AN occasion so melancholy as the present, viewed in all circumstances, hath rarely, if ever, fallen under our notice. This numerous as­sembly, of all orders and characters, will attend with reverence to the counsel that may be brought from the word of God. Especially is it to be hop­ed, that he, whose tragical death is to succeed this solemnity, may be all attention to the last sermon he will ever hear. I have ever considered that I preached to mortal men; but was ne­ver called to preach to one doomed to death by public justice, and but a few hours before his launching into eternity.

AN important end of capital punishment, as it relates to society and this world, is pointed out in the words read. This comprehends sundry par­ticulars: It is to rid the state of a present nui­sance—to prevent the extension of the evil—to re­claim or preserve those who have been, or might be in danger of being, seduced by examples of [Page 6] profligate wickedness. So shalt thou put the e­vil away from among you. And those which re­main shall hear, and fear, and shall henceforth com­mit no more any such evil among you. A further end of capital punishment will be attended to, as it is a natural consequence from the words. This respects the offender, and a future world. Let us first attend to the former.

WHAT is here said with immediate respect to perjury is applicable to other crimes equally per­nicious in their tendency. The direction is to civil magistrates and judges, to make diligent en­quiry respecting the evil; and upon proof of it, to put it away by the excision of the criminal. It is a duty which the civil guardians of a commu­nity owe to God and their people. They are the ministers of God, by him appointed "revengers to execute wrath upon such as do evil." They may "not bear the sword in vain." In being "a terror to evil works," they are ministers of God for good to the community and its virtuous citi­zens.

THE excision of a member of society can be justified only for crimes of magnitude. It is put­ting a period, a reproachful and excruciating peri­od, to the probation of a fellow-creature. A just and humane government will recur to it only in cases where the sovereign of life has declared his will, or the public safety clearly requires it. "A­mong the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit, it is a melancholy truth," says judge Blackstone, "that no less than an hundred and sixty have been declared by act of parliament [Page 7] to be felonies without benefit of clergy; or, in o­ther words, to be worthy of instant death. So dreadful a list, instead of diminishing, increases the number of offences. The injured, through com­passion, will often forbear to prosecute: Juries, through compassion, will sometimes forget their oaths, and either acquit the guilty, or mitigate the nature of the offence: And judges, through com­passion, will respite one half of the convicts, and recommend them to the royal mercy. Among so many chances of escaping, the needy or hard­ened offender overlooks the multitude that suffer; he boldly engages in some desperate attempt to relieve his wants, or supply his vices; and, if un­expectedly the hand of justice over-takes him, he deems himself peculiarly unfortunate, in falling at last a sacrifice to those laws, which long impunity had taught him to contemn." ^§

SHALL crimes so different in their natures as murder and a trifling theft be subjected to the same penalty? Policy, justice and humanity alike re­monstrate against it. "Death is of dreadful things the most dreadful. This terror should be the last resort of authority, the strongest and most opera­tive of prohibitory sanctions, and placed before the treasure of life, to guard from invasion what can­not be restored." It doth honor to the wisdom as well as lenity of our legislators, that not more than six crimes are capital by our law. ^*

[Page 8]THE execution of a capital sentence should e­ver be accompanied with circumstances of solemn­ity expressive of public grief, and adapted to make a lasting impression on all ages, ranks and charac­ters—particularly on children and youth: Such solemnity will greatly subserve the security of the state, and the cause of morality.

VARIOUS crimes were made capital by the jewish constitution, for peculiar reasons which do not apply to other people. Nations are far from being agreed in the number of crimes which should be punished with death. The circum­stances of different nations may require them to have recourse to this punishment for different crimes. Nations in general have agreed to make murder, treason, and rape, capital. The divine legislator has expressly interposed his authority with respect to the first. And the reason assigned for the excision of a murderer equally applies to all times and people: It is this: For in the image of God made he man. The second, or high treason, is murder increased, and extended to an whole community. The last is the crime for which this malefactor is to suffer death. It is beside the intent of this solemnity to specify all the crimes which the legislature and magistracy of a state may be bound to put away by cutting off the perpetra­tors. Such we suppose this malefactor's offence to have been. Seldom is such an offence so am­ply proved. For seldom is a delinquent of this description so bold and shameless.

