mercy but only in the Free Grace of God by the Application of the Blood of Jesus my dearest and only Saviour to my poor sinful Soul my Distresses have been exceeding great as to my eternal State but through the infinite Goodness of God tho I have many sins to answer for yet I hope and trust as to my particular that Christ came for this very end and purpose to relieve the Oppressed and to be a Physitian to the sick I come unto thee O blessed Jesus refuse me not but wash me in thine own Blood and then present me to thy Father as righteous What tho my sins be as Crimson and of a Scarlet dye yet thou canst make them as white as Snow I see nothing in my self but what must utterly ruine and condemn me I cannot answer for one action of my whole Life but I cast my self wholly upon thee who art the Fountain of Mercy in whom God is reconciling himself to the World the greatest of Sins and Sinners may find an All-sufficiency in thy Blood to cleanse them from all sin O dearest Father of Mercy look upon me as righteous in and through the imputed righteousness of thy Son he hath payed the debt by his own offering up himself for sin and in that thy Justice is satisfied and thy Mercy is magnified Grant me thy love O dearest Father assist me and stand by me in the needful hour of Death give thy Angels charge over my poor Soul that the Evil One may not touch nor hurt it Defend me from his power deliver me from his rage and receive me into thine Eternal Kingdom in and through the alone Merits of my dearest Redeemer for whom I praise thee To whom with thy self and Holy Spirit be ascribed all Glory Honour Power Might and Dominion for ever and for ever Amen Dear Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Amen R. Nelthrope Newgate October 29. 1685. Mrs. Gaunt's Speech written the day before her Sufferings NOT knowing whether I should be suffer'd or able because of weaknesses that are upon me through my hard and close Imprisonment to speak at the place of Execution I writ these few lines to signifie That I am well reconciled to the way of my God towards me though it be in ways I looked not for and by terrible things yet in righteousness having given me Life he ought to have the disposing of it when and how he pleases to call for it and I desire to offer up my All to him it being but my reasonable Service and also the first Terms that Jesus Christ offers that he that will be his Disciple must forsake all and follow him and therefore let none think hard or be discouraged at what hath happened unto me for he doth nothing without cause in all he hath done unto us he being holy in all his wayes and righteous in all his works and 't is but my lot in common with poor desolate Sion at this day Neither do I find in my heart the least regret for what I have done in the service of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ in succouring and securing and of his poor Sufferers that have shewed favour to his righteous Cause which Cause though now it be fallen and trampled upon as if it had not been annointed yet it shall revive and God will plead it at another rate than ever he hath done yet and reckon with all its opposers and malitious haters and therefore let all that love and fear him not omit the least Duty that comes to hand or lies before them knowing that now it hath need of them and expects they shall serve him And I desire to bless his holy Name that he hath made me useful in my generation to the comfort and relief of many desolate ones and the blessing of those that are ready to perish has come upon me and being helpt to make the Heart of the Widdow to sing And I bless his holy Name that in all this together with what I was Charged with I can approve my Heart to him that I have done his Will though it does cross Man's Will and the Scriptures that satisfie me are Isa. 16. 4. Hide the Outcasts bewray not him that wandereth And Obad. 13 14. Thou shouldst not have given up those of his that did escape in the day of his distress But Man says you shall give them up or you shall dye for it now who to Obey Judge ye So that I have cause to rejoyce and be exceeding glad in that I suffer for righteousness sake and that I am accounted worthy to suffer for well doing and that God has accepted any service from me which has been done in sincerity though mixed with manifold infirmities which he hath been pleased for Christ's sake to cover and forgive And now as concerning my Fact as it is called alas it was but a little one and might well become a Prince to forgive but he that shews no Mercy shall find none And I may say of it in the language of Jonathan I did but tast a little honey and lo I must dye for it I did but relieve an unworthy poor distressed Family and so I must dye for it Well I desire in the Lamb-like Gospel spirit to forgive all that are concerned and to say Lord lay it not to their Charge but I fear he