not be heard, he hath summoned us to come to the arm of his mercy, why do I stay from God longer? I bless God I am coming.

"Now I shall only desire as Samson when he made his last request, only this once help me; my call to you all is, that you would pray and mourn for me, this once help me; after a little while your prayers will do mne no good, nor your tears will do me no good; therefore now for the Lord's sake help me off the scaffold, lift up a prayer to God for me, let there be some compassion, you know not what fightings may be in me; but I bless God, I hope to walk triumphantly to God presently, but do you act your parts, your strength, and your interest, whatever your prayers and tears can do, help me, I beseech you now, for I shall never more need your help.

"And now is Christ taking notice what was cast into the church's treasure, he looked upon the widow's two mites, Christ is looking this day who helps me a poor creature, and supports me, and saith Christ, is there none will help him? O pray help me to commend all my conditions to God, that he would rebuke Satan, and make me die sincerely as a Christian, that I may willingly lie down on the block, as I would to lie down on a feather-bed after I am weary, that I may be willing to come to him;

pray for me, that all the graces that my wants they may be strengthened.

soul

"Most glorious God, I now into thy hands commend my spirit, and all that is in me; O blessed Cod, I never was in want but thou didst relieve me, I was never in distress but thou helpedst me, never, never, and I am confident thou wilt not leave me, till thou see my soul in heaven. O blessed Saviour! thou wentest up and down on the earth, thou knowest what it is to suffer, what it is to be betrayed, what it is to be scorned and tempted; blessed Saviour, thou sawest me when I was running from thee; wilt thou leave me now I come to thee? Lord Jesus, I commend all into thy hands, hoping that after this day I shall never suffer more, nor never pray more.

His Prayer being ended, he put off his doublet, and asked for his friend Dr. Bastwick, and embraced him after that he embraced his uncle, and others of his friends on the scaffold; then laying his head on the block, Dr. Bastwick came to him, and wished him to take off his rings, which accordingly he did, by raising himself upon his knees, and gave them to his uncle; which done, he laid his head on the block, and holding up his left hand, the Execotioner at one blow and a small rase severed his head from his body.

From the Sommers' Tracts.

ON Wednesday being the 1st of this instant month, the earl of Derby was brought to his Trial, before the Court-Martial holden at Chester, in the year of our Lord God, 1651.

Lord Derby was one of those taken in the fight to the North after the battle of Worcester, Sept. 3, 1651, "from which," says Clarendon, Cromwell returned in triumph; was received with universal joy and acclamation, as if he had destroyed the enemy of the nation, and for ever secured the liberty and happiness of the people; a price was set upon the king's head, whose escape was thought to be impossible; and order taken for the trial of the earl of Derby, and such other notorious prisoners as they had voted to destruction.

"The Earl of Derby was a man of unquestionable loyalty to the late king, and gave clear testimony of it before he received any obligations from the court, and when he thought himself disobliged by it. This king, in his first year, sent him the Garter; which, in many respects, he had expected from the last. And the sense of that honour made him so readily comply with the king's command in attending

By virtue of a Commission from his excellency the lord general Cromwell; grounded upon an act of parliament of the 12th of August last, intituled "An act prohibiting correspondency with Charles Stuart, or his party, directed to him, when he had no confidence in the undertaking, nor any inclination to the Scots; who, he thought, had too much guilt upon them, in having depressed the crown, to be made instruments of repairing and restoring it. He was a man of great honour and clear courage; and all his defects and misfortunes, proceeded from his having lived so little time among lis equals, that he knew not how to treat his inferiors; which was the source of all the ill that befel him, having thereby drawn such prejudice against him from persons of inferior quality, who yet thought themselves too good to be contemned, that they pursued him to death. The king's army was no sooner defeated at Worcester, but the Parliament renewed their old method of murdering in cold blood, and sent a Commission to erect a High Court of Justice to persons of ordinary quality, many not being gentlemen, and all notoriously his enemies, to try the earl of Derby for his treason

formerly stood) attended by divers gentlemen and others: And where were present many hundreds of people, who came from several parts adjacent to behold this object of compassion. As soon as his lordship came upon the Scaffold he took up the block, and kissed it, saying; "I hope there is no more but this block between me and heaven; and I hope I shall never tire in my way, nor go out of it.' Then turning to the people and putting off his hat, he spake as followeth :

