Relation of Sarah Nurse, [August 21], 17851
I desire to Bless God who has given me my being in a land of Gosple light, and that I was Set apart for God by my Perants in infant Baptism and by them Instructed in by [sic] duty to God and man: I have reason to be greatly humbled that I have been So Slow of heart to believe in and rest alone on Christ for Salvation as he has been often Offerd to me in the Gospel. I think I have Seen that God would be Just if he Should cast me off forever, but Once in my distrest and when in great concern for my Soul these words Came into my mind as in the forty Second Psalm hope thou in God for I Shall yet praise him etc.: which came with light and love into my heart, which together with Other Texs of divine wrot, have been made Comfortable to me—I now desire to take this Oppetunity to Ask forgiveness of God and all persons that I have Offended, and think I can for give all whom I have given any Just cause of Offence—I would now by Gods Grace Assisting me, give myself up to the Lord, who has a Just wright to me and all I have. I now desire to Join in full Communion with this church, Asking your prayers for me that my faith fail not especily in a dying hour.
Sarah Nurse
1 Sarah, daughter of Nathaniel and Mary Ball of Grafton, was born on Mar. 25, 1739; Vital Records of Grafton, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Worcester, MA: Franklin P. Rice, 1906), 15. She married twenty-nine-year-old Daniel Nourse (or Nurse) in Shrewsbury on Feb. 21, 1759; Vital Records of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Worcester, MA: Franklin P. Rice, 1904), 122. She and Daniel had eleven children between 1760 and 1781; Vital Records of Westborough, Massachusetts, to the End of the Year 1849 (Worcester, MA: Franklin P. Rice, 1903), 80. She was admitted to the Westborough church on Aug. 21, 1785 at the relatively advanced age of forty-six; Westborough Church Records, 250, https://www.colonialsociety.org/node/4080. Daniel died on May 24, 1805, with widow Sarah dying on Dec. 25, 1812, aged 73; Vital Records of Westborough, 249 (Daniel), and “A Record of the Deaths which happened in Westboro after October 26, 1808,” 239, in Historical Records of the Evangelical Congregational Church, Westborough, MA, 1784–1914 (Westborough Public Library), Box 4, Folder 11, Church Records, [Volume 2], 1808–1835. Digital image of the relation: https://www.digitalcommonwealth.org/search/commonwealth:z316s983p (images 51–52). The filing notation reads: “The Relation of Sarah Nurse. Westborough.”