Selected quad for the lemma: master_n
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A61480
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A narrative of the extraordinary penitence of Rob. Maynard who was condemned for the murder of John Stockton ... and executed at Tyburn, May the 4th : together with the several conferences held with him in Newgate : as also a copy of the papers which he left to be published after his death / by Joseph Stevens.
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Stevens, Joseph.; Maynard, Robert.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing S5498; ESTC R29534
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14,857
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57
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Repentance for all the wrong he has done to thee and read them o're and o're not to indispose but to comfort thee with the hope that I am in a way of being Saved for though God has made use of this severe means to rouse and awaken my Conscience yet it is I hope out of a merciful design to make me happy in the World to come Be not dismayed at my shameful fall but entirely cast thy self upon God who will defend and comfort thee and turn this temporal Affliction to thy Spiritual and Eternal Good Remember to avoid those sins which thou discoverest me most prone unto and all others which thy own Nature may be prompted and inclined to Never omit thy Duty either publick or private consult the Glory of God in all thy Actions be humble modest meek and condescending and an example of Holyness to thy Sex Let the good of thy Child be thy daily care nourish and cherish it and the more because it is Fatherless and as it grows up instil good Principles into it learn it to know its Creatour and the Duty and Homage it owes him Correct it when necessity requires encourage it to be good and never be backward in well-doing I beseech thee dry up thy Tears and don't contract Distempers by immoderate sorrow I am but going before though after an ignominious and shameful manner and e're long thou must dye too and then I hope we shall both meet in Heaven Our parting is dreadful our adieus are uncooth and formidable but fate has so ordered it and we must rest contented though not without some Reluctancy which is incident to flesh and Blood and now the more provoked on account of this unhappy accasion Dear Heart I must think of stopping my Pen for this is only the Instrument of thy Sorrow and the sad remembrancer of former Transactions and brings afresh to thy mind the many instances of thy slighted and abused Love and this will be to renew thy grief which is burden enough already and to represent the sence of my ill-spent Life I beseech God to pour upon you the Riches of his Goodness to give you all things both for Soul and Body that you may live in his Faith and fear and make up that lost time occasioned by my vexatious and troublesome carriage towards thee This is all I think fit to communicate to thee and it is expressed with an affectionate Heart I shall end with that saying of St. Paul I pray God grant you according to the riches of his Glory to be strengthned with his might by his Spirit in the Inner-man that Christ may dwell in your Heart by Faith that you being rooted and grounded in Love may be able to comprehend with all Saints what is the height breadth length and depth and to know the love of Christ which passes knowledg that you may be filled with all the fulness of God I Rest thy Affectionate but distressed Husband Robert Maynard Sinners remember the Expressions of a Dying Man let them sink deep and be perpetual warnings to you Here ends the Confession of Robert Maynard It may reasonably be presumed that if men are not void of Natural Modesty and bidden adieu to all seriousness these lines will affect them and Spirit them with resolution against the sins which were the ruin and entire overthrow of this poor Creature who was willing to expose his indigested Papers to publick view that they might timely prevent wicked men from falling into endless misery and certainly if such Pathetick Arguings of a Dying Man be not powerful and influential it is much to be feared that men are hardned against reproof and impregnable to good advice Dying men who are seized with a quick and peircing sense of their sins speak with most feeling and least affectation They tell us plainly that sin is pleasant but for a very little time that it puts Conscience into strong Convulsions and Creates a very Hell within a Man's self that it hardens him against serious Exhortations makes him forget God and his Soul and without infinite Mercy will crush him into the Regions below where do dwell Devils and Damned Fiends Who can be better judges of this than they who experience the woful effects of sin And who more obdurate than they who securely live in sin notwithstanding such affectionate warnings I shall therefore make use of this opportunity First To perswade Parents that they take care to bring up their Children in the fear of God that they instil the Principles of the Christian Religion into their Children betimes while they are tender and flexible and subjective to the Admonishments of their Friends It is a sad consideration that Fathers and Mothers are so generally negligent of this most Christian Duty and suffer their Children to grow up with no better an Education than corrupt Nature gives them How often do we hear little Creatures whose tongues are scarce strong enough to pronounce their Mother Language take God's Name in vain Tho they are not sensible of the evil of such Profane Expressions yet their Parents should Correct them and they by a constant observation of their severity would soon learn to avoid the taking of God's Name into their Mouths at every turn tho not out of a sense of their duty to God yet out of fear of Punishment Train up a Child says the Wise Man in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it that is initiate or instruct him First according to his Capacity Or rather Secondly in that course and manner of Life which thou wouldst have him to chuse and follow or as some render it in the beginning of his way i. e. in his tender years as soon as he is capable of Instruction and when grown to Maturity he will not easily deviate from his early Institution the impressions made in Childish years will remain not but that he may fall off and become a Reprobate but for the most part a timely and Pious Education produces a future Religious Deportment And to encourage Parents to this duty of well Educating their Children let them consider that this is an immediate way to procure God's Blessings upon their Families to make their Children when grown up to do good in their Generation to be serviceable and useful to them when Aged or reduced to Poverty But above all this Christian care will be matter of great comfort when they come to Dye 2. Let Masters also be watchful over their Servants pressing them by their Religious Examples to an holy Life Masters are as answerable to God for their Servants as Parents are for their Children And this considered they should keep them in a Religious awe learn them to be sober and modest Exhort them to whatsoever things are Just Honest and of good Report Call upon them to joyn in Family-Devotion to frequent the Church restrain them from the looser sort oblige them to be meek and Courteous
