Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	believe_v	good_a	work_n	1,567	5	5.8652	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A88575	Mr. Love's case: wherein is published, first, his several petitions to the Parliament. Secondly, a full narrative of the late dangerous design against the state, written with Mr. Loves own hand, and by him sent to the Parliament; wherein he setteth down his several meetings and secret actings with Major Alford, Maj. Adams, Col. Barton, Mr. Blackmore, Mr. Case, Mr. Cauton, Dr. Drake, Mr. Drake, Cap. Farr, Mr. Gibbons, Mr. Haviland, Major Huntington, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Jaquel, Mr Jackson, Lieut. Col. Jackson, Cap. Massey, Mr. Nalton, Cap. Potter, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Sterks, Colonel Sowton, Colonel Vaughan, and others. Thirdly, Mr. Loves speech and prayer on the scaffold on Towerhil, August 22. 1651. Printed by an exact copy, taken in short-hand by John Hinde. Fourthly, animadversions on the said speech and prayer.	Love, Christopher, 1618-1651.; Hinde, John, 17th cent.	1651 (1651)	Wing L3143; Thomason E641_10; Thomason E790_1; ESTC R202750	68,137	69

beleeving I lie down with a world of comfort as if I were to lie down in my Bed My Bed is but a short sleep and this Death is a long sleep where I shall rest in Abrahams bosom and in the embraces of the Lord Jesus And then saying The Lord bless you he layd himself down upon the Scaffold with his Head ove the Block And when he stretched forth his hands the Executioner cut off his Head at one blow THE PREFACE Briefly declaring the occasion of the ANIMADVERSIONS THe Roman Orator commendeth it as the property of a good Orator not onely to speak things pertinent and proper to his Cause for the promoting it but also to take heed of speaking any thing that may prove prejudicial to it The great cause which Mr. Love both in his life and at his death at least as himself insinuates over and over in his Discourse ensuing desired above all things to plead and promote was the cause of Jesus Christ and the salvation of the Souls of men Now though I can easily believe that he spake and taught many things in the time of his life and some things at the time of his death which were and are of very good consequence towards the advancement of this Cause yet I clearly finde him partly by what I read in the words uttered by him upon the Scaffold immediately before his death partly by what I have seen printed and published formerly either in his Name or with his approbation and consent partly also by what I have heard from some of his Sermons that he was very defective in the property of a good Orator mentioned and that he was apt to speak not onely things very impertinent and eccentrical to his Cause but even such things also sometimes which were of a manifest inconsistency with the Interest of it I shall at present onely give notice of such Passages or Touches which came from him in his Speech or Prayer on the Scaffold which are of a very prejudicial import to that most honorable Cause of Iesus Christ and the Salvation of men to the promotion and maintenance whereof he professeth himself to have been so entirely devoted that so what he acted or spake as a skilful Workman and was truly and really advantagious to his Cause may have a clear entire and perfect operation in order hereunto and not be incumbred foiled or impeded in their working by things of a contrary tendency and spirit mixed with it In this respect I trust his Friends will finde no cause I am sure will finde no just cause of offence in that separation of the vile from the precious which is intended in these Animadversions especially considering that if Mr. Love himself were alive with that Christian ingenuity whereunto he pretends once and again in this Discourse he could not but accept it as a Service of love and faithfulness for any man to strengthen those things which are worthy and good in him by disabling and weakning that which is otherwise However it is not meet nor of any good consistence with those sacred Respects which are due from every man unto mankinde to tempt the living unto folly by giving honor unto the dead Better it is that Mr. Love's reputation should be a little clouded then that it should glare in the weak eyes of men to make them blinde As for men of clear intellectuals and composed judgements Mr. Loves Speech might without the least danger of tempting them have been presented naked there being nothing in it but what is transparent enough to such men Onely persons of effeminate and enslaved apprehensions may possibly conceit that they see visions of worth and excellence where there is nothing but darkness and deceit and so may receive dangerous impressions from what they think they see if their eyes be not anointed with some eye-salve of such an interpretation which shall bring forth that which is within the veyl into the outer and open Court of the Temple ANIMADVERSION upon Sect. I. IN this first Section we have a first-fruits of Mr. Love's Confidence in his death together with a taste of that pleasant Fancy on which it seems he fed with much contentment whilest he yet lived viz. how honorable that Death which he was now to suffer would be unto him as wherein he should parallel