the key-hole, saw him by his bed side upon his knees for a quarter of an hour, and as soon as he came in, with a smiling countenance brake out to him into the like fore-named expressions, what a sweet night he had enjoyed, &c. and adding, "if I had been in a slumber it might have been a deceit, but I was full waking as now" he seemed to be in such a rapture that his servant, as he told me, was astonished at it, expecting then to have found him most disconsolate. After this we fell into many heavenly discourses concerning the state of the soul separated from the body; the translation of it out of this world; the happiness of heaven, by what we shall be rid of, by what we shall be perfected in; the company we shall be admitted into, not only to the spirits of just men, but to the society of glorious angels; concerning the beatifical vision in the fruition of God's presence, the sight of the blessed body of our Saviour; &c. in the thought of which he was much ravished, and fell into a long continued weeping from this ground, that he should have offended one that had prepared such inestimable things for him which he now thirsted to enjoy. Then he desired the prisoners of the castle might be called together to take his last leave of them, to whom (as he had done formerly) he would once more read some part of the morning service, which I was the more willing to, were it but to profess the faith and religion he died in before many witnesses, against the expected calumny of the adversaries, if any extraordinary good should appear in him at his last. The psalms he chose were such as are usually read at burials, the lesson the fifteenth of the first Epistle to the Corinthians; some prayers he selected out of the visitation of the sick, the two last prayers at the burial, with other passages in it and elsewhere; which, with some alterations and additions of his own, he turned very apt for himself, and so with the like advice he had given to others, took leave of them. And now, saith he, as God hath refreshed my soul I will a little refresh my body, the better to enable me to speak at the place of execution, which was to be about three hours after, and so called for a little salt butter and brown bread and the smallest beer, a very little of which he eat, as his last, cheerfully hoping at night to be invited to the Supper of the Lamb in another world, when he should need none of these things. When the time drew nigh, and he heard the noise of the people gathering, he told me, his heart began to quiver, and his natural affection with tears to yearn upon his children,which he was pleased still to find within him, considering that grace, though it be supernatural, yet doth not dry up the stream of nature. He complained that his former comfort did abate in the strength of it, but he trusted that God, in whose custody was the key of the spirit, whose act it is only to open and shut, had reserved it for him for that place and time where he should have most need. Yet not long after he recovered a great degree of cheerfulness again, repeating the last verse in the forty-second psalm, (which he had used to read often) and saying, now the sheriff should be a welcome messenger, and so continued. Some few things he had about him he then disposed of as tokens of remembrance to his friends; his gloves, staff, girdle, books, about seven or eight of some pious devotions, he gave and sent to divers with his name inscribed; and his last act after he was pinioned, was the giving me his seal ring off his finger, with such affectionate expressions, as it draws tears from me in the now, remembering it. More I night add, but thus much may suffice to declare his repentance, and the fruit of it in the castle before his execution. Now the sheriff of the county (a Papist) was come to receive him, the two sheriffs of the city with a great company of Halberts to assist him. At Christ-church (according to his desire) tolled his passing-bell: the whole town and castle so thronged as was never the like seen, that if there had not been a coach allowed him, it would have been impossible to have gone through. And here I must not forget the hard usage of the said sheriff of the county in some cross passages, which after all this his preparation might have proved a distraction to him, though it did not; his intentions I will not judge, yet whose instrument he was I may conceive. The night before, he had desired the favour he might not be pinioned till he came to the place of execution, for which I went myself betimes that morning to the Lord he expected now would beset him at Chief Justice of the King's Bench, once. We all kneeled down, but and Justice Cressey: both of them such a powerful excellent prayer did upon my relation of the change found I scarce ever hear, so that all both in him readily granted it, and sent wept and sobbed with him. And so that command by me to the sheriff, after some comfortable speeches to us, but he refused, and notwithstanding and hope that, once more before he would have him pinioned in his lodg- died, he should have a return of the ing. Again I sent one to the Inns, same measure of comfort he had enjoywho presently brought a command to ed the last night, the sheriff came in him under the Lord Chief Justice his again and received him. hand, with the consent of all the judges, then being at dinner; this also he disobeyed. For his pretence in the security of his person, one of the sheriffs of the city offered body for body, and assured him, that with such a guard and by sitting himself in