364 LIVES OF THE PeRITANS. his friends and fellow-prisoners in Newgate. His text was Psalm xlii. 11. Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul ? And why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance and my God: The subject was particularly appropriate. For ' during his imprisonment, he was exer- cised with a painful conflict in his own spirit, fearing, as he often said, that he should not go through his sufferings with courage and comfort. To his friends he said he was somewhat unprepared for death ; and therefore he felt in some degree unwilling to die. Some things, he observed, he had committed, and others he had omitted, which troubled him ; but he believed the light of God's counten- ance would at last break forth. And the favour of God did at length appear. For a little time before he went to the place of execution, his mind became perfectly composed ; and with the utmost cheerfulness he said, " I thank God, now I can die. ' I can look death in the face, and not be afraid." ' To the truth ofthis many could bear witness.. Bishop Kennet observes, that " atter the trial and con- demnation of the regicides, Dr. Barwick and Dr. Dolben were sent to persuade them. to repentance, and to confess their impious deeds." It is also added, "that they might employ their pious endeavonrs to better 'purpose with others, their first care was to solicit Hugh Peters, the prin- cipal and ring-leader of all the rest. Thewild prophecies uttered by his impure mouth were still received by the people, with the same veneration as if they had been oracles, though he was known to be infamous for more than one kind of wickedness.- He was accused, upon no slight grounds, to have been one of the masked executioners hired to murder. the king, but it could not be sufficiently proved against him." To all that these divines could say to him; says ouf author, " Peters answered wills much surliness, negligence, and stupidity, and stopped his ears against all admonitions. He had so perfectly shook off all sense of piety and religion, if ever he had any, that his accomplices earnestly requested these divines to intercede with his majesty that, a person so deaf to advice, and so impene- trable to their sacred ministrations, might not be hurried into another world till he were,,brought, if possible, to a better sense ofhis condition."t To this account, too evidently designed.to reproach his o Speeches and Prayers of the King's Judges, p. 58. 4 Kennet's Chronicle, p. 284, 285.
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