A True ACCOUNT Of the Behaviour, Execution And Last DYING SPEECHES, of Thomas Kelsey< no role > , Executed before Newgate on Friday the thirteenth of June, 1690 .

John Low< no role > , Jonathan Hawks< no role > , and Thomas Effoll< no role > , who were Executed at Tyburn on Friday the Twentieth of the same Instant .

ON the Lord's Day the Ordinary preached on this Text, viz. The Fifth Verse of the Eighth Chapter of Jermiah, Shall they fall and not arise? Shall they turn away and not return?

Whence it was Observed, That Sin is a most deadly fall, by wounding the Integrity and Peace of the Conscience, occasioned by remitting the watchfulness and tenderness of it.

Secondly, Direction were given to such who are thus fallen to rise again by Repentance, That they ought to be duly and deeply sensible of their Offences against God. His Rebukes are intended that Dying Persons should be Zealous and Repent; yet many persist under the love and dominion of their Lusts, till they be swallowed up by the Second Death, in a total separation from the God of Grace and Eternal Blessedness. Thus is the Soul-deceiving and Heart-hardening Nature of Sin, that it hides the necessity of Repentance from our Eyes, though it be the only remedy to Antidote against the spreading and deadly Infection of Sinning. We ought to be taken up in the exercise of it with the most serious consideration of the Soul; yet how many count present Repentance the burthen of Youth, the shame of vigorous Sinners, and the quality of Self-condemning Fools. But such who forget God in Wealth and Prosperity, cannot rationally expect that a few Sighs and Tears, and the Expiring Breath of a faint Lord have mercy on me, should safely waft a false hearted Sinner unto the Haven of Celestial Rest.

Here the Ordinary observed, That Sin is the Revolting of a proud heart from God. The very first Step we take into the World, is naturally a going astray from the Equity and Purity of his Ways. A trifling with God in this duty of Repentance, provokes him and hardens the Sinner by presumption: all our Returnings are but wandrings till we come Home throughly to the Lord, to delight in the Holiness of his Nature, and the Equitable strictness of his Laws. A Man may be exercised in religious Duties, and yet his heart secretly depart from God, because it kept not in him as the Centre of all these plausible Motions.

The sincere turning to God, is to be restless till we enjoy his Favour, though all Judgments be removed; therefore fear a deceitful Conversion, as much as a state of Profaneness: Thou canst not lay hold on God as everlasting Blessedness, if thy heart be unsound in the work of Conversion.

Here were laid down Rules and Directions of turning sincerely to the Lord. Let not your penal effects of Sin only, drag you from it; but let Gods infinite Excellencies attract and draw your love to him. Have neither slight nor hard thoughts of God, as if he were an inexorable Judge: He will not take Advantages of you by your own Confessions and Self-impleadings: Stick not in the preparative work of Conviction or Godly sorrow, but turn to the Lord with your whole heart, so shall you lift up your faces to him without spot, without shame and confusion in your Souls. If you rise from Sin by sincere Repentance, there shall arise or spring up to you the light of Comfort and Safety: In the extremest darkness of Affliction death is counted the King of Terrours, but a Soul reconciled to God in Christ, may triumph in the midst of bodily Tortures, because it shall never fall into the Pangs of Eternal Death, which is a Total and Eternal Separation of Soul and Body from the Bliss-making Vision, and Enjoyment of the God of Glory.

The Ordinary visited them on Munday, and after that he had prayed with them, inquired what penitential Impressions were made upon their hearts by either or both of the Sermons on the Lord's Day: The Afternoons Sermon was on the Fourth Verse of the Ninth Chapter of St. John's Gospel, Viz. The night comes, wherein no man can work; an account of which Discourse would be too long to insert in this half sheet. Then the Ordinary proceeded in acquainting them with the necessary indispensible qualifications for Eternal Blessedness: He also stated the distinct yet inseparable Operations of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the changing of our corrupt Nature; yet affirming, That sinners must not lay all the stress of that divine work presumptuously on Free Grace, so as to neglect their Compliance with the sollicitations of the Holy Spirit. For though the Lord work both the Will and the Deed in the Conversion of a Sinner; yet the Lord is a free Agent, and will stop the Influences of his Grace, where Sinners turn it into Wantonness or Slothfulness. After stating the difference 'twixt True Faith and Repentance, from the Counterfeit Resemblances of them, they were desired to give some account of the frame of their hearts, and what hopes they had of a blessed Eternity; but this Soul-searching Inquiry made most of them very peevish, only some had more relenting then the rest, for the Warning of others.

First, Thomas Kelsey< no role > , about Twenty Years of Age, Born in St. Andrews Holbourn , put forth to be an Apprentice to a Weaver , but served only half of the time: He acknowledged that he died justly for the murthering Mr. Goodman one of the Turn-keys in Newgate, the manner of which I refer to the Book of his Tryal. He Confessed, That he had been guilty of most Sins, being drawn away by evil Company to prophane the Sabbath, which is an In-let to all Vice. He said that it grieved him, that after he had the King's sparing mercy from a former Sentence of Condemnation, though he resolved then to amend his life, yet he joyned again with lewd Companions in the Prison: So that he said I am a sad and miserable Example of the hearts deceitfulness, as one whom Divine punishments have not driven from the love of my Lusts, nor yet Gods Mercies drawn me to a sincere Repentance. He also acknowledged a very great Sin he had long lived in the frequent Commission of, and but lately, since his distress in the Prison, been sensible of; yet though he did sometimes beg of God the pardon of it, and power against it, he did but faintly resist it: And that he returned to the commission of it, because he resolved against it in his own strength; yet, said he, since this last Crime of Murther, for which I knew I should certainly die, I laid my self prostrate at God's foot of Justice, to consider my deplorable condition, and have tryed my self, by the Law of God, how contrary my Conversation hath been to his strict and holy Will, I am now grieved at my very heart, that I have not made better use of my time since my former Condemnation. Oh how have I aggravated my sinfulness; yet I hope that I now hate sin, because I am troubled to see others sin, and that my sorrow now is more for offending God, than that I must undergo the shame of a publick death.

He told me he was grieved that he could not shed Tears for his sins. I replied, That true Repentance consists more in the sincere Contrition of the Soul, than in outward Expressions of pensiveness: And that our very Tears for sin, are polluted as having need of cleansing in the meritorious bloudshed of Christ's Passion, whereby that love of all sin is mortified and subdued. He replied, That he begs the Spirit of God to work his heart more to the loathing and killing of his sins.

He said, That his Conscience of late hath more smitten him for his evil Courses, and that he s troubled he hath not a heart to repent more, and turn to God in a greater measure.