Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	blood_n	life_n	lord_n	4,629	5	3.5249	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28151	A faithful testimony for God & my country, or, A retro-spective glass for the legislators and the rest of the sons of the Church of England (so called), who are found persecuting the innocent	Billing, Edward, 1623-1686.	1664 (1664)	Wing B2900; ESTC R6254	8,731	11

Witness contrary to their Conscience finde the Innocent Guilty Are not the Jury Judges of matter of Fact at least and to give their Verdict according to their Conscience and Judgment and is not the Judge obliged to receive the Juries Verdict and acquit the Prisoner or give Judgment accordingly * See one of your own Presidents in that case the substance whereof is this so far as I remember viz. An Innocent man was indicted for Felony the Witnesses swearing against him the Jury brought him in Guilty and notwithstanding the Judge himself knew the man indicted was innocent and likewise knew the person that did the Felony yet he was forced to pass Sentence upon the Innocent because the Jury had brought him in guilty and all the Judge could do was to reprieve him until he had got his Pardon from the King But these Innocents were remanded to Prison though cleared by the Jury and there to remain This is not all although so abominable that I do believe the like hath not been done in England in any Judicatory this many hundred years but two dayes after twenty Friends or there-abouts Men and Women were at the place aforesaid upon the authority of sic volo sic jubeo sentensed to Banishment without any Jury at all or being legally heard notwithstanding they never refused according to their understandings and a good conscience to plead the general Issue the which with one voice they then affirmed to the Iudge in the face of the Court so called though it be most evident by the London Juries usage that pleading or not pleading Iury or no Iury is much at one As was also somewhat manifested at Hicks's Hall the same week where the Grand Iury at their first and second going forth could not find the Bill but being check'd and threatned to be fined at their third going forth the Clerk of the Peace going up to help them it was said the Bill was found I say it was alledged it was found but it was not clear to many if any of the by-standers How ever with such Witness and Petty-Jury as they were there were likewise sentenced to Banishment Twelve Innocents to any of the Kings Plantations Virginia and Barbados excepted but one of the Justices so called informed the Judge that Virginia was one of the places excepted in the Act then he mentioned Hispaniola a place that never yet belonged to England and one that stood by and heard him said Oliver did not get that for you so that at that time he did not condescend upon any particular place Indeed the man was greatly confounded insomuch that his lips trembled exceedingly when he pronounced his confused Sentence which to me was an infalible sign that God's hand was against him As for the illegal absurd and cruel proceedings last Assizes and Quarter-Session holden at Hertford where by Banishing twenty nine innocent true Men from their dear Wives and tender innocent Children sixteen of them being married and several of them already shipt hath on your part and by vertue of the Authority derived from you in effect made sixteen Widows and at least fourty or fifty Fatherless Children the which being already malafama through and through the Nation I shall but only mention it and as dung amongst the rest of the precited inhumane Violences spread it before you that so you may plainly see if prejudice utterly blind not how we are really enslaved and contrary to Magna Charta and the most wholsome Laws of the Land destroyed in our Lives Liberties and Estates even by the power that is derived from your late Act. Since the unnatural birth whereof where the Magistrates through God's Mercy to them and us have not been restrain'd have not our Persons been imprison'd and our innocent Blood drank as freely as other cups of Vice and Pleasure Not less than the bodies of twenty seven precious Souls destroyed in and through Cruel Imprisonment in Newgate since your Act became in force being taken and Imprisoned to death only for worshipping the Lord their Maker in the Spirit and in the Truth Is not this turning of Justice backward and Equity into Cruelty makes not such doings your Thrones of Justice so called to become Stages of Infamy and your most legal Theaters most artificial Aceldama's and think ye that the Living God of Heaven and of Earth will not visit for these things and make a dreadful inquisition for the Blood and Sufferings of his Innocent Seed YEA YEA YEA as sure as he is God and its more requisite for you to expect the revelation of his Indignation than daily Bread What can I say You will as surely feel his Justice as ever you saw his Mercy and your whole Arm of Flesh shall be no more able to deliver you from his Vengeance than one single Reed wherefore in vain do you fight against God in his Seed or go about to limit his Holy Ones in the exercise of their holy Consciences to your way or number Had not Christ twelve Apostles and did the ignoble Jews go about to restrict him to the number of five and were not oft-times several hundreds and sometimes thousands conveen'd to hear him and them preach though indeed they were as we now are by the same Antichristian and Hierarchical-spirit cast out as Evil-Doers thought not worthy to live commanded to speak