God and much less their future estate from the most evident Judgments temporally befalling them 1. Not their present estate towards God For a sore Judgment may befall a man greatly in Gods favour for a foul Crime as in the case of the Death of Davids child inflicted even after his Repentance for those hainous sins of Adultery and Murder because he had by them caused the Enemies of God to blaspheme 2 Sam. 12.14 doth evidently appear 2. And much less must we thence judge their future estate in another world For there is no sufficient cause to judge even Nadab and Abihu Lev. 10.3 1 Sam. 6.19 2 Sam. 6.7 the inquisitive Bethshemites Vzzah and others damned though God smote them dead in unwarrantable actions Yea even Moses and Aaron themselves died by a Divine Sentence in the Wilderness for their sin at Meribah and yet one of them Moses we have sufficient evidence is in glory Mat. 17.3 and have no reason to doubt the case of the other Yea men may be judged of the Lord in the Apostles supposition when chastened with sickness and death extraordinary that they may not be condemned with the world 1 Cor. 11.30 31 32. 1 Cor. 5.5 and an offender delivered even to Satan may suffer to the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord i. e. in the private Judgment which he undergoes from the Lord at his death 7. That we assign not particular sins as the special Causes of a Divine Judgment too peremptorily except where the circumstances notoriously evince it by the Rules before given or some of them at least For if we be therein mistaken in our Judgment yea if there be no moral certainty that we are not mistaken such as may rationally convince the persons concerned and others thereof the end which we are supposed to design by such application to wit to render the particular sin to which we attribute the procuring that Judgment more formidable is lost upon those whom we particularly intend to benefit by it and others too and we our selves are liable to be censured for putting an uncharitable brand upon our brother without a cause 8. That we vaunt not or magnifie our selves against our suffering Brother by comparing our selves with him as if we were therefore the better men because we fare better at Gods Hands he This is one property of Charity among the many excellent characters given it by the Apostle that it vaunts not it self 1. Cor. 13.4 i. e. with the diminution of a mans brethren for else it were rather a description of Humility than Charity nor is upon such an account puffed up And the most uncharitable account upon which any man can vaunt to the lessening of his brother is when it is done meerly upon the difference that Gods only pleasure makes betwixt the one and the other This among many others was one great piece of uncharitableness in Jobs friends that having in his sad sufferings taxed him with being of the number of those whom God had signally branded with remarkable Judgments and a partner in guilt with those of the old world whose foundation was overflown with a flood Job 22.15 16 20 21 29 30. though he were differenced in his punishment being a sufferer by the contrary Element of fire they in the mean while boast that their substance was not cut down as being men more acquainted with God more humble more innocent as they imply when they advise Job upon their experience to become so too 9. That we make no mans religious living formerly or eminent profession of it no not though we have some cause to think him declined from it now by objecting it to him under suffering a part of his calamity nor occasion him whilst he suffers under Gods hand to suffer for his sake too A thing too usual when bad men apply the Judgments of God or those which they interpret to be such to good men or those who have had a reputation to be such beyond their neighbours For this is to give them as the Persecutors did to our Saviour gall and vinegar to drink when they have already bitterness enough upon their spirits from the Cup of their Cross that God appoints them to drink off This was to David as he tells us like a Sword in his bones when profane men said to him in his affliction Where is now thy God Psal 42.10 and when they cast in his Teeth as their successors did afterwards in our Saviours his former trusting in God as if it had either been Hypocritical Psal â—2 1 8 9. or if real misplaced on one that had thus forsaken him Now to deal thus with our neighbour is at all times greatly uncharitable For it either argues an hard censure of him that he is an hypocrite or a greater and fouler affront if we do not so esteem him for then we turn as the same Psalmist elsewhere taxeth men of the same uncharitable temper his glory into shame Psal 4.2 and endeavour to make that a matter of disgrace to him which is really most commendable 10. In a word That we do not rejoyce insult or triumph over any man under Gods hand upon any account much less revile and reproach him but really pitty bewail and condole with him rather and as we have opportunity instruct admonish comfort and pray for him For to do the former is the constant guise of those that in the character of Gods Holy Spirit in the Scripture are marked for wicked men The Heathen Edomites were such Obad. 1â— and they rejoyced in the day of Judah's distress Davids Enemies being so to him on Gods account were such and in his adversity they rejoyced Psal 35.13 Our Saviours Persecutors were such and as they judged him smitten of God they shaked their heads at him upon the Cross Isa 