IT is on all hands agreed that a private citizen may defend himself against a violent assault. The [Page 9] consequence is plain, that a state may defend her citizens against such assault. When lenity to a criminal would be cruelty to good subjects, on what ground doth he expect lenity? The God of order hath vested civil government with authority to preserve itself—to provide for the personal safe­ty and rights of every subject. He has command­ed the civil magistrate to put away any flagrant evil from the state. If this can be done only at the expence of life, then life hath been forfeited to the state. Ravishment is such an outrage on hu­manity, an injury so great and irreparable, a crime so baneful and dangerous to society, that civilized nations have agreed to protect female honor from violence by making death the penalty for this crime.

THERE is a distinction between the forfeiture of liberty, and the forfeiture of life. But the cri­minal whose atrocious conduct hath merited im­prisonment for life, doth not differ materially in his moral character from one whom all will allow to have merited death. And whether one who hath wholly forfeited liberty can have a claim to life will admit a question. In the instance before us, we proceed on the supposition that it is unsafe and dangerous, and therefore unfit, that such an offender should live. Those who are so depraved in their moral character that they can neither be cured nor endured, are in the civil state what a mortified member is in the natural body. As such member must be amputated for the preserva­tion of the body, so persons of such depravity must be cut off for the preservation of the state. The [Page 10] master of a family expells from his house the member whose residence in it is no longer consist­ent with its order and welfare. Should his con­duct as a citizen be equally vicious and dangerous, the like power in civil government must be exer­cised in sentencing him to death—not to banish­ment. If unworthy to live in his own country, he is equally unworthy to live in another. If he hath no rights in his own country, where hath he any rights? And what indignity to another nati­on, to transport into it such convict?

ONE design of capital punishments then is to rid the state of a present nuisance, and protect good subjects. A further design is to warn and restrain others of evil dispositions. That those which re­main may hear and fear.

WITH this view the supreme ruler, in his mo­ral government of the world, sometimes evident­ly sets forth individuals, and sometimes commu­nities, as an example—an example of his righteous severity; and an admonition to the ungodly. You will readily call to mind various examples in scrip­ture of the judgments of God, final as to this world—inflicted with the parental design of giv­ing a sensible demonstration of the malignity of vice, preventing the extension of it, and awaken­ing a just awe in the minds of many, who, were it not for such admonitions, would proceed to commit all iniquity with greediness. Divine threatnings as well as judgments recorded in scrip­ture are all parental warnings. The divine go­vernment is a pattern to earthly rulers.

SOME may imagine that punishment, especially [Page 11] capital punishment, must be dictated by revenge. If only the case of the suffering individual came into consideration, this might appear specious. But government, from the nature of it, regards a public interest: It provides for particular parts or members in subordination and subserviency to the good of the whole. Surely no individual can complain that his interest is not consulted to the injury of any citizen—much less at the peril of the public. He cannot complain, that he, being of an abandoned character, is not spared to spread the contagion of iniquity. If righteousness exalts a nation, and iniquity is its ruin, goodness requires that such as would bring on this ruin be cut off. That must be a very bad administration under which any subject is permitted with impunity to assault his fellow-subjects, or to seduce them from their allegiance. That head of a family doth not consider what he owes to his houshold, who suf­fers any member of it to subvert all order, deco­rum and duty. Nor could we prove the moral rectitude and goodness of God, were he not known in the course of his providence by the judgments he execuseth. Punishment is his strange work. He delighteth in mercy. But if this doth not re­claim, he will whet his glittering sword, and his hand will lay hold on judgment. Benevolence itself calls for punishment in this or an after state, or there is no such thing as moral government. In civil society, the wicked would walk on every side, and the cry of the oppressed be in vain, the foundations would be destroyed, confusion and misery would prevail, were punishment, capital punishment, never executed.

