humble himself, and implore Mercy and Forgiveness, through the Merits of our Blessed Saviour who laid down his Life for Sinners; laying before him the Penitence of David, the Patience of Job, the humble and submissive Expressions of the Prodigal in his return; the Expression of the Penitent Goaler, and the dying words of the Thief upon the Cross; the sorrow of Mary Magdalen, and divers Recorded in Sacred writ, for true Penitents, and unfeigned Converts, assuring him that God, in the Name and for the sake of his beloved Son, our ever Blessed Saviour, is at all times willing to accept of those that repent, and turn from the evil of their ways, and that he will in no wise rejeect the humble, and those that are of a broken and contrite Spirit, admonishing him to try and examine himself, for the good and well-fare of his Immortal Soul, of more value than the whole World, and therefore ought to be highly prised above what he could think or imagine, not regarding what became of his Body, so that inestimable Jewel arrived safe at the Hea¦venly Canaan, and that a bare belief that Christ shed his precious Blood to save him was not sufficient, but that he must wholly cast himself upon him; counting himself altogether unworthy of any favour at the hands of the Al∣mighty, whom he many ways highly offended, but in and through the Merits of his Blessed Son, who shed his precious Blood to attone for the sins of man∣kind.
After these, and many the like pious Expressions, a worthy Divine proceeded to ask him how it fared with him, and how he found himself, as to his State in another World, requiring him to give him an Account what as∣surance or hope he had, &c. to which, with much meekness and humility he replyed, that at first, viz. Immediately after his Condemnation, he found great strugling within himself, and laboured under strange Temptations, his heart not being plyable as it ought, but that he had earnestly laboured to over∣come them, and reduce himself to a calm and plyable temper, fit to take the Impressions of saving Grace, but could not soon prevail; yet after much serious and fervent Prayer to Almighty God, to strengthen and enable him to resist and overcome the Tempter; he found the Tempest or strug∣ling in hir Soul allayed, and succeeded by a sedate calmness, which ever since continued to his great comfort; acknowledging that he had been a great sin∣ner, and that for his perseverance in many known sins, God had suffered him to fall under this affliction: Then being asked by the Reverend Divine, whether he used not Prayer and reading the Holy Scripture, he answered that the hurry of Business had of late made him somwhat remiss in those Holy Du∣tys, but that he was exceeding sorry for his neglect, beging pardon of God for such his neglect. After these and divers other sacred admonitions, they prayed with him, beseeching the Almighty to give him a true sense of his sins, and a heart sincerely to repent: That he would par∣don his former Transgressions, and have mercy upon his precious and immor∣tal Soul. When after some other necessary Exhortations and an Application of what had been urged, he left him in a calm temper of mind, altogether un∣shaken by fear of approaching Death, but rather expressing a kind of a joy, or a lacritie that God had made him sensible of his latter end, and given him knowledge of the certain Number of his days.
Robert Francis, of the Parish of St. Andrews Holbourn Indicted the same Sessions as the former; upon his Tryal was found Guilty of wilful Murther, for giving Thomas Dangerfield a Wound in the Eye, with a little stick on the 4th. of July, of which Wound he dyed in Newgate, on the 5th of the same Month, for which, receiving Sentence of Death on the 18th. and being returned to the Press-yard he began seriously to consider what he had done, becoming more Melancholly than ever, and as muh as stood with conveniency, retired from company, seriously reflecting upon his latter end, saying, what he had done was rashly,