Selected quad for the lemma: mercy_n
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A87789
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The sufferers legacy to surviving sinners[;] or, Edmund Kirk's dying advice to young men vvrote by his own hand in Newgate, and delivered to his friend with a desire the same might be published, on Friday the 11th of June, 1684. Being the day on which he was executed at Tyburn, for murthering his wife.
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Kirk, Edmund, d. 1684.
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1684
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Wing K625; ESTC R230361
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5,154
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2
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your Oaths and Excesses a Fighting a gainst the Almighty and Contending with Omnipotence and the love of Revenge the seeds of Murder think of this at present and shun my Fate For had it been formerly told me I should ever have come to this End or have done that crying Sin of Murder for which I justly stand Condemned I should certainly have answered in the Words of Hazael to the Prophet Elisha when he inquired of him the reason of his Weeping Because sayeth the Prophet I know the Evil that thou shalt do unto the Children of Israel for their strong Cities shalt thou set on Fire and their Young-Men shalt thou slay with the Sword and shalt dash their Infants against the Stones and rent in Peices their Women with-Child To which Hazael replied what is thy Servant a Dog that I should do this great Thing yet all this was afterwards Accomplished by him and in like manner giving way to the beginnings of Vice have I run this Course till my guilty Hands were all over Imbrued in Innocent Blood And justly therefore may I cry out and exclaim against my self that I am now worse than the Brute that Perisheth and I have nothing of Cleanliness or Humanity about me But Oh! Lord my God look down upon me and Rebuke me not in thy Anger neither Chastise in thy Wrath for thine Arrows have light upon me and thy Hand lieth upon me there is nothing Sound in my Flesh because of thy great anger neither is there Rest in my Bones because of my Sin for mine Iniquities are gon over my Head and as a weighty Burthen they are too heavy for me My Bones are Putrified and Corrupt because of my Foolishness My Eyes are full of Burning I roar for very Grief of my Heart But O Lord I power mine whole desire before thee and my sighing is not Hid from thee It may be now expected that I should give some account what were the Reasons and Motives that Instigated me to this Crime But alas when I consider the slender Inducements I had thereunto I must only clap my Hand upon my Breast and confess it was the Evil Counsellor within me my own vile and Corrupted Heart that agreed with the Seducements of Satan to bring this Tragedy to an Accomplishment What was the first chief cause that was the occasion of my Disagreement with my Wife was her Humour which I could now wish I had complied with it being as I really believe for my Good to follow me from place to place and hinder my associating my self with Lewd and Debauched Company which Disagreement tho at first it was no more than as a small Spark yet by degrees the same was blown up to so great a Flame of Dissention that the Devil told me no less than her Innocent Blood could give me a proper Satisfaction for and upon this it was that I contrived and perpetrated this Horrid and abominable Fact for which I now Suffer a greater load of Grief than if Rocks or Mountains overwhelmed me and had not God of his Mercy cast in some Beams of his Favour upon me to support me in this my Doleful Imprisonment I had long ere this sunk under the weight thereof Nor can I but observe how just the Almighty hath been in my Punnishment in leaving me to commit this cruel and unnatural Sin on that very Day which I had so often abused not only in the neglect of those Ordinances and Assemblies which I ought to have followed and frequented but in the Commissions of those Excesses which at other times my Business and Imployment in the World never afforded me so great a leisure for Whence I would beg and entreat in the Words of a Dying Man who stands within the prospect of Eternity all those that are my Acquaintance and others that value their own Souls that they would remember to keep Holy the Sabath Day for God hath commanded it and he is both a Jealous and a good God and as he visiteth the Iniquity of the Fathers upon the Children unto the third and fourth Generation of them that hate him so he shews Mercy unto thousands