with I do from my Heart and Soul acknowledge the Goodness and Mercy of God who notwithstanding of my many heinous and aggravating Sins never drew the Sword of Justice against me else I had not only been punished with all temporal Punishments but I had long before this time been thrown into Eternal Ruine from which there is no Redemption So that I hope the Great GOD will make me a Monument of His Mercy and not of His Justice I earnestly desire that all persons may take narrow inspection of my Sins which have brought me to be made a publick Spectacle and that they may be earnest with God that He may give them His Restraining Grace to preserve them from falling into the like For tho' it pleased God to deal with me in Mercy that I am brought to this publick place to be an Example and a Warning to all Men for it is justly to be feared that after this so signal a Caveat if any shall commit such like Sins that God will draw His Sword of Justice against them and cut them off in the midst of their Sins and throw them into utter Darkness From which Good Lord deliver us You are to observe that in the Description of my Life I do particularly mention my being singularly guilty of Two Sins The First is Disobedience to my Parents which is a Breach of the First Command in the Second Table of the Law All of you should know that there is a Blessing that attends the keeping of this Command but as I have broken it so I have deprived my self of the Blessing that attends it But besides I desire that all of you may take notice that when I threw off that Fear and Obedience I owed to my earthly Father I likeways threw off that Fear and Regard I owed to the Great God And therefore I earnestly intreat all you young People and that for the Love of God I desire you may seriously consider what dangerous Consequences attend the breach of this Command The Next is That I intertained Company with a number of Men who denied the Existency of God mocked at the Trinity and Incarnation of our Blessed Lord and Saviour and told that the Scriptures were composed by a number of aspiring Brains who designed to subject the World to their captious Humors and in summ that Religion was but a Foppery and religious Persons Hypocrites and Sycophants The frequent Converse I had with those debaucht Company had almost extinguished the true Conception I had of a God but the only thing that interrupted this dangerous Opinion was That from my younger Years I had always private Converse with God though imperfectly it not being with that Sincerity as was requisite yet I still payed a certain kind of Homage to that Supreme Beeing and even at that time when I most haunted that Company And if at any time I had omitted that Homage I gave to God I could have no peace of Mind until I had discharged my self of that Duty which was the Onely and Great Motive which hindred me from intertaining the dangerous Principles of these Men. Yet notwithstanding their daring and blasphemous Discourses there was one of them who told me That he had occasion sometimes to be alone but was afraid to continue so for any time For he said That he felt something in himself this is his own Expression that did strick him with such terror and horror and threw him into such Melancholy Fits that he was afraid to be by himself and therefore sought all occasions of Company This Gentleman was as roaring a Gallant as any the Age produced but otherways as well accomplisht as most Men What may be the Ends of such Men is greatly to be feared nay even the worst For I my self am too evident an Example of the same I do therefore desire that all here present and to whose knowledge this may come may be earnest with God that He may direct them in such a Holy Course of Life as that they may not fall into the Company of such Men whose Principles are attended with such dangerous fatal Consequences There is one Thing that doth not a litle trouble me and that is The neglecting the taking of the Sacrament which I was never Partaker of notwithstanding the false and malicious Stories and Reproaches that pass on me on that occasion And I shall assure you that the omission of that Holy Duty has been no small Mean in bringing me to a Scaffold So that as you regard the Eternal Wel-being of your Souls and desire to shun the Dangers that are before your Eyes do not slight the Opportunity of taking the Holy Sacrament There are some here present and some absent who have spoke most falsly and contemptibly of me for which I forgive them and all Men as I desire to be forgiven yet I must tell you you have not done like Christians For whatever my Sins have been you ought in Christianity to have spoke of me with Commiseration and Regrate for my Failings and you should have considered That it is the restraining Grace of God and nothing in your selves that hath preserved you from falling into worse This I speak for your good do not think I have any Resentments of what has been spoken of this nature There are likeways many come here to day rather to Gaze than to take Example But I Charge you and every one of you in the Name of the Great GOD before Whom ere many Moments I must make my Appearance that you seriously consider what ye have heard this Day and if you do otherways remember I tell you in the Name of the Most High that it will stand in Judgment against you For I am perswaded that God has not only brought me here for a Punishment of my Sins but likeways that you and all others may take Warning and Example by me and may be Edified by what ye have heard this day so as that it may be a Mean of your Conversion and drawing nearer to God That this may be the effect of what ye have heard is my earnest desire to God So that He may be as much Glorified in my Death as He has been Dishonoured in my Life Thus wishing the Lord to give you a true Repentance and saving Fath in Christ Jesus I shall conclude with the Publican in the Gospel God have Mercy upon me a poor Sinner John Eliot Post-script IN Regard of the wicked Practices of my Life and that I have had frequent Converse with debauched Company I think my self obliged lest there might be Mistakes to give you a brief Account of my Fath which is this I Believe God is and that in Commiseration of fallen Man Hesent the Son of his Love Christ Jesus in to the World who took upon him Humane Nature I do believe that he subjected himself to Death and by that Sacrifice made Attonement for all those that should sincerely believe in him I do also believe that