"Christian gentlemen and people; Your business hither to day, is to see a sad spectacle, a peer of the land to be in a moment unmanned, and cut off by an untimely end: And though truly, if my general course of life were but enquired into, I may modestly say, there is such a moral honesty upon it, as some may be so peremptory as te expostulate why this great judgment has fallen upon me: But know that I am able to give them and myself an answer, and out of this breast (laying his hand upon his heart) to give a better account of my judgment and execution than my judges themselves or you are able to give; It is God's wrath upen me for sins long unrepented, of many judgments withstood and mercies slighted; therefore God hath whipped me by his severe rod of correction, that he might not lose me : I pray join with me in prayer, that it may not be a fruitless rod, that when by this rod I have laid down my life, by this staff I may be comforted and received into glory.

"As for my accusers, I am sorry for them, they have committed Judas's crimes; but I wish aud pray for them Peter's tears, that by Peter's repentance they may escape Judas's punishment, and I wish other people so happy, they may be taken up betimes, before they have drunk more blood of Christian men possibly less deserving than myself.

"It is true, there have been several addresses made for mercy, and I will put the obstruction of it upon nothing more than upon my own sin, and seeing God sees it not fit (I having not glorified him in my life) I might do it in my death, which I am content to do: I profess in the face of God no particular malice to any one of the State or parliament, to do them a bodily in jury I had none.

For the cause in which I had a great while waded, I must needs say, my engagement or continuance in it hath laid no scruple upon my conscience, it was on principles of law, the knowledgement whereof I embrace, and on principles of religion, ty judgment satisfied, and conscience rectified, that I have pursued those ways for which I bless God, I find no blackness npon my conscience, nor have I put it into the bead-roll of my sins.

"I will not presume to decide controversies; I desire God to honour himself in prospering that side that hath right with it, and that you may enjoy peace and plenty, when I shall enjoy peace and plenty, beyond all you possess here in my conversation in the world, I do not know where I bave an enemy with cause,

or that there is such a person to whom I have a regret ; but if there be any whom I cannot recollect, under the notion of Christian men f pardon them as freely as if I had nained them by name, I freely forgive them, being in free peace with all the world, as I desire God for Christ sake to be at peace with me. For the business of death, it is a sad sentence in itself, if men consult with flesh and blood: But truly without boasting, I say it, or if I do boast, Í boast in the Lord, I have not to this minute, had one consultation with the flesh about the blow of the axe, or one thought of the axe, more than as to my pass-port to glory.

"I take it for an honour, a id I owe thankfulness to those under whose power I am, that they have sent me hither to a place however of punishment, yet of some honour to die a death, exceeding worthy of my blood, answerable to my birth and qualification, and this courtesy of theirs, hath much helped towards the pacifica

tion of my mind.

"One thing more I desire to be clear in. There lieth a common imputation upon the king's party,that they are Papists, and under that name we are made odious to those of the contrary opinion. I am not a Papist, but re nounce the pope with all his dependencies; when the distractions in religion first sprang up, I might have been thought apt to turn from this church to the Roman, but was utterly unsatisfied in their doctrive, in point of faith, and very much, as to their discipline. The religion which I profess is that which passeth under the name of Protestant, though that be rather a name of distinction, than properly essential to religion. But the religion which was found out in the Reformation purged from all the errors of Rome, in the reign of Edw. 6. practis ed in the reigns of queen Elizabeth, king Jan cs, and king Charles, that blessed prince deceased, that religion before it was defaced, I am of, which I take to be Christ's Catholic, though not the Roman Catholic religion in the profession and practice whereof, I will live and die, that for my religion."

:

Then he turned himself unto the Executioner, I have no reason to quarrel with thee, thou art not the hand that throws the stone

-there is three pound for thee. Now 'tell me what I lack.' Executioner. Your hair to be turned up, 'my lord.'

Derby. Shew me how to fit myself upon 'the block.'

