Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A42940
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Gods mercy and justice displayed, in the wicked life and penitential death of Dorothy Lillingstone executed the 7. of April, 1679. at Kennington, for murthering her bastard-childe. Published at her earnest request. With Allowance.
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1679
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Wing G960B; ESTC R223686
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10,967
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23
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own benefit so besotted and foolish a creature is man in that state that though he knows his own good yet he either neglects or disowns it as a trifle nay many times esteems it as an injury to be put in minde thereof From Roderith I removed into Frogmorton-street where likewise in a very honest Family I was well placed wherein I observe the goodness of God in affording me those means of return to himself which my own evil heart at all times eschewed and how well might it now have been with me had God given me grace to have followed the counsell and advice of the Mistresse in whose service I then lived how many harsh reflections of a guilty conscience how many besmeared cheeks and swollen eyes and above all how many sins besides this for which I must go hence and be seen no more might have been spared thereby In this service though often warned against it I became acquainted with a person whose Name though I might have cause yet having forgiven all the world I shall not mention who did prevail upon me to the committing of that crime the issue whereof hath justly contracted my days by him I found my self with childe and upon some difference thereabouts with my aforesaid Mistresse I parted thence and went to live in a very reputable Family within the County of Surrey where I saw the Service of God duely and faithfully administred and every minute met with those examples of good and religious living that had I not been hardned to the highest degree I should certainly have taken notice of it But so strong was the infatuation of the devil upon me at that time that I grew hardened under the means of mercy and the more God extended his kindeness to me the lesse good was wrought on me thereby the sun-beams of his mercy shone upon my clay'y heart only to its hardening whilst the hearts of others were melted like wax into a through-obedience of those commands I trampled upon and spurned at In this condition the devil had brought me and kept me the issue of my body still growing more mature and I senceless of my own folly more regarding the shame of the matter towards me and amongst my acquaintance then the crime I had committed against the great God of heaven and earth whose holy commands I had so repeatedly violated The time of my delivery growing nearer each day then other I had several thoughts of providing for the infant and accordingly had taken a room but the temptations of the devil overpower'd all good resolutions in me and when the hour of bringing forth approached leaving the principles of Christianity and laying aside the bowels and tendernesse of a Mother forgetting the laws of God and nature and disregarding the checks of my own conscience I basely and inhumanly strangled the issue of my womb and strove to conceal as well the sin as shame of this horrid Murther from the eyes of the world by hiding the infant in my Trunk so great so crying a sin that were the blood of Christ or the mercy of God of less value then it is I should utterly dispair of ever obtaining a pardon therefore Lord what a wretched creature is man divested of thy grace how are all those noble faculties wherewith thou didst at first endow him disfigured his highest wisdome perfect madness his greatest mercy extreamest cruelty all his actions foolish and besottedly ignorant the Devills engine to ruine and destroy as well his own as others souls even such a creature Lord am I and can I ever hope to see thy face can thy holiness admit so vile and impure a wretch as my self to be in thy presence I that have so often affronted thy Majesty trampled upon thy honour abused thy mercy I that am a Whore a Murtherer a Lyer the very worst of thy creation can I ever expect thy mercy The Laws of men have left no Asylum for me to fly to and wilt thou oh Lord tender thy bosom to receive and preserve me infinit is thy mercy and thy sons intercession therefore will I not despair This crime thus commited Justice hath overtaken me for and before an earthly Tribunal I have received a most just sentence therefore and am now under the dayly expectation of taking my last farewell of the world and shaking hands with all the follies and troubles thereof which leads me to the second thing premised viz. an account of my present thoughts in relation to the condition my sins have reduced me to the which to methodize for the benefit of others though it is my earnest desire yet am I sensible the task is difficult considering the confusions and disturbances thereof the many mixtures of fears and hopes arising from the different considerations of my former miscariages and present but imperfect assurances wherefore I shall first of all in general lay before you a draft though but an imperfect one of my said thoughts upon my first conviction and then proceed to shew you how God hath pleased to work upon me in order to the settlement of those confusions I was then disturbed with wherefore in the first place no sooner had I received sentence of Death from an Earthly throne but it put me in minde of that sentence I was shortly to receive in the highest Heavens from that God and for those crimes whereby during all my life I had so highly provoked his anger and vengeance against me which consideration filled me with terrors of the Almighty and made me cry out under the weight of my burthen that it was greater then I could bear Hell-fire flasht in my face and the devil who formerly hurried me presumtuously to persist in my impieties now turned the drift of his temtations to force me to despair making use of the memory of my former crimes in all the black aggravations thereof to inhance my infidelities terrifying me with the justice of God who before he had represented as a merciful father ready and easie to forgive his failing children he now shapes as an angry Judge bound to condemn offenders In this condition never was misery greater then the thoughts of that chance I was and am shortly to make neither ever had any creature a more perfect portraiture of the ugliness of sin then at this time I met with Imagine but then how little pleasure or rather how great was my torture in the revolutions of the idle expence of my former hours and days of my former pleasant and as I then thought innocent pastimes These were my torment but how much more how exceedingly and inconceiveably greater was the thoughts of my disobedience to my parents my neglect of God in all the duties of his worship my excessive pride my repeated and continued whoredomes and above all my unnatural destruction of the off-spring of my own body These were as mountains of Lead under which helpless and hopeless I lay overwhelmed my comfort came slowly upon me and though
