entertain animosities against your Judges you know who said Father forgive them And that great Martyr dying Lord lay not this to their charge Be assured they must one day give an account of your sentence before an higher Court of Justice If they have rightly judged complain not If they have done you wrong you know to whom vengeance belongeth shortly In your patience possess your soul that time you have to live abandoning all thoughts and eares of this world study how to appear before the judgment seat of Christ to give account for your 42 years consider what answer to make to that Judg which renders to every man according to his works let all your disquisition be what to do to obtain Eternal Life Much I have to say to that question Reduce all to these two those two ways which Almighty God has chalk'd out for all men to Eternal Glory One of innocency the fathers before the flood had none other those after were directed by that Our blessed Saviour resolves that question What 's written in the Law that do and thou shalt live Consider first how far or right you have walked in this way but if you perceive your aberrations despair not our good God has propounded a second way unto that end it 's humble penitence If you have erred from that good way come into this Repent you truly for all your sins Afflict your soul for offending your mercifull Father Implore his pitty mercy and pardon and your Soul shall live Remember you have a most gracious God That desires not the death of a Sinner but rather that he should repent and live You have a blessed Mediator Intercessor Saviour who dyed for your sins and rose again for your Justification and be assured Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish be confident he that believeth on him shall live though he die and he that liveth and believeth on him shall not die Eternally I am straitned while I would direct you in all the steps of this way which are humble Confession hearty Contrition serious Detestation and so far as you are able real Satisfaction These four I have already exceeded the limits of an Epistle what is wanting I shall beseech you to make your addresses to the most learned and reverend Bishop of Ely intreat his help and direction follow his counsel implore his absolution and consider how much gain it should be to you though you lose all the world so your Soul may be saved The God of all goodness in mercy look upon you direct you by his Wisdom guide you by his Counsell comfort and sanctifie you by his holy Spririt that alone shall make you wise unto Salvation and lead you through all the miseries of a perplexed life and untimely death to that glory which is beyond my expression and your apprehension is the daily prayer of your real partaker in all your sufferings August 17. 1650. Mr. Andrewe his answer to the aforesaid Letter Friend YOur words sent to me were such and so seasonable that I have given them the same entertainment and lodging as becomes me to afford to Apples of Gold with pictures of Silver and if I be after my decollation dissected you may find them in my heart where your self have always held a Mansion If fear were absolutely a necessary passion by which to denote a man I must as yet be accounted amongst some other species of animality there being not a scruple in the whole frame of my mind and body of so tenuous a Composure The fear of Isaac hath banisht all other dreadings I look upon death as upon that rod in the hand of God with which he would not have corrected me if less correction had not been unprevailing and which he doth now exercise upon me because he is resolved not to let me be less then a son beloved and I am content to bear the stripes and kiss the Instrument I am sorry that my rod is bound together with the sin of my betrayer and wish him repentance that when the Rod comes to be burn'd he suffer not in the flame I shall not need to say I forgive either him or my Judges having already forgotten them in all my prayers excepted I am proud and covetous to be released from the double imprisonment I lie under of the flesh and bonds and am ready for the opportunity to make my escape though in a fiery Chariot All things betwixt me and God are removed from my sight and I see him clearly without reflection upon my accusers and Judges and submit cheerfully to his fatherly dispensation and judgment It is Gods mercy that I was not long since consumed for an earlier death in my heats and follies had not proved less then a total consumption of all which now will become precious in despight of ignominious Death or attending nauseous Corruption My betrayer wanted only Judas his subject to make his sin as great being transcendent to his in the circumstance and I wish him Peters tears to wash away Judas guilt and to avoid Judas his punishment by Peters repentance My Judges have done me no wrong they have a law for their warrant and my confession for their evidence neither have capacity to be Chancellors in matters of life let them go free and the Law-makers and inforcers of it for their errors of constituting them before the padling in blood grow too customary to be thought a sin worthy their confession or sorrow which I desire for the sakes of their souls and the lives of the oppressed and indeed proscribed Free-Christians of the Nation The Fathers Plea of Innocence I cannot make but I can say and bless God that I can say Veri penitence est pene innocence I have erred and cannot say I have voluntarily returned but I am graciously brought home as a lost sheep not to be eternally slaughtered but put again amongst the flock to be kept safe under the staff as well as the rod for the great shepherd of my soul Christ Jesus I dare not tell you I have not sinned you are a witness against me if I had none within me but I can tell you what my faith dictates to me and Gods holy Spirit assures me that the Lord hath put away my iniquity I am already sensible and that in a measure unexpressable of Gods goodness to me who as he will be glorified upon me on earth so he hath given me an earnest of my future glory in heaven by the sweet perfume he hath cast upon my name amongst the people and the Christian-like compassion he hath begotten for me amongst all men who have yet an eye of expectation upon his return in mercy to this poor distressed Nation and oppressed People The God of all goodness hath in mercy looked upon me directed me counsel'd me comforted me and sanctified my affliction to me and I am ready to fall into his mercifull hands as soon as the heavy hand of the Executioner shall have given a