53.4 See Mat. 27.40 41 42 43 44. Mark 15.29 c. and reviled him with most unsavoury and reproachful speeches And although there be several Passages in Scripture which seem to propound Gods Judgments as a glad spectacle to good men and a matter of rejoycing when they befall those that are notoriously wicked As when it is prophesied That the righteous shall rejoyce when he seeth the vengeance c. Psal 58.10 And when God calls on all the Saints even in glory Apoc. 18.2 the holy Prophets and Apostles especially to rejoyce and triumph over Antichristian Babylon Yet it is to be observed that these and the like Texts relate only to such as were Gods publique and notorious enemies and the joy and triumph required or allowed in their destruction is only upon account of the success of his cause against them and the vindication of his Glory and Interests As appears remarkably in the Psalm quoted wherein he tells us how the observers should express their joy to wit by taking notice that verily there is a reward
or which in substance is all one Imprecations of Gods vengeance upon non-performance of what men undertake to do Which Addresses are either serious or customary And in both sorts Gods Judgments may be manifested as the circumstances may be 1. In serious addresses of this kind As in the Case of the Children of Israel when they were obliged to say Amen to the fearful Curses annexed to the Law Deut. 29. from 15. to 26. they did therein implicitly address themselves to God and pray that all those curses in case of disobedience to that Law might befall them which Curses are therefore called the Curses of the Covenant Deut. 29.21 because they covenanted with God upon that penalty to keep his Commandments there mentioned And therefore afterwards when God had executed those severities upon them which made all the Neighbour-Nations to enquire Wherefore the Lord had dealt so with them Men are directed by God to answer Because they have forsaken the Covenant of the Lord Ver. 25. to 29. the anger of the Lord was kindled against this Land to bring upon it all the curses written in this Book And he moreover tells them that they need not fear offending by a rash censure where Gods Judgments with the Causes of them were so manifest For though secret things belong to God i. e. in dark cases we must not be too forward to pass our sentence upon Gods providential proceedings yet things revealed as such Judgments inflicted upon such a forfeiture by Covenant betwixt God and a People are belong to us and our children to interpret and improve them And the like may be the case of particular persons when they vow and solemnly Covenant with God to leave such vices and amend their lives and to bind themselves the more firmly imprecate such evils upon themselves in case they fail in performance Of which there is a notable Instance in one of our late Writers of Sir Jervase Ellowis Wilson Hist of K. James as he calls him who at the place of Execution took notice to all the people present of Gods just Judgment that brought him to that end for that he had solemnly being given to gaming upon some special occasion prayed to God That if he did so any more be might be hang'd and having broken promise with God he had brought his own wish upon him 2. In customary Addresses of that nature when men upon every slight occasion imprecate in the form of a customary wish as a vain Parenthesis in discourse with some persons too frequent any evil upon themselves to back every slight purpose or trivial Promise that drops unadvisedly from their lips These men though they use not Gods Name explicitly in such forms of discourse and yet too often even that is done I wish to God c. is too frequent a Phrase yet they do imply it and it hath the force of an application to God to inflict such an evil on them Now if when men fail as too often they do in those unadvised promises of theirs and God brings the calamity they wished upon them I should not scruple in such a case to look on it as the execution of a Divine Judgment to warn people how they use any expressions wherein Gods Name is concerned in a slight and customary manner And I am perswaded if it were well observed God doth to very many persons of lewd Tongues perform in earnest what they so often inconsiderately imprecate in this world and doubt the doth so to many more in another world where their God-damn-me's and The-Devil-take-me's and the like familiar forms of customary discourse with prophane men are with the stinging attestations of their own Consciences to Gods Justice therein sadly verified upon them to all eternity 3. In case of Contests with God Gods Judgments are often manifested and made known to be what indeed they are As 1. When they light upon the furious maintainers of a false Religion against the true especially if in a publick and notorious competition God be as it were challenged to appear in the vindication of his Truth Which was the case of Baals Priests in their notable contest with Elijah wherein God brought them to publique Execution 1 Kings 18. by a miraculous Confutation in the presence of all Israel 2. When such Divine severities befall the professours and propugners of Atheism and Irreligion in opposition to all Religion If such persons die not the common death of other men the common vote of Mankind pronounceth them to be executed by a Divine Judgment Vid. Cic. de Nâ—t Deor m. I. 1 2. Lâ—ert in vit Prot. Aristip Epic. Bâ—â—nis Athen. I. 13. Aelian I. 4. As appears by the censures