[Page 12]INGENUOUS motives are the best. But with how many have such motives little or no influ­ence? It would be well, could we, in inculcating morality, prevail with all by representing the rea­sonableness, excellence and advantages of virtue, the turpitude and misery of vice. But we are compelled to persuade men by the terror of future judgment, and future wrath. With this view the scriptures reveal future indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish. Yet even the revelation of the wrath of God from heaven doth not restrain many. They do not believe, or do not fear, him who can destroy soul and body in hell. So in re­gard to civil government, the love of it is the most worthy and sure principle of obedience and sub­mission. But what course must be taken with those who neither fear God, nor regard man? who are impatient of controul, and break through the restraints of all laws human and divine? who would dissolve society, and introduce universal a­narchy? If such would be the consequence of suf­fering them to live, they manifestly ought to die, that so great an evil may be prevented. Such ex­amples of public vengeance naturally strike terror into others, whose lusts and passions might impel them to the same, or as great evil, were it not for this warning.

THERE are but few who are made without fear. So awful and strange a punishment especially, as in a few hours awaits this poor prisoner, is calculated and designed to put the lawless in fear. On this occasion persons of all characters have come toge­ther. Possibly there may be some in this great [Page 13] concourse, who have been kept back from the same, or the like excess of riot, by no other con­sideration than the fear of human laws. To such especially he is now set forth for an example, and will be in a yet more affecting manner in the af­ternoon. Very few have ever been more harden­ed and audacious offenders. Yet even he informs us, that when in the midst of his career, one of his associates was tried and condemned, he, with those that remained, heard and feared. Well had it been, if they had taken warning, and committed no more any such evil. But when they found that their companion, who met the just reward of his deeds, made no discovery of his accomplices, their fears vanished, and they returned to their for­mer course. Now another, perhaps the most bold and subtil of all, after having escaped the vigil­ance of the civil magistrate in several kingdoms of Europe, is this day to be offered a victim to pub­lic justice. From the past tenor of divine provi­dence towards such offenders, the probability is, that none of them will die a common death, but that all will share a similar fate with this criminal. If even his heart failed him for fear, lest his ini­quity should be brought to light, how doth it now tremble? If this spectacle of human depravity and misery should prove a restraint to others from com­mitting any such evil, it will not be exhibited in vain. They themselves will have reason to ac­knowledge the divine goodness in giving them this warning—a check will be put to such evil in the state. This example of wrath will praise God. It may be heard of in the kingdoms where the [Page 14] prisoner long perpetrated the most flagitious crimes. It may be a means of bringing his confederates in vice to deserved punishment, of detecting a band of villains, combined for the vilest of purposes, and as dangerous to a community as the pestilence that walketh in darkness. It may be a restraint to an horrible practice which hath long prevailed in Europe, and hath begun to prevail in this coun­try.

BUT whether it may be presumed or not, that this day's example may be thus extensively known, and be followed with such salutary consequences; it is at least adapted to restrain any of a like cha­racter who may be witnesses, or hear of it. In this view its design is important to them, and to the community. If such a warning should not be hearkened to, it must argue stupidity and mad­ness in vice, which forebode speedy destruction from God and man. Seldom is there such an ex­ample, such a warning, as the present. God grant it may not be an admonition unregarded by such whose degeneracy makes it a needful one to them. What fruit of his past life hath this con­demned malefactor? The end is a premature, shameful and violent death. In full health and strength, in early life, in a moment, on a gibbet, he is to be dispatched into eternity. Compassion it­self calls for it—public compassion. I add, compas­sion also to such as have entred on a vicious course, or may be in danger of being seduced. The priso­ner preacheth a better sermon to such than I am a­ble. Look on him, ye who make a mock of sin; hear, and fear. Behold, ye despisers and wonder. [Page 15] See an early wanderer from the path of good educati­on, an early despiser of God and things sacred, one who has had no awe of sin and wrath, one who has sported himself in the spoils of his fellow men, one who hath speedily filled up his measure of ini­quity, one of whose untimely end you are to be witnesses this day. Beware how you harden your­selves after his example—stifle the checks of con­science—hate instruction, and despise reproof— how you join yourselves to company who are in the broad road to destruction. Such was the case with him who is now set before you as a warning. He hath been almost in all evil, and is going to appear before the judge of all, to give account of himself. Should he, in this situation, have a feared conscience, what thought more af­fecting!