the same some Years before I Married her but the Reason I judge is she has thought that my Cure would be too expensive and I judge it has been concerted betwixt her and some of her Friends that this she should do to be a hinderance of her paying the Cure I shall pass this and it s my desire to God that he may pardon her Sins and make her sensible of her Error For she hath been no small Instrument in bringing me to this deplorable End as the sequel of my Discourse shall make more clear My Father at this time was under Trouble himself beside I was ashamed to discover to him the Reality of the Matter that my Wife had so Treated me and my so necessitous Circumstances in regard I had Married without his Consent However by thir Actings of my Wife I was redacted to such Straits and Wants that I was necessitat to apply to some of my Friends whereof the deceast Mrs Pringle was one who Entertained me kindly and was not wanting as I thought in truly commiserating my Condition But she designed another thing at that time which I could not then fathom the truth of this I find now to my own Ruine This is the way and manner I was brought to ingage in this unhappy Business for which I now am to suffer How this design was carried on I have sufficiently declared to the World especially to Their Majesties Advocat and Solicitor and publickly in the Criminal Court However you shall know that I was first imployed by the deceast Mr. Nicolson and Mrs. Pringle to Poyson the Wife of the said Mr. Nicolson which I did undertake to do and made them likeways believe that I actually did it but had done it so dexterously that it would require some time before it had its desired effect And I told them it would gradually spend her Body so that the World could judge no other but that she had Died of a Decay Notwithstanding all this I never so much as endeavoured the Acquaintance of the said Mistris Nicolson as she her self hath Deponed The next thing I was imployed in was to affix a Design of Poysoning upon Mistris Nicolson and Mistris Hamiltoun her Sister The meaning is this That Mistris Nicolson and Mistris Hamiltoun should have desired me to give them such a quantity of Poyson as would Poyson Mr. Nicolson this I accordingly did at the desire of Mr. Nicolson and Mrs Pringle I was likeways intreated by both Mr. Nicolson and Mistris Pringle to go along with them to their Majesties Advocat where I had a formal Story of the pernicious Design the two Sisters had against the Life of Mr. Nicolson Whereupon the said Mr. Nicolson consulted Their Majesties Advocat how his Life might be secured and the two Sisters taken Red-hand in their wicked Design as he alledged and accordingly my Lord Advocat drew a Draught of an Receipt which the Sisters were to give to me Subscribed before two Witnesses and this I was to have from the two Sisters before I was to give to them the Poyson After we were parted from my Lord Advocat it was concerted amongst us three viz Mr. Nicolson Mistris Pringle and me how the two Sisters Subscriptions should be got and affixed to the Receipt and Witnesses procured Which was done some dayes after in this manner viz. Mr. Nicolson brought his Wife's Contract of Marriage to the House of Mistris Pringle where her Subscription was counterfeited and affixed to the forged Receipt by the said Mr. Nicolson Mistris Pringle being present the Subscription of Mrs. Hamiltoun was counterfeited from off a Discharge granted by her to the said Mr. Nicolson her Name was also affixed to the sorged Receipt by the said Mr Nicolson This was that which was told me jointly by them both at the delivering of the Receipt to me So I procured the two Witnesses to Subscribe their Names being filled up in the Body of the said Receipt I likeways caused the Body of the said Receipt to be written by the Wife of one of the Witnesses viz Robert Wishart and I gave it to the said Mr. Nicolson who gave back the same to me again with the Names of the two Sisters affixed to it and then I procured the Witnesses to Subscribe This is the naked Truth as I have formerly declared and I take God to Witness before Whom ere long I must make my Appearance that I designed the Evil of none Living neither hath there Evil happened to those persons against whom it was designed For all my Design was to have my Straits Wants supplied without the prejudice of any person This Business being the thing for which I must now suffer Death I must be so particular as to let you know that I was the only person that made a perfect Discovery of this complicated Affair which my Declarations before Their Majesties Advocat and Solicitor as likeways before the Criminal Judges in publick Court doth sufficiently testifie I did in that publick Court make an open Confession and and threw my self at Mercy I was found Guilty by an Assyze without adducing any other probation save my own Confession for which I pleaded favour at the Judges Hands I received some But I