passed by Heathens themselves upon the strange ends of Diagoras Protagoras Bion Theodorus Epicurus Pherecides and others who either were or were generally reputed Atheists among them And by those of the Holy Scriptures on Pharaoh and of the Ecclesiastical Writers on Caligula Maximinus Julian and many other Atheistical and prophane promoters of Irreligion 3. When the like severe Providences befall such as though they profess the true Religion yet because they make use of that Profession only as a mask to cover those designs against it which they dare not carry on with open face God fore-dooms in the Scripture as guilty of most pernicious opposition against it to a notable and signal Ruine and Destruction As in the case of the great Antichrist when God having revealed that wicked one fully shall finally destroy both him and his Seat where sitting in the Temple of God he acts the Devil in Gods Name 2 Thes 2.4 to 12. by Satanical signs and lying wonders Apoc. 15.2 3 4 19.1 2. both the Church Militant and Triumphant are called on to acknowledge and rejoyce in the just Judgments of God executed on him and his Adherents 6. It is no slight Evidence to a Divine Judgment when as it often falls out an offenders Conscience under such a remarkable stroke of Gods Hand owns it as the just punishment of such a particular notorious Crime and gives glory to God with Achan by confessing it before the world When Adonibezek convicted by his own Conscience cryes out Jud. 1.7 as I have done so hath God requited me and Josephs Brethren in the danger they were in to be executed for Spies in Egypt charge themselves with the guilt of their envy and cruelty against their Brother Gen. 42.21 and acknowledge that therefore that distress came upon them And when Malefactors at the place of Execution and debauched livers in some notable Calamities and especially in the near prospect of Death and Eternity under some signal stroke of Gods Hand accuse themselves and attribute those severities to their particular Crimes What Reason hath any man to give their sufferings a milder name than they give them themselves And thus have I given you the best Characters I could by which to discern Divine
this alone is not a sufficient character to warrant us to pronounce such a stroke to be a Divine Judgment how severe soever it be except there appear as evident and notorious a crime in conjunction with it For the judging by the former mark singly misled Jobs friends in his Case and the men of Melita in the censure they passed upon St. Paul Acts 28.4 when they saw the Viper hanging on his hand And it may mislead us in like cases For if we interpret all such great and remarkable severities on whomsoever they fall to be Divine Judgments we shall be often endangered unjustly to condemn the Generation of Gods best Children Psal 73.15 But where both these in the same persons meet with equal Evidence we can hardly be mistaken except all Mankind be supposed to be so too who commonly argue in such cases from this character in calling such Providences Judgments of God or if we be mistaken it is in a sort a safe errour as that which if we make a religious use of our apprehensions about it will mislead us only into such affections and actions as tend to Gods glory and our own benefit and advantage 3. And a far greater evidence is given in this Case many times to make Divine Judgments manifest by the fair and legible Impression and Image of the very offence it self upon the punishment inflicted Exod. 14. The drowning of Pharaoh and the Egyptians in the Red Sea was a punishment so like their sin in drowning all the male Children of the Israelites in the River Exod. 1.20 Levi◠10.1 ◠the burning Nadab and Abihu with a strange fire from Heaven was a Divine stroke so aptly suted to their offence in offering Incense with strange fire to Heaven the incestuous defilement of Davids Concubines by Absalom 2 Sam. 12.11 had so express a signature of the defilement of Vriahs wife by David and to mention no more Examples at present the cutting off the Thumbs and great Toes of Adonibezek himself Judges 1.7 was so signal a requital of the like cruelty shewed by him to 70 Kings before that no man needs to doubt the lawfulness of calling them by the Name they have always born that of remarkable Divine Judgments And it can rationally be no matter of scruple to any one to give Providences of the like stamp the same name still 4. And it makes much to the strengthning the Evidence in such matters when such remarkable Divine strokes tread close upon the heels of some notorious offence as oftentimes they do yea so close as to surprise the offender in the very Act. Gen. 19.11 The striking the Sodomites blind in the very attempt of a foul sin not to be named and the firing of the whole City the next morning with a storm of flaming Brimstone Num. 16.32 the cleaving of the Earth to swallow Korah and his company even whilst they stood daringly in the face of God and the Congregation to avouch a foul Rebellion against Moses and a sacrilegious usurpation of Aarons Priesthood the running through of Zimri and Cosbi Num. 25.8 in the very act of bold and audacious uncleanness the slaying of Belshazzar the very night following his profane debauch acted by the abuse of Gods Consecrated Vessels to drunkenness Dan. 5.30 at an Idols feast the turning of his Grandfather Nebuchadnezzar a-grazing among oxen when that vaunting brag was scarce out of his mouth Dan. 4.31 32 33. Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the Kingdom by the might of my power Acts 5.5 10.12.22 23. the smiting Ananias and Saphira dead with a lye in their mouths to cover their sacrilege the eating up Herod by worms so closely attending upon his owning the blasphemous flattery of the people and many more like Instances to these none ever gave a softer Title to than that of Divine Judgments And wherefore the drunkards breaking his neck in his drunkenness and the hectoring challengers being slain in a Duel and the perjured persons being smitten dumb or dead in his perjury and the like penal events befalling other sinners in the very act of other sins of as hainous a nature may not still by a parity of Reason pass for Providences of the same denomination I cannot imagine 5. When such penal Providences are the evident and notorious consequents of provoking and daring Appeals Applications or Addresses to God of any kind or of contests with him there is all the Reason in the world why we should take them for Divine Judgments extorted by an impious importunity or provoking Insolence 1. In case of Appeals to God implicit or explicit When the bitter water under the Law envenomed by the imprecation of the disloyal wife against her self in case she was guilty of the fact she was suspected of caused her belly to swell and her thigh to rot Num. 5.22 the implicit Appeal to Gods Decision in this case made the event evidently to be a Divine Judgment When Korah and his Complices dare put it to a Divine determination Num. 16.5 whether they had not as much right to offer Incense as Aaron and his Sons The Event in this Case declared that God judged the cause in which he was thus appealed to against them And when the wicked Jews by tumultuous out-cries call on Pilate to crucifie Jesus for a Malefactor and encourage him when his Conscience boggles at so foul an act of Injustice with this fearful imprecation in the nature of such an Appeal that if he were not guilty God would lay his blood on them and their children and the Event of so many Ages hath declared the said guilt not to be yet washed off from their whole Posterity None but an hardened Jew will ever doubt whether there be a Divine Judgment in this case or no. Lastly When holy Job against the unjust charges of his censorious friends who among other crimes taxed him with breaking the arms of the fatherless Job 22.9 i. e. That by his power he had so crushed them that they were disabled to maintain their right against him had appealed to God for his vindication and imprecated against himself that if he were guilty of this Crime his Arm might fall from his Shoulder-blade Job 31.21 22. and be broken from the bone i. e. That the flesh might rot from the bone till his Arm fell from his Shoulder if a little after that Arm had dropped off according to ☜ his Execration and some concurring evidence withal had appeared to prove him guilty of the fact which he so disclaimed I say if it had so faln out which it did not because he was innocent had not his friends been justified if they had cryed out in the words of the Psalmist Behold the Lord is known by the Judgment that he executeth 2. In case of Address or Application to him in matters of another nature As in promissory Oaths
confessing his hand in them they should be obliged to be more Religions than sutes the Interest of their Lusts Whence in the calamities which at any time befall themselves or others those of them who pretend to but the least smattering in Philosophy seek for causes to assign them to either in the general order of Nature moved when once set a going without any special hand of God governing the motion of it self or in the Influence of superiour Bodies upon the inferiour by the Conjunctions and Oppositions or other Aspects of Planets in imaginary Houses which the inventions of jugling Astrologers have built for them in the Heavens to consult and quarrel in about the government of the lower world or to the distempers at some seasons naturally corrupting the Elements and by them the bodies yea and the very minds of men Others of a lower rank in their Intellectuals through an ignorant malice suspect the evil Tongues of some persons who have some way or other and often undeservedly gotten an evil Name among their Neighbours or it may be accuse the Devil himself for paying them some ill turns he owed them though they were never known to have carried themselves so towards him as to deserve any such usage from him In all which and the like conjectures it is the main business of the champions of Ignorance and Prophaneness to cast a mist before their own eyes and other mens to obscure the Providence of God in those Judgments which he executeth lest he should be known by them Which certainly is a crime of the greatest magnitude for it argues an envy at the glory which Gods wonderful Providences are wont to procure him in the world than which there can hardly any attempt be conceived more Satanical 3. We may hence infer How great Reason there is that such Judicial Providences should be exactly taken notice of and with all the notable circumstances which most manifest God recorded and transmitted to Posterity The learned and judicious Lord Verulam takes notice of it as a defect in the historical part of Learning De aug â— ent l. 2. that there is not extant an impartial and well-attested Historia Nemeseos as he calls it an account of the most remarkable Judgments of God on notorious offenders and complains of it And it were to be wished that God would