THE Ordinary of NEWGATE HIS ACCOUNT OF The Behaviour, Confessions, and Last Speeches of the Malefactors that were Executed at Tyburn on Saturday the 31st Day of January, 1712/1713 .

AT the Sessions held at Justice-Hall in the Old-Baily, on Friday the 16th , Saturday the 17th , and Monday the 19th of January 1713 , Six Persons, viz. Five Men and One Woman, being Try'd for, and found Guilty of several Capital Crimes, did accordingly receive Sentence of Death. Of these Persons Five were order'd for Execution; and the other has obtain'd the Mercy of a Reprieve; which I wish he may not abuse, as many before him have done, but take care (as he ought) to improve it to the Glory of GOD.

While under this Condemnation I visited them constantly, and had them brought up twice every Day to the Chapel in Newgate, where (chiefly) I pray'd with them, and both read and expounded the Word of GOD to them; whom (upon my private Examination of them) I found to be in great want of Ghostly Advice. They seem'd to be very desirous of it, and of my Prayers to GOD for them: Both which they had, to their Souls Comfort.

On the LORD's Day the 18th instant , I preached to them, both in the Forenoon and Afternoon, upon part of one of the Psalms for that Morning-Service, viz. Psal. 90. 12, the Words being these: So teach us to number our Days, that we may apply our Hearts unto Wisdom.

Here I first explain'd at large both the Text and Context; shewing, that in this Psalm, Moses (who was the Author of it) gives a plain Description of the Shortness of Human Life, and the Miseries attending it; and from thence proceeds to this excellent Prayer set forth in the Text; wherein he teaches us how we ought to apply ourselves to GOD for Divine Instruction, to the end we may obtain Wisdom; not the Wisdom of the World, which chiefly consists in Cunning and Artifice, and often in Tricks, Fraud, Deceit, &c. but the Wisdom from above, as St. James calls it, by which Men may be made sensible, that the little Time they have to live in this World, is to be employ'd principally (if not wholly) in the serious Thoughts of, and due Preparation for Death in this World, and a happy Eternity in the other. And this is to be Wise to our main Interest, even our Everlasting Life and Salvation.

Having further inlarg'd upon this Topick, in general, I then distinctly spoke to, and made out these Three Points, in particular, viz.

I. That Man's Life, though it were not cut off (as it often is) by some accidental Stroke or other, but did extend to the utmost Natural Period and Limit to which it can possibly attain, is very short in Comparison of that Eternity which comes after it.