the coach with him, there could be no danger of an escape. For himself (howsoever his friends thus stirred for him) he was contented, and long before the sheriff came, told me he was very sorry he had moved me in any such business, using this speech-"our Saviour carried his cross in the way, and why should I desire to be freed?" When he had pulled off his mourning gown he presented a strong black ribbon, which he had provided of purpose for the more decency, and in case it should not be thought strong enough a black girdle was offered or any other: the sheriff refused all, and had him bound with a three-penny cord as a common rogue, and would have had the hangman, or some other base fellow, come in and done it; nay, he would have had one to sit in the coach behind him, to have held him by the cord also, but that the constable of the castle would not suffer him. These things being very suspicious, if not apparent, to have been out of malice (either in regard of his religion, profession, or some private cause) I feared might have disturbed his charity, (as it enraged most of the standers by); but as soon as I put him in mind of some of his former discourses, that this might be the devil's temptation and interruption of him in a way unexpected, he apprehended it fully, and so told the sheriff that it moved him not, and that he looked further than him in it, prayed God to forgive him, and that for his part he did it heartily, and would pray for him before he left the chamber. The sheriff withdrawing, he desired us that were there to join with him once more in prayer to God, for his special assistance against all sorts of enemies, that In the coach rode with him one of the sheriffs of the city, the sub-sheriff' of the county, his own man, and myself. At his entrance he said, "This puts me in mind of Elijah's chariot he was carried to heaven in." When he saw the throng, saith he, "I am made a spectacle to men, but I hope to angels also, who are attending to receive my soul." The time he spent there in singing some consolatory parts of psalms, (one of which was the twenty-third), in private ejaculations, now and then, in speeches to us concerning the parting of the soul from the body, the carriage of it by the angels, the vanity of this world, that his care was near at an end, &c. And to feed his thoughts with such things as were seasonable, I read now and then some special comfortable passages which I had picked out of the psalms, which he would gloss upon to his own application. When he came upon the bridge, and through the curtains of the coach (for it was closed) he discerned the gallows with the people gathered, he said unto me, "There is my Mount Calvary, from whence I hope to ascend to heaven." When he came to the place of execution, there were two things which might have disturbed him, the one was a fellow got upon one end of the gallows deriding him, and interrupting him when he began to speak, whom he answered not, but patiently bore it and proceeded; the other, the breaking of his footman's head, (who had run by the coach side, and diligently pressed nigh to attend) by one of the sheriffs of the city unknown, by laying about him to make room, who when he saw him with the blood running down his face, he bemoaned him only, and desired me that he might be removed out of his sight; to which I might add a third, happening in the conclusion of all, as he was ready to go up, viz. one calling to him about some papers or leases, whom the very standers-by cried down as very unseasonable. All which I could easily think the common enemy might have a hand in to distract him. When there was a silence made, he stood up, and made a large and an elegant speech, for the matter he had indeed resolved upon, and advised with me about it, but the form he put to his present expressions there; I had, indeed, desired him to pen it, lest the sight of death might then distract him, but his answer was 66 He would put his trust in God, who, he hoped, would not fail him in that last act, and was confident death would not disturb him." To relate the speech itself, unless I could remember exactly his own expressions, would be but a wrong to him. His entrance was somewhat to this purpose, "Gentlemen, my first salutation to you is, God bless you, and God save you, and I desire you to pray the same for me; I am I think the first of my profession that ever came hither to this shameful end, and I pray God I may be the last: you are come hither to see a comedy turned into a tragedy, a miserable catastrophe of the life and actions of man in this world, &c." In summe. He acknowledged the justice of the law of man, as God's in condemning him, who, as he had not deserved so he desired not to live. He observed the special hand of God throughout the whole business, both in the witnesses, in the jury, in the judges, and in himself. I. In the witnesses and informers they were such as eat of his bread, came daily as friends to his table, some of them were at dinner with him the day before the complaint was put in against him in parlia ment. 2. The jury, howsoever he believed they were honest gentlemen, and went according to their consciences, yet the evidence was not so clear but they might have stuck at it; but he said it was digitus Dei, the justice of which he fully and solemnly acknowledged to a friend of his at that instant he heard the jury had returned him guilty, though he denied then (as he did now) the main thing in the indictment, which the law laid hold of, (and which hath been since confirmed by the confession of his chief accuser at his execution also), yet in his own conscience ap plauded and magnified God's justice in it, and so burnt a volume of papers which, with a great deal of pains, he had wrote out of law books in his own defence. 