put it into the heart of some supreme Magistrates to promote so godly a Design by their Authority that the great Judgments of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords might be preserved in publique avowed Records as their own Judgments are For certainly it would be a great check to the Atheism that so reigns in the world at this day to have such publique testimonies preserved against them to stop their prophane mouths withal when they take liberty to cry down God and Providence And such a work cannot be done effectually to such a purpose but with their encouragement and assistance who are able to oblige the Relators of such signal Providential strokes by the sacred tye of an Oath to speak the Truth all the Truth and nothing but the Truth in Gods cause as well as mens and severely to punish those persons who shall appear upon due examination to lye for God or against him But seeing such a design is rather to be wished than hoped to be carried on in such an Age as this I forbear to insist longer on this Point and in the fourth place infer 4. That those private Persons in the defect of more publique endeavours in this kind do God good service and much oblige Posterity who take what honest pains they can in so profitable a discovery by enquiring into and informing themselves and others from good Evidence of such Instances of Gods just Providence as their Ages and the places they live in afford For however some Atheistical spirits are according to their wont apt to slight and despise them yet abundance of serious and considering Persons do and 't is to be supposed will in after-Ages make great advantages by them 5. And yet this must be attempted with great care and caution as a thing which we cannot lay out too much circumspect diligence and industry Which also follows from my Text and Doctrine For those Judgments by which the Lord is known must be first known to be and to be his Judgments that is it must be known that such things as to matter of Fact are certain and that they are accompanied with such circumstances as carry in them a moral certainty also as I before told you that they are inflicted by God upon such an account because if there be a rational doubt of the one or the other there must be an equal uncertainty in the conclusions drawn from such uncertain Premises Wherefore it is certainly a foul and hainous crime and a thing highly injurious both to God and man for any Person or Persons either out of a misguided zeal for God or out of a particular fond affection to any Party in Religion and much more upon the account of any more unjustifiable Passion to become a forger of Divine Judgments or a busic reporter and spreader of such Forgeries For this is to speak wickedly for God Job 1â— 7 and talk deceitfully for him which Job chargeth with great abhorrency upon his friends as judging it a most unbecoming thing to endeavour to prop up the Cause of the God of Truth with falshoods Nor indeed is it less mischievous than it is unsutable to the interest it pretends to defend For though one or two such pious frauds may prove at the first in some juncture of Time wherein simple and well-meaning devotion prevails over the inquisitive humour of Mankind to be some way serviceable to the Design they were coined for yet in process of Time as the state of Religion alters and men having it may be discovered the fallacy grow more nice of belief in such matters the case is quite different For then strikes in ordinarily the subtil Atheist or misbeliever and aggravates the flaws he finds in such stories as are really obnoxious to the blemishing the Reputation of the most undoubted Records of Christianity it self And it can hardly be imagined what a foul imputation upon that holy Religion of our blessed Saviour amongst Atheists and other Infidels those Cart-loads of Monkish stories in the Romish Church have occasioned wherein the Miracles of their fictitious Saints and the Judgments of God upon their pretended Adversaries are equally numerous and yet both so grosly contrived that the unskilfulness of the bungling Inventers saves the confuters of them the pains of any studied Arguments to disprove them And yet with such a fottish credulity are the generality of that Religion possessed that there is hardly any one who was eminently instrumental in the Reformation but they can tell you of some miraculous Judgment of God that brought him to his End which they believe with equal faith to what they have
countenance more than formerly I laboured to convince him more fully of his condition and to persuade him to look up to the great Physician in whose hands are the issues of life and death c. He seemed to give diligent attention and earnestly desired me to pray with him after prayers when I was about to leave him for that time he desired I would not forget him in my prayers making it also his earnest request that I would come again when ever he should send for me which I promised I would at any hour day or night This was June 16. and on the 19. as his Keeper acknowledgeth he was in great anguish and trouble of mind crying out What shall I do to save my poor soul with many other expressions to the same purpose being very sick and fearing his approaching death But upon what account his Keeper would not send for me in whose hearing he so earnestly desired me to come to him he knows best and must answer it if it was his fault for private respects as is conjectured On June 21. in the morning I went again to visit him