A True ACCOUNT of the BEHAVIOUR, CONFESSION, AND Last Dying SPEECHES Of the 8 Criminals that were Executed at TYBURN , On Friday the 18th of September, 1691 .

ON the Lord's Day, in the Forenoon, was preached a Sermon on this Text, Proverbs the 14th and the 9th ver. Fools make a mock at Sin. The Conclusion of the Discourse was thus directed to the Condemned.

And no doubt but the Opinion of you Condemned Persons concerning sin are now altered; no doubt but you account your former making a mock at sin folly, now that you suffer by it, now that you experience its evil and bitter Effects: Now you who in time of prosperity have set at nought wholsom Counsels, and would have none of Reclaiming Reproof; who have laught at all Vertuous living, and made a mock at the Professors of the same, cannot but be afraid lest God should laugh at your Calamity, and mock when your fear cometh; lest you, having refused to hear God's Calls, by his Word and by his Spirit, by his Afflictive Providences and by his Ministers, should in this your Distress, have him refuse to hear your Calls when you cry unto him for Mercy and Forgiveness, should refuse to be found by you, when you seek him earnestly with Tears and Supplications.

O Repent then your wicked folly in having made a Mock at sin, while such your folly is Retrievable, while the Door of God's Grace and Salvation stands yet open unto you; while you have Time, while you have Ability, while you have Will and Inclination to Repent and be converted: O reject not your own everlasting Mercies; pursue not sin to your endless Destruction; let not this my Exhortation become fruitless, let it not hereafter rise up in Judgment against you, through your impenitent obstinacy: seise Heaven by the sincerity and zeal of your Contrition, by the violent and devout importunity of your Prayers, by stedfastness and integrity of your good Resolutions; is God willing to receive you, and are you backward to return unto him? One would think the only doubt should be, whether after such long and often repeated Provocations as you have been Guilty of, God should at last be willing to admit ye into his favour; but since the Obstacles lies not in him, let it not, I beseech you, lie in your selves; in your impenitency and irreclaimableness, God has promised, That whensoever the Wicked Man turns away from his wickedness, and doth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his Soul alive. O plead, plead earnestly this his Promise in Prayer; say unto him, O thou who desireth not the Death of a sinner, have have Mercy upon us; perform but the Conditions of that Promise, Faith, Repentance and new Obedience, and then doubt not, God will be as good as his Word unto you: though you are late Penitents, yet be but compleat and hearty ones, and your late Conversion shall be accepted; become but capable of Divine Mercy, and assuredly you shall obtain it.

Your day of Grace and Salvation is but short, O make amends for its shortness, by your greater diligence and industry in Religious concerns for the time remaining; in the other Life there is no amending what was left imperfect in the Work of your Conversions, at your departures hence; and therfore see that you make your Callings and Elections sure: you work for an Eternity of Happiness, O therefore improve to the utmost your present time; double and treble your Religious Industry, cry mightily to God in Prayer; claim his Gracious Invitations and Promises made to Returning Sinners; invoke urgently his Mercy and Forgiveness; rely wholly on his Infinite Goodness, and his Son's All-sufficient Merits; comply with the Holy Motion of his Spirit; make use of his Grace offered, and implore larger Measures thereof; beseech him to sanctifie this your bodily Distresses, to the saving of your Souls in the day of our Lord; be more solicitous for the securing your Eternal, than your Temporal Pardons; be continual in Good Reading, in Meditation, in Prayer, in calling your past ways to remembrance, in abhoring and grieving for your sins, as much as formerly you delighted in them: The Joys above will amply recompense all your Penitential Sorrows here below; a time of Refreshment will come to all true Converts from the presence of their God: Prepare incessantly for your latter Ends and for an happy Eternity; Exhort and Assist those in the same Condemnation with your selves, unto the alike pious Exercises; and as by your evil Examples you have led many into the same Wicked Performances which you have practiced, so now by your free Confessions, deep Humiliations, godly Sorrows, and sincere purposes of Amendment, see that you endeavour to recover others from the Errors of their ways, to a sound Repentant Mind, and to a Vertuous Conversation; so shall you cause Joy both in Heaven and Earth at such your unfeigned Conversions.

In the Afternoon the Ordinary preacht on this Text, viz. John the 5th Chap. and 40th Verse, You will not come unto me, that ye may have Life. The Conclusion of the Discouse was thus directed to the Condemned.

You have heard that Spiritual and Eternal Life, with all the degrees of it, are centured and secured abundantly in Christ; yet what a wretched contumatious laziness hath possest your Hearts, that you have not put forth the least Moral endeavours in the lowest degrees of coming toward Christ? Instead of cherishing the Solicitations of God's Spirit, and the Convictions of Conscience, in order to the implanting of Saving Faith, you have despised and opposed the great Salvation of the Gospel, and herein have judged your selves unworthy of Eternal Life: you have forfeited your Natural Lives by your Crimes against the Laws, as if these were a trifle in Comparison of the short momentary pleasures of sin, &c.

I proceed to give an Acount of the Behaviour and Confessions of the Condemned Criminals.

I. James Bird< no role > , Condemned for the wilful Murthering of his Wife. He was sent by his Father to the University of Oxford, in order to prepare him for a Student at the Inns of Court , in Oxford he fell in Love with a Person of unequal Fortune and Married her; for which he incurred his Fathers Displeasure. Notwithstanding, he did not Reform his Irregular course of living. I prayed with him before his Tryal, and advised him not to be secure, and that if he grew careless to provide for a future happy State, his Death would be the more terrible, and himself inexcusable, for not making his Peace with God, upon a sincere Repentance. He reply'd, That he had been a very great sinner, and that God did justly withdraw his preventing restraining Grace, because he had abused that Talent of Knowledge wherewith he was intrusted, to the committing of many excesses in sinning; yet that he was Innocent as to the Murdering of his Wife. I urged upon him most of those Probabilities which