of them that love him and keep his Commandments And believe me dear Friends what ever the Devil may Suggest unto you at present he le change his note as he hath done with me when you come so near Death as I am those Sins which he once told me were scarce to be observed he now aggravates with the greatest loads of Aspersion insomuch that were it not for the sight of my Saviour who Dyed and Sussered for me I should wish that a Mill-stone were hung about my Neck and the Seas Bottom was my Eternal Grave but in him is my Trust in him is my Hope and thro him I am willing to tast the bitter Cup prepared for me In which Faith the Lord preserve me Amen From NEWGATE July 11th 1684. Edmund Kirk His PRAYER MOST Gracious Merciful and Eternal Lord God thy poor Sinful and Condemned Creature is here approached the Throne of thy Mercy Confessing that as I have been a great and Heinous Sinner before thee so nothing less than the Infinite Mercy of thy Almightiness it Self can ever Pardon me But thou O Lord art a God of Mercy a God of Love and free Grace and when Sinners approach unto thee tho their Crimes be as Scarlet thou canst make them as white as Snow and hast promised so to do Therefore Good and Gracious Lord under the Comfort and sense of that Promise I cast my self down before thee Beseeching that thou wouldest wash and Cleanse my blotted and Leprous Soul in the Blood of my Saviour and Redeemer Christ Jesus O Lord I am Defiled But he is Clean I am a Sinner a great and crying Sinner But in him was no Guile found I have offended thee But he Sufferr'd for me I have been a Murderer But he was Murdered for the sake of Sinners amongst whom I am Chief Lay therefore the burthen of my Sins upon the Cross of my Saviour and let them not rise up in Judgment against me at such time as I approach thy Tribunal It is but a short time and the Day will be here a few Minutes that I have to Live the Sands of my Life are near Wasted and I must take a farewell of this World in the midst of Health and Strength and this through my own Crimes so that I may charge my own as well as her Blood which I wickedly and Murtherously shed at my own Door For which Crime as I am justly made an Example to all the World in a shameful and Ignominious Death So O Lord let this my Fate deter and warn others from those Courses that lead thereunto that no other Person may ever fall into that Snare that I am Entangled in but that my Sufferings may be as a Sea-Mark to others to avoid those Shelves and Sands I am now Sunk into But do thou O Lord Forgive me do thou O Lord receive me to thy Self when my Soul and Body shake Hands each of the other that I may dwell Eternally with thee in Everlasting Bliss All which I humbly beg for the Sake and through the Mediation of Christ Jesus To whom with thee and thy Holy Spirit be ascribed all Honour Power and Glory now and for evermore Amen London Printed by Geo. Croom in Thames-street over against Baynard's Castle 1684.
THE Sufferers LEGACY to Surviving Sinners OR Edmund Kirk's Dying Advice to Young Men VVrote by his own Hand in Newgate and delivered to his Friend with a desire the same might be Published on Friday the 11th of June 1684. Being the day on which he was Executed at Tyburn for Murthering his Wife Dear Country Men I Cannot but be very sensible under the condition into which my Crimes have justly involved me how little I deserve your pity But yet as I am now come to the last period of my Life and going before another Tribunal to answer for what I have here don amiss before the great Judge of Heaven and Earth I hope you 'l so far lay by your just animosities against me as to give me a hearing nor can I think of any way so proper to improve the few Minutes I have yet by the mercy of the Almighty spared me as in setting down the steps and degrees by which iniquity hath taken hold of me that the sad fate I am now to suffer as the due and regular Consequence thereof may be a warning to others not only to avoid such gross and heinous Crimes for which I now stand Condemned but also those lesser and more remote Evils which were the forerunners hereunto Let him that stands take heed least he Falls the best do need this Caution and had I not thought my self two secure and trusted to my own strength more then the grace and assistance of the Almighty this Condition had never been mine I thank God I was born of good Parents whose kind instructions and Pious Counsel I rebelliously neglected Which neglect as I am in the first place humbly to beg God and their Pardons for so must I acknowledge that I firmly believe the same to have a great influence on my present fate for as the Command hath said Honour thy Father and