those great Worthies of heaven Iohn the Baptist Paul and the Saints beheaded in the Revelation Far be it from me to envy either Mr. Love's or any other man's confidence in their death The great Desire and grand Design of my Soul is to consult with the utmost of my endeavors the Confidence of men yea of all men without exception in and at their death But though I envy no mans confidence in death yet I confess I pity the confidence of many at such a time yea I pity many surviving fearing lest the confidence of some dying should prove a snare of death unto them Mr. Love's confidence upon the Scaffold my soul pitieth having so many and such pregnant grounds of Reason in mine eyes to judge it if not hollow and heartless yet bottomless and groundless Yet I confess I pity those more who through ignorance of their grounds live under much danger of being ensnared and hardned in evil by occasion of the said confidence For when evil doers especially the first-born of this generation Traitors shall without repentance and this some ways professed die full of confidence in God whether real or pretended it is a sore temptation upon men not to be so tender or fearful of such practices as the hatred and high displeasure of God against them admonisheth them to be Therefore for the sakes of such persons who are in danger of being made confident in evil by Mr. Love's confidence at his death I shall brief●y account unto them the grounds of my great jealousie and fear that this confidence was as the Apostle speaketh in the face onely and not in the heart or if in the heart yet without any substantial or sufficient ground for the raising of it 1. The holy Ghost himself mustereth Traitors Heady High-minded persons without natural affection amongst such men who have i. e. sometimes have or may have the Form of Godliness and yet deny the power thereof Now though Mr. Love and his Abettors in their equivocal Dialect wherein like Canters they use common and familiar words in uncouth and unknown significations will not it's like call men of his Mr. Love 's practices and ways either Traitors Heady High-minded without natural affection c. yet in the ordinary and best known signification of these terms and in the sense wherein the holy Ghost useth them unless they will quarrel our English Translation he was both Traitor Heady c. and so look'd upon and adjudged by persons who are not wont to pervert or wrest words into by-significations to make the innocent guilty I do not speak now of the Parliament Councel of State or High Court of

which have not received countenance or approbation from the generality of Ministers of a later Edition and since the times of Luthers and Calvins Reformations his advice is indeed artificially calculated for the Meridian of high Presbytery but very disserviceable to the advancement and growth of Christianity 4. He exhorteth them to bewaile their great losse in the taking away of so many Ministers out of their City and then recounting the number of them finds them if he mistakes not ten under the covert of such an exception or reserve he might as truly have said they had been twenty He speaks of some as being in banishment Those of them in this condition were adjudged thither by no other Judges then their own Consciences When the City of refuge is sought unto it is a sign that there is bloud shed and that there is some avenger of bloud that follows the chase The Ministers he speaks of he doth the rather lift up unto heaven with those glorious Elogiums he bestows on them that so he may cast those so much the deeper into hell in the peoples thoughts whom he would have lookt upon as the Authors of their taking away But the Malefactour as hath been said not the Judge is the Author of his sufferings If they were lights they were far more burning then shining but with an un-hallowed fire if Starres starres they were of a very Malignant influence upon the State where they liv'd and in their Conjunction made a very dangerous and fiery constellation Those of whom as the Scripture testifieth the world was not worthy were a generation of men of another spirit holy humble and harmlesse were content to suffer from the world to do the world service Mr. Love's men are a generation that must have the world bow down unto them and lick the dust at their feet to strengthen their hand to do them service neglect from men is as the shadow of death unto them 5. And lastly He gives them a brief Item to take heed of being forward to ingage in a war against their godly Brethren in Scotland If these godly Brethren in Scotland had not been forward to ingage in a war against them the Counsell had been Christian and prudent But inasmuch as these godly Brethren first ingaged in a war against their godly Brethren here as hath been formerly shewed it is no point of Christianity or prudence to demurre upon a course of defence or of prevention of the mischiefe ANIMAD upon Sect. 21. There is a red threed of revenge against the Parliament and State struck quite thorough this fare-well piece of Mr. Loves to the world from the very beginning to the end of it visible enough and indeed too much in every Section which creates a sad jealousie with me left his fi●●s Architectonicus his predominant end in his last addresse on earth was to have