3. In the judges, of whom he said, though some were hot against him, he imputed it only to their zeal against vice which did deserve it, yet it could not sink into him that in law he could have been denied his council, that which he had pleaded in some errors in the indictment he conceived was reason, but God's hand was in it, and he most willingly submitted to it: all things in the end had turned to his good. 4. In the infatuating of himself; for his chief accuser, he said he could have sent into England and have had him indicted for a hand he had in a stealth there, easily in this time have outlawed him, and so his testimony had been void. For the jury, he could have excepted against twenty at least, and so howsoever have put it off till the next term, before which he might have had other thoughts; the foreman of the jury he knew was outlawed also, and these things he conceived he might have done lawfully in the pleading what he could for his life, yet omitted them; the cause (he said) was both the height of his spirit in scorning to stoop to such poor shifts and protractions, and the confidence he had there would be no need; he had trusted ever too much to his own wit and expressions, with which till now in any thing that ever he had attempted he had not miscarried, and that he should be so infatuated in this business, that so nearly concerned him, he took it to be God's hand evidently which he now not only patiently yielded to, but with thankfulness enbraced. And thus much he thought fit to speak concerning those things he was justly condemned for. He confessed there were divers other heinous sins he had committed, the declaring of which publicly would rather increase the scandal he had given than repair it, and therefore he thought it not requisite: for those, he said, he had recollected them between God and himself, and had heartily repented of them; that he had revealed them with a sorrowful spirit to me there present, to whom he had opened his whole life from his youth till now, (to use his own words) as to his ghostly father, without any extenuation or concealing, and had received comfort, and for which as God had given repentance so he trusted forgiveness, He acknowledged his neglect of public preaching, and catechising in the Church, private prayer in his family, for which sins of omission he was justly given over to the sins of commission, for the neglect of the conmandments of the first table let to fall into the breach of the second that he had come to the sacrament, and administered it with his sins upon him; his roving thoughts at divine service and sermon, with divers others, &c. And here he declared a very observable passage: not many years agone, he had a dangerous long sickness, when being sensible of the former neglect of his pastoral charge he made a solemn vow to God, that if he should recover again he would be diligent both in preaching and catechising every Sunday. After his recovery it so fell out, that the first time he went to Church with an intent to have begun, the judges of assize were at Waterford, and then a thought arose within him, that if he should now enter upon that practice which he had not used before, it would be imagined he did it for fear of them, and so deferring it that day never did it afterwards. Now soon after this, he observed, he grew worse than before, and so fell into those vices which had brought him to this shameful end, "I," saith he, "broke with God, and God withdrew his grace from me; I forsook him, and he left me to myself," which he applied to others of his profession in being warned by his example. Again, he had then also prayed, that if when he came to health he should start back from his vow, God would send some heavier judgment upon him than ever he had yet felt, that might subdue his stubborn disposition. Little did he then think of this particular, but now be verily believed it was the fruit of that wish and breach, and so gave God thanks for it, as the only means to bring him home. He confessed he had been guilty of much over-reaching of men, but if his estate might be continued to his wife, he had given charge for satisfaction to be made to a penny; took no tice of the justice of God upon him, who had formerly so thirsted after a name and fame; it was now given him, but a name of infamy which he desired might rest only upon himself, and not be imputed to his profession. He declared that he did heartily for give all those that had a hand in his prosecution, and that they should hear him presently pray for them. And in conclusion, asked me, if I could remember any thing else was fit for him to declare and he would do it; and at that instant, not calling to mind any more, he desired the people to pray for him and with him, that God would magnify his mercy in forgiving so great a sinner. Then reading three psalms very apt for himself, the thirty-eighth, forty-second, and fiftyfirst, he then desired them again to join with him in prayer, that God would give him a further assurance of the forgiveness of his sins by the inward comforts of his spirit, and assist him still against the fear of death in this his last act. We all knceled down with him, but it was such a moving prayer that never was I compassed so about with tears and sobs in my life, not bare weeping but gushing