THIS reminds us of another end of capital pun­ishment mentioned at the beginning of my dis­course. It respects the offender and a future world, as the former respected society and the present world. This is a consequence from our subject. For crimes which call for such severity of punish­ment, which render it dangerous to society that the criminal should any longer live on earth, must needs be as scarlet and crimson, and call for a re­pentance deep in proportion. When nothing short of death can expiate his crimes against his fellow-subjects or the state, his punishment is in­deed final as to this world. But in this last ex­tremity his soul is commended to the divine mer­cy. What hath been ever usual under our happy government, ought to be the usage in all, to allow [Page 16] the convict a space of repentance. To hurry him immediately from an earthly bar to the bar of God, (extraordinary cases excepted) seems to argue want of sensibility and compassion. To give him op­portunity to consider, and give glory to God be­fore he dies, is the united dictate of humanity, morality, and christianity.

THE situation of a condemned malefactor, con­fined and chained in a dark prison, an emblem of the shadow of death, the day of his execution fix­ed, must awaken reflection in one who is not to­tally abandoned. The providence of God intends it as a moral means of opening the ears to disci­pline. By this means hath he sealed the instruc­tion of some. The natural horror of death, the ad­ditional horror from the expectation of such a peculiar kind of death, conduce to arrest the mind with apprehensions of eternal consequences. Where some weeks are allowed between the sen­tence of death and the execution of it, there is time for most serious consideration and penitential sor­row. The mind is not thrown into such agitati­on as precludes sober reflection. In the situation above supposed, the malefactor, whose mind is not exercised with other thoughts than those of tem­poral death, must indeed be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. The second death, the wrath of an incensed Deity abiding on him, the day of the lamb's wrath, the greater damnation for hav­ing neglected a great salvation, raise other appre­hensions than temporal destruction. If the near view of the latter may be improved as a means of quickening him in flying from the wrath to come, [Page 17] in this case he that dies on a gibbet will have rea­son to be thankful that his wickedness was disco­vered, and met a merited punishment from public justice. The expectation of the destruction of the flesh, through the operation of sovereign grace is a means of saving the soul from death, and of hi­ding a multitude of sins. Such as "sit in dark­ness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most HIGH;" have had their heart brought down—have cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and been brought out of worse darkness than the dungeon of any prison on earth—worse chains than any outward ones have been broken.

THE scriptures mention a thief who found mer­cy on the cross. But he was a penitent, not a re­viler. There were two malefactors on the cross at the same time. One of them railed on the suf­fering Redeemer, saying, "Save thyself and us." The other rebuked his fellow, saying, "Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same con­demnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss." He proceeded, and "said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou com­est into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto you, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." You see to whom these reviving words were spoken—to one who had indeed been a notorious sinner in his life, was capitally con­demned, and brought forth to execution. But he was fully convinced of the enormities of his [Page 18] life, the justice of the punishment to which he was doomed, and feared the wrath of God more than that of man. His trial and prison awakened his conscience: He was resigned to his destiny as what he had merited: He administred a most per­tinent reproof to his companion in sin, who with an air of levity, and with ridicule on his tongue, was suffering a capital punishment—ridicule point­ed at the holy and just ONE, who was then endu­ring the cross to save mankind, and while he hung on the cross prayed for revilers and murderers, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." In these circumstances of ignominy, the other malefactor condemned himself, justified God, rebuked the reviler, bore testimony to the innocence of Jesus, confessed him as the Christ of God, and was an earnest, a successful suitor for mercy. Whoever with like penitence and faith applies for mercy, shall find it, though at the last hour of life.