the men in present Power under the hardest and most hatefull ●●●●ment with the people that he could imagine or devise In many passages he hales in by head and shoulders such things which a man cannot tell how or why they should come there but only to asp●rse the State and to envenom the spirits of the people against them In these his Applications to the godly Ministery as he terms it of the City he doth his best to make them believe for he affirms that he knoweth it that they are maligned and threatned and this the people must conceive to be by the State yea and the cause and ground hereof must be supposed to be for setting themselves against the sins and Apostacies of the times for his faithfulness wherein he himself had procured ill will from men Poor man Doth he call his sin against God his high crimes and offences against the Parliament in his late and great miscarriages for which himself confesseth in his last Petition to the Parliament as was formerly shewed that the Sentence of death was justly passed on him by the High-Court of Justice doth he I say call sin against God high crimes great miscarriages his faithfulness in setting himself against the sins and Apostacies of this present age I confess if these were his faithfulness in that kind he speaks of it was his faithfulness that procured him the ill-will of men If such notions and conceits as these were the foundation of that abundant peace of his Conscience and which he saith he hath with God and with which he dieth I fear he may be too truly compared to the foolish builder who neglected the rock and built his house upon the sand which soon after fell and great was the fall thereof But to perswade the godly Ministers of his present address together with the people the more effectually that they were certainly maligned and threatned he will needs upon this account lift up a prayer for them in the words of those Christians Act. 4. 29. And now Lord behold their threatnings and grant that thy servants may preach the word with all boldness But is not this an horrid prophanation of the sacred Ordinance of Prayer and of him that hath appointed it to represent persons unto God as guilty of such crimes whereof he knows them to be innocent especially when he also that prayeth hath no tolerable ground to judge them such as they are represented by him unto God in his Prayer What ground or colour of ground had Master Love to accuse the Parliament or State before God of threatning the godly Ministers of the City for preaching the Word of God What Minister did they ever threaten upon any such account as this Possibly such Ministers s who in their preachings have turn'd the good Word of God and Gospel of Jesus Christ into fire-brands of Sedition into scurrilous and bitter invectives against those whom God hath set in Authority over them who in stead of lifting up their voices like Trumpets to make the people to know their abominations have lift them like Trumpets to provoke and animate them to commit abominations possibly I say such Ministers as these they have discountenanced in such ways of impiety and prophanation of the Word of God as these His perswasion that the Presbyterial Government makes most for purity and for unity throughout the Churches of the Saints the experience which the world hath had of this Government in those places or Churches where it hath had its throne doth not much countenance or confirm but I shall not here counter-argue it Whereas he beggs of the Ministers that they would keep up Church-Government and had onely added and not intermeddle with the Civil-Government of the State his advice had been both Christian and seasonable ANIMAD upon Section 22. I will not say that Master Love here freeth all the Ministers in the City those onely excepted who are already discovered from having a hand in his business he dislikes it seems the word Plot in such a sense wherein not long since he freed himself from whatsoever was not or could

not as he thought be proved against him I judge it not improbable but that the Ministers of his exemption may be free from all interposure of particularities of advice for the driving on M. Loves designe this word he owns in one of his Petitions though the word Plot grates upon his spirit yea possibly they may be free in respect of the knowledge of the particularities of the method and transactions by which the Designe was carryed on and ripened from time to time by the Arch-Contrivers such works of darkness are in danger of coming abroad into the light before their time and so to mischieve or destroy the workmen in case the number of those who either shall meet frequently for the managing and forming of them or to whom the particulars of them shall be imparted be too great It is seldom seen but that that which is known to many soon after comes to be known unto all Yet I beleeve there is hardly any Minister of the Presbyterian perswasion about the City but knew well enough that there was Scotch-Ale in brewing and that Master Love and his Complices were not asleep as to their Interest and cause Yea and that from time to time though they could not call Master Loves Designe by its proper name yet they prayed heartily in general and covert terms for the prosperity of it But Master Loves Conscience now upon the