Page:Last and great sermon, of the Rev Dr William Dodd.pdf/15

(15) and all-sufficient merits, O blessed Saviour of man<kind,who with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, livest and reignest ever, One God, world without end.

Amen

Dr, last solemn

O the words of dying men regard has always been paid. I am brought hither to suffer death for an act of fraud, which I confess myself guilty with shame, such as my former state of life naturally produces, and I hope with such sorrow as he, to whom the heart is known, will not disregard. I repent that I have violated the laws, by which peace and confidence are established among men; I repent that I have attempted to injure my fellow creatures, and I repent that I have brought disgrace upon my order, and discredit upon religion, but my offences against God are without mane or number, and can admit only general confession and a general repentance.Grant, Almightly God, for the sake of Jesus Christ that my repentance, however late, however imperfect, may not be in vain.

The little good that now remains in my power, is to warn others against those temptations by which I have always sinned against conviction; my principles have never been shaken; I have always considered the Christian religion as a revelation from God; and its divine Author as the saviour of the world but the laws of God, though never disowned by me, have often been forgotten. I was led astray from religious strictness by the delusion of shew, and the delights of voluptuousness. I never knew or attended to the ills of frugality or the needful minuteness of a painful economy. Vanity and pleasure, into which I