a man who hath had his hand in blood viz. Mr. Bartin Hazelrigge in a duel for which arraigned c. A person trying viz. a Juror and in this way of Tryal he is such ought to be a freeman viz. not only free in person but in his prejudicating opinion which he is not having published that the respondent was the greatest Traytor in England and that there was enough under his hand to hang him the Respondent Sir William Roe Captain John Stone two of my tryers were imployed to examine the Respondent on the 2. of July 1650. and brought with them all the evidence against him and therefore in their capacity of my triers by the rule in Challenges they are challengeable and incapable to sit The last Will and Testament of Collonel Eusebius Andrewe 14. of August 1650. IF it be the unalterable and uncontrollable will of God that I Eusebius Andrewe Esquire shall for my manifold and high provocations of his Divine Majesty be shipwrackt by that storme which at present impendeth over my head I most humbly and cheerfully submit unto such his good will and pleasure freely and from the bottome of my heart forgiving my betrayers prosecutors and Judges and all other my injurers as I desire him for his Sons my Saviour Christ Jesus sake to forgive me my many and enormous transgressions and do lay down my life though under his present wrath yet with a sober confidence of his reserved favour And desire that my body may be privately interred in the Parish Church of Alhallowes Barkin London as neer as may be to the Reverend Arch-Bishop of Canterbury there with him to expect a joyful Resurrection at the comming of Christ to Judgment of which through his merits and through them only I am right well assured I beseech God to bless my Daughter Matilda Andrewe and to supply unto her what by my improvidence the accidents of the late tempestuous times in which I could not swim to Riches without the drowning of my conscience is in my being taken away become deficient and that he would preserve her from want and dishonor and from being by any evil Counsel or Example led aside into the foul errors of this Nation in matters concerning her Souls health And to that end I hereby give her and the whole world an account of that faith and profession wherein by Gods assistance I shall be found at my death and shall seal with my blood and in which I pray to God she and all my dear friends whom I spare to name because I love them may live and die I renounce all dependance upon the Pope and Church of Rome and that out of a serious consideration of their adulterate errors and doctrines inconsistant with the truth and light of the Gospel and not meerly out of habit as being bred a Protestant nor out of the general noyse now made against them as if all the evil in the Land were from them For so abominable have been the actions of the Presbyterians on the one side and the Sectarians on the other that if I had not both found my conscience and judgment unsatisfied in the the Romish Doctrine and my soul comforted in hope of Gods returning in favour to his late mutilated Church I had long since profest my self a Roman Catholick rather then have submitted to the multiplyed Tyranny of the one or the Babylonish confusion of the other I have hitherto liv'd and resolve by Gods gracious aid to dy a true protestant that is to say a member of that Church and professor of that faith and obedient to that discipline which hath been professed and maintained and exercised in England in the reign of Queen Elizabeth King James and Charles the Martyr which I trust God will again restore to its former purity and power I look upon the Presbyterian as upon one whose discipline is inconsistent with and improper for the natural and long habituated Government of this Kingdome and Church and the Author of all this Lands mischeifs in the supplanting that ancient and Apostolical Governance by Bishops and the taking away of the life of the King by exposing him to the madness of the Independent by their first opening the gap to Anarchy and confusion in Church and State by breaking the Golden Chain of either due prerogative I consider the Independent as fire out its place which is alwayes mischievous who hath already given earnest in his making a superstructure upon the Presbyterians basis for his performing the whole work of confusion upon Religion and Law if God prevent not by confounding their politick Councils as much as themselves have done their Fanatick opinions God in his good time put a hook in their nostrils and their Leviathans Of those to whom I am any wayes indebted I ask their pardon it not being my intendment in case God had pleas'd to have preserv'd me from the snare and violence under which I am fallen to have been to my power irresponsible to any I desire such who approve my profession to cover my faults in their charity and to let me be sweet in their memory As for the rest I wish them a seasonable repentance but set no price upon either their opinion or report Vivat Rex currat Lex floreat grex fiat voluntas Dei modo inruinâ meâ EUSEBIUS ANDREWE 14. Aug. 1650. A Letter from a friend to Colonel EUSEBIUS ANDREWE Friend YOu have been long the subject of my prayers now take my councel while I am not able to do what I would accept of what I can I hope I shall not need divert your thoughts from the fears and terrors of death you are too well acquainted with that Monster to shrink at his menaces you know the Statute All men once to die your death is accellerated by the malicious machinations of a bad man under the name of friend if he had not betrayed you a Feaver or other violent disease or 1000. other mischiefs would have done it a few inches of time are cut from your life be not you offended to hasten to your immortality you would have been glad to have been freed from your prison let not your soul be clouded while it hastens to its glory do not look to the next causes of suffering so much as to that providence which orders all things wisely to the glory of his name and the salvation of your soul I attest your own conscience Had you died under the bloody hand of War or in the height and heat of your youthfull aberrations could you have appeared so chearfully before the great Tribunal as now in this time of humiliation and preparation you may May be the unworthy condition of your betrayer works your dispositions to high indignations yet your dear Saviour betrayed by as great a pretender said no more but Dost thou betray me with a kiss Strange way it was then but from that arch-traytors example it s now become familiar Do not
