to live a good Life when you are just a dying How can you be said to finish your Christian Course when you have scarce time to begin it You left not Sin but Sin has left you if it has indeed left you for your Evil Desires as far as we can judge are not alter'd or chang'd for the better but are only beat down and stunn'd at the approaching sight of Death you cannot give any convincing Proof of your Enmity to Sin or Obedience to God you can only wish you had obey'd and 't is not good Wishes but good Actions that must carry us to Heaven God forbid I should exclude you thence and God forbid but I should tell you That 't is no easie matter under your Circumstances to get thither the Way is narrow and you have made it narrower by your Transgressions the Gate is strait and you have made it straiter nay almost clos'd it up by the multitude of your Offences and your obstinate continuance in them And therefore seek diligently ask importunately and knock without ceasing that it may be opened unto you do not too much fear Despair but fear Presumption and groundless Hopes of Future Happiness willingly retain Sorrow and Anguish with you they are the most decent Company for you to appear in will do most good on others and sooner lead you to Heaven than the bold mistaken Pretences of Peace and Assurance Exercise every Act of Humiliation Be always conversant with your God and always meditating on the odiousness of Sin and the Sufferings of your Saviour for it Lose no part of the short time allow'd you to prepare for Eternity Gratify no superfluous Bodily Desire though never so innocent eat the Bread drink the Water of Afflicton wholly regard your better your Immortal Part and remember whatever the Condition of that is your Body too must share in it and therefore spare no pains but kneel and weep and read and watch and fast and pray and use your utmost endeavours that you may not enter into Eternal Condemnation THE SECOND SERMON MICAH III. 4. Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behav'd themselves ill in their doings CRUEL and hardhearted Man ever most treacherous to himself and willing to be deceiv'd in the greatest Concern in order to it would fain alter the Establish'd Nature and Course of things Expect Happiness though he lives wickedly he would disjoin what God has always put together go on in Sin and yet hope to avoid the sad Consequences of sinning The word of God plainly tells us That the end of sin is shame and destruction Phil. 3. 19. And yet many never throughly believe this till they are beyond question convinc'd of the truth of it till 't is evidently prov'd on themselves and even then others believe it as little as they did before Had you that are now standing on the very brinks of Eternity ready to be swept into it by the stroke of Justice had you believ'd this sad truth by the Example of others you might have died the common death and been visited with the visitation of all men You might after much good done to your selves and others have descended into the Grave in peace or would but many others credit it now on your account they would not give a future Instance of it themselves But we almost always fear and dread too late Thus a timely rational fear of God and his Judgments had surely prevented all the Evils that have befallen you when now you fear to dye but know not how to avoid it you dread the day of Recompences but see it with full speed hasting towards you And there is no doubt but you have us'd all the Sollicitation of Friends and I hope have apply'd your selves to God with greater earnestness than ever but yet for all this in respect of Temporal Judgment there is no redress no remedy the neglected Truth of the Text is now made good upon you Then shall they cry unto the Lord but he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings The sense of which words is twofold either that of the Old Testament and then it signifies the certainty of Temporal Punishment or that of the New as we find it all along alluding to it and then it means the Eternal Punishment due to Sinners for their obstinate continuance in Sin in spight of all Warnings all Admonitions to the contrary and I will treat of these two promiscuously and then separate them by the Practical Application I shall make first to You that are by the Goodness of God and your Superiors mercifully withheld from the Punishment you have deserv'd And then secondly to You that are doom'd to dye that you may behave your selves so That though your Temporal Calamity be unavoidable yet your God may not still cover the Eye of his Mercy from you or be deaf to your Requests for pity on your poor Souls And if we look into the Holy Scriptures we shall find frequent mention of an acceptable time and of a day of salvation which we are earnestly advis'd on no account to let slip Thus says David to God Psal 69. 13. I make my prayer unto thee in an acceptable time And thus says God himself Isa 49. 8. In an acceptable time I have heard thee and in a day of salvation I have helped thee And hence came that passionate wish in the 18th verse of the 48th chap. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments then had thy peace been as a river and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea And that seasonable exhortation in the 55th chap. v. 6. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found call upon him while he is near and to shew its direct aspect on particular Persons as well as to a Nation in general it immediately follows Let the wicked man forsake his ways and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon Now this acceptable time this season in which God may be found in Mercy is very often in Scripture opposed to another space of time in which some of the Children of Men shall not be accepted in which they shall not be succoured at least from the Temporal Calamities they are under though they never so piteously intreat for it and in which God will not be found of them though they diligently seek him this the Psalmist calls a time of the great water-floods in which they shall not come near him when the overflowing of Sin and wrath as a mighty stream and deep gulph shall interpose and cut off all communication of Mercy between them and their God thus again says God Isa 1. 15. Though they call I will not answer when you