will not nay I believe when he comes to make inquisition for Blood it will be found at the door of the furious Judge who because I could not remember things through my dauntedness at Burden's Wife and Daughters vileness and my ignorance took advantage thereat and would not hear me when I had called to mind that which I am sure would have invalidated their evidence though he granted something of the same kind to another at that time yet denyed it unto me My Blood will also be found at the door of the unrighteous Jury who found me guilty upon the single Oath of an Out-lawed Man for there was none but his Oath about the Money who is no legal Witness though he be Pardoned his Outlawry not being recalled and also the Law requires two Witnesses in point of Life And then about my going with him to the place mentioned 't was by his own words before he was Outlawed for 't was two Months after his absconding and though in a Proclamation yet not High Treason as I have heard so that I am clearly Murdered by you And also bloody Mr. A. who has so unsatiably hunted after my Life and though it is no Profit to him through the ill will he bore me left no stone unturn'd as I have ground to believe 'till he brought it to this and shewed favour to Burton who ought to have dyed for his own fault and not bought his Life with mine and Capt. R. who is cruel and severe to all under my Circumstances and did at that time without all Mercy or Pity hasten my Sentence and held up my hand that it might be given
all which together with the great One of all by whose Power all these and a multitude more of Cruelties are done I do heartily and freely forgive as against me but as it it is done in an implacable mind against the Lord Christ and his righteous Cause and Followers I leave it to him who is the avenger of all such wrongs who will tread upon Princes as upon mortar and be terrible to the Kings of the Earth And know this also that though ye are seemingly fixt and because of the Power in your hand are writing out your Violence and dealing with a despiteful hand because of the old and new hatred by impoverishing and every way distressing of those you have got under you yet unless you can secure Jesus Christ and all his Holy Angels you shall never do your business nor your hands accomplish your Enterprizes for he will be upon you e're you are aware and therefore O that you would be wise instructed and learn is the desire of her that finds no Mercy from you Elizabeth Gaunt Such as it is you have it from her who hath done as she could and is sorry she can do no better hopes you will pity and consider weakness shortness and any thing that 's wanting And beggs that none may be weakened or troubled at my lowness of spirit for God designs to humble and abase us that he alone may be exalted in this day and I do hope he will appear in the needful time and it may be he reserves the best Wine 'till the last as he hath done for some before me None goeth a Warfare at his own Charges and the Spirit blows not only where but when it lists and it becomes me who have so often grieved and vext it quenched and resisted it to wait for and upon its motions and not to murmur but I may mourn though because through want of it I honour not my God nor his beloved Cause which I have so long loved and delighted to serve and repent of nothing about it but that I have valued it and him no better E. G. Mr. J. Hicks's last Speech 1685. I Suppose the Spectators here present may expect I should speak something before I leave this sanguinary Stage and passage through my bloody Sufferings by which my immortal Spirit will be speedily transported into an invisible and eternal World and I conclude that they have different Resentments hereof some resent them with much joy high exultation and triumph others with equal grief and sorrow that to the one I am a most pleasant spectacle that they behold me with high Complacency and Delight but to the other I am a mournful and unpleasant one and they behold me with no less pity and compassion Concerning the first I can say I freely and heartily forgive them and heartily Pray that God would most mercifully and graciously prevent their mourning through Misery not only here but eternally hereafter Concerniug the other I will say Weep for your own sins and for the sins of the Nation for the highest Rebellions that ever were committed against the great and eternal God lament bitterly for those sins that have been the meritorious Cause of the late terrible Judgment that which I fear will cause God to break in upon this Nation with an over-flowing deluge of Judgments which are far more tremendous and dreadful As for sympathizing with me in drinking this bitter Cup appointed for me I return you most humble and hearty thanks earnestly desiring God to come unto you and fill your Souls with all coelestial Comforts and spiritual Consolations