utterly ignorant of Religion, and absolute Strangers to Piety and Virtue, the Wretchedness of their State, and the Importance of the great Work they had to perform, was set before them in Terms most likely to affect them. Their dreadful Condition was represented to them, as they had forsaken the only Fountain of Happiness, and were Strangers to the Covenant of Promise, having no Hope, as they had liv'd entirely without God in the World.

I endeavoured to make them sensible of this their wretched and miserable State; and to consider, that as they had all their Lives neglected their Souls, and their future everlasting Good, it was highly necessary that they should redouble their Care and Diligence in improving the short Space of Time that was before them, to saving Ends and Purposes. And as the Image of God was destroyed in them, and they had liv'd all their Days in Enmity to God and Goodness, they were instructed to cry mightily to God, to be filled with a due Sense of the Evil of their past Courses, and that clean Hearts, and upright Spirits, might be renewed in them.

Samuel Badham< no role > This name instance is in set 1440. and John Foster< no role > , having been convicted of Murder, they had Admonitions suitable to their Cases. The Heinousness of their Crimes were represented to them, and they were made sensible, that their having destroy'd the Lives of their Fellow-Creatures, was an Offence for which no adequate Reparation was possible to be made by them. That it was a bold, presumptuous invading the Power and Authority of the Lord of Life, and the Author of all our Beings, whose Property alone it is to give Life, or to stop the Breath in our Nostrils. That God had expressed against such Offenders his highest Indignation, having declared, That the Bloody and Deceitful shall not live out half his Days; that whosoever sheddeth Man's Blood, by Man shall his Blood be shed; and that God himself will require it at the Hands of such Sinners against him, and their Fellow-Creatures.

It was further represented to them, that the Consequences of Murder were horrible and bitter, with regard to themselves even in this World; for though they should have escaped the Justice of Men, yet unless their Consciences were seared, and they under a judicial Hardness of Heart, they could never have expected to be free from that Anguish and Horror of Mind, which would have inseparably haunted them through all the Hours of their after Lives, and would likewise have dreadfully Embittered all their future Enjoyments.

After these Things were laid before them, and they seemingly affected with them, they were in the most serious Manner advised in this their Distress to fly for Refuge to the Hope set before us, to plead for Mercy at the Throne of Grace through the Blood of Jesus, which speaketh better Things than that of Abel, and to pray for that sincere Contrition and Repentance which God would not despise.