet the Door of Regeneration for us! To cry, Lord, Lord, One Sermon more! To cry, Lord, Lord, One Sabbath more! To beg with Tears of Blood, Lord, One Season of Grace more! will be of no Avail at all.