Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A43687
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The last speech, of that pious and [lear]ned divine Mr. John Hicks who was executed at Glassenbury, Octob. 1685.
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Hickes, John, 1633-1685.
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1685
(1685)
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Wing H1880; ESTC R216814
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9,258
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11
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THE LAST SPEECH Of that Pious and â—…ned Divine Mr. JOHN HICKS Who was Executed at Glassenbury Octob. 1685. I Suppose the spectators here present expect I should speak something before I leave this sanguinary stage and passe through my bloudy sufferings by which my immortal spirit will be speedily transported into an invisible and eternal world And I conclude they have different resentments thereof that some resent them with much joy with high exaltations and triumphs others with equal griefe and sorrow that to the one I am a most pleasant spectale and they behold mee with high complacencye and delight that to the other I am a mouthfull and unpleasant one and that they behold me with no lesse pittye and compassion concerning the first I can say I freely forgive them and heartily pray that God most mercifully and gratiously will prevent their mourning through miserye not onely here but to eternity hereafter Concerning the other I will say weepe for your sins and for the sins of the Nation for the highest rebellions that ever were committed against the eternal God Lament bitterly for those sins that have been the meritorious cause of the late terrible judgment which I feare will provoke God to breake in upon this Nation with an inundation and overflowing deluge of judgments which are farr more tremendous and dreadfull and for sympathizeing with me in drinking this bitter cup appointed for mee I return you most humble and hearty thanks and earnstly desire God to flow into and fill your souls with all celestial and spiritual consolations Some thing I must say before I die to purge and clear my self from some false accusations layed to my charge as that I was ingaged with Capt. Bloud in rescueing of Capt. Mason when he was sent down from London to Yorke to be tryed for high treason that I was the man that kild the Barber of that Citty who travelled with them and also that I was with him when he stole the Crown Now as I am a dyeing man and upon the brinck of a stupendious eternity the reallity and truth whereof I firmely believe without any mentall reservation or the least equivocation I do declare in the presence of the all seing God that impartial judge before whom in a little time I must appeare that I never saw nor converst with Tho. Bloud from the yeare 1656. till after he had stolen the Crown which was in the year 1671 or there about in the yeare 1672. Nor was ever in the least ingaged with him in any of his treasonable plotts or practices 'T is true I being most injuriously wrongfully involved in greate troubles of another nature of which I have given an account to the world in a printed narrative and which is notoriously known in the country where then I lived by some which were grand enemies to me for my preaching I was perswaded to apply my self to Mr. Bloud to procure by his intercession his 〈◊〉 Maiesties grace and favour for me Accordingly he brought me into his Royal presence whilest I was in it his Majestie exprest himself with great clemency and mercy towards me without expressing one word of what I am charged with after Mr. Bloud came from his Majesty he continuing a little longer with him then I did he told me he had granted me my pardon which I did most thankfully accept knowing it would free me from all penalties and troubles I was obnoxious to which were occasioned by my nonconformity I then ingaging him to take out my pardon he told me he would put me into one with several others that had been ingaged with him in several treasonable designes and actions at which I was troubled fearing it might be imputed to me thereby though I did acquiesce therein for the present yet God knows I have often 〈◊〉 reflected upon it with great regret and dissatisfaction If Mr. Bloud did informe the late King for this end to make himself the more considerable he endeavouring to bring in as many of his party as he could to accept their pardon that they might be rendred utterly unable of Plotting any further mischief against his Person or Government or any other that was ingaged with him in any of his treasonable attempts I appeal to God in it he hath done me an irreparable wrong Also after the same manner do I declare that I was never the least ingaged with any party in plotting designing or contriving any treason or rebellion against the late King and particularly that I was altogether unconcerned and unacquainted with that for which the Lord Russel and others suffered and as much a Stranger to the last against the present King till it was ready to be put in Execution and whereas it was reported of me That at Tanton I perswaded the late Duke of Monmouth to assume the title of King I do as solemnly declare that I saw not the said Duke nor had any converse with him till he came to Shipton Mallet which was 13 days after he landed and several days after he had been at Tanton It is also false that I rode to and fro in the West to perswade men to go into his Army and rebell against his present Majesty for I was in the East Country when the Duke landed and from thence I went directly when he was at Shipton Mallet not one man accompanying me from thence thither As I have live so I dye owning and professing the true reformed Christian commonly called the Protestant Religion which is founded upon the pure written word of God onely which I acknowledge likewise to be comprehended in the thirty nine Articles of the Doctrine of the Church of England This Religion I have made a rational and free choise of and have heartly imbraced not onely as it protests against all Paganisme and the Mahometan Religion but against the corruption of the Christian especially in its essentials And I humble and earnestly pray unto God that by his infinite wisdom and almighty power he would prevent not only the utter extirpation but the least diminution thereof by the groweth and prevalency of what is contrary to it in the utter abhorrence whereof as I have lived so now I dye and for that end the Lord make the professors of it to live more up to its principles and rules and bring their hearts and conversations more under the Governing power of the same I dye also owning my Ministerial Nonconformisty for which I have suffered so much and which now doth obstruct the Kings grace and mercy to be manifested and extended to me for as I chose it not concerning which I now appeal to God as a dyeing man from sullennes or humour or a factious temper or from principles of Education or for secular interest or worldly advantage but purely from the dictates of my own conscience and as judging it to be the cause of God and to have more of divine truth in it then that which is contrary thereunto so