Something I must say to purge and clear my self from a false Accusation laid to my Charge as that I was engaged with Coll. Blood in rescuing Coll. Mason near Boston when he was sent down with a Guard from London to York to be Tryed for High Treason and that I was the Man that killed the Barber of that City and that also I was with him when he stole the Crown Now as I am a dying Man and upon the very brink ' of a very stupendious Eternity the truth and reality whereof I firmly believe without any reservation or the least equivocation I do declare in the Presence of the all-seeing God that impartial Judge before whom in a very little time I must appear I never saw nor Conversed with Mr. Tho. Blood from 1656. till after he stole the Crown which was in 71 or 72. nor was ever engaged with him in any of his treasonable Plotts or Practices 'T is true I being involved in great trouble of another Nature of which I have given to the World a Narrative and which is notoriously known in the Countrey where I then lived by some that were Enemies to me for my Preaching I was perswaded to apply my self to Mr. Blood to procure by his Intercession his late majesty's gracious Favour accordingly he brought me into his Royal Presence while I was there his Majesty carried it with great Clemency without expressing one word of that which I am now charged with Mr. Blood continued with his Majesty a little longer than I did then he told me that he had granted me a Pardon which I did thankfully accept of knowing it would free me from all Penalties and Troubles that I was obnoxious to and were occasioned to me by my Non-conformity then engaging him to take out my Pardon he told me that he got it out with several others that had been engaged with him in several treasonable Designs and Actions at which I was troubled supposing it might be imputed to me thereby yet God knows I have often since reflected upon it with great regret and dissatisfaction if Mr. Blood did inform the late King to make himself the more considerable and to bring as many of his Party as he could to accept of their Pardons that he might be rendered utterly incapable of Plotting any further mischief against his Government or any other ways that I was engaged with him in any of his treasonable Attempts I now appeal to God as a dying Man concerning it that he hath done me an irreparable wrong I also in the same manner do declare that I was never engaged with any Party in Plotting or Designing or Contriving any Treason or Rebellion against the late King and particularly that I was altogether unconcerned in and unacquainted with that for which my Lord Russel and others suffer'd and as much a Stranger to any against the present King. And whereas it is reported of me that at Taunton I perswaded the late Duke of Monmouth to assume the Title of King I do once more solemnly declare that I saw not the said Duke nor had any Converse with him 'till he came to Shipton-Mallet which was thirteen days after he Landed and several days after he had been at Taunton And 't is as false that I rid too and fro in the West to stir up and perswade Men to go into his Army and rebell against
of Angels and the Spirits of Just men made perfect all fastned together with indissolvable and uninterrupted Chains of most pure Love and all continually wrapt up in and transported with the highest Admiration of Gods Love his infinite and incomprehensible excellencies and perfections singing Hallelujahs to him without ceasing and triumphing in his praise for ever and ever The Consideration also that I know so little of these sublime profound and divine misteries of the most glorious mystery of Salvation by Jesus Christ that I am so uncapable to fathom the depth of the Providences of God whose ways are in the Sea and whose paths are in the deep waters and whose footsteps are not known and particularly in the late stupendious and amazing one and that I am so ignorant of the Nature of Angels and Spirits with their Offices and Operations and of their high and glorious excellencies and that I am so little acquainted with the Nature of my own Soul as at present dwelling in and united to my Body and as disunited and separated from it how without corporeal Organs it shall most vivaciously and vigorously perform all its proper Functions and Offices and more than ever strongly and indefatigably serve the Lord Jesus most fervently and abundantly love him and delight in him every way much more obtain the supream and highest end of its Creation and being and this makes me much more willing to dye that I may have the knowledg hereof with innumerable other things that I am now either ignorant of or do but imperfectly know and so be made happy by a plenitude of fulness of enjoying intellectual Pleasures which are of all other most suitable sweet and satisfactory to immortal Souls And also I see that he that