in this sense that when they were in affliction they besought the Lord God and humbled themselves greatly before the God of their Fathers For this great Offendor could often say He could never be humbled enough Upon the 13 of August when he was arraigned at the Sessions in the Old-Baily he pleaded Guilty to the Indictments with very much shame confusion of face and sorrow of heart And on Friday the 15 of August he demeaned himself very humbly before the Bench heartily submitting to the Sentence of death that then passed upon him saying He had destroyed the Image of the Eternal GOD alluding as I verily believe to those words in Gen. 6. 9. For in the Image of God c. After his Sentence he was conveyed back to prison penitently acknowledging that he had neglected the good Word of God and therefore was the longer kept off through ignorance of the Gospel from closing with Christ Jesus But after a few dayes discourse with several Ministers and others who opened the Scriptures to him he began to understand through the Grace of God the Word of Grace And though he had many good Books brought to him by divers visiting Friends yet he chiefly looked into the holy Scriptures themselves and found very much advantage light and peace by these following passages out of the Old Testament viz. 2 Sam. 12. 9. Where Nathan spake sharply to David for despising the Commandment of the Lord to do evil in the sight of the Lord in killing Uriah the Hittite with the Sword vers 13. David said to Nathan I have sinned against the Lord and Nathan said to David The Lord also hath put away thy sin From hence he understood the readiness of God to forgive confessing repenting sinners though they are guilty of innocent blood Job 33. 27 28 He the Lord looketh upon men Oh that men would look after the Lord and if AN T say I have sinned and perverted that which was right and it profited me not he that is the Lord will deliver his Soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light Isa. 45. 18 19. I said not unto the seed of Jacob Seek ye me in vain Isa. 55. 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will ABUNDANTLY pardon The word abundantly he used to pronounce with an emphasis for he saw his eyes being now anointed with spiritual Eye salve that he had multiplied sins exceedingly and that he stood in absolute need of the Lords abundant multiplied pardons whereof he had good hope through this good word of Isaiah Ezek. 18. 23. Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die saith the Lord God and not that he should return from his wayes and live 30. Repent and turn your selves from all your transgressions So iniquity shall not be your ruine 31. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby ye have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will you die O house of Israel 32. For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dyeth wherefore turn your selves and live ye Ezek. 33. 11. Say unto them As I live saith the Lord here the poor Prisoner would note to his comfort that a repenting sinner had not onely the Word and Promise of God for forgiveness but the Oath of God to give such a sinner the greater assurance of pardon I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked but that the wicked turn from his wayes and live Turn ye turn ye see the importunity of God with poor sinners for the good of their souls from your evil wayes For why will ye die O house of Israel Micah 7. 18. was a place pleasant to his Soul Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage He retaineth not his anger for ever because he delighteth in mercy Vers. 19. He will turn again as one doth when his anger is gone he will have compassion upon us he will subdue our iniquities and thou wilt cast ALL their sins into the depth of the Sea Now I shall give you a short List of some New-Testament Texts whereby the Lord conveyed Counsel and Consolation to this doubting staggering poor Wretch Mat. 18. 11. For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost Joh. 3. 14 15 16. And as Moses lifted up the Serpent in the Wilderness even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life for God SO loved the WORLD that whosoever this word whosoever he spake with joy believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life Now saith Nathaniel Butler I am one to whom this word speaketh and therefore God gave the Lord Jesus Christ for my Soul I believe in him and therefore I trust to live eternally through him according to the gracious terms of the Gospel John 6. 37. And him that cometh to me I will in no wise here he would repeat and reiterate these words in NO WISE CAST OUT in NO WISE in NO WISE cast out 1 Tim. 1. 15. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief 1 Tim. 2. 5 6. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men the Man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time In hearing reading and conferring upon these and many more Scriptures he would often say to me and others These are good Scriptures brave Scriptures are they not brave Scriptures He would make very diligent and frequent search into his Soul concerning the sincerity of his Sorrow and would not easily believe that his Repentance was true or that he had right to the precious Promises of the Gospel But by much speaking to him by many good people that he would apply Christ and also by seeking unto God for a spirit of Faith for him he did begin to act a faith of recumbency and adherence being as he often said perswaded the Lord Jesus Christ was able to save to the uttermost and willing to save such as come unto God by him yet he could not come up to that full assurance of hope and confidence as he desired and we also desired heartily on his behalf Yet for some certain dayes before his suffering death it pleased the God of all Comfort to give him Joy and Consolation and sometimes strong consolation insomuch that he would at times express very great inward gladness which all that knew his former mournings were glad to see and glorified God for giving him the Joy of his Salvation for he was so satisfied concerning the favour and mercy of God towards him in Jesus Christ that he rather now desired Death then feared it as seeing death through Jesus Christ without
