MAGNALIA CHRISTI AMERICANA

PILLARS OF SALT.

It hath been thought, that the dying speeches of such as have been executed among us, might be of singular use to correct and reform the crimes wherein too many do live: and it has been wish'd that at least some fragments of those dying speeches might be preserv'd. and publish'd. Upon this advice from some good persons, I have stolen an hour or two, wherein I have collected some accounts of several ill persons, which have been out off by the sword of civil justice in this land; and this collection I suffer to go abroad, in hopes that, among many other essays to suppress growing vice, it may signifie something with the blessing of Heaven thereupon, to let the vicious understand what have been the cries of our miserables when passing into another world. Behold, an history of criminals, whom the terrible judgments of God have thunder-strook into pillars of salt.

(I.) About the year 1646, here was one Mary Martin, whose father going from hence to England, left her in the house of a marry'd man, who yet became so enamour'd on her, that he attempted her chastity.

Such was her weakness and folly, that she yielded unto the temptations of that miserable man; but yet with such horrible regret of mind, that begging of God for deliverance from her temptations, her plea was, "That if ever she were overtaken again, she would leave herself unto his justice, to be made a publick example."

Heaven will convince the sinful children of men, that the vows which they make, relying on the stability and resolution of their own hearts, are of no significancy. A chain of hell was upon her, and the forfeited grace of Heaven was with-held from her; she fell a third time into the sin against which her vows had been utter'd.

Afterwards going to service in Boston, she found herself to have conceiv'd but she lived with a favourable mistress, who would admit and allow no suspicion of her dishonesty. . .

,A question (like that convincing one of Our Saviour's unto the woman of Samaria) was once odly put unto her: "Mary, where is thy husband?" .And one said also, "Did I not think thou wert an honest and sincere creature, I should verily think thou wert with child" These passages, whichwere warnings from God unto her guilty soul, did serve only to strike her with amazement-not with any true repentance.

She conceal'd her crime till the time of her delivery; and then being deliver'd alone by her self in a dark room, she murdered the harmless and helpless infant hiding it in a chest from the eyes of all but the jealous GOD.

The blood of the child cried, when the cry of the child it self was thus cruelly stifled. Some circumstance quickly occurr'd which oblig'd her friends to charge her with an unlawful birth. She deny'd it impudently. A further search confuted her denial. She then said, the child was dead born, and she had burn'd it to ashes. With an hypocritical tear, she added, "Oh, that it were true, that the poor babe were any where to be seen !" At last, it was found in her chest; and when she touch'd the face of it before the jury, the blood came fresh into it. So she confessed the whole truth concerning it.

Great endeavours were used that she might be brought unto a true faith in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ for the pardon of her blood-guiltiness; and, it may be, none endeavour'd it more than that reverend man, old Mr. Wilson, who wrote several sheets of pathetical instructions to her while she was in prison. That renown'd man, old Mr. Cotton also, did his part in endeavouring that she might be renew'd by repentance and preach'd a sermon on Ezek. xvi. 20, 21: "Is this of thy whoredoms a small matter, that thou hast slain my children?" Whereof great notice was taken. It was hoped that these endeavours were not lost: her carriage in her imprisonment and at her execution was very penitent. But there was this remarkable at her execution: she acknowledged her twice essaying to kill her child before she could make an end of it: and now, through the unskillfulness of the executioner, she was turned off the ladder twice before she died.