Nunc dimittis to Tower August 19. 1650. Your old and constant Friend EUSEBIUS ANDREWE The last speech of Colonel EUSEBIUS ANDREWE on the Scaffold on Tower-hill August 22. 1650. THe Lieutenant of the Tower delivering the Colonel to the Sheriff said he had brought him thus far on his journey The Col. replied I hope I shall neyther tyre in the way nor go out of it When he came on the Scaffold kissing the Block he said I hope there is no more but this block between me and heaven After he had been some while on the Scaffold he spake to the people as followeth Christian Gentlemen and good people your business hither this day is to see a sad Spectacle a man brought in a moment to be unmann'd cut off in the prime of his years taken from further opportunity of doing service to himself his friends the Common-wealth or especially to God It seldom happens but upon very great cause and though truly if my general known course of life were enquired into I may modestly say there is such a moral honesty as some may be so forward as to expostulate why this great judgment is fallen upon me But know I am able to give them and my self an answer and out of this brest to give a better account of my Judgment and Execution then my Judges themselves or you It 's Gods just displeasure towards me for my sins long unrepented of many judgments withstood and mercies slighted therefore doth my gracious father chastise me with this correction that he may not lose me and I pray you assist me with your prayers that this rod may not be fruitless That when under his rod I have laid down my life by his staff I may be comforted and received into Glory I am very confident by what I have heard since my sentence there is more exceptions made against the proceedings against men then ever I made my Tryers had a Law and the validity of that Law is indisputable for me to say against it or to make a question of it I should but shame my self and my discretion In the strictness of the Law something is done by me that is applyable to some clause therein by which I stand condemned the means by which I was brought under that interpretation of that which was not in my self intended maliciously being testimony given by persons whom I pitty so false yet so positive that I cannot condemn my Judges for passing Sentence against me accorcing to legal justice for equity lies in higher brests For my accusors or rather betrayers I pitty and am sorry for them they have committed Judas his crime I wish and pray for them St Peters tears and I wish other people so happy they may be taken up betimes before they have drunk more blood of Christian men possibly less deserving then my self It is true there have been several addresses made for mercy and I will lay the obstructions to nothing more then my own sins and seeing God sees it fit I having not glorified him in my life I shall do it in my death I am content I profess in the face of God particular malice to any one of the State or Parliament to do them a personal injury I had never for the cause in which I had a great while waded I must say my engagements and pursuance in it hath laid no scruple upon my conscience it was upon principles of Law whereof I am a professor and upon principles of Religion my judgment rectified and my conscience satisfied that I have persued these wayes for which I bless God I find no blackness upon my conscience nor have I put into the bed-role of my sins I presume not to decide controversies I desire God to glorifie himself in prospering that side that hath right with it and that you may enjoy peace and plenty here when I shall enjoy my God In my conversation in the world I do not know where I have an enemy with cause or that there is a person to whom I have regret but if there be any whom I cannot recollect under the notion of Christian men I pardon them as freely as if I had named them yea I forgive all the world as I desire my heavenly Father for his Christ to forgive me For the business of Death it is a sad Sentence in it self if men consult with Flesh and Blood But truly without boasting I say it or if I do boast it is in the Lord I have not to this minute had one consultation with Flesh about the blow of the Axe or one thought of it more then my pasport to Glory I take it as an honor and I owe a thankfulness to those under whose power I am that they have sent me hither to a place however of punishment yet of some honor to dye a death somewhat worthy my Blood and this courtesie of theirs hath much helped towards the satisfaction of my mind I shall desire God that those Gentlemen in that sad Bed-rol to be tryed by the High Court of Justice that they may find that Really there that is Nominal in the Act An High Court of Justice or Court of High Justice High in its Righteousness not in its Severity no more clouded with the Testimony of folk that sell Blood for gain Father forgive them and I forgive them as I desire thee to forgive me I desire you now to pray for me and not give over praying until my last moment that as I have a very great load of sins so I may have the wings of your prayers assisting those Angels that shall conveigh my soul to Heaven And I doubt not but I shall there see my Blessed Saviour and my gallant Master the King of England and another Master which I much honor my Lord Capel hoping this day to see Christ in the presence of the Father the King in the presence of him my Lord Capel in the presence of them all and my self with them and all Saints to rejoyce for evermore Dr. Swadling You have this morning in the presence of a few given some account of your Religion and under general notions or words have given account of your Faith Charity and Repentance then speaking to the standers by if you please to hear the same questions asked here you shall that it may be a general Testimony to you all that he dyeth in the favour of God To the Colonel Now Sir I begin to deal with you you do acknowledg that this stroke you are by and by to suffer is a just punishment laid upon you by God for your former sins Col. Andrewe I dare not only not deny it but dare not but confess it I have no opportunity of glorifying God more then by taking shame to my self and I have a reason of Justice for justifying God in my own besome which I have intrusted to yours Dr. You acknowledg you deserve more then this stroak of the Axe and that a far greater misery is due