Mother that thy days may be long in the Land which the Lord thy God hath given thee So I cannot but Judge that the shortning of mine hath been in some Degree or Measure for this my Crime nor is it less than the greatest aggravation of what I am to suffer next to that of offending my God that in this scandalous and Ignominious Death I am justly Condemned unto I have brought shame upon my Family and doubled the pains on my Mother that bore me this tho it was the Sin of my Youth yet where I began to Transgress I thought fit to Confess Therefore Young-Men Young-Men as ye love your Immortal Souls and expect to live happily here and enjoy Everlasting Bliss hereafter be not Disobedient to your Parents but learn by my Example to avoid this Crime which was the beginning of those many I have been since Guilty of In the next place I would use the advice of Solomon in the 12th of Eccle. and the 11th Verse remember now thy â—â—eator in the Dayes of thy Youth while the Evil Days come â—ot nor the Years draw nigh wherein thou shalt say I have no Pleasure in them With me alas the now is almost past over wherein I ought to have remembred my Creator and the hours are upon me in which I have no Pleasure no Comfort or Content in the revolution of my former mispence of those Seasons and Opportunities that God gave me but a sad and Doleful remembrance how often I have refused the offers of Grace and despitefully rejected the motions of God's Holy Spirit which Day by Day was as a Remembrancer under my Pillow to rouse and stir me up from a Careless and Sleepy Security in the state of Wickedness and Sensuality which I then lay But all in vain Sin had Possession of me and with her inticeing Dalliances and Bewitching Allurements which were then as a sweet and grateful Morsel in my Mouth but now as bitter as the pangs of Death it Self Betrayed me and Hurried me from one Degree of Bad to another till I had accomplished the last course of Iniquity for which I now Groan But tho God's just Judgment hath deprived me of my Opportunity to Serve him as I ought and left me but a few Minutes to make my Peace with his offended Majesty yet to you that survive a Day and Time is offer'd if you improve it Your now is at present but how long it may last before the Night cometh upon you wherein you can do no Work is in the Breast alone of God Almighty who will not be Delayed or put off when the World and the Devil hath had the first and best of your Youth and Strength with the Lees and remainders of old Age and Impotence It is not enough to give over Sin when old Years incapacitate thee for commission thereof this thou owest to thy Imbecility and Weakness and canst not discern whether 't is thy will or want of Power that makes thee then leave off 't is in the midst of thy Youth when thy Blood Boyls and thy Jovial Spirits are in Fermentation that thou must put a stop to thy Carieres of Sin and Vanity and seek and serve thy Creator Had I taken this Advice I had never left my God and consequently had never been left by him but so it is that the great Deceiver of Souls if he can but make us put off or quench our Young Desires to the Things of God and our own Souls in which there is only true and lasting Pleasure to be obtained he lays before us in all her Gaudy Embellishments and enticeing Braveries the Lust and Vanities of this naither World with which we are as it were Spirited and Stolen away from the Land of true Enjoyment to drudge in the Mines of Slavery and Infelicity and yet as if there were no better Life we go on Contentedly and like Born Bond-slaves sing at the Oar and think our selves Happy But dear Country-Men look to it be times and let my Fate be your Example Time was when I had as great a delight in Vanity as the most Debauched amongst you The Day was lost in my apprehension in which I met no Jovial Companion to Drink or Carouse away my Hours the Night misspent that was not Improved in the Embraces and Dalliances of some Dalilah The Sentence came dully and insipidly from my Lips that was not Graced with an Oath and I looked on my self with shame when I let slip an Injury without a Revenge But could you stand in my Place and feel the Pangs that I bare or hear the Rebukes that my Conscience gives me You would say as I do that if I had ten Thousand Worlds at my disposal I would give them all for a quiet Conscience and a sight of Forgiveness with God Almighty through the Blood of my dear Redeemer Christ Jesus You would then say that the Pleasures of Sin were as Thorns and Briers in your Sides the Debauches and Excess of Company the worst of all Pains and Trouble the Embraces of your Beloved and Endeared Harlots Vanity and Vexation of Spirit