Francis Cunningham

“ On this occasion he was taught in what manner sin is the defilement of the whole heart; that even the sins of his youth brought him just as much into condemnation before a holy God as his one great crime; that eternal death was the wages of every transgression of the Divine law; and that repentance unto life required not only a feeling of sorrow for one sin, but for every sin, yea, for sin itself, as an offence against the Almighty. ”

“ His discernment on this point was a striking evidence of the clear views of doctrine which he had attained. He perceived and felt the inadequacy of those religious systems which were not connected with deep and experimental views of personal corruption; and with exclusive dependence for salvation upon the atonement of Jesus Christ. With a sense of gratitude for the instruments made use of in awakening his mind, Jolin appeared remarkably independent of any outward help. He was by no means like a man who hung upon another’s teaching, but upon that of God. ”

“ To determine the real state of mind in a criminal manifesting, for the first time, when under sentence of death, signs of repentance, is plainly a work of much difficulty. If ever dissimulation may be expected, it must be in the case of a person probably long habituated, and, in his present circumstances, additionally excited to it by the fear of death: and the experience of every minister of religion conversant in such cases, must teach him that professions of religion, under such circumstances, are far oftener the language of alarm, than of real conversion. ”

“ Thus we learn, that it is not any mere dispensation of Providence which necessarily brings men to that knowledge and faith which are needful for salvation. It is true, that God does bless the endeavours of the willing mind whenever he sees them; but the mind is not necessarily made willing because it suffers, any more than a child is necessarily made more compliant by the punishment which is inflicted. Some substances harden whilst others melt under the fire. Thus some souls are only confirmed in sin by the events which are instrumental in recovering others from it. ”

“ The Bible, however, teaches, that such a state of unmixed prosperity is the most dangerous in which a man can be placed; that the sinner, when thus left alone of God, is lifted to that very slippery pinnacle from which he will fall to his eternal ruin. Ministers cannot, therefore, press upon their ungodly hearers the universal conviction of the misery attending upon sin as an evidence of their unconverted state, because sin does not in this life uniformly bring along with it any such conviction. ”

“ He, being dead, may speak to many of his own age, who have, perhaps, had far greater advantages of education and example; or he may speak to those who have seen more years, and yet have not attained to that ripeness of faith, and that full assurance of hope, which made Jolin climb with such eagerness the gallows hill, and long for the time when he should be with Christ.
This history applies most emphatically to the case of young men; teaching them to avoid sin, even when it may have the sanction of parental example. ”

“ The nature of faith is illustrated in a very interesting manner, by the case of Jolin. The sinfulness of his own state he knew, and felt deeply. He did not, however, seek to excuse himself, or to palliate his offences: he did not think that past services would be any compensation to God; that any circumstance of his life or character would skreen him from Almighty wrath; or that by repentance he might be pardoned through the mere mercy of his Heavenly Father. In himself, therefore, he had no ground of hope whatsoever: he was as a debtor who had nothing to pay ”

“ They have seen in the backsliding of men who promised every thing in the time of sickness, how vain, generally speaking, are the convictions of their sincerity. In the greater part of these cases, there is a want of completeness in the work of repentance and faith, which the experienced pastoral visitor is often able to detect; too little of real contrition, or too much of profession and confidence. But in the case in question, those who visited Jolin confess themselves to have been impressed, as they might conceive the spectators to be affected by the case of the thief on the cross. ”

“ Thus ended the course of a young man, whose history is a solemn memorial, not only of the awful effects of a bad education, and of the wretchedness of sin, but also of the wonderful compassion of God. Much of what has been narrated may appear almost incredible to some readers; and many of those, especially, who are justly suspicions of death-bed repentances, may be led to doubt p. 40how far the work of this young man’s conversion was complete, and whether, if he had been permitted to live, he would have lived as he has died. ”

“ That is, sin yields no real fruit; it produces shame; and the end of it will be death. Every Christian feels the truth of this statement, as respects himself; and it is the case with all other men, although they know it not. What, for instance, is the usual fruit of drunkenness? disease, quarrelling, and loss of one kind or another. The drunkard is usually a blasphemer, hard-hearted, and cruel, as he proves himself to his wife and children, starving or ill-treating them to gratify his own lust. ”

“ When the will of man is not disposed to submit to God, every doctrine of the Gospel presents difficulties; one point is unreasonable, another impossible, a third useless; but when the mind is taught of God, it is astonishing how soon all these difficulties vanish. ”

“ When sin and Satan join their power,
Let this dear hope repel the dart,
That Jesus bears us on his heart.’
“He told me, that he did not mind the people, that they were poor worms; that he would endeavour to warn them from the scaffold, for they were standing on the brink of the pit. We mounted the steepest part of the gallows hill. He said, his Saviour had toiled up Calvary with a cross, which he ought to be thankful that he had not to bear; and that Jesus Christ had done this for his sake, whereas, he was receiving the due reward of his transgression. ”

“ What situation could indeed more completely tend to brutalize the mind, to deaden every feeling of conscience, to leave the man long habituated to it “without hope,” and indeed “without God in the world?” The nature of the crime for which Jolin was committed to prison, was such as to increase the general horror against him. This was exhibited by the crowd, in the streets, on the occasion of his trial ”

“ It is difficult at all times to think much of God, and to think of any thing else; but how much more, when the first conviction of the Divine presence overwhelms the soul. And, as David, in the fifty-first Psalm, appears to have comparatively lost sight of his sin against his country, the family of Uriah, and of all the consequences of it, in the depth of the feeling which he had of his sin against God; so the love of Christ took possession of Jolin’s mind ”