and fully cleansed from them there where at one vieuw far more shall be known of them then by all the wrangling debats and eager disputes or by reading all polemical bookes concerning them here I greately deplore and bewaile the greedy appetite and unsatiable thirst of some professing Protestants after the bloud of their Bretheren and the high pleasures they take in the effusion thereof but what will not men do when they are judicially blinded or their secular wordly interest so insensibly insinuates and windes it self into their Religion is so twisted and incorporated wiith animates and acts it is the life and soul the vital form and power of it and it is made wholy subservient and subordinate there unto I blesse God for all my sufferings and particularly for this last for the benefits and fruits of them by Gods sanctifing them to me hath been very great for thereby I have been made more effectually convinced of the vanity of this world and of my own sinfullness by nature and by practice and to see that to be sin which I never saw before to be more throwly humbled for what I knew to be sin not onely of commission but of omission also thereby I have also been brought to a more inward sense and feeling the absolute necessity of the righteousness of Christ to justifie me and he hath been made much more dear and pretious to my soul then ever he was before hereby my soul hath been refined from the drosse of sensuality and wrought into a more heavenly frame raised up to a higher pitch of spirituality and made more to aspire towards invisible immortal things thereby I am made more meek and humble and to judge more charitably of others that differ from me in opinion and judgement So that though by Gods most righteous judgments I have been apprehended most justly deservedly undergoe these sufferings for my sins yet I hope they have wrought for me a far more exceding eternal weight of glory fitting preparing me making me a better qualified person subject and far more meet to be partaker of the same Through the grace and strength of God I will not purchase my life by the death and bloud of my Protestant Bretheren but will chuse rather to dye then to be a betrayer of them The imperious and violent assault of this temptation I dreaded more then death it self blessed be God therefore that I was not exposed unto und conquered by it as some have sadly been I having such full bodily vigour and strenght and being in such perfect health that I know no quality notwithstanding my age predominant in me it hath made it much more difficalt to dye then if I had been clogged and cumbered with infirmity and made to bow and stoope under habitual prevailing diseases and distempers gradually worn out there with which many times makes men weary of life and to chuse death before it and this in conjunction with many things which I forbear to mention highly gratfull and pleasing unto sense which I must leave for ever strengthens heightens the difficulty and begets a greater regret and reluctancy in my will to have the earthly tabernacle of my body dissolved and my soul dislodged and quit the same But now when the black and glumy shades of death do overspread me I can say to the praise and glory of Gods most free and powerfull grace that faith in some measure changing the difficulties into a facility and easines of dying hath very much subdued the reluctance of my will against it for it makes future things present invisible things visible doth realize and substantiate the same unto me And as by it I penetrate and pase into eternity and behold immersible and immortal things so hereby blessed be God I have obtained a greater victory over sense the world is more crucified unto me and I unto it and al the most pleasant delightful things and comforts therein All finite fading creature comforts are become minute small despicable and contemptible to me in comparaison hereof being infinitely contained and comprehended therein shall my soull clasp and cling about these perishing things shall it cling and be glued to them shall it be confined and captivated unto what is kept within the narrow bounds of time and the lower world shall it earnestly desire and thirst after muddy stremes yea rivers of flesh pleasing good when by an eye of faith I can look into the in lesicient inexhaustable pure fountaine immense immeasurable Ocean of supream divine goodness hoping to drink there of To swim and bath my self for ever therein when I consider how long my ears have been bound up to hear innumerable and horrid Oathts curses blasphemies and my eyes to see the prophanation of so many days of God when I behold such an overflowing of floud of most prodigious impiety such an inundation of monstrous iniquity and so much of hell upon earth and that there is such a decay of holyzeal true piety and Christian Religion among the Professors of it it hath a powerfull influence on my soul to reconcile it more unto death and make me affectually and from choise to leave this visible World to dwell and take up my abode in that which is un seen and future for there shall be nothing but perfect purity and holiness a sinless state a serving of God with all unweariedness and perfection with highest complacency delight that mortal souls are capable of There is perfect peace and concord there are innumerable company of Angels the spirits of just men made perfect all fastned together with indissolvable interruptible chaines of most sweet and pure love and all continually wrapt up in and transported to the highest admiration of Gods love his infinite and comprehensible excellencys and perfections singing Hallelujah to him without ceasing and Triumphing in his praises for ever and ever The consideration also that I know so little of the sublime and profound divine misteries of the most glorious mistery of Salvation by Jesus Christ and that I am so uncapable of to fathome the depth of the providence of God whose ways are in the sea and his paths in the deep waters and whose foot steps are unknown and particularly of the late most stupendious and amazing one And that I am so ignorant of the nature of Angels and Spirits with their offices operations of the high glorious excellency appropriate and peculiar to that order that I am so little acquainted with the nature of my own soul as at present dwelling with and united to my body and as disunited and separated from it how with out corporel organs it shall vivaciously vigourously performes all its proper functions and offices more strongly indefatigably serve the Lord more fervently and abundantly delight in him every way attain the suprerm end of its creation and being This makes me much more willing to dye that I