A88575:208
Mr. Love's case
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. Far, 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 Tower Hill, August 22. 1651. Printed by an exact copy, taken in short-hand by John Hind. Fourthly, animadversions on the said speech and prayer.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.
London: printed for R.W. and Peter Cole, 1651
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
ANIMAD. upon Sect. 7.
I never met with so many senseless and unsavoury Contradictions within so small a compass, as in this Speech: How can Mr. Love say that he will not judge his Judges, nor yet justify them, when as in the words immediately following, he must of necessity either do the one or the other: For, if he supposeth the Oath, for the sake whereof his Judges (as he saith) cut off his head, to have been justifiable or lawful, and they by the tenor and band of this Oath stood bound to do what they did in cutting off his Head, then he clearly justifieth them; if he supposeth either the said Oath to have been unlawful, or their Fact in cutting off his Head to have been besides, or contrary to this Oath, and that they had no Engagement upon them otherwise to do it, then he judgeth them. But the truth is, we can upon no better or more favourable account ease Mr. Love in the greatest part of things uttered by him in this Speech, then by conceiving that the words spoken by him, bear a far differing sense and signification in his understanding, from that which they bear in ours: For, what is it to judge in our sense of the Word, then to charge with Injustice, Unrighteousness, acting contrary to the Word or Laws of God? And whither Mr. Love doth not again and again, and seven times over (in this discourse) thus charge his Judges, I refer to his Friends themselves to judge and determine: Therefore in the ordinary acception of the word, Judge, when Mr. Love saith, he will not judge his Judges, he speaks besides the Truth: And though here he refuseth to justify them, yet when the Spirit of Ingenuity was upon him (as himself once and again professeth it was, in the Composure of his Narrative) he did fairly and fully justify them, as we have already heard, and is further manifest in the Narrative it self Printed herewith. By the way; of how sad and bleeding a consideration is it, that a man whose heart served him to be ingenuous in his life, should quench so Christian a Spirit, and suffer himself to be hardened at the time of his death. Besides, did he not fully justify his Judges in his last Petition to the Parliament, in these words: He humbly acknowledgeth that he hath so highly violated the Laws of the Commonwealth, as that thereby he hath rendered himself guilty of the Sentence of death justly passed on him by the High Court of Justice?