Scaffold tells him it seems a quite contrary t●le to what it told him a few days before When he was a Petitioner to the Parliament for his life his Conscience told him that he had Sinned against God that his late miscarriages were great his crimes and offences against the Parliament high c. But in the interim it seems the Rabbies of his Conscience 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been with him and shin'd a new light into him About the entertainment whereof had he followed his own Counsel directed unto others in the like case formerly mentioned and had taken heed of receiving it it had been much better and safer for him ANIMAD upon Sect. 23. What M. Love gives in honor to his Congregation I shall not take from them Onely what he gives unto himself in this kind as 1. That he should never have parted from them had not death parted them 2. That he submitteth unto death with all Christian meeknesse c. I make some question whether he had right to give it or no. For he that had parted from one Congregation upon a far different occasion from that of death he speaks of why might he not his judgment remaining the same touching a lawfulnesse of parting have parted from another and another after that upon a like occasion Men may be confident of their present intentions and purposes but to prophesie of their future is to run an adventure But whereas he professeth his submission unto death with all Christian meeknesse I leave him to be judged out of his own mouth in this very discourse wherewith he hath avenged himself on his Judges whom he calls his adversaries to the uttermost ANIMAD upon Sect. 24. In the beginning of this Section he professeth his desire to justifie God and to condemne himself A Christian and worthy profession But that which he professeth a desire to do he doth very faintly and by halfs But that which is contrary to what he desires as he saith to do he doth vigorously and with his might In his justifying of God he is very generall and faint and yet more generall and superficiall in condemning himself But in the justifying of himself and condemning others he is inlarg'd beyond his line For the justifying of God he saith only that he is righteous in the condemning of himself he saith no more but onely I have sinned which the most innocent and righteous person under heaven may say truly But for the justifying and commending of himself with a mixture of insinuations against others how copious and eloquent is he First he saith his bloud shall not be spilt for nought wherein he make's himself equall with the Saints he mentioneth from the Psalm 2. That he may do more good by his death then by his life which though it may be true enough in a sence little to his honor yet in his notion must imply either that his Oration which he was now uttering was so effectuall and full of power that many of those that heard it would either be converted or els much edified by it or els that his dying with so much courage in such a worthy cause as he was now to suffer for would make others confident in the further maintenance and prosecution of it whereby God should be much glorified 3. He sings over his former note of confidence I blesse my God I have not the least trouble c. I die with as much quietnesse of mind c. By which he doth not only commend himself as one of the first-born sons of Faith but farther insinuates the goodnesse and justifiablenesse of his cause whereby the people may be the more incens'd against his Judges 4. He saith that he sees that men hunger after his flesh and thirst after his blood which hastens his happinesse and their ruine c. wherein at once he justifieth himself in the highest and condemneth others proportionably 5. He saith his blood is innocent blood is this to condemne himself and not plainly to condemne others by his self-justification 6. He saith that his dead body will be a morsell which he believes will hardly be digested and that his blood will be bad food c. What are these but Rhetoricall flourishes of his own righteousnesse and innocency full of reflexion upon his Judges as men that had sinned with an high hand against the peace and safety of the Common-wealth by sentencing him to die 7. And lastly that he may proclaim his innocency as well in the Negative as Affirmative he saith Mine is not Malignant bloud though c. was Mr. Loves desire to condemn himself in speaking these things or are they the words of a man taking shame unto himself and justifying God thereby The truth is he hath condemn●d himself by speaking them all along calling evill good and good evill putting darknesse for light and light for darknesse bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter stumblings and mistakes of a very sad import so neer the threshold of death ANIMAD upon Sect. 25. In the beginning of this Section he seems in part to repent of the former but his words are of no good consistence He proves God to be very just by this that his prison was not his Hell c. inasmuch as he had deserved it This is an argument to prove him gracious or mercifull but that men have not in punishment what they have deserved in sin hath no face of a proof that God is very just If Mr. Love had here also stood upon his Justification and said I have not deserved it his Argument had been more