Were Masters of Families thus Consciencious Servants would be more Faithful in their Posts it is thus expressed in the Whole Duty of Man pag. 314. ' Masters are to Admonish and Reprove their Servants in case of faults and that not only in faults against them wherein few masters are backward but also and more especially in faults against God whereas every master ought to be more troubled than at those which tend only to his own loss or inconvenience the dishonour of God and the hazard of the meanest mans Soul being infinitely more worthy our disquiet than any thing of the other kind can be And therefore when masters are presently on fire for any little negligence or fault of a Servant towards themselves and yet can without trouble see them run into the greatest sins against God 't is a sign they consider their own concernments too much and God's Glory and their Servants Souls too little Such Masters forget that they must one day give an Account how they have governed their Families Religion was never at a lower Ebb than now which speaks that Men were never more insensible of their miserable State But Methinks this should be a Paradox since our City abounds with Learned and able Divines who are daily ringing Men in the Ears with the danger of sin and the necessity of a speedy and timely Conversion But such is the absurd folly of men they are as it were glutted with Divinity and think they are too much importuned to be happy But can cautions in matters Spiritual be too often Published Does not the Souls of Men call for Admonitions and Perswasions and the utmost diligence that can be used to prepare them for the Embraces of the Father of Spirits Is any thing of that worth as the Soul For this Christ did Sweat and Groan and Bleed and Die Sirs consider that to lose the Soul is to lose all and no redeeming it after the fatal Sentence is past upon it Confider what a terrible thing it will be to be doomed to eternal Misery to be shut up with Devils and damned Fiends in the unhappy Residenses of endless Torments Who can dwell with everlasting burnings Who can endure to be Rackt and Stung and Griped for ever without Redemption Be therefore perswaded to forsake your Sins whilst you have strength to commit them do not procrastinate and shift off your Repentance to hereafter lest before that time come you be unexpectedly Arrested stript into naked Spirits and set a shore upon the other invisible World It is strange that men must be Courted to be Happy They are industrious enough to get Temporal Riches eager of Worldly Honour or any thing which may render their Lives Comfortable Easy and Desirable and yet very backward in laying up Treasure in Heaven This is a Work so unsuitable with the humour of the Age so vastly different from those acquisitions which the greatest part of the World study for and seek after that it is lookt upon a very stupid melancholly lifeless imployment Time enough say they to think of another Life when we have nothing else to do when our senses decay and cannot relish outward Delights when our Bodies are bound down to a state of inactivity by the Violence of Killing Diseases when the Physician gives over Prescribing and there is no apparent hopes of Recovery But what a pernicious suggestion is this who can assure himself of Grace to Repent at such a time For besides the Prevalency of vicious Habits which are great obstructions to Repentance it is but just with God to deny his Grace at the last gasp to those who have obstinately refused the merciful repeated tenders of it all their life time With all the manifest imprudense of Delays is it reasonable to suppose that God will accept of our lame imperfect Services a faint Lord have mercy upon me a few extorted Prayers and hasty resolutions after Satan has quaffed our Youthful Blood and has imployed us in his drudgery in our Health and Strength You therefore that put the evil day afar off and reckon upon Repentance when you come to Dye consider that tho God has revealed to men that they shall certainly Dye once yet he has not acquainted them at what time it may be sooner or later nor yet after what manner it may be a Lethargy may seize thee and so all thy Powers and descerning Faculties stupified and thou insensible of thy departure Or it may be a violent Feaver may affect thy Brain and thou not name the name of God but in Oaths and Curses and thus leave the World So that since the time of our Departure hence is uncertain since the manner and circumstances of our Exit is kept as a secret from us it is the greatest folly in the world to put off the business of our Souls to hereafter The time present is that alone we can properly call our own to morrow next week or month are uncertainties before this we may be stript and sent into the other World Work therefore whilst it is called day for the night comes wherein no man can work I hope this short application may have its designed effect upon all that read it to the Glory of God the well-governing of their Lives and the Eternal Comfort of their Souls FINIS BOOKS in the Press and designed for it Printed for John Dunton ☞ THE Design for Recording the most Remarkable Providences of Judgment and Mercy c. Which have happened in this Age by the Reverend Mr. Turner having been much approved of as appears by the well Attested Relations which have been sent to him from many parts of the three Kingdoms none of which have yet been Printed The said work will be Publish'd with all possible Expedition Proposals and Specimens giving a full Account of this History are to be had of the Undertaker John Dunton at the Raven in Jewen-street and of most Bocksellers in London and the Country The Poetical Works of the Ingenious PINDARICK LADY The general History of the Quakers from their first Original down to this present time Written in Latin by the Learned Croes and done into English by an able hand ☞ THE Third and Fourth Volumes of the FRENCH BOOK of MARTYRS for which no more Subscriptions will be taken in will be Published with her late Majesty's ROYAL PRIVILEDGE are Preparing for the Press but being much larger than the two former Volumes for these Two Last Compleat the Work and contain the MARTTRDOMS of all the French Protestants from the beginning of the Reign of LEWIS XIV down to this time 't will be a considerable time before they can possibly be ready for publication but as soon as they are notice thereof will be given in the Gazette by the Undertaker John Dunton at the Raven in Jewen-street ☞ If any Ministers VVidow or other person have any Library or parcel of books to dispose of if they will send a Catalogue of them or notice where they are to John Dunton at the Raven in Jewen-street they shall have ready mony for them to the full of what â—hey are worth