TWO SERMONS Preach'd before the Condemn'd CRIMINALS AT NEWGATE 1695. By B. CROOKE M. A. Rector of St. Michael Woodstreet London LONDON Printed for Benj. Cooke at the Middle-Temple-Gate in Fleetstreet MDCXCY To the Right Reverend Father in God HENRY Lord Bishop of LONDON MY LORD THESE Discourses are the immediate Effect of Your Lordship's tender Regard for the Miserable Objects they were directed to The sad and difficult Business of Newgate is a Task above the Labour of any One Person and therefore Your Lordship 's Charitable Appointment of some of Your Clergy carefully to Assist the Ordinary every Sessions is an Act of the greatest Compassion and will without doubt be readily obey'd Neither was the Piety of the Civil Magistrate wanting in so good a Design for God be thanked there was a direct Invitation and the highest Encouragement from the late Lord-Mayor Sir Thomas Lane to the Performance of it And may it have an Influence on other Places of the like kind throughout the whole Nation They are Christians tho Criminals and tho that Authority which bears not the Sword in vain is necessitated for the Terror of others to cut them off from the Land of the Living yet it always allows an Interval between Sentence and Execution and your Lordship's Interposition in imitation of Him who came to seek the lost sheep of the house of Israel has taken all the Care imaginable to improve that Interval to the End intended that they should not dye as they have liv'd but that all possible means should be us'd that their Souls may be sav'd in the day of the Lord. 'T is upon this account I presume to put these Papers under Your Lordship's Patronage as having the best Right and Title to the Dedication of them I am MY LORD Your Lordship 's Most Dutiful most Devoted and most Humble Servant B. CROOKE A SERMON Preach'd before the Condemn'd Criminals c. ACTS III. 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out GREAT and remarkable Objects of Misery ought sensibly to touch the breast of every Christian for pity and compassion is the very Essence of Christianity And therefore surely it should turn our very Bowels within us to see so many Persons some in the prime of their years and all in perfect health and the midst of their strength to see so many able Bodies ready to drop into the Grave But above all it should stir up our utmost Commiseration to consider so many Souls for whom Christ died without his infinite interposing Goodness just sinking into the Dwellings of Everlasting Misery And indeed sad is the State deplorable the Condition you have brought your selves to adjudg'd by the Laws of your Countrey and by them accounted unworthy any longer to live unworthy to tread this Earth or breathe this Air and that up further good no other benefit to Mankind can be expected from you but only by the Example of your Death and to stand like Marks on fatal Rocks and Sands to warn others from the same Ruin for the future And may the Misery and publick Shame you are exposed to make a better impression on others than the like Punishment of others has made on you For 't is the aggravation of your Iniquities that you have been full proof against Warnings of all kinds not only the frequent Sufferings of others for Crimes of the same nature who were design'd for your examples to the intent you should not have lusted after evil things as they also did but doubtless nay certain it is that many of you have had a good Education tender Mothers that wept and prayed for you and careful Fathers and Masters that kindly withstood you in your evil Courses admonish'd you of your Duty to God and often gave you that Advice which you then disdain'd and thought irksome and uneasy to hear but now remember and with regret of Soul wish you had attentively listen'd unto but all in vain For because you their hated knowledge and did not chuse the fear of the Lord because you refused counsel and despised all manner of reproof therefore you must now eat of the fruit of your own ways and be fill'd with your own devices for the turning away of the simple shall slay them and the prosperity of fools will in the end destroy them And though your Circumstances are so truly lamentable though the wickedness of your heels has encompast you about and you are ready to fall into the pit which by your Iniquities you have dug for your selves though you are tied and bound with the chain of your sins and are so fast in prison that you cannot get out but to an evil and shameful Death though I say your Condition is every way surely able to excite the utmost pity and imploy our Eyes more than our Tongues yet we come not here so much to bewaile as to instruct you and that your departure hence may not be to you the beginning of true sorrows may not consign you over to a doleful Eternity is the End and Design of this Discourse by persuading you carefully to make use of the few remaining moments allotted to you to lay them all out with the utmost of your power in bringing in forcing your selves to Repentance that your past Offences by the infinite Mercy of God on your short but sincere Endeavours may be done away and the patient and humble Resignation of your Bodies to the Sufferings you have deserved be accepted in Christ Jesus and tend to the Salvation of your Souls Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out In Discoursing on which Words I shall as I have a great deal of reason now to do