in Profession It is not Profession but Converson that turns a man from a Swine to a Sheep Let none of you be deceived nor flatter your selves that because you beat the Name of Christians and do many things and have escaped the open gross pollutions of the World therefore you are surely among the number of Christs true Sheep All this you may attain to and yet be but washed Swine here must be an inward deep and thorow and universal Change upon your Natures Dispositions Inclinations or else you are not Christs Sheep In a word If you will be put out of doubt whether you are his Sheep or not you must trie it by this certain Mark that Christ sets upon all his Sheep even your Sanctification you that will stand to the trial answer me truly and deliberately to these Questions Do you hate every sin as the Sheep doth the Mire Do you regard no Iniquity in your Hearts Do you strive against and oppose all Sin though it may seem never so necessary never so natural to you or have you not you secret Haunts of evil For every Swine will have his swill Do you abstain from sin out of fear or out of dislike Are You at peace with no sin or do you not hide some Iniquity as a sweet morsel under your Tongue Is there not some practice that You are not willing to know is a sin for fear you should be forced to leave it Do you love the Commandment that forbids your sin or do you not wish it out of the Bible as that evil man wished God had never made the Seventh Commandment Again how do You stand affected towards Holiness Do you love it Do you choose it Do You hunger and thirst after it and desire it more than any Temporal good Have You chosen the way of Gods Precepts and had rather live Holily than be allowed to live in your sins Do You in your very Hearts prefer a Godly strict Life in communion with and conformity to God before the greatest prosperity of the World Do You chose Holiness not out of bare necessity because You cannot go to Heaven without it but out of love to it and from a deep sense that You have of the surpassing Excellency and Loveliness and Beauty of it If it be thus with You You are the Persons that the Lord Jesus hath marked for his Sheep And now Come ye Blessed all that have this Mark upon You come and understand your happiness You are marked out for preservation and let it go how it will with the rest this I know it shall go well with you that fear the Lord that fear before him You are the separated Ones the sealed Ones Upon whom the Angel hath set the Seal of the Living God and so you are redeemed unto God from among men being the First-fruits unto God and unto the Lamb and have your Fathers Name written in your Fore-heads Hear O beloved Flock I may give you the Salutation of the Angels Hail You are highly favoured of the Lord Blessed are you among men though you are but poor and despised and like little Benjamin among the thousands of Judah You carry away the the Blessing and the Priviledge from all the rest God hath done more for the least of you than for the whole World of Mankind besides put all their mercies together Fear not little Flock it is your Fathers good pleasure to give you the Kingdom Blessed are you of the Lord for yours is the Kingdome of Heaven All that the Scripture speaks of that Kingdome of Glory that Kingdome of Peace of Righteousness that Everlasting Kingdome It speaks it all to you Behold your Inheritance See that you believe What know you not your own selves You are the Sons of God Inheritours of the Kingdom of Heaven Joint Heirs with Christ the Lord of Glory Do you believe this Take heed you make not God a Lyar His Word is nigh you Have you not the Writings in your hands Do I speak any thing but what God hath spoken Shall I tell you of the thing which shall be hereafter Why thus it shall be The Son of man shall come in his Glory and all his holy Angels with him Then shall he sit upon the Throne of his Glory and he shall separate you as a Shepherd divideth the Sheep from the Goats and he shall set you at his own right hand Then shall the King say Come ye Blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdome prepared for you Do you believe yet Do you throughly believe If so then my work is done then I need not bid you Rejoyce nor bid you be Thankful onely believe Do this and do all Believe and you will rejoyce with Joy unspeakeable and full of Glory Believe and you will be Fruitfull and shew your Faith by your works Believe and you will Love for Faith worketh by love In a word keep these things upon your Hearts by daily and lively Consideration and this will bring Heaven into your Souls and ingage you to all manner of holy Conversation and Godliness This will mortifie you to the World the grand Enemy which I advise nay I charge you to beware of When Saul had gotten his Kingdome he left off taking Care for the Asses O Remember yours is the Kingdom What are You the better that You have all this in your Bibles if you do not weigh it by frequent and serious Consideration and ponder these sayings in your Hearts Beloved I have written these things to you that your joy may be full And now Peace I leave with you I am Christs Embassador to you an Embassador of Peace his Peace I pronounce unto you In his Name I bless you Farewell in the Lord I am The fervent Well-willer of your Souls JOS. ALLEINE Devises June 29. 1666. LETTER XXVII Of the Second coming of Christ. To the Faithful and Beloved the Servants of God in Taunton Grace and Peace Loving and most dearly Beloved THough I trust my Bonds do preach to You yet methinks that doth not suffice me but the Conscience of my Duty and the workings of my Heart towards You are still calling upon me to stir You up by way of Remembrance notwithstanding You know and be established in the present Truth And if Paul do call upon so great an Evangelist as Timothy to Remember that Jesus was raised from the dead according to the Gospel why should not I be often calling upon my self and upon you my dearly Beloved to remember and meditate upon and closely apply the great and weighty Truths of the Gospel which You have already received And in truth I perceive in my self and you another manner of heat and warmth in the insisting upon the plainest Principles of Christianity and the setting them home upon mine own heart and yours than in dwelling upon any more abstruse Speculations in the clearest handling of which the Preacher may seem to be too much like the Winter nights very bright but very