no more in that Name called Sowers of Sedition Pestilent Fellows Ring-Leaders of Sects Perverters of the Laws Turners of the World upside down c. However these our Primitive Predecessors fearing and obeying God rather than man met often together sometimes in the Field sometimes by the Sea-side sometimes at one Friends house and sometimes at another or the like And did not the Apostle incite the True Christians to meet often together and rebuke such who forsook the Assemblies of the Saints wherefore some grew weak and others fell asleep And whether do you think its juster before God for us to obey the Spirit of Christ in Us and follow the blessed Example of him and his holy Apostles or your Edict And was Daniel a Rebel when he brake the Decree of Darius King of the Medes and Persians whose Statutes are said to be unalterable Yet holy Daniel valued not the anti-conscience Law of the King his Master whose immediate Servant he was but boldly opened his windows and prayed to his God as at other times And for my part I tell you plainly I purpose in my heart all the dayes of my life to wait upon and pray to my God as at other times as holy Daniel did notwithstanding your Decree to the contrary infallibly knowing my God can deliver me if he please but as to mine own part whether my dayes shall be many or few my death publick or private O Lord thou knowest I am not at all anxious or careful in that matter And as I would not be profuse of my Blood even so I abhor the very thought of being nigardly of my life for the further Testimony of the Gospel and immortal Truth as it is holden forth and dispens'd by those depicable yet precious Ones who tremble at his Word in scorn called Quakers Wherefore thy Will not mine be done O God most Wise Christ's Cross I love the Pain the Shame I utterly despise Your Banishment your Goal and Gibbet I defie When you are ready so am I for God and 's Truth to die However it had been but reasonable among men before you had passed a Decree to Imprison Fine Banish sell for Slaves and upon their Return to put to Death so considerable a part of the Nation as we and others concerned in your late Act are to have conveen'd a sufficient number of your Priests for whom you thus drudg and Us together and your selves have heard if they could have convinced us that we held or declared any thing for Doctrine or Religion derogatory to God or Christ Jesus the Light of the World or that we had preached for Hire or divined for Money handfuls of Corn or pieces of Bread as the false Prophets did and do or if they could have plainly evinced to you we had like Belly-gods idle Drones greedy Dumb-dogs who can never have enough robb'd the Nation of the Tenth or seventh part of their Estates and yearly industry then it had been time to have cryed Away with them for such men as such are indeed pernitious to the Publick-weal a burden and a plague to our Nation Or rather in the first place immediatly after God had permitted you into outward Power and Government It had been fitter for you to have put on sackcloth and ashes and in humility of soul have turned inward and waited there in brokenness of heart at Wisdoms gate that so ye might have come to have felt and known what the Lord had meant considering what bad men you had been to devoul such undeserved Trust and Power upon you But alas alas instead of doing thus have ye not turned the Grace of God into Wantonness Pride Oaths Persecution and many other unutterable Abominations * Him that 's free I neither interrogate nor accuse although I expect he that 's most guilty should be ready to throw the first stone at me And can you expect ought but a sutable reward and that God should make a dreadful decision betwixt the Just and the Unjust betwixt them who serve him and them who will not serve him themselves nor suffer others Indeed were I so vicious as very very many of the sons of your Church are I should rather expect the eternal Vengeance of the dreadful God forthwith to sweep me from the face of the Earth than his intolerably provoked Mercy should permit me to live one day longer to blaspheam And truly friends the Whoremonger Swearer Lyar Drunkard Adulterer and Idolatrous Persecutor be you assured God will severely judge and the Thirsters after the Blood of the Innocent shall not live out half their dayes and the Memorial of the Wicked shall Rot. E. B. THE END

Banishment of thine Anointed forth of their Land When first I heard that such a Bill was preparing to be offered in Parliament I said in my heart Can Dare or will any called Englishmen give their consent to the passing thereof How the Peoples Representatives in Parliament give their consents to punish the most innocent Natives with no less than Banishment and upon their return with Death for the exercise of their pure Consciences to God! To Death such immane Crueltyes I shall decry And with my Blood I 'le freely seal Your Act 's against the Commonweal Also know all the Actors by your Act unminded That it 's no Law till Magna Charta be rescinded Though with 't you do and may the Innocent vex Not minding SALUS POPULI SUPREMA LEX Well if it were possible for you to obtain your wills and that you could rid out of the Nation all such who for Conscience sake in obedience to Christ's Command cannot swear nor as moved by his holy Spirit forbear to meet often together to wait upon and serve the Lord neither Conform to your Church-Worship And what man that strictly feareth God in any measure doth not some of your Laws against Conscience reach Who should then Plow the Earth and