N00729:263
Pillars of salt. An history of some criminals executed in this land, for capital…
Pillars of salt. An history of some criminals executed in this land, for capital crimes. : With some of their dying speeches; collected and published, for the warning of such as live in destructive courses of ungodliness. : Whereto is added, for the better improvement of this history, a brief discourse about the dreadful justice of God, in punishing of sin, with sin. : [Two lines from Deuteronomy]
printed by B. Green for Samuel Phillips, 1699
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
BE astonished, O Congregation of God, Stand astonished, at the Horrible Spectacle, that is now before You: This House, and perhaps this Land, never had in it a more Astonishing Spectacle.
Behold, a Young Woman, but an Old Sinner, going this Day to Die before her time, for being Wicked over much! Behold, One just Nineteen Years Old, and yet found Ripe for the Vengeance of a Capital Execution. Ah, Miserable Soul, With what a swift progress of Sin and Folly, hast thou made Hast unto the Congregation of the Dead! Behold a Person, whose Unchaste Conversation appeared by one Base Born Child many months ago! God then gave her a Space to Repent, and she repented not: She Repeated her Whoredoms, and by an Infatuation from God upon her, She so managed the matter of her next Base Born, that she is found Guilty of its Murder: Thus the God, whose Eyes are like a Flame of Fire, is now casting her ⟨p. 107⟩into a Bed of Burning Tribulation: And, ah, Lord, Where wilt thou cast those that have committed Adultery with her, Except they Repent! Since her Imprisonment, She hath Declared, That she believes, God hath. Left her unto this Undoing Wickedness, partly for her staying so profanely at Home sometimes on Lords-Days, when she should have been Hearing the Word of Christ, and much more for her not minding that Word, when she heard it. And she has Confessed, That she was much given to Rash Wishes, in her Mad Passions, particularly using often that III Form of speaking, He be Hanged, if a thing be not thus or so, and, I'll be Hanged, if I do not this or that; which Evil now, to see it, coming upon her, it amazes her! But the chief Sin, of which this Chief of Sinners, now cries out, is, Her Undutiful Carriage towards her Parents. Her Language and her Carriage towards her Parents, was indeed such that they hardly Durst speak to her; but when they Durst, they often told her, It would come to This. They indeed, with Bleeding Hearts, have now Forgiven thy Rebellions; Ah, Sarah, mayst thou Cry unto the God of Heaven to Forgive Thee! But under all the doleful circumstances of her Imprisonment, and her Impiety, she has been given over, to be a prodigy of still more Impenitent Impiety. A Little before her ⟨p. 108⟩