marvelling at GOD's infinite goodness in the Gift of his Son our Saviour Neither did he so gaze upon and adore Christ his Redeemer and his Redemption as to forget to sound forth Praises of GOD the Creator for often he hath been heard with admiration and praise to take notice of the Divine Power and Wisdom in the Works of Creation and therefore in the open Air in the private retirement of some Field or Wood he delighted to address himself to God in praise that his eyes might affect his heart and awake his glory And here often he hath been heard to say That Man was the Tongue of the whole Creation appointed as the Creatures Interpreter to speak forth and make articulate the Praises which they but silentlently intimate He much delighted in Vocal Musick and especially in singing Psalms and Hymns particularly Mr. Bartons witness his constant practice after Dinner else-where related In him it may be said in as high a degree as of most Saints on Earth That each Thought was to him a Prayer each Prayer a Song each Day a Sabbath each Meal a Sacrament a Fore-taste of that Eternal Repast to which he hath now Arrived His Time-redeeming Thrist To conclude That he might effect all the excellent purposes of a Holy Life he set a high value on his most precious Time and did with so Wise and Holy Fore-cast each day redeem and fill it up that he did not onely not do nothing but also not little though in a little and short time All Companies did hear him proclaim the Price of Time and how excellently and advantagiously he did it in publick before his Ejection in several most useful Sermons on Ephes 〈◊〉 16. many that heard him do to this day to their great comfort and profit remember And the more remarkable was this his Holy Thrist because prophetical of his short 〈◊〉 here on Earth His diligence and holiness in this his Sphere of Action was a presage of his speedy Translation as with Enoch to the Sphere of Vision and Fruition for a reward of his singular Piety it being not probable that he who made so great a haste to dispatch his Heavenly Work should be long without his desired Recompence CHAP. X. A few Additions to the former Character by his Reverend and Intimate Friend Mr. R. F. HE was a Person with whom for many years I was well acquainted and the more I knew him the more I loved and admired the rich and exceeding Grace of GOD in him I looked on him as one of the most elevated refined choice Saints that ever I knew or expect while I live to know and that because among others I observed these things of him 1. A most sincere pure and absolute consecration of himself to GOD in CHRIST JESUS his Soul had first practised the Covenant-Dedication which his hand afterward prescribed as a Patern to others in his Father-in-Laws Book There seemed no sinister end or false affection to move or sway him in his way But the good pleasure of the LORD the edification of his Church and the Salvation of Souls were the only marks his eye seemed at all to regard in his Designs and Acts I know no other mans heart but thus he appeared to my most attentive observation and so I fully believe concerning him as much as of any Person I ever saw 2. In this his dedication to God he was carried with the highest and purest flame of Divine Love that ever I observed in any And that Love arising from a clear vision of the Beauty of Divine Perfections especially his Gospel Love the sight of which Beauty and Excellency seemed perpetually to possess and ravish his Soul This Love seemed wholly unmixed from all that carnal heat that would carry him into Fantastick or Indecent Expressions but his mind seemed to be alwayes ascending with its might in the greatest calmness and satisfaction Thus have I oft observed him in frequent and silent elevation of Heart manifested by the most genuine and private lifting up of his eyes and joyned with the sweetest smile of his Countenance when I am confident he little thought of being seen by any Thus have I oft heard him flow in Prayer and Discourse with the clearest conviction and dearest taste of divine Excellency and Goodness and the fullest highest and most pleased expression of his being overcome by it and giving up his ALL in esteem to it but this Love in the greatest demonstration appeared by his perpetual greedy and unsatiable spending of his whole self for the Glory of God good of the Church and Salvatio of Souls His Head was ever contriving his Tongue 〈◊〉 and his whole Man acting some design for these so he lived and so he dyed He laboured and suffered himself into the Maladies which ended him And when he was at Bath like a perfect Skeleton and could move neither Hand nor Foot when his Physitians had 〈◊〉 him all Preaching and diswaded him from Vocal Praying as being above his strength yec then would he almost daily be carried in his Bath-Chair to the Alms-Houses and little Childrens Schools and there give them Catechisms teach