Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	word_n	write_v	zeal_n	35	3	7.2008	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43512	A briefe relation of the death and sufferings of the Most Reverend and renowned prelate, the L. Archbishop of Canterbury with a more perfect copy of his speech, and other passages on the scaffold, than hath beene hitherto imprinted.	Heylyn, Peter, 1600-1662.	1644 (1644)	Wing H1685; ESTC R212372	21,500	34

A BRIEFE RELATION OF THE DEATH AND SVFFERINGS OF THE MOST REVEREND AND RENOWNED PRELATE THE L. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBVRY With A more perfect Copy of his Speech and other passages on the Scaffold than hath beene hitherto imprinted JEREM. 26. 14 15. 14. As for mee behold I am in your hands do with mee as seemeth good and meete unto you 15. But know ye for certaine that if yee put mee to death ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon your selves and upon this City and upon the Inhabitants thereof c. OXFORD Printed in the Yeare 1644. A BRIEFE RELATION OF THE DEATH AND sufferings of the most Reverend and Renowned Prelate the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury c. IT is a preposterous kinde of writing to beginne the story of a great mans life at the houre of his death a most strange way of setting forth a solemne Tragedie to keepe the principall Actor in the tyring-house till the Play be done and then to bring him on the Stage onely to speake the Epilogue and receive the Plaudites Yet this must bee the scope and method of these following papers To write the whole life of the most Reverend and Renowned Prelate the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury would require more time then publique expectation can endure to heare of Those that can judge as all wise men may of the brightnesse and glories of the Sunne in his highest altitude by the clearenesse of his going downe or that can Ortum Solis in occasu quaerere discerne the rising of the Sunne as once Straton did by the reflection of his beames in a Westerne cloud may by the glorious manner of his death and sufferings presented in these short Remembrances conjecture at the splendour of those rare endowments both of Grace and Nature wherewith his former life was adorned and beautifyed The ordinary and unsatisfied Reader may for his farther satisfaction repaire to Master Prynn's Breviate of his life and actions though publish'd of purpose to defame him and render him more odious to the common people Concerning which the Reader may observe in breife that all which Mr. Prynn's industrious malice hath accused him of in those Collections is that hee was a man of such eminent vertues such an exemplary piety towards God such an unwearied fidelity to his gracious Soveraigne of such a publique soule towards Church and State so fixt a constancy in Freindship and one so little biassed by his private interesses that this Age affords not many Equalls And it would trouble Plutarch if he were alive to finde out a fit Parallell with whom to match him All therefore I shall doe at the present time and 't is the last publique Office I shall do him is to lay downe the story of his death and sufferings together with a view of those plots and practises which were set on foote to pluck a few yeares from a weake old man and bring him to an unnaturall calamitous end For though that maxime in Philosophy is most true and certaine that corruptio est in instanti that death comes to us in a moment or in the twinkling of an eye as the Scriptures phrase is yet are there many previous dispositions which make way unto it all which are comprehended in the name of death And in that latitude of expression doe we take the word in laying downe the story of his death before you which being writ out of an honest zeale to truth and a sincere affection to his name and memory shall either bee approved of or at least excused It was the practice and position of the antient Donatists the Predecessours and Progenitors of the modern Puritan occidere quemcunque qui contraeos fecerit to kill and make away whoever durst oppose their doings or was conceived to be an hinderance to their growing faction And by this Card their followers in these Kingdomes have beene steered of late imprisoning and destroying all who have stood against them It is long since they entertained such desperate purposes against the life and person of the Lord Arch-Bishop threatning his death in scattered Libels telling him that his life was sought for that neither God nor man could endure so vile a Counsellour to live any longer This was about the end of March 1629. and was the Prologue to those libels full of threats and scandals which yeare by yeare exasperated and inflamed the people till they had made them ripe for mischeife and readily prepared to execute whatever their grand Directours should suggest unto them Saint Paul did never fight more frequent and more terrible combats with the beasts of Ephesus for the promotion of the Gospell then he with these untractable and fiery spirits who most seditiously opposed his religious purposes of setling unity and uniformity in this Church of England And in this state things stood till the yeare 1640. in which not onely many factious and seditious people in and about the City of London made an assault by night on his house at Lambeth with an intent to murther him had they found him there but the whole faction of the Scots declared in a Remonstrance to the English Nation that one of the cheife causes which induced them to invade this Realme was to remove him from his Majesty and bring him to the punishment which he had deserved The manner of their comming hither and the great entertainment given them by the faction here shewed plainely that they were not like to bee sent away without their Errand and makes it evident that his ruine was resolved on in their secret Counsells before the Parliament was called or that they had declared so much by their will revealed The Parliament had not long continued but he is named for an Incendiary by the Scottish Commissioners and thereupon accused of Treason by the House of Commons And although no particular Charge was brought against him but onely a bare promise to prepare it in convenient time yet was he presently committed to the custody of the Gentleman Vsher and by him kept in duresse till the end of February being full tenne weeks about which time his charge was brought unto the Lords but in generals only and longer time required for particular instances And yet upon this Lydford law by which they used to hang men first and endite them afterwards was he committed to the Tower being followed almost all the way by the Rascall multitude who barbarously pursued him with reproach and clamours to the very gates and there detained contrary to all law and justice almost foure yeares longer This was the first great breach which was made by Parliament in the liberties of the English Subject save that their like proceedings with the Earle of Strafford was a preparative unto it and was indeed the very gappe at which the slavery and oppression under which this miserable Nation doth now pine and languish did breake in upon them What right could meaner persons looke for when as so great