expected that the Lords of Their Majesties Privy Council upon full Information would have imitated the Great GOD Who delighteth not in the Death of a Sinner but rather that he should Repent and Live For God Blessed for ever will not Reject a Sinner upon his due acknowledging of his Sins and throwing himself at the Throne of His Mercy So I hoped that the Lords of Council as gods on Earth would have shewn Mercy upon my ingenuous Confession and throwing my self upon their Clemency but the Great GOD Whose Ways are unsearchable and past finding out hath otherways ordered it and so I take it from the Hand of God and not from Mâ—n And it is my earnest desire that He may give me a Holy Submission to His Will Now to the Glory of God and my great Shame I have given you a short Narrative of my wicked and profligate Life in which I desire you may take notice of the many and different ways the most merciful God hath taken to reclaim me from my Sins and Wickedness You may likeways observe the many Vows and Promises I have made to God while His afflicting Hand was upon me and likewayes the several Convictions I had but as I have said the Rod of Affliction was no sooner removed than my Vows and Promises were forgot and my Convictions ceased But at last by bringing my Body to this Disgraceful and Untimely End I hope God in His Mercy hath found out a way to preserve my Soul from Eternal Death for my Hope is in Christ Jesus And as I believe in Him Lord strengthen my weak Belief so I expect by His Blood and Merits to see God in Mercy In all the Afflictions and Troubles I have met with and what I am now trysted
he arose again from the Dead and that he now sits at the right Hand of God the Father and that he is making continual Intercession for Sinnas I believe that there is a communion of Saints and that there is a future State And I believe that God will reward the Good and punish the Bad I believe in the Holy Ghost and that there is forgiveness of Sins In summ I believe all that is contained in the Apostolick Creed and on this I venture my Salvation For by the sincere believing of this together with a previous Repentance I hope to see God in Mercy You all see of what importance this Beliefe is so I intreat you again and again to be earnest with God to give you a true Repentance for it is the Gift of God and then a saving Faith in Christ Jesus except you endeavour this you can never expect to be partakers of those Eternal Mansions of Bliss that are prepared for all those that sincerely believe in Him There is one thing I had forgot Which is that one of the Witnessees viz Mr Joseph Cleland denyed his Subscription in publick Court upon Oath but I take God to Witness I did see him Subscribe Witness to the forged Receipt this I have declared as I am a dying Man for Exoneration of my Conscience and that it may be a mean of his Conviction I cannot ommit to tell how Mr Nicolson and Mistris Pringle took all possible wayes since my coming to prison to perswade me to load my self with the whole Guilt and for this end they gave me innumberable fair promises and Bonds to the value of five thousand Marks besides innumerable other things And with all told me it was the only way to preserve their lives and my own For in me it would be thought no other thing than a pretty invention to supply my wants but in them it would be thought a most atrocious and notorious Crime and that unless I took the Guilt upon me they would inevitably perish By such like Arguments I consented to their desire and accordingly Mr Nicolson and I concerted a Counter Declaration which I emitted as come only from my self and instigated so to do by a remorse of Conscience as I pretended Lord pardon me for it I do publickly declare the said Declaration to be false and an untruth My friends Kindness has been so singular and signal to me on this occasion that I cannot pass it with silence For they have not only taken all lawful means to preserve my Life but they have also taken all Christian measures and methods to preserve my Soul for which I do here publickly intreat the Almighty God to reward them with his choisest Blessings here and Eternal Bliss hereafter Now I bid you all heartily Adiew and again and again I desire that you may imprint on your Hearts what you have heard and seen this day which if you do as I earnestly desire so I hope the Great GOD will make it a Mean of your Eternal Good Lord remember me in Mercy for my time draws nigh So I end with the Psalmist Hid not thy face from thy servant for I am in trouble Hear me speedily draw nigh to my Soul and redeem it Make hast O GOD to deliver me make hast to help me O LORD for I am poor and needy make hast unto me O GOD Thou art my help and my deliverer O LORD make no tarrying Into thy hands I commend my Spirit John Eliot EDINBVRGH Printed by George Mosman and are to be Sold at his Shop in the Parliament Closs M. DC XCIV Advertisement THe before going Speech was all Written by Mr. John Eliot his own Hand and many Copies thereof Subscribed by him before his Execution And this Copy was publickly Read upon the Scaffold in his presence and by his Order and Owned and Acknowledged by him to be True in every Circumstance and as such he delivered Subscribed Copies to severals And this Copy was sent to Sir James Steuart Their Majesties Advocate and printed by Allowance under Written Edinburgh The Tenth Day of March One Thousand Six Hundred and Ninty Four Years Allows this Speech of John Eliot to be Printed Polwart Ja. Steuart ADVERTISEMENT THat Francis Spira and the Second Spira being a Fearful Relation of An Atheist ' who Died at London December 1691 in Two Parts Is to be Sold by George Mosman in the Parliamet Closs Price 8 ss bound