departs from Iniquity makes himself a prey and so many plunging themselves into the ways of Iniquity lest they should accounted odious and vile which makes them so much degenerate not only from Christianity but from Humanity it self as if they were scarce the excrement of either contemning even that most Noble Generous Heroick Spirit that dwelt in many Heathens who accounted it most honourable and glorious to contend for their Rights and Liberties yea to suffer Death and the worst of Deaths in Defence of the same and judge them accursed and most execrable in the World that do so and not only so but for their own profit and advantage have many of them inslaved their posterity by it and are most industrious and laborious most fierce and furious to destroy them whereby they are become as unnatural as Children that seek the ruine of their Parents that begot them and brought them forth or them that lay violent hands upon themselves dashing out their own Brains cutting their own Throats hanging and drawing themselves ripping up their own Bellies tearing out their own Bowels they being in diffirent sences Children and Members of that Body politick they design and attempt the Destruction of and when I know not how long the Duration and Continuance of these things shall be or a Conclusion or End by God shall be put thereto who by Divine and Unerring Wisdom governs the World why shall my Soul be unwilling to take it's flight into the unseen and eternal World where no sullied sordid or impious thing most incongruous and unbecoming Nature shall be seen and found and where I shall behold no narrow conclusive contracted Soul there habitually preferring their private before a publick good but all most unanimously and equally center in one common universal good and where the sighs and groans and cryes of the afflicted and persecuted shall be heard no more for ever I earnestly exhort all most highly to prize and value Time and diligently improve it for Eternity to be wise seriously and seasonably to consider of their latter End for by the Irrepealable and Irreversable Law of Heaven we must all dye yet we know not how where or when live with your Souls full of solicitude and care with a most deep concernedness and most diligent Industriousness whilst you have time and opportunity and the means of Grace Health and Strength make sure of these two great things viz. 1. What Merits for you a Right and Title to Eternal Life and Glory and the future unchangeable Blessedness as the Redeemers most precious Blood and Righteousness that thereby a real Application and Imputation may be unto you by sincere believing 2. That that which makes you qualified Subjects for it is the great work of Regeneration wrought in your Souls being renewed in the Spirit of your Minds the Divine Nature being imprest upon them repairing of the depraved Image of God in you that being transformed into his own likeness thereby in the World you may mind and savour more the things of the Spirit than the things of the Flesh Celestial and Heavenly more than Terrestial and Earthly Superiour more than Inferiour things And therewith have a Holy Life and Conversation conjoyned that results and springs from the same as Fruit from the Root and Acts from the Habits Let all in order thereto seriously consider these few Texts of sacred Scripture let them predominantly possess you let them be deeply and Indelibly Transcribed upon your Souls let them be assimulated thereunto and made the written Epistles the lively Pictures thereof Mat. 5. 8 20. Blessed be the pure in Heart for they shall see God. v. 20. For I say unto you except your Righoeousness exceed the Righteousness of Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven John 3. 3. Jesus answered and said unto him Verily verily I say unto thee except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God. 1 Cor. 6. 9 10 11. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God c. Gal. 5. 19 20 to 23. Now the works of the Flesh are manifest which are these Adultery c. Jam. 1. 18. Of his own Will hegat he us with the Word of Truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his Creatures 1 Pet. 1. 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant Mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Vers. 13. Wherefore gird up the loyns of your Minds c. Colos. 3. 1 2. If ye then be risen with Christ seek those things that are above set your affections on things above not c. Gal. 5. 24. And they that are Christs have Crucified the Flesh with the Affections and Lusts c. Eph. 2. 1. And you hath he quickned who were dead in trespasses and sins Rev. 20. 6. Blessed and Holy is he that hath part in the first Resurrection on such the second Death hath no Power Rom. 8. 1. There is therefore now no Condemnation c. 1 Pet. 1. 15. But as he that hath called you is holy so be ye c. V. 23. Being born again not