out of tears, which flowed from ali that heard him; so that the very Papists, and some priests which I saw, kneeled down and wept also. The sum of it was a confession and aggravation of his sins, a begging of mercy that his soul might be bathed in the blood of Christ, a sealing of it to his conscience by the comforts of his spirit, to forgive all that were his enemies in this business, and to give them repentance that had sinned with him, that his penitency might be a means to abate the scandal, that he might be assisted against the assaults of Satan, and weakness of his corrupt nature now in this last act of death; prayed for a blessing upon his Majesty and his dominions, for his wife and children, and so commended his soul to God with a confidence of a happy change presently, &c. After this he desired me to sing the hundred and sixteenth psalm throughout (which, for the peoples better joining with him, I read.) Not long after it was begun, he whispered one of his friends that stood by him, "O! pray for me that God do not withdraw his spirit at this instant," and presently the tears trickled down his cheeks, with the continuance of which I observed him afterwards to sing the psalm throughout, the subject of which being matter of praise and joy, it might possibly arise from such spiritual comforts as he had tasted the night before, and in his prayers had craved again, which appeared in his undauntedness of spirit, now entering into the jaws of death. When the psalm was done, he rose up and said, I think I saw the town clerk of Waterford here, if he be, or any other of that town, I shall desire them to commend me to my neighbours there; that I have taken notice that none of the Romish Church, though differ-, ing from me in points of religion, had a hand in this complaint against me, though they had as much cause as others, for which I conceive I owe them thanks. Another thing is concerning my burial: it is usual, indeed, for them of my profession to be buried in the Church, but I have given charge to the contrary, if they will bury me in the church-yard it is more then I have deserved; for my part I would be contented it were in the bottom of the sea, where I might never be remembered. "And now (saith he) I have done, only give me leave to be at some private prayers with myself, wherein I shall desire you in your thoughts to join with me, in praying God to assist me at this instant," and so kneeled down for a little space, as did the company near him also. When he arose, he said cheerfully, "Now I am ready," and took leave of all that were near him (whom he knew) man by man, taking them all by the hands, with such speeches as these, "I dread not death, God send us a happy meeting in heaven, I am but going before you." The whole company wept abundantly, and myself had most cause at his most affectionate expressions. Then he put off his mourning gown, hat, and black cap, and called to his man for his other cap and handkerchief. When he was setting foot on the ladder, he turned with a smiling countenance towards the sheriff of the county (who all this time of his prayer and singing of psalms had sat by on horseback with his hat on his head, giving no reverence at all), and said, Master Sheriff, will you not take leave of your friends when you shall never see them again? What? not one word from you all this while! God forgive you, and I do from my heart, that usage of yours, which might have distracted me but did not: I have prayed for you even now;" and so went up the ladder, who when he saw so many weeping, said again to them, "I thank God I dread not death," and that it proceeded not from a presumption, but from a present sensible apprehension of God's mercy, and an inward peace of conscience; and so with a cheerful countenance looking about him, and seeing some he knew, whom he had not seen before, bowed to them and bade them farewell, desired them still to pray for him as long as he had life. I had him fast by the hand when he was upon the ladder, and to my admiration, his hand shook no more than mine. When he was gone as high as was thought fitting, and the rope put about his neck, he pinned the handkerchief about his face with his own hands (the cords with moving his arms being loosed) and said to the hangman, honest friend, when thou art ready tell me, and I will tell thee when I am ready,” (to whom he then gave some little money he had about him), prayed the sheriff he might not be turned off till he spake again, and when he had pulled the cap over his face, he said, Lord now let thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared for me;" commended his soul to God, with divers the like expressions, and not long after said, "Now I am ready," and from that time continued crying, "Have mercy, have mercy, &c." till he was turned off. When he felt the ladder stirring he put down his hands and laid hold on the sides of his cassock, and so stirred them not to the last, though some of his friends catched him by the hands lest he should have lifted them up, but I believe it was needless. By this his penitential Christian carriage the hearts of his enemies were moved, such as hated him in his life now loved him at his death, and I believe these many years there hath not been any that left the world with so many tears and cries of the beholders. When he had hung some three quarters of an hour, he was cut down and put into the same coach he came in, into which I went myself, and rode with him to the house where he was received; which I did both to feed my thoughts 66 |