BUT what encouragement doth this instance af­ford to the unbelieving, unconcerned sinner? what encouragement to one who laughs at destruction, and dies deriding Christ, instead of expressing hum­ble faith in him? All manner of sin is forgiven for his sake to the penitent. The grossest sinners have been washed▪ sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. They who have much forgiven them, are sensible of the obligation, and love much. They are found weeping at the feet of Jesus. Or with the prodigal, not while wasting his substance in riot; but when he came to himself, and resolved, "I [Page 19] will arise, and go to my father, and say, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee." Or with the publican, who "would not lift up so much as his eyes to heaven, but smote on his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner." When great sinners are thus overwhelmed with grief and shame; thus see the purity of God, and abhor themselves; thus look to him whom they have pierced, and are in bitterness of soul, then may they have hope. For Jesus was sent to heal the broken hearted. The sacrifices of God are a contrite spirit.

BUT shall we talk wickedly and deceitfully for God? Shall we speak comfortably, while the workers of iniquity boast themselves? while they set themselves against the Lord, and against his a­nointed? while they think to out-brazen HIS wrath, at whose "presence the mountains quake, and the hills melt, and the world and all therein are burnt? Who can stand before his indignation? and who can abide in the fierceness of his anger? Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish."

THERE is danger, great danger, of misapplying and perverting the grace of the gospel. On the very favourable supposition of true repentance at the close of a profligate life, there will not be the best evidence of the reality of such repentance. Op­portunity is not left to manifest the sincerity and bring forth the fruits of it. There cannot then be the comfort and hope which is greatly to be desired. There is not space to efface, by the ex­ample of his repentance, the reproach which the delaying and presumptuous sinner hath brought on [Page 20] the cause of Christianity and of virtue. There is not time to undo what he hath done against God and his fellow-men.

THESE things we observe on the favourable supposition of true evangelical repentance, after a life spent in vicious indulgence. But such repen­tance is rare. More generally those who have despised the riches of God's goodness, forbearance and long-suffering till the close of their days, go on still indulging an hard and impenitent heart, treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath: Some remarkable providence may, in a few instan­ces, have roused open and flagitious sinners from their security, so that a bad life may have ended well. But though this may be a reason why none should despair, who have thus wasted life, is it not as forcible a reason why none should presume thus to waste it? Would you thrust forward the main business of life into the last day and hour of it? Yea, would you refer to your dying hour, not on­ly the whole business of life, but also the much more difficult business of reforming and renounc­ing habits of sin and excess? Is not the natural bitterness of death enough, without the greater bitterness of sin unrepented of, and uncancelled? Laden with an heavy load of guilt, which, with­out any additional load of infirmity, would he hea­vy enough, how will the sinner, on the verge of eternity, support his own reflections!

WHATEVER aspect any of the preceding re­flections may have on such as have lived without God in the world, and at the end of their days mourn thus, "How have I hated instruction, and [Page 21] my heart despised reproof,"—whatever aspect they may have on the state of the unhappy man here before us; they are, I am persuaded, the words of truth and soberness. However distressed we may feel for him, we may not, in this last instruc­tion to him, hold up fallacious hopes; nor give countenance to others, who are warned by this example to hear and fear.

YET once more am I called to adddress you, Joseph Mountain. No more will you hear the counsel of God from any of his ministers. The bounds are set which you cannot pass. The judge, your eternal judge, now standeth before the door. This day, in about three hours, you must die— must be hanged as a spectacle to the world, a warning to the vicious. Had I not been very sen­sibly affected—were I not now especially affected, with your situation, I should be ashamed of my­self as a man, more as a Christian, and yet more as a Christian minister. It is a weighty argument with us to warn the wicked, that we watch for souls as those that must give account. If warn­ing is not given them, and they die in their ini­quity, their blood will be required at the watch­man's hand. He is sometimes sent with this most melancholy message, "Hear ye indeed, but under­stand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not." But this desperate message no spiritual watchmen may directly apply to any, unless divinely inspir­ed, and commissioned in an extraordinary manner. Our general encouragement to warn and reprove is this: "If any do err from the truth, and one [Page 22] convert him; let him know that he who convert­eth the sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins." Great sinners may be reclaimed. With God all things are possible.