them the meaning of them and call them to an account how they remembred and understood And he died designing a way how every poor Child in Somersetshire might Have Learn and be instructed in the Assemblies Catechism yea and at the expression of his affection I cannot but mention the frequentest Extasies or Raptures of Spirit wherein he lay on his Bed when his Body was even deprived of all power of its own motion but with no great pain in consideration of Divine Love to him in general and in particular that he felt no great pain Never heard I God so loved and thanked in the highest confluences of pleasing providences by others as he was by him in his affliction for not inflicting great pain upon him though he was otherwayes so sad a Spectacle of weakness and looked so like death that some great Ladies oft hindered his coming into the Bath the gastliness of his look did so afright them 3. His pure and sacred Love wrought in him a great Spirit of Charity and Meekness to Men of other Judgements and Perswasions and great affection towards all such in whom he found any Spiritual good His Zeal was all of a building and no destroying nature he had too much wisdom to esteem his own thoughts to be the Standard of all other Mens His clear Light and pure Heat made him of a more discerning substantial and divine temper than to reject any in whom Charity could see any thing of a new nature for differing from him in the Modes or Forms of Discipline or Worship or Disputable Points 4. Suitably to his high degree of Holiness and Divine Communion he enjoyed the richest assurance of Divine Love to himself in particular and his saving interest in Christ. I believe few Men were ever born that attained to so clear satisfied and powerful
partaking of external Priviledges that will save you No no you must be converted or condemned It is not enough that you have some love and liking to Gods ways and people and are willing to venture something for them All this will not prove you sound Christians Have your hearts been changed Have you been soundly convinced of your sins of your damnable and undone condition in your selves and your utter inability to lick your selves whole again by your own duties have you been brought at least to such a sight and sense of sin as that there is no sin though agreeable to your constitution though a support to your gain but you do heartily abhor it and utterly disallow of it are you brought to such a sense of the beauty of holiness and of the Laws and ways of God as that you do desire to know the whole mind of God and would not excuse your selves by ignorance from any duty and that you do not allow your selves in the ordinary neglect of any thing that conscience charges upon you as a duty are your very hearts set upon the glorifying and enjoying of God as your greatest happiness which you desire more than Corn and Wine and Oyl had you rather be the holiest than the richest and greatest in the World and is your greatest delight ordinarily and when you are your selves in the thoughts of God and in your conversings with God in Holy Exercises Is Christ more precious than all the World to you and are you willing upon the through consideration of the strictness and holiness and self-denying Nature of his Laws yet to take them all for the rule of your thoughts words and actions and though Religoin may cost you dear do you resolve if God will assist you by his Grace to go through with it let the cost be what it will happy the man that is in such a case This is a Christian indeed and whatever you be and do short of this all is unsound But you that bear in your souls the marks of the Lord Jesus above mentioned upon you I should lay no other burden but to hold fast and make good your ground and to press forward towards the mark Thankfully acknowledge the distinguishing grace God to your souls and live rejoycingly in the hopes of the glory of God the hopes that shall never make you ashamed live daily in the praises of your Redeemer be much in admiring God and study the worthiness excellency and glory of his Attributes let your souls be much taken up in contemplating and commending his glorious perfection and blessing your selves in the goodly Portion you have in him live like those that have a God and then be disconsolate if you can If there be not more in an infinite God to comfort you than in a Prison or Poverty or other affliction to deject you our Preaching is vain and your Faith is vain Let the thoughts of God be your daily repast and never be satisfied till your hearts run out as freely naturally constantly unweariedly after God as others do after the World a little force upon your hearts for a while to turn them into this holy Channel may quickly come so to habituate your minds to holiness that they may naturally run that way But it is time to shut up Farewel my dear Brethren the Lord God Almighty be a protection to you and your exceeding great reward Farewel in the Lord. I am Just now I received your meking Letter to which I am not able now to return an answer but shall with speed your very great affections for me cannot but move me and make me ready to repeat again the first words of my Letter above The Lord inable me to return something to you for your great loves I am sensible I have come very short of my duty to you but I must needs tell you my Bowels are moved with your loves which I hope I shall greatly prize once more Farewel My dear Brother Norman remembers you with much love desiring that you may be blameless and harmless the Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation among whom ye should shine as lights in the World Yours in the Bowels of the Lord Jesus JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester Septemb. 