the same day the fourth of Ianuary in which they passed this bloudy Ordinance as if therein they would cry quittance with His Sacred Majesty who on the same accused the six guilt Members they passed another for establishing their new Directory which in effect is nothing but a totall abolition of the Common-prayer-booke and thereby shewed unto the world how little hopes they had of setling their new forme of worship if the foundation of it were not laid in bloud The Bill being thus dispatched in the House of Lords if still they may be called the Lords which are so over-loaded by the Common people there wanted yet the Kings Assent to give life to it which they so far contemned they had more reason to despare of it that they never sought it They had screwed up their Ordinances to so high a pitch that never Act of Parliament was of more authority and having found the subjects so obedient as to yeild unto them in matters which concerned them in their goods and liberties it was but one step more to make triall of them whether they would submit their lives to the selfe same tyranny And this they made the first experiment in this kind both of their own power and the peoples patience he being the first man as himselfe noted in his speech which words are purposely omitted in Hindes Copy of it that was ever put to death by Ordinance in Parliament but whether he shall be the last further time will shew Certaine it is that by this Ordinance they have now made themselves the absolute masters of the Subjects life which they can call for at their pleasure as no doubt they will and left him nothing but his fetters he can call his owne Just as it was observed by our Gracious Soveraigne upon occasion of the Ordinance for the 20th part that the same power which robbed the Subject of the twentieth part of their Estates had by that only made a claime and entituled it selfe to the other nineteene whensoever it should be thought expedient to hasten on the generall ruine In which His Majesty hath proved but too true a Prophet And though perhaps some of the people were well pleased with this bloudy Ordinance and ran with joy to see it put in execution yet all wise men doe looke upon it as the last groane or gaspe of our dying liberty And let both them and those who passed it be assured of this that they who doe so gadly sell the bloud of their fellow Subjects seldome want Chapmen for their owne in an open Market And here as it was once observed that the predominant party of the Vnited Provinces to bring about their ends in the death of Barnevelt subverted all those fundamentall Lawes of the Belgick liberty for maintenance whereof they took up Arms against Philip the 2 so would I know which of those Fundamentall Lawes of the English Government have not beene violated by these men in their whole proceedings for preservation of which Lawes or rather under colour of such preservation they have bewitched the people unto this Rebellion It is a Fundamentall Law of the English Government and the first Article in the Magna Charta that the Church of England shall be free and shall have her whole Rights and Priviledges inviolable yet to make way unto the condemnation of this innocent man and other the like wicked and ungodly ends the Bishops must be Voted out of their place in Parliament which most of them have held farre longer in their Predecessors then any of our noble Families in their Progenitours And if the Lords refuse to give way unto it as at first they did the people must come downe to the House in multitudes and cry No Bishops no Bishops at the Parliament doores till by the terrour of their tumults they extort it from them It is a Fundamentall Law of the English liberty that no Free man shall be taken or imprisoned without cause shewne or be detained without being brought unto his Answer in due forme of Law yet heere wee see a Free-man imprisoned tenne whole weekes together brfore any Charge was brought against him and kept in prison three yeeres more before his generall Accusation was by them reduced into particulars and for a yeere almost detained close prisoner without being brought unto his answer as the Law requirer It is a Fundamentall Law of the English Government that no man be disseised of his Freehold or Liberties but by the knowne Lawes of the Land yet here wee see a man disseised of his Rents and Lands spoyled of his Goods deprived of his jurisdiction devested of his Right and Patronage and all this done when hee was so farre from being convicted by the Lawes of the Land that no particular charge was so much as thought of It is a Fundamentall Law of the English Liberty that no man shall be condemned or put to death but by lawfull judgement of his Peeres or by the Law of the Land i. e. in the ordinary way of a legall tryall and sure an Ordinance of both Houses without the Royall Assent is no part of the Law of England nor held an ordinary way of triall for the English subject or ever reckoned to be such in the former times And finally it is a Fundamentall Law in the English Government that if any other case then those recited in the Statute of King Edward 3. which is supposed to be Treason doe happen before any of His Majesties Justices the Justices shall tarry without giving judgement till the cause be shewne and declared before the King and His Parliament whether it ought to be judged Treason or not yet here wee have a new found Treason never knowne before nor declared such by any of His Majesties Iustices nor ever brought to be considered of by the King and His Parliament but onely voted to be such by some of those few Members which remaine at Westminster who were resolved to have it so for their private ends Put all which hath been said together and then tell me truly if there be any difference for I see not any betweene the ancient Roman slaves and the once Free-born Subject of the English Nation whose life and liberty whose goods and fortunes depend on the meere pleasure of their mighty Masters But to returne unto our Story the passing of the Ordinance being made knowne unto him he neither entertained the newes with a Stoicall Apathie nor wailed his Fate with weake and womanish lamentations to which extreames most men are carried in this case but heard it with so even and so smooth a temper as shewed he neither was afraid to live nor ashamed to die The time betweene the Sentence and the Execution he spent in prayers and applications to the Lord his God having obtained though not without some difficulty a Chaplaine of his owne to attend upon him and to assist him in the worke of his preparation though little preparation