maintain the Industry now used therein It 's not Prophaness Drunkenness Oaths Lyes Lust and Persecution and such who nourish their hearts in the Sensuality of all manner of Uncleannesses though Sons of your Church that will be long able to give to Caesar or put into the Hirelings mouths and then to be sure if they are not very much degenerated from their old nature they 'l prepare War and contrive Insurrections the prevention whereof is the alledged pretention why this your Act of Prevention was passed against the Innocent but it is more then palpable it 's the exercise of our holy Conscience to God that is struck at For if really and alone to prevent Insurrections was the Cause why the Act was passed what 's the reason that Women and Men past sixty or otherwise impotent were not excepted But to cut short all such pretention I tell you plainly it 's time enough for an English-man to be impeached when really guilty and to suffer when matter of Fact is fully and legally proven I am sure that 's the hereditary undoubted Right absolutly due to the meanest person born within the English Nation And that good Cilician Paul being ensnared for the exercise of his pure Conscience as at this day we are Pleaded the Priviledge of the Nation and City whereof he was and those generous Heathens Claudius Licius Felix Festus and Agrippa did not deny him his Birth-right but like men of noble minds permitted him to speak for himself to the full ingenuously admitting his Appeal unto Caesar who though a professed Heathen suffered Paul a Christian not only to live but also to preach Christianity in Rome no man molesting him so that that great Emperour did not imploy his Souldiers like Brutes to pull Paul and his Friends out of his House and break up their Meetings though it 's most probable he had oft-times with him an hundred times four besides them of his Family and yet it was not ignorantly call'd A Seditious Conventicle c. But the accurssed High Priest of the Jews who read the Law as your Priests do the Prayers that you call Common and talked of the Messia to come as yours do of Christ now he is come insinuating with the Rulers of the Earth then as at this day being assisted with the baser sort then as now suffered Paul to be smitten and abused contrary to the Law as at this day we are And was it not the Hirarchy then who sent their Armed Mercenaries Satans Vassals with their suborned Judas to seize upon and hale the Innocent Lamb of God before their Judgment Seat or pretended Spiritual Court where by a Law incontinently they condemned the Saviour of the World prevailing through their subtilty with Pilate even against the Witness of God in his conscience to give up Jesus the Just One to the Crucifiction in whom he found no fault and deliver to them and their accomplices Barrabas a Murderer and Pilate having once drank-in the Preists Sorceries fell below the state of a man permitting his Souldiers to Spit in his Saviours face Crown him with Thorns Strike Mock and Revile him on the Cross give him Gall and Vinegar to drink cast Lots for his Garments receive the Priests Bribery to lye all which was as far beneath the Nobility of the Romans before the Priests spirit had entered them as our Usage at this day is beneath the spirit of True English-men and contrary to the Fundamental Laws of the Land whereof we are Free-born For in the first place We are not only illegally seized upon Drag'd through your Streets and Canels knock'd down Hair and Garments rent off Blood drawn bruised and beaten to excess even several to death and many other most sordid immanities against Law done unto us which a large Volumn will not contain but as illegally sent to Prison and when Prisoners and brought before Judicatories so called denied to be heard our mouths stopp'd at the Judges command by the hand of the Common Hangman and other assistant miscrants with Gags and by thrusting nasty handkirchifs rouled up into the months of the Innocent ready to sufficate them also striking of them many dreadful Blows with great Canes or Cudgels at least a hundred upon their bare heads and other parts of their bodies and this by command and at the Bar of Justice so called and for no other Cause but legally pleading for their Liberties and Estates having been a considerable time falsly imprisoned and ought by the Law of the Land at least to have been freed nought being found or proven against them But instead of receiving any manner of Justice most rediculously and impertinantly was the Oath of Allegiance imposed as a Snare upon them for refusal whereof they were forthwith premunired and their Estates and Liberties in this horrid manner rap'd from them As likewise since at the same place to wit the Sessions-house in the Old-Bailey London about forty Friends were brought from Newgate thither and set to the Bar a false Indictment read against some few of them and for fashion-sake a Jury impannell'd some Witness such as it was but not being sufficient to prove the Indictment the purport whereof was For being at an Unlawful Assembly Seditious Meeting Conventicle or Worship contrary to the Lyturgy of the Church of England or such stuff so far as I remember After twice going out the Jury brought in their Verdict That the Prisoners were not guilty of any Seditious Conventicle Unlawful Assembly or the like Whereupon they were exceedingly menaced furiously interrogated their Verdict by the Judge so called refused and by him six of them bound-over to answer it at the Kings-Bench Bar and all this because they could not without sufficient