Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	affliction_n	great_a	sin_n	1,620	5	5.2580	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88595	A true and exact copie of Mr. Love's speech and prayer, immediately before his death, on the scaffold at Tower-Hill, Aug. 22. 1651.	Love, Christopher, 1618-1651.	1651 (1651)	Wing L3181; Thomason E790_4; ESTC R3848	15,324	8

Government of the Church shall stand and of all Governments I die with this perswasion that the Presbyterial Government makes most for purity and for unity throughout the Churches of the Saints I would begge them therefore to keep up Church-Government that they would not let their Elderships fall that they would take heed of too generall Admissions to the Lords Supper that they be not too prodigall of the bloud of Christ by too generall admissions of men to the Supper of the Lord that sealing Ordinance And now I am speaking to them I shall speak a word of them and so I have done I have heard many clamors since I came to prison as if all the City-Ministers were engaged in the Plot as it 's called that I am condemned for now as a dying man I tell you that all the Ministers that were present at the meetings and had a hand in the businesse for which I am to be put to death are either in prison or they are discovered already and therefore I do here upon my death free the Ministers of the City who are not yet in trouble nor discovered to the Committee of Examinations none of them had a hand in the businesse in which I was engaged in which my Conscience tels me I have not sinn'd I have done immediatly for I would fain be at my Fathers House I have but a word to speak to my own Congregation I return praises unto God and thankfullnesse unto them for the love I have had from them I found them a solid judicious and many of them a religious people the Ministry of that Learned man Mr Anthony Burgess did much good amongst them though I have cause to be humbled that my weak Ministry did but little They afforded me a great deal of love and a liberall maintenance And this is all I defire of them that they would chuse a Godly Learned and Orthodox Minister to succeed such an one as may keep up and carry on Church-Government It would be a great comfort to me before I go to Heaven if I had but this perswasion that a Learned Orthodox Godly man should fill that Pulpit and for encouragement to any godly Minister whose lot may be to succeed me I will say this that he will have as comfortable a Livelihood and as loving a people as are any people in London a few only excepted I had as much satisfaction among them as ever I had in any condition in all my life and should never have parted from them had not death now parted us to which I do submit with all Christian meeknesse and chearfullnesse I am now drawing to an end of my Speech and to an end of my life together But before I do expire my last breath I shall desire to justifie God and to condemn my self in all that is brought upon me Here I come to that which you call an untimely end and a shamefull death but blessed be God it is my glory and it is my comfort I shall justifie God he is righteous because I have sinned he is righteous though he cut me off in the midst of my daies and in the midst of my Ministry I cannot complain that Complaint in Psal 44.12 Thou sellest thy people for nought and dost not encrease thy wealth by their price My bloud it shall not be spilt for nought I may do more good by my death then by my life and glorifie God more in dying upon a Scaffold then if I had died of a disease upon my bed I blesse my God I have not the least trouble upon my spirit but I do with as much quietnesse of minde lie down I hope I shall upon the Block as if I were going to lie down upon my Bed to take my rest I see men hunger after my flesh and thirst after my Bloud let them have it it will hasten my happinesse and their ruine and greaten their guiltinesse though I am a man of an obscure Family of mean Parentage so that my bloud is not as the bloud of Nobles yet I will say it is a Christians bloud a Ministers bloud yea it is innocent bloud also My body my dead body it will be a morsell which I beleeve will hardly be digested and my bloud it will be bad food for this Infant-Commonwealth as M. Prideaux called it to suck upon Mine is not Malignant bloud though here I am brought as a grievous and notorious offender Now beloved I shall not only justifie God as I do without a complement for he were very just if my Prison had been Hell and this Scaffold the bottomlesse pit I have deserved both so that I do not only justifie God but I desire this day to magnifie God to magnifie the riches of his glorious grace that such an one as I born in an obscure Countrey in Wales of obscure Parents that God should look upon me and single me out from amongst all my kindred to be an object of his everlasting love that whenas the first fourteen years of my life I never heard a Sermon yet in the fifteenth year of my life God through his grace did convert me And here I speak it without vanity for what should a dying man be proud of though I am accused of many scandalous evils yet I speak to the praise and glory of my God for these twenty years God hath kept me that I have not fallen into any scandalous sin I have laboured to keep a good conscience from my youth up I magnifie his grace that he hath not only made me a Christian but a Minister and judged me faithfull to put me into the Ministry And though the Office be trodden upon and disgraced yet it is my glory that I die a despised Minister I had rather be a Preacher in a Pulpit then a Prince upon a Throne I had rather be an Instrument to bring souls to Heaven then to have all the Nations bring in Tribute to me I am not only a Christian and a Preacher but whatever men judge I am a Martyr too I speak it without vanity would I have renounced my Covenant and debaucht my Conscience and ventured my soul there might have been hopes of saving my life that I should not have come to this place but blessed be my God I have made the best choice I have chosen affliction rather then sin and therefore welcome Scaffold and welcome Axe and welcome Block and welcome Death and welcome All because it will send me to my Fathers House I have great cause to magnifie Gods grace that he hath stood by me during mine imprisonment it hath been a time of no little temptation to me yet blessed be his grace He hath stood by me and strengthned me I magnifie his grace that though now I come to die a violent death yet that death is not a terrour to me through the bloud of sprinkling the fear of death is taken out of my heart God is not a terrour to me therefore death is