Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	conscience_n	life_n	sin_n	4,202	5	4.3704	3	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

A true and exact Copie of Mr Love ' s Speech and Prayer immediatly before his Death on the Scaffold at Tower-Hill Aug. 22. 1651. Beloved Christians I Am made this day a spectacle unto God Angels and Men and among Men I am made a grief to the Godly a laughingstock to the wicked and a gazingstock to all yet blessed be my God not a terrour to my self Although there be but little between me and death yet this bears up my heart there is but little between me and Heaven It comforted Dr Taylor the Martyr when he was going to Execution that there were but two styles between him and his Fathers House There is a lesser way between me and my Fathers House but two steps between me and Glory it is but lying down upon the Block and I shall ascend upon a Throne I am this day sayling towards the Ocean of Eternity through a rough passage to my Haven of Rest through a Red Sea to the Promised Land Methinks I hear God say to me as he did to Moses Go up to Mount Nebo and die there So to me Go up to Tower-Hill and die there Isaac said of himself that he was old and yet he knew not the day of his death but I cannot say so I am young and yet I know the day of my death and I know the kinde of my death and the place of my death also I am put to such a kinde of death as two famous Preachers of the Gospel were put to before me John the Baptist and Paul the Apostle they were both beheaded you have mention of the one in Scripture-story and of the other in Ecclesiasticall History And I read in Rev. 20.4 the Saints were beheaded for the Word of God and for the testimony of Jesus But herein is the disadvantage which I lie under in the thoughts of many they judge that I suffer not for the Word of God or for Conscience but for medling with State-matters To this I shall briefly say That it is an old guise of the devil to impute the Cause of Gods peoples sufferings to be contrivements against the State when in truth it is their Religion and Conscience they are persecuted for The Rulers of Israel would have put Jeremy to death upon a Civil Account though indeed it was only the truth of his Prophecy that made the Rulers angry with him and yet upon a Civil Account they pretend he must die because he fell away to the Caldcans and would have brought in forreign Forces to invade them The same thing is laid to my charge of which I am as innocent as Jeremy was Yea I finde other instances in Scripture wherein the cause of the Saints sufferings were still imputed to their medling with State matters Paul who did but preach Jesus Christ yet he must die if the people might have their will under pretence that he was a mover of sedition Upon a Civil Account my life is pretended to be taken away whereas indeed it is because I pursue my Covenant and will not prostitute my Principles and Conscience to the Ambition and lusts of men Beloved I am this day making a double exchange I am changing a Pulpit for a Scaffold and a Scaffold for a Throne and I might adde a third I am changing this numerous multitude the presence of this numerous multitude on Tower-Hill for the innumerable company of Saints and Angels in Heaven the holy hill of Sion and I am changing a Guard of Souldiers for a Guard of Angels which will receive me and carry me into Abrahams bosome This Scaffold it is the best Pulpit that ever I preached in in my Church-Pulpit God through his grace made me an Instrument to bring others to Heaven but in this Pulpit he will bring me to Heaven These are the last words that I shall speak in this world and it may be I shall bring more glory to God by this one Speech on a Scaffold then I have done by many Sermons in a Pulpit Before I lay down my Neck upon the Block I shall lay open my Cause unto the People that hear me this day that I might not die under all that obloquy and reproach that is cast upon me and in doing it I shall avoid all rancor all bitternesse of spirit animosity and revenge God is my Record whom I serve in the spirit I speak the truth and lye not I do not bring a revengefull Heart unto the Scaffold This day before I came here upon my bended knees I have begg'd mercy for them that denied mercy to me and I have prayed God to forgive them who would not forgive me I have forgiven from my Heart the worst enemy I have in all the world and this is the worst that I wish to my Accusers and prosecutors who have pursued my bloud that I might meet their Souls in Heaven I shall divide my Speech into three parts I shall speak something concerning my Charge and a word concerning my Accusers and touching my Judges without any Animosity at all and then something concerning my Self for my own Vindication and then a word of Exhortation and so I shall commit my Soul to God Concerning my Charge it is black and hideous many things falsly suggested hardly a line of it true and nothing Capitall sufficiently proved against me by any one Act that I am conscious to my self I did The Charge is high and full but the Proof empty and low though there were eight Witnesses that came in against me yet none of them did prove that ever I writ any Letter or directed any man to write a Letter into Scotland or into forreign parts No man did prove that I sent away any Letter that I received any Letter that I collected or gave or lent any Money to assist or promote the Scottish Warre This is all that is sworn against me that I was present where Letters were read and that I made a motion for Money to give to Massey so that beloved my presence at and concealment of Letters that were received and sent from forreign parts is that for which I must die As concerning my Accusers I shall not say much I do forgive them with all my heart and I pray God forgive them also Yet what the Evangelist said concerning Christ's Accusers I may without vanity or falshood say of mine That they did not agree amongst themselves One Witnesse swears one thing and another the quite contrary Yea not only did they contradict one another but sometimes a single Witnesse contradicted himself And though their Testimony did condemn my Person yet I have condemned their Testimony And truly there are many remarkable circumstances that I might take notice of either in or before or since the Trial that might be worthy observation but I will not insist upon it only in the general for I shall name none of my Accusers some of them have sent to me to pray me to forgive them the wrong they have done me