proceed with caution pursue the best and safest method and that which in your distress'd Circumstances appears most profitable for you and that I think is this Lest you should any way deceive your selves in this your great and last Concern as to the nature or degree of that Repentance which God requires in order to eternal Salvation I shall in the 1st Place endeavour to detect and lay open to you the many Errors and Mistakes men usually run into in relation to this Duty And to every one of these I shall add an Application very suitable for you to lay to Heart 2dly I shall in plain and express terms shew you what the Duty of Repentance is to which so valuable a Blessing as Forgiveness of Sins is annex'd and an infinite unvaluable Blessing 't would be to you because without it you must in a very little time become Everlastingly Miserable Of these in the order proposed And the first Error I shall take notice of is not properly concerning the Nature but the Original of Repentance from whence or from whom it comes but yet an Error of a very pernicious consequence For most People at least the Actions of most suppose Repentance to be purely and perfectly in their own power and that they
spread forth your hands I will hide mine eyes from you and when you make many Prayers I will not hear and the reason of this carriage of our Merciful God is most plainly and emphatically given in the Text and is there set down as an act of just Retaliation towards us Then shall they cry unto the Lord and he will not hear them he will even hide his face from them at that time as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings That is though God may for some time seem to be slack as some Men count slackness though for a while he may seem to wink at the repeated Wickedness of ungrateful Mankind and appear by his slowness to Punish as if he never designed it yet this at last will be found a sad mistake and a time will come in which he will surely repay the deeds of the obstinate wicked Person on his own head and will then take example by him and as he in the time of Sin shut his Eyes and clos'd his Ears to God and would have none of his Counsel so in the time of Punishment God will do the same to him And 't will not be an Objection of any weight to tell us that these forecited places do not immediately relate to us Christians but concern the Temporal Calamity of the Jews and do denote that they had a time of Repentance and turning to their God allow'd them which if laps'd by their continuance in Sin they would thereby foreclose themselves and make the Sentence of their Calamity irreversible I say this will be no solution of the case in hand but rather a downright denying of the truth for we know that all things that relate to the Practice of Holiness or the Punishment of Sin all things of this kind that were written aforetime were written for our Example Israel after the Flesh was a Type of Israel after the Spirit that is a Type of Christianity and the Professors thereof and their Canaan did prefigure those Mansions of Rest and Happiness prepar'd for us above And therefore whatsoever did keep them out of that good Land or cut them off from it the same proportionably will cut us off from Heaven and cast us into Hell and this very thing throughout the 3d. and 4th Chapters to the Hebrews is all along urg'd the parallel is exactly and to a tittle carried on by the Apostle and Inferences are continually drawn from thence thus Unbelief or Disobedience says St. Paul kept them in the Wilderness barr'd them out of Canaan and made God swear in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest And then it follows Let us us Christians likewise fear lest a promise being left us of entring into his rest any of you should seem to come short of it And what is point-blank to the purpose in hand chap. 4. v. 7. Again he limiteth a certain day saying To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts and then it follows v. 11. let us labour therefore to enter into that rest he means Heaven the resting-Place of Christians lest any man fall after the same example of disobedience or unbelief and 2 Cor. 6. 1 2. he quotes the very words of Isaiah and directly applies them to the state of Christianity We then as workers together with him beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain for he saith speaking of God I have heard thee in a time accepted and in the day of salvation I have succoured thee behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation So then to Christians there is a time of Salvation a certain prescrib'd time in which their Repentance and sincere Endeavours of Obedience shall be accepted and crown'd with Success and the opposite to this must be some other portion of time in which these blessed advantages being wilfully overslip'd will not be again obtained Some period of this nature there must be even to Christians else the Apostle's comparison of the limited time would not hold good and his last cited words would quite lose their Emphasis and Design Behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation But what the particular admeasurement of these limits are how far this day of salvation reaches and when 't will be clos'd and shut up by the approach of the unaccepted period is hard distinctly to determine and I am very willing now not to inquire into it but will pass on to the practical Application designed And 1st For you that by the Compassion of God and your Superiors are Mercifully withdrawn from the Condemnation you were under Remember and always bear it in your Mind That you have cryed unto the Lord and he has heard you he has not hid his face from you at this time though you have behaved your selves so very ill in your doings towards him Consider your selves as brands pluck'd out of the fire and regard not so much your Bodies deliver'd from the Grave