After which his doublet being off, and hair turned up, he turned again to the people, and prayed a good while. Before he laid down pon the block, he spake again to the people, viz: "There is not one face that looks upon me, though many faces, and perhaps different from me in opinion and practice, but (methinks) hath something of pity in it, and may that mercy which is in your hearts, fall into your own bosoms when you have need of it; and may you never find such blocks of sin to stand in the way of your mercy, as I have met with. I beseech you join with me in prayer." Then he prayed (leaning on the Scaffold) with an audible voice for about a quarter of an hour; baving done, be had some private conference with Dr. Green, then taking his leave of bis friends and acquaintance, saluting them all with a courteous valediction, he prepared him self for the block, kneeling down said, Let me try the block, which he did, after casting his eyes up, and 6xing them very intentively upon heaven, he said,⚫ When I say, Lord Jesus re'ceive me, Executioner do thine office,' then kissing the axe he laid down, and with as much undaunted, yet Christian courage as possibly could be in man, did he expose his throat to the fatal axe, his life to the Executioner, and commended his soul into the hands of God, as into the hands of a faithful and merciful Creator, through the meritorious passion of a gracious Redeemer, saying the forementioned words, his head was smitten off at one blow. The Earl of Derby his FUNERAL SERMON: Preached by Doctor Green, on Tuesday, in the afternoon before his lordship was exe

cuted.

Beloved, when we come to die, we shall be stript naked of three things. 1. We shall be stript naked of all our worldly honour, riches, and greatness. 2. We shall be stript naked of our bodies. And 3. Which is above all, we shall be stript naked of our sins. And that is the happiness of a child of God, he shall put off, not only is mortal body, but the body of

4. In the fourth place observe, as no man knoweth the time when he falls asleep, a man falls asleep before he is aware: So no man can tell the certain time when he must die. There 16 Gothing so certain as that we must die, nothing so uncertain as the time when we shall die; Death comes suddenly oven as sleep comes upon a man before he is aware.

3. When a man goeth to sleep, he goeth to sleep but for a certain time, in the morning be awakes out of sleep. So it is with the sleep. of death; and therefore death is called a sleep, because we must all awake in the morning of the resurrection. We are in the grave, as in

our beds, and when the trumpet of God, and the voice of the archangel shall sound, we shall all rise out of our grave, as out of our beds. Death is but a sleep for a certain time.

6. Sleep is a great refreshing to those that are weary and sick, and when the sick man awakes, he is more lively and chearful than he was when he fell asleep; and therefore sleep is called, "Medicus laborum redintegratio virium recreator corporum." The great physician of the sick body, the redintegration of man's spirits, the reviver of the weary body. And so it is with death, when God's people awake out of the sleep of death, they shall be made more active for God than ever they were before; when you lie down in the grave, you lie down with mortal bodies; "It is sown a mortal body, but it shall rise up an immortal body, it is sown in dishonour, but it shall rise up in honour; it is sowa a natural body, but it shall rise up a spiritual body.”

7. When we rise out of our beds, we them put on our cloaths, so in the morning of the resurrection, we shall put on a glorious body, like to the glorious body of Jesus Christ, we shall put on Stolum immortalitatis, the garment of immortality. 8. As no man when he layeth him down to sleep, knoweth the direct time when he shall awake. So no man can tell when the resurrection shall be. They do but cozen you, who say, that the general resurrection shall be such or such a year; for as no man can know the minute when he shall awake out of his natural sleep, no more can any man know when we shall arise from the sleep of death.

9. It is a very easy thing to awake a man out of sleep, it is but jogging of him, and you will quickly awake him.

10. As when a man ariseth in the morning, though he hath slept many hours: nay suppose he could sleep 20 years together, yet notwithstanding, when he awakes, these 20 years will seem to be but as one hour unto him. So it will be at the Day of Judgment, all those that are in their graves, when they awake, it will be tanquam somuus unius hora, but as the sleep of an hour unto them.

Lastly, and most especially, as sleep seizeth only upon the body, and the outward senses, but doth not seize upon the soul, the soul of man is many times most busy, when the man is asleep And God hath heretofore revealed most glorious things to his children in dreams, when they have been asleep; God appeared unto Abraham and many others in dreams, the body sleeps, but the soul awakes. So it is with the sleep of death, the body that dies, but the soul doth not die. There are some men that are not afraid to teach you, that the soul sleeps as well as the body, and that when the body dies and falls asleep, the soul likewise continues in a dull lethargy veternoso somno correptus, neither capable of joy nor sorrow, until the resurrecton. Beloved, this is a very uncomfortable, and a very false doctrine. They endeavour to prove it from my text, they say