little sensible of what he had done Are you said he the person that committed the murther upon the maid at Ratcliff He said Yes O what think you of your condition What do you think will become of your precious Soul you have by this Sin not only brought your body to the Grave but your Soul to Hell without Gods Infinite mercy Were you not troubled for the Fact when you did it Not for the present Sir said he but soon after I was when I began to think with my self what I had done The next time he asked him whether he were sorry for the Fact He said wringing his hands and striking his breast with tears in his Eyes Yes Sir for it cuts me to the Heart to think that I should take away the Life of a poor innocent Creature and that is not all but for any thing I know I have sent her Soul to Hell O how can I think to appear before Gods Bar when she shall stand before me and say Lord this wretch took away my Life and gave me not the least space that I might turn to thee he gave me no warning at all Lord O then what will become of me Soon after the imprisonment of this Thomas Savage in Newgate upon the desire of one of his Friends Mr. R. F. and T. V. went to him in the Prison and had liberty with much readiness from the Keepers to discourse with him They asked him if he were the person that had murthered the Maid He answered that he was they did then open to him the hainous nature of that sin endeavouring to set it home upon his Conscience telling him of the express Law of God Thou shalt not Kill and the express threatnings That whosoever sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed They spake to him of the Law of the Land and the punishment of Death which would certainly be inflicted upon him that he had but a few Weeks more to live and then he would be Tryed and Condemned and Executed but they told him that the punishment of the temporal Death was but small in comparison with the punishment of Eternal Death in Hell which he had deserved and was exposed unto They told him that so soon as Death should make a separation between his Soul and body that his Soul must immediately appear before the dreadful Tribunal of the Sin-revenging God and there receive its final doom and be irreversibly sentenced to depart from the presence of the Lord into everlasting fire if he were found under the guilt of this or any other sin They asked him if he knew what Hell was telling him what a fearful thing it would be for him to fall into the hands of the living God how intolerable the immediate expressions of Gods Wrath would be upon his Soul what horrour and anguish he would there be filled withal and how he would be bound up in Chains of darkness until the Judgment of the great day and then told him of the glorious appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ to Judgment that Soul and Body should be then joyned together and condemned together and punished together with such exquisite torments as never entred into the Heart of man to conceive declaring the Extremity and the Eternity of the Torments of Hell which were the just demerit of his sins Then they asked him whether he had any hopes of escaping this dreadful punishment of Hell He answered that he had they enquired the grounds of his hopes He told them that he repented of his fault and hoped God would have mercy on his Soul They asked him whether he thought his Repentance could procure for him a Pardon He knew no other way They told him that God was just and his Justice must be satisfied and there was no way for him to do it but by undergoing the Eternal torments of Hell and did he know no way of satisfying God's Justice besides and pacifying his anger that was kindled against him No he knew not any And yet did he hope to be saved He answered Yes They enquired whether ever he had experience of a gracious change wrought in him Herein he could give no account and yet hoped to be saved They told him his hopes were unsound having no good foundation and he would find himself disappointed that it was not his Repentance his Tears and Prayers though he ought to use them as means that would save him if he fixed the Anchor of his hope upon them That if he hoped to be saved in the condition which for the present he was in he would certainly be damned that he must cast away all those groundless hopes he had conceived and endeavour to despair in himself that being pricked and pained at heart through the apprehensions of the wrath of God ready to fall upon him and seeing no possibility of flying and escaping if he looked only to himself he might cry out What shall I do to be saved and enquire after a Saviour And then they spake to him of the Lord Jesus Christ and the way of Salvation by him which before he was sottishly ignorant of as if he had been brought up in a Countrey of Infidels and not of Christians The words spoken to him by these two Ministers seemed to take little impression upon him whilest they were present yet after they were gone the Lord did begin to work and he did acknowledge to Mr. B. that two had been with him he knew not their names whose words were like arrows shot into his heart and he did wish he had those words in writing especially one expression of T. V. That he would not be in his condition for ten thousand Worlds did affect and so affright him that he said it made his hair stand on end Mr. Vincent Mr. Francklin Mr. Doolittle Mr. Janeway discoursed with him and he suffered very penitently and chearfully at Ratcliff near his Masters House We do not read of any more of all the drunkards and debauched persons that were Converted but those two Nathaniel Butler and Thomas Savage whom God gave true Repentance unto A Common Drunkard is the fittest man to make a debauched Health-drinker of they are so near akin to one another that there is little difference you can hardly know one from another and it is seldom seen that a Health is begun for his Majesty or his Highness the Duke of York till the Feasters are well entred in there Glasses of Wine first This I can Witness That one Evening this Winter two or three Drunken Companions met another drunken man in the street and did ask him if he would drink the Dukes Health He answered presently Yea I 'le drink any mans Health Is not the King and Duke much beholden to such for their Love that can shew it in no better way We are commanded and it s our duty to Fear God and to Honour the King and he that truly doth so will pray heartily to God to bless and