sometimes a Beam of hope would shine in upon my soul from the consideration of the merits and blood of Christ my dear Lord and Saviour yet the same was imediately clouded by the revolution of the thoughts premised and now it was I found how hard the work of repentance let the world pass what sentiments they please thereon was to bring about how many were the conflicts with the flesh and the Devil that I grapled with how many bitter sighs and groans how many fears and terrors was I wrapped up in ere I could bring my self to a serious and hearty repentance for my past crimes It is true the condition I was in under a sentence of Death made me sorry that I had committed the offence that had brought me thereto yet the fear of death more then the greatness of the crime against God was the cause of that sorrow and had not that sentence been past upon me I fear my heart would never have been affected with that sorrow Whence I would beg and request of all to whom these lines shall come that they take it as the advice of a dying woman who being nearer can see further into the things of another world then those who stand at a distance thence that they would not deferr the great work of repentance till they come within prospect of eternity which every day brings them nearer to then other Thus much in general I shall descend to particulars in shewing you how God hath pleased to work upon me in order to the settlement of my thoughts under these confusions I was at present under wherein notwithstanding all those suggestions the Devil and my own evil heart did terrifie me with I have found that God is a merciful father to repentant and returning sinners though just against obstinate offenders To his free grace in Christ Jesus my Lord I attribute all the comfort I have and must receive here and hereafter Wherefore in the first place I shall shew you that God hath been pleased by a graciously powerful hand to work upon me in turning me to a perfect detestation of my sins more in that they are and have been an affront to his Majesty then the Cause of that temporal Death I am to suffer therefore To make out this I am to acquaint you that having received my Sentence on Thursday night I continued in great confusions as aforesaid for two or three days and though a good Friend who tarried most part of the time with me assisted me with his advice and prayers yet could I not bring my self to so setled a temper but that my fears clouded my hopes and deprived me of those comforts which otherwise and under other Considerations I might have received the devil being all this time busie in stirring that mud my own evil heart had too readily raised On the Munday following I was visited by a Minister of worth within the City of London who after several questions by him propounded and threats of the Law against such criminals as my self were laid open I began to see my transgressions without that vizard the Tempter had generally masked them with the uncomely shape whereof did administer that amazement to me which was the first step of that abhorrency I have since conceived against them and no wonder that poor creatures are so much deceived in their opinion of sin considering the specious advantage under which a representation by that evil one is made thereof the which till the purblinde eyes of man come to the nearest view thereof to wit in a punishment therefore or by Gods speciall grace he can never discern it in its true proportion or colour but continues under a fancied deceit that there is in sin somewhat exceedingly amiable profitable or reputable amongst men without which he could never live under that injoyment of happiness and content as the same would at all times afford him Thus with many thousands in the like case with me I was always deluded and on this account did I run on in those sinful courses whose end is a scertain'd destruction as I to my cost have found it but the time is now come that the vail is drawn aside and I begin to consider the inside and bottom of those crimes which before that time lay covered under a specious and fair superficies and thereby came to a discovery of what before I never did really possess my self with I now consider'd every sin a breach of Gods Law and a provocation of that vengeance that might every moment have spurned me into an abysse of misery and turned me out amongst those who are weeping wailing and gnashing their teeth in the pit of perdition from whence to the throne of grace and mercy no appeal can be and that it was the exceeding patience and forbearance of God that he had spared so vile so impure a wretch as my self so long under such continued and repeated impieties to violate his laws and contemn his most Sacred and august authority which considerations as they raised my detestation and hatred against sin so did they inhance the value and price of Gods mercy the two first stones to that great work of conversion which I hope God has in me the unworthyest subject of his choice in some measure graciously effected as arguments of which my own heart gives me these five evidences which laid together confirm the same to my comfort 1. That under the sence of my Sin I confesse and acknowledg my self deservedly a condemned creature unless the application of the blood of Christ my Saviour and his intercession at the throne of grace joyning with the free love of God shall repeal the sentence against me 2. I do throughly and from my heart detest and abhor sin in general and should God please to lengthen out my days I should continue my resolutions of a through repentance and reformation of life forsaking all courses contrary to Gods holy word and Law 3. I find in my Spirit a delight in reading and prayer things I formerly omitted and eschewed 4. A fiduciary expectation of forgiveness from God of all past crimes through Jesus Christ freely relying and reposing my self on him for Salvation 5. I do freely and from my heart forgive all the world and bear to none the least ill will Which considerations are the ground of that hope that balmes my wounded heart and cordialls my decaying spirits under the great change I am so shortly to make To discourse of which is the next and last thing I have to say and would to God I could now lay by all the cloggs of flesh and earth and mount up upon the wings of faith into such a state as the Apostle was when he desired to be dissolved and be with Christ but alas how many difficulties am I now to graple with what Mountains of opposition stand in my way too high and great to travel over before me I see a fair Heaven inviting and alluring the aspect to an