11. 1663. LETTER VIII How to shew love to Ministers and live joyfully To the most Loving and dearly Beloved my Christian Friends in Taunton Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Most endeared Brethren I Have received your moving melting Letter and could not look over such tender expressions of your working affections without some commotions in my own I may confidently say I spent more Tears upon those Lines than ever you did Ink Your deep sense of my labours in the Ministry I cannot but thankfully acknowledge and take notice of yet withal heartily and unseingedly confessing that all was but the duty which I did owe to your precious and immortal Souls which God knows are very much short of my duty The omissions imperfections defects deadness that accompanied my duties I do own I must and will own and the Lord humble me for them But all that was of God and that was all that was good be sure that you give to God alone To him I humbly ascribe both the Will and the Deed to whom alone be Glory for ever My dear Brethren my business as I have often told you is not to gain your hearts or turn your eyes towards me but to Jesus Christ his Spokesman I am will you give your hearts to him will you give your hands your names to him will you subscribe to his Laws and consent to his Offices and be at through defiance with all his Enemies This do and I have my Errant Who will follow Christs Colours who will come under his Banner this shall be the man that shall be my Friend this is he that will oblige me for ever Do these Letters come to none that are yet unsanctified to do loose sinner to no ignorant sinner to no unfound professor Oh that there were none such indeed oh that I had left no such behind me but would they do me a kindness as I believe they would oh then let them come away to Jesus Christ at this call lie no longer O sinner in thy swill be no more in love with darkness stick no longer in the skirts and outside of Religion demure no longer dispute not and waver no more halt no further but strike in throughly with Jesus Christ except nothing reserve nothing but come off throughly to the Lord and follow him fully And then happy man that thou shalt be for thou wilt be made for ever and joyful man that I shall be for I shall save a Soul from death The earnest and pittiful beggings of a poor Prisoner do use to move some Bowels hear O Friends will you do nothing for a Minister of Christ Nothing for a Prisoner
Be strong in the Lord my Brethren be patient stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draws nigh In nothing be terrified by your adversaries Now let those that fear the Lord be often speaking one to another I hear that Satan is practising to send more of you after me I desire and pray for your liberty but if any of you be forced hither for the the testimony of the Gospel I shall embrace you with both arms Fare you well my most dearly Beloved be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you My Brethren in Bonds salute you with much affection rejoycing to behold your order and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ share my heart among you and know that I am The willing Servant of your Faith and Joy Joseph Aleine From the common Gaol at Juelchester September 28. 1663. LETTER X. The Love of Christ. To my Beloved in the Lord the Flock of Christ in Taunton Grace and Peace Most Loving and best Beloved MY heart is with you my affections are espoused to you And methinks I could even say with the Apostle you are in my heart to live and die with you and who can but love where they have received so much love and continually do as I have from you the Lord require your love which is great and if compared with his but little with his which is infinite this is a love worthy of your ambition worthy of your adoration and admiration This is the Womb that bore you from eternity and out of which have burst forth all the Mercies Spiritual and Temporal that you enjoy This was the love that chose you when less Offenders and those that being converted might have been a hundred fold more serviceable to their Makers Glory are left to perish in their fins May your souls be filled with the sense of this love But it may be you will say how shall I know if I am an object of Electing love least an unbelieving thought should damp your joy know in short that if you have chosen God he hath certainly chosen you Have you taken him for your blessedness and do you more highly prize and more diligently seek after conformity to him and the fruition of him than any than all the goods of this World If so then away with doubts for you could not have loved and have chosen him unless he had loved you first Now may my Beloved dwell continually in the thoughts the views the tastes of the love Get you down under its shadows and taste its pleasant Fruits Oh the Provisions that love hath made for you before the Foundation of the World Ah silly dust that ever thou shouldest be thought upon so long before thou wast that the contrivances of the infinite Wisdom should be taken up about thee that such a Crawling thing such a Mire a Flea should have the consultations of the Eternal Diety exercised about thee verily his love to thee is wonderful Lord what is man thou tellest us he is Dust and Vanity a Worm nothing less than nothing how then dost thou love him oh wonderful be astonished yea Heavens at this be moved ye strong foundation of the Earth Fall down yea Elders strike up ye Heavenly Quires and sing yet again Glory to God in the highest for all our strings would crack to reach the Notes of love praise and admiration