SOME sinners, if saved at all, are plucked as a brand out of the fire. And this, I am compelled to tell you, is the utmost we can hope concerning you. Had not the levity of your mind, during the first part of your imprisonment, prevented, I should have chosen another text for the present melancholy occasion. Since your confinement you have by no means given the best evidence of true contrition. Your circumstances have called upon you, and Christ's ministers have called upon you, to repent in dust and ashes—to escape for your life, to flee for refuge to Jesus Christ, who saveth from sin, and from the wrath to come. How many and fervent prayers have been offered for you in public and private? We have tried to persuade ourselves that you were a prisoner of hope, and have most affectionately warned and intreated you to turn to the strong hold. And did I not think it at least possible, that there may yet be mercy in store for you, I should hardly have com­plied with your request to preach to you this day. Unto you, therefore, I once more call. You are ready to be offered a victim to public justice. Wherefore, in the language of the holy Ghost, "TO DAY, if you will hear his voice, harden not not your heart."

IF the history of your life, taken from your own mouth, and this day published, may be credited, [Page 23] you have been almost in all evil for sixteen years past; that is, ever since you were seventeen years old, and left your master's family. You have per­sonally, and in company with others, been guilty of high-way robbery in about twenty instances; of burglary once at least; of theft repeatedly; and for rape you are now to be executed. From rob­bery you have proceeded to gaming, riot and de­bauch, and from these to robbery. How many have you seduced? How many have you ruined in their character and estate? From early youth to thirty three years you have lived in sloth, dissipati­on, lewdness and violence. You have gone to and fro in the earth, as Satan your master, seeking whom you might devour. You have spent your days in contempt of every duty to God and your fellow-men, and gloried in your shame. You have merited the punishment you are now to suf­fer more than twenty times. I say this on the sup­position that you are such a person as you have now told the world. If your history is false, your de­pravity is equally manifest. For then, as you go out of the world, you mock at the most presump­tuous sins. You boast of pretended valor as a vil­lain, in the moment of death. Yea, you die with an act of the deepest injustice to numbers of your fellow-men, whom you now accuse of a confede­racy with you, for a number of years, in capital crimes. You still persist to affirm, that the his­tory you have given of your life is true in every particular. You can reap no advantage from de­ceiving the world in which you are no longer to live. I shall therefore suppose that you have said [Page 24] the truth. Your past unprincipled and shameless character, and this only, can explain that apparent indifference to your state, during a great part of your imprisonment, which hath astonished us. Should you wish to leave behind you a character for skill and bravery as a thief or robber, a rioter in the spoils of your fellow-men—Should you now think of thus outbraving the wrath of the most HIGH, the last act of your life would be yet more presumptuous than any or all your great transgres­sions. God forbid that you should harbour a thought of thus filling up the sum of your wick­edness—that you should thus with madness in your heart go down to the dead. Your name, crimes and punishment will be remembred, we hope, that others may hear and fear, and commit no such evil. Though young in years, you are old in sin.

WERE a pardon from man this day offered, how would it affect you, while your heart is trem­bling for fear of the tragical death before you? But it is unsafe for the world that you should live. You have lived a nuisance on earth. You must therefore be executed. There is no reprieve for you. Yet a pardon from God is even now offer­ed you, if you repent; otherwise you must perish in a more deplorable sense than is implied in the strange punishment which awaits you. If des­truction from man be a terror, destruction from God is much more. There is a world to come. There is an omniscient, holy and righteous judge. The great Redeemer will be revealed from heav­en in flaming fire. Then such as have trampled him under foot, shall be punished with everlast­ing [Page 25] destruction from his presence. In that day such will be the lively horror of hardned, but then too late awakened sinners, that they will cry to the rocks and mountains to fall on them, and co­ver them from the face of the Lamb, whose wrath they have inflamed. Is it not now high time for you to "consider this, lest he tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver? The ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congre­gation of the righteous." Of what vast moment then is it, that you "acquaint yourself NOW with him, and be at peace?" How have you improv­ed the space since you were tried and condemned at man's bar, in preparing to stand before the bar of the great judge of the world? I fear you can­not give a good answer to this question. A few moments are yet left you. Who can tell but God may have mercy? There is plenteous redempti­on with him. Fall down before him in the deep­est contrition of soul. Own the justice of your sentence. In the depths of distress cry to him, "Lord, save me; I perish." Let free and sove­reign grace in the Mediator be your plea. I be­seech you, be reconciled to God. I beseech you as an ambassador of Christ, and in his stead, who made peace by the blood of his cross; in whom all fulness dwells; who hath the words of eternal life; who hath the keys of hell and of death; who will come in glory, and call you and all mankind to account; who will pronounce the final sen­tence, "Come ye blessed," or, "Depart ye curs­ed."—In his stead I beseech you, for the last time, BE RECONCILED TO GOD.