“ The probability of thus dying is commonly passed over; and it is the hope of a sinner that he shall still live to repent, as Jolin did. Yet how great are the chances against this! Many a man has been deluded by such a hope, and perished in his transgression. He has looked to some case like this, or like that of the thief on the cross, and delayed his repentance, till, in an hour when he has not looked for it, he has been “driven away in his wickedness.” ”

“ Their state of self-complacency is, indeed, a state which comes as short of the real spiritual happiness of the true Christian, as darkness does of light; but it often affords a false peace, which perhaps does not leave the sinner till his punishment begins, and the door of hope is shut against him for ever. ”

“ Another observation arising from Jolin’s feeling of wretchedness in his former state, is, that the pain sometimes connected either with the practice of sin, or a view of its consequences, will not, unassisted by the Spirit of God, produce the real repentance which the Gospel requires. It is true, the compunctions of conscience, like the afflictions of life, are means often used to prepare the sinner for the doctrines of the Gospel. Yet, in how many cases do we find men wounded, but not contrite ”

“ As he was leaving the gaol he was heard to repeat the fourth verse of the twenty-third Psalm, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Mr. Hall continues: “The noise of the people prevented my being heard by Jolin, who walked as firmly as myself: I therefore opened my hymn-book, and pointed out to him the sufficiency of the Redeemer, in one of those hymns which I had previously chosen for his perusal. The hymn chosen was one beginning—
‘He lives, the great Redeemer lives! ”

“ The Bible, they must remember, and not men, especially ungodly men, should be their direction. By this law we shall all be judged, and must stand or fall. In Jolin’s last address, he said, “Avoid bad company, drinking spirits, vicious habits.” “I exhort young people not to violate the Sabbath, but to frequent church, and attend to their religious duties. Would that this tremendous example of punishment might lead every young person who hears it to inquire into his own state, and to remember how soon one act of sin may bring judgment upon him ”

“ The case of Jolin, convinced of his sin, however, is that of a man, not merely convinced of his guilt in one instance, and anxious to warn others not converted by the Holy Ghost, acknowledging his total alienation of heart from God, and persuaded that all his repentance, all his good resolutions, could never expiate his past sins ”

“ In the period before his condemnation, his downcast look and general air of wretchedness were not unsuited to a state of despair; but now he lifted up his head, and even his voice seemed to have changed its tone. This surprising change was observed by others. Mr. Hammond, Jolin’s advocate, told M. Durell, as he himself has recorded it, that when he saw the prisoner on the twenty-third of September, he found him “in really a distracted state, torn by every conflicting passion, and all his faculties hurried by the unutterable anguish of remorse. The dread of death was uppermost in his thoughts ”

“ Jolin said from the scaffold, “the effect of bad education and example. From early youth I have been addicted to intemperance. My duty to God was never pointed out to me. Those who have children committed to their care, I beseech to send them regularly to church, and to the Sunday-school, and teach them their duty to God and man.” Let those, then, who are teaching Sabbath-breaking, swearing, passion, habits of drinking and vice, to their children, by their own example, p. 50look at the horrible instance of sin and its consequences, which this case presents—a parent, murdered, and a son hanged! ”

“ We may, in our efforts to instruct, meet with many disappointments, but it is plainly our duty to proceed, with becoming care indeed, but in the remembrance both of God’s almighty power to teach the heart, and of instances, such as this, in which that power has been so remarkably exerted. The state of prisoners is one which invites, as it has in general received the peculiar commiseration of our countrymen: men are often to be found there in Jolin’s state of mind. ”

“ Whether it is accurately translated, or whether it was written by Jolin himself, or by his advocate, it is impossible to judge. The passage in it which relates to his parents, if his own, is liable to objection. The faults of a parent, especially faults so awfully punished, ought not to have made a part of his defence. If the language is that of his advocate, it is only the language of legal justification, and the facts are both true and of much weight for the extenuation of his crime. ”

“ The conversation of this day led to the subjects contained in this chapter; and more particularly to the impossibility of man’s pardon, but by the grace of God, through Christ Jesus. In the midst of a statement of the hindrances in the way of salvation, from the evil of our heart, the weakness of our best endeavours, and the defilement of our services, Jolin remarked, “I must put off my sins.” ”

“ Like many other young persons, he had chosen the way of dissipation and folly, instead of that which many circumstances had led him to think was a happier and a safer course. It is indeed true, that his parents were not in a state to check him in his proceedings; but he seems to have had at many intervals those convictions of conscience which were sufficient to have guarded him from the transgressions into which he fell, and even to have guided him to seek the paths of religion. ”

“ That fear may, indeed, have caused a wicked man to be sorry for his sin; but the growth in knowledge, in grace, and in so many gifts of the Spirit, was so extraordinary and so unprecedented, that I cannot account for it as having been the result of natural causes operating on an ardent and distracted mind. I am not only impartial, but am conscious that I am as free from superstition and enthusiasm p. 27as any man; yet I feel inwardly convinced, that Jolin’s conversation had something in it more than human ”

“ He found, agreeably also to Scripture, nothing in his own state upon which he could depend for salvation; and, relying entirely on the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ, he found peace and joy in believing. In this manner, if his conversion proceeded rapidly, it was not wanting in any of those evidences which are the unquestioned fruits of the teaching of God. His conduct is the best, and indeed the only satisfactory commentary on the whole work.
A third point worthy of consideration in the history of Jolin, is, the means by which it pleased God to open this young man’s mind ”

“ His habits of drunkenness make him a bad child, a bad neighbour, a disgrace in himself, and a plague to others. So it is more or less p. 43with the followers of every sin. Sin, then, brings no real fruit, and the end of it will be eternal death; for it is written, “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God.” “As surely, therefore, as a man sows, so shall he also reap; he that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” How awful is the history of Jolin’s father! ”