comes Wo to the Imposers of Healths which commonly happens to be some ordinary Fellow in the Company that hath nothing but that single Ceremony to commend his Love or Loyalty to the World who also having a tumor of Pride in him hath no way to overtop and command his Superiours but upon the advantage of the Laws of Drunkenness Moreover it is a Custom of Sinning only proper for those that are upon the design of Mortgaging their Senses for there is no sence in it or reason for it How can any man drink anothers Health Or by what new kind of Transubstantiation can his Health be converted into a glass of Liquor or if so what 's the man the better to have his health drank into my Body and then piss'd out again against the walls And why not Eat his Health rather than Drink it and so bring up a new fashion of Eating of Healths to subserve the Intemperances of the sin of Gluttony Sometimes it is expressed by drinking a health to the Confusion of c. and here 's Nonsence upon the neck of Nonsence which is perfect Foolery as patch upon patch is plain Beggery A health to the Confusion If they mean a Confusion to the health as I think they do why is it exprest quite contrary to what they mean unless it be to give us to understand that men that will begin a health are enter'd upon speaking of Nonsence and may be lookt on as half drunk already But laying all this aside they say all these are Modes and Ceremonies in drinking and their meaning is no more but only to pray for the Health and Prosperity of such and such Which is the reason they are at it in a posture of Prayer standing up standing bare sometimes kneeling upon their knees as Supplicants do to God Almighty But will any rational man think these men at Prayers Are these praying postures Did God ever command or his People ever apply to the Throne in this manner of Address Have men lived to this age and cannot yet distinguish between drinking intemperately and praying fervently as if to Pray were to Drink and to Drink were to Pray Worse than Pagan Idolatry to offer at the Throne of the Great God with a glass of Wine in our hand It may be praying to Bacchus but not to God Heaven must needs be shut against these Prayings And to what purpose is any mans health prayed for by such kind of Prayers so circumstanced as we are very sure that God will throw them back as dung in the faces of those that thus disorderly put them up What hast thou to do to take his Name in thy Mouth when thou hatest to be reformed To see the Postures of Health-drinkers singing and roaring hollowing and carousing and Huzzaing after a new fashion sometimes quarrelling and challenging and duelling can any man that hath not his Wits in his Pocket think these men at Prayers Now because we find by Experience and from the Nature of the thing that these prodigious kind of Offenders we now speak of are under no likelihood to be perswaded out of their cursed way by Arguments drawn from the Love of Christ or Hope of Glory which are things they do n't trouble their heads about or fear of Hell let them alone till that day The Author of these Collections hath very well and to good purpose gather'd up together out of several Authors several Instances of the Judgments of God taking these Sinners in the very fact and tacking them up as dreadful Instances and Examples of his great Abomination of and declared Vengeance against this sort of Sinners more specially that reading these Histories we may prevent being made a History our selves And though they are but Collections I do n't know why a good dish may not be twice set upon the Table There are several late Instances of Gods Vengeance upon Drunkards thundred down upon the heads of many of them in our Age the publication of which is forborn out of a tender respect to their Relations yet surviving The next Generation will be able to set forth remarkable Stroaks from Heaven upon some and no mean ones neither But least I transgress the bounds of a Preface no more kind Reader but my love to thy Soul remembred with my earnest Prayer to God for the Health of Sion and all that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity Farewell A COLLECTION Of Some part of A SERMON Long since Preached by Mr. SAMUEL WARD of IPSWICH Entituled A Wo to Drunkards He lived in the dayes of Famous King JAMES and was like Righteous Lot whose Soul was vexed with the wicked Conversation of the Sodomites He published divers other good Sermons His Text was in PROV XXIII Vers. 29 32. To whom is Woe to whom is Sorrow to whom is Strife c In the end it will bite like a Serpent and sting like a Cockatrice He begins thus SEer art thou also blind Watchman art thou also drunk or asleep Or hath a Spirit of slumber put out thine Eyes Up to thy Watch-Tower what descriest thou Ah Lord what end or number is there of the Vanities which mine Eyes are weary of beholding But what seest thou I see men walking like the tops of trees shaken with the wind like Masts of Ships reeling on the tempestuous Seas Drunkenness I mean that hatefull Night-bird which was wont to wait for the Twilight to seek Nooks and Corners to avoid the howling and wonderment of Boyes and Girles Now as if it were some Eaglet to dare the Sun-light to fly abroad at high Noon in every Street in open Markets and Fairs without fear or shame without controul or punishment to the disgrace of the Nation the out-facing of Magistracy and Ministry the utter undoing without timely prevention of Health and Wealth Piety and Vertue Town and Countrey Church and Common-wealth And doest thou like a dumb Dog hold thy peace at these things dost thou with Solomon's Sluggard fold thine hands in thy Bosom and give thy self to ease and drowsiness while the envious man causeth the noisomest and basest of Weeds to over-run the choicest Eden of God Up and Arise lift up thy Voice spare not and cry aloud What shall I cry Cry Woe and Woe again unto the Crown of Pride the Drunkards of Ephraim Take up a Parable and tell them how it stingeth like the Cockatrice declare unto them the deadly poyson of this odious Sin Shew them also the Soveraign Antidote and Cure of it in the Cup that was drunk off by Him that was able to overcome it Cause them to behold the brazen Serpent and be healed And what though some of these deaf Adders will not be charmed nor cured yea though few or none of this swinish Herd of habitual Drunkards accustomed to wallow in their mire yea deeply and irrecoverably plunged by legions of Devils into the dead Sea of their filthiness what if not one of them will be washed and made clean