Christopher Love

Christopher Love (1618 – 22 August 1651) was a Welsh Protestant preacher and advocate of Presbyterianism at the time of the English Civil War. In 1651 he was executed by the government, after it was discovered that he had been in correspondence with the exiled Stuart court. He went to his death as a hero and martyr of the Presbyterian faction which had petitioned in vain for his pardon.

Life

Love was born at Cardiff, in Glamorganshire, Wales, the youngest son of Christopher Love, and at fourteen years of age was converted by William Erbury, the independent. The father disapproved, and apprenticed him in London, but Erbury and his mother sent him to the University of Oxford. He entered as a poor scholar of New Inn Hall under Doctor Christopher Rogers in June 1636, and graduated B.A. 3 May 1639. After taking the master's degree he was obliged to leave Oxford for refusing to subscribe to Archbishop William Laud's new canons of 1640.^[1]

He became domestic chaplain to John Warner, the sheriff of London.^[2] There he met his future wife Mary, daughter of Matthew Stone, formerly a merchant in London, who was the sheriff's ward. Love received an invitation to become lecturer at St. Ann's, Aldersgate, but was for three years refused his allowance by William Juxon, the bishop of London; Laud had warned Juxon to keep an eye on Love.^[2] Declining episcopal ordination, he went to Scotland to seek it at the hands of the presbytery; but the Scottish Church had decreed to ordain only those who settled among them. On his return to England, about 1641, he preached at Newcastle before the mayor and aldermen, when he expressed himself so freely against the Book of Common Prayer, that he was committed to gaol. He was subsequently removed to London on a writ of Habeas Corpus, was tried in the king's bench, and was acquitted. Around the outbreak of the First English Civil War, bout the outbreak of the civil war he preached as a lecturer at Tenterden, Kent, on the lawfulness of a defensive war, and was accused of treason; but he was acquitted and recovered his costs. Shortly afterwards he was made chaplain to Colonel John Venn's regiment, and became preacher to the garrison of Windsor Castle.^[1]

He was one of the first to receive presbyterian ordination, under the new organization, on 23 January 1644 at Aldermanbury, London, from Thomas Horton; and became pastor of St Lawrence Jewry. Love was a superadded member of the Westminster Assembly, according to the history of the Assembly by William Maxwell Hetherington.^[3] This has also been questioned, by Alexander Ferrier Mitchell, for lack of evidence.^[4]

He preached an inflammatory sermon in Uxbridge on 31 January 1645, the day on which the commissioners for the Treaty of Uxbridge arrived. He asserted in his Vindication that his preaching there was accidental; he was sent for by the House of Commons and confined to the house during the negotiations. On 25 November 1645 he preached before the Commons, and was not accorded the customary vote of thanks. He offended the Independents; and when they gained the ascendency he was committed to custody; he was twice subsequently cited before the committee for plundered ministers, and although he was discharged, his movements were watched.^[1]

Love's plot

He became involved in a treasonable correspondence with the Presbyterians of Scotland to restore Charles II. Love, with many others, was arrested on 7 May 1651. Others caught up included: John Angier and other Manchester presbyterians, imprisoned in Liverpool;^[5][6] Thomas Cawton the elder;^[7] Arthur Jackson;^[8] William Jenkyn; Ralph Robinson;^[9] Thomas Watson.^[10]

A Colonel Silius Titus had been commissioned by certain presbyterians to carry letters to Henrietta Maria in France; the queen's replies were conveyed by Colonel Ashworth, and were read in Love's house in London. On 18 December 1650 a pass was obtained for Love's wife to enable her to proceed to Amsterdam. Further, Love had received letters from Scottish presbyterians who were friendly to Charles II, and consultations had been held in his house (among other places) regarding the demands made on the English presbyterians by Argyll and others for money for the purchase of arms.^[1]

Love was ordered to be arrested on 14 May 1651, and was committed close prisoner to the Tower of London for high treason. He was tried before the high court of justice in late June, and 5 July, defended by Matthew Hale; presiding at the trial was Richard Keble.^[11][12] He was condemned to be executed on 16 July. Robert Hammond then wrote to Oliver Cromwell asking for leniency for Love.^[13] He was subsequently reprieved for a month, and then again for a week. To the last of Love's petitions to the parliament, 16 August, he appended a narrative of the whole plot, in which he virtually acknowledges all the charges made against him at the trial.^[1]

Death

He was chosen to make an example of, to check Presbyterian agitation. He was finally executed on Tower Hill, 23 August 1651, attended by Simeon Ashe and Edmund Calamy.^[14] He was privately buried, 25 August, at St. Lawrence Church. His funeral sermon was preached by Thomas Manton.^[15] Robert Wilde wrote a poem The Tragedy of Mr. Christopher Love at Tower Hill (1651).^[1]Love condemned himself by refusal to agree not to continue to commit reason against the Republic, but, as true Presyterian, he wanted royalty restored.

Love had five children, one of whom was born after his death.^[1]

Works

His sermons were published, after his death, by leading Presbyterians of London (Edmund Calamy, Simeon Ashe, Jeremiah Whitaker, William Taylor, and Allan Geare).^[1] The most important of his works are:

• Grace, the Truth and Growth, and different Degrees thereof (226 pp., London, 1652);
• Heaven's Glory, Hell's Terror (350 pp., 1653);
• Combate between the Flesh and the Spirit (292 pp., 1654);
• Treatise of Effectual Calling (218 pp.,1658);
• The Natural Man's Case Stated (8vo, 280 pp., 1658);
• Select Works (8vo, Glasgow, 1806–07, 2 vols.).

Short and plaine Animadversions on some Passages in Mr. Dels' Sermon (1646) was a reply to William Dell. A modest and clear Vindication of the ... ministers of London from the scandalous aspersions of John Price (1649) (attributed to Love) replied to the Clerico-classicum of John Price.^{[disambiguation needed ][1]}

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i}  "Love, Christopher". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
2. ^ ^{a b} http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/love-christopher.htm
3. ^ http://www.reformed.org/books/hetherington/west_assembly/index.html?mainframe=/books/hetherington/west_assembly/chapter_2.html
4. ^ http://www.apuritansmind.com/WCF/AssemblyMembers.htm
5. ^ Bremer-Webster, p. 7.
6. ^  "Angier, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
7. ^  "Cawton, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
8. ^ Bremer-Webster, p. 141.
9. ^  "Robinson, Ralph (1614-1655)". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
10. ^ Bremer-Webster, p. 266.
11. ^  "Hale, Matthew". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
12. ^  "Keble, Richard". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
13. ^  "Hammond, Henry". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 
14. ^ Bremer-Webster, p. 10.
15. ^ Bremer-Webster, p. 163.

References

• Francis J. Bremer, Tom Webster, Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia (2006)

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Love, Christopher". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Jackson, Samuel Macauley, ed (1914). "^{article name needed}". New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (third ed.). London and New York: Funk and Wagnalls. 

Persondata
Name	Love, Christopher
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1618
Place of birth
Date of death	22 August 1651
Place of death