[Page 26]My hearers, we have before us one, whose boast it has been, that he was pre-eminent in the skill and valour of an highway-man; who seems to have accounted this an honorable acquisition, and hath blended with it, as the natural conse­quence, various other, and equally atrocious crimes. The last, for which he is to suffer death, besides its enormity in its own nature, was attended with circumstances which shewed that he had cast off all shame, and even all fear of detection; that he feared not the eye of the world any more than that of God.

HE began his career of wickedness at or before seventeen. This is the most critical and danger­ous stage of life. From this circumstance, and this example, I may therefore very pertinently take occasion to caution our young people against the follies and temptations to which their inexperi­ence and impetuosity expose them. See in this instance of what moment it is to form early habits of virtue—to hear counsel, and turn at reproof— to shun the paths of vice. Happy the youth who "walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." Small sins lead to great ones. The beginning of a vicious course, as that of strife, is like the letting out water. Wherefore "abstain from all appearance of evil." Resist the first solicitation, as he, "How can I do this great evil, and sin against God?" Whenever tempted, allow time for this reflection, "Thou, Lord, seest me." "Can the ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may those who have [Page 27] been accustomed to do evil, learn to do well." How melancholy a comment on these words doth the present occasion afford? When sinners have assumed the boldness to leap over the boundaries of laws human and divine, they gradually lose all tenderness of conscience, and proceed from evil to evil. What is particularly said of the issue of un­lawful pleasure, may be applied to any other vicious course: It is "the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." We therefore beseech those who are yet young, by the sorrowful example they here behold, that they forsake not "the guide of their youth; that they be not wise in their own eyes: Fear the Lord, and depart from evil." The choice they make, the course they enter upon in early youth, is of unspeakable importance, both with respect to this world and another. Would to God that the present warning may not be an un­profitable one! that they may see the necessity and advantage of submitting to salutary restraint, and trust the wisdom of their superiors, instead of do­ing what seemeth right in their own eyes. When the scorner is punished, the simple is made wise.

FURTHER, have any by false accusation, or se­cret fraud, or extortion, or otherwise, deeply in­jured their fellow-men? They will do well to ask, whether, in the view of the heart-searching God, they may not be as verily guilty concerning their brother, as those who have injured him more grossly, and are subjected to ignominious punish­ment from civil government? Do the checks of conscience, or force of human laws, or a sense of public shame, restrain men from such enormities [Page 28] as the prisoner hath been addicted to? And should not the all-seeing eye of God restrain from all injustice to men? yea, from all sin either against God, or man, or ourselves? Should it not influence to keep the heart with all diligence? Do men take pains to save appear­ances? How much greater reason have they to ap­prove themselves to him who searcheth the reins and hearts; and will give to every man according to his works?

MAY all who indulge vicious passions be warned by the event of this day. May the consequences of idleness, gaming and dissipation, of lust and an ungo­verned spirit, falshood and greediness of gain, the tem­poral and eternal consequences, be well considered. These things impel men into courses destructive of their peace, and of their souls. From small beginnings they increase to more ungodliness. Tho' timid at first, they soon become capable of bold exploits, and prove veterans in vice. But few who enter these paths, re­turn again. The few who do, find it extremely diffi­cult to tread back the wrong steps they have taken. The gains of vice are hard, perilous and momentary. The triumph of its votaries is short. They travel with pain all their days. They know not the way of peace, because they fear not God. Their own counsel cast­eth them down. "The heaven shall reveal their ini­quity, and the earth shall rise up against them. They shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold the children of men. He trieth the righte­ous; but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: This shall be the portion of their cup." But the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.