unsent for but found him unsensible and past any further advice I staid by him until almost noon He lay still with his eyes fixed as a dying man moved not at any thing we said to him but upon pouring into him a little drink with a spoon at several times he coughed a little and groaned and then lay as before When I saw there was no probability he would understand any thing I said I left him after prayer made for him with the company there present in the house and had notice brought me that he died about two hours after my departure from him Before I sum up the whole of this Narrative and account of his condition I judge it may be acceptable to the Reader to insert some short Observations communicated to me by an ingenious Gentleman our Neighbour who several times visited him in his affliction Take them therefore in his own words When I first saw this young man which was quickly after he was brought into Kings-Swinford he appeared to me to be of a vigorous state of body and of an healthy constitution saving the strange defect under which he laboured his hands and legs being then deprived of sense and motion I observed them and handled him They were from both wrists and knees blackish and dying and I took notice that about each wrist and knee there was as it were a Circle at the joynt that divided the sound from the dying parts and seemed like a ligature prohibiting any nourishment to pass those bounds so that the blood and spirits being wonderfully stopped in their circulation it must necessarily follow that the parts thus deprived of their wonted supply must wither and die as a leaf in Autumn which sad progress they made till both hands and legs from the wrists and knees became dead and dried black and hard like Mummy before they fell off at the joynts which they afterward did I also observed that at the first above each of the forementioned circles there brake out a sore at which the nourishing juyce designed by nature to have fed those parts emptied it self now in those sores corrupted in a quitture or sanies so horribly stinking that few of his Visitants could well endure the room without some strong smelling defensative But visiting him after those dead limbs were fallen from the body all but one hand which was almost severed I saw the joynts with the flesh look well and healthy They seemed to me free and untouch'd by the former mortification being quick and sensible that now the fellow complained upon the least touch thereof yet seeming to promise an easie cure for that ichorous stinking humor was gone the flesh was raw but sweet and here and there besmeared with a thick corrupt pus an encouraging sign say Artists that sores incline to healing But this poor creature wanting all help from Art or Medicine save what the application of the leaves of Mullein afforded which by his Keeper were used to defend the raw parts in some weeks there issued the like thin and stinking humor as before which soon put a period to his life So far my Friend As to the young man himself he was as he told me a few days before he died about twenty two years of age It was easie to observe he had been a strong young man naturally of a stubborn temper much hardened by evil courses yet he seemed sometimes to be affected with his condition the discourses made to him and prayers with him and I wish I might have had from him as clear an evidence of a comfortable change wrought in him as I would gladly have told the world I must in charity leave his final condition to God who thus afflicted and chastized him for the space of near about four months that he might be a signal spectacle to thousands of Gods displeasure against impiety The sum of all is this That a strong lusty young man as most in the County where he was born being unfaithful to God and his Master and giving himself to licentiousness and wickedness was brought to a morsel of bread and by doing evil and denying it with execrations had a sting and secret remorse in his conscience by which and want the fruit of his idleness and intemperance he grew faint and weak and his hands waxed feeble not being able to work designed to betake himself to his Friends but was stopped by the way forced to lie down under the hand of God that the Curse wherewith he had cursed himself might come upon him and so by the stupendious providence of God he was made a spectacle to the world of Divine severity many weeks that others might see and hear and fear and do no more wickedly And I wish God may have no reason to say to any as by the Apostle in another case * Acts 13.41 Behold ye despisers and wonder and perish for I work a work in your days which you shall in no wise believe though a man declare it unto you FINIS SIR Being requested by Mr. Illingworth to give you an account of what I am able to say concerning John Duncalf I apprehend the best way is by a bare and brief Narrative of that discourse that passed between us whilst I was with him if there is any thing worth your cognizance you may make use of it as you please Our Discourse was as followeth May 1st 1677. Quest SPeaking to him of the deplorableness of his Condition and that sure there was a more than ordinary hand of Gods Providence in it arising from some evil actor actions of his Answ Answered yes 't was for his sins Quest When I told him that sin was generally the procuring Cause of every mans sufferings but under such remarkable and dreadful sufferings as these were there is usually one or more special sins to be inquired after as the