as your Souls preserv'd from the nethermost Hell Look stedfastly back on the Danger you have escaped and with Tears of Gratitude in your Eyes stand amazed at the Patience Long-suffering and Forbearance of your God not tir'd out by so many Iniquities and repay it not with Falshood and Perjury but let such Gracious usage forcibly lead you to repentance You have as the Psalmist says been foolish people plagu'd for your offence and because of your wickedness you have been fast bound in misery and Iron You have for many days sate in darkness and the shadow of death and been even hard at death's door And you have cryed unto the Lord in your trouble and he has deliver'd you out of your distress he has brought you out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke your bonds asunder O that you would therefore praise the Lord for this his goodness and declare the wonders that he has done for you that you would offer unto him the sacrifice of thanksgiving and tell out his works with gladness And to this purpose make a careful distinction at this juncture between Nature and Grace between Passion and the just sense of your Duty towards God A joyful Surprize a glad Astonishment at your Deliverance may look agreeably well and much like Gratitude may throw you with extasie on your Knees and make you run over all your former Resolutions repeat and vow them all again to indulgent Heaven and yet this may be nothing but the effect of that warmth of Admiration which such a sudden turn in your Affairs will naturally produce and which without more solid fuel will soon again expire All the Motions of Wonder and Joy which seiz'd you at the first notice of your Reprieve were Animal and not Christian for Nature will exult at the unexpected Preservation of her self But I would have you turn them all into the right Channel Rejoice in the Lord fear his Justice and love and
do this in part in that part which you are able to do 't is folly to expect it in the whole the whole you cannot perform you have not time for it a part you may do and let me intreat you to do it freely so freely that you your selves may have a rational ground to suppose you would have done the whole if you had time and space to effect it 'T is in vain and beyond belief to say you would do what now you can't when you will not do what you can I do allow you have resolv'd to live a good life if you had been spar'd but spar'd you are not and therefore can never prove your selves as to this but something you may do and by it judge of all the rest Restitution to the utmost of your power and Confession to the Glory of God and hindring the progress of Wickedness in others is a necessary part of Repentance This you can do and if you refuse this you would have certainly refus'd all the rest if it had been left to your choice you would in a little time have return'd to your old Sins in spight of the Resolutions which not a due sense of Sin but your present Danger has extorted from you And believe me a Vow or an Oath for concealing a real Evil is a Confederacy and League with Hell and a Train of Satan to send others after you in the same pernicious Tract Humane Nature is sociable and Friendship is the life of Society but a conjunction of ill Men to ill Practices is the destruction both of Society and them that ingage in it and nothing can in this Case free your Souls but a generous Design and Desire to break the Infernal Combination that you may be the last that no more may be ruin'd by it as you have been And he that tho late yet does all he can to gain Christ may not lose him but he that in the very view of Death prefers Shame or Fear or the love of Wickedness or any other Passion before him will never have him and therefore say and do restore and confess every thing necessary to unravel thy former Wicked Life to take off the ill effects of thy Example to disingage thy Companions from the Evils thou hast brought them into or accompanied them in And let not the Spirit of slumber rest upon you do not willingly stupify your selves do not now 't is so very near put the evil day far off by endeavouring not to think of it much less by diverting the thoughts thereof by any thing really sinful as Drink vain Discourse or evil Company but rather employ the small remainder of your time to the best purposes in continually prostrating your selves before the Throne of Mercy in freely owning to all the Righteous Judgment of God upon you for your former Trangressions and in making your Departure hence as profitable to the Souls of Men as possibly you can by beating down all pernicious vain glorious thoughts of dying bravely as an impious World expresses a stubborn and hardened demeanor but with much Remorse and great Contrition with exemplary Humility and Penitence resolve to resign your Spirits into the hands of your Creator And O Righteous God how sincerely should they prepare how cordially should they behave themselves that in a few days are sure to appear before thee how unfeignedly should they discharge their Consciences before they stand at thy Just Tribunal and willingly lay down every weight of Sin that has so long beset them and which without laying down will soon sink them into the Dwelling of Everlasting Misery But O Lord thou Lover of Souls who dost not desire the death the utter destruction of thy sinful Creatures but rather that they should turn from their sins and be sav'd return thou O Lord and do not any longer hide thy face from them when they spread forth their hands unto thee assist them by thy Grace in this their extremity make them willing and ready to be reconcil'd unto thee before they go hence and be no more seen and then be thou fully reconcil'd unto them for his sake and through his Mediation who came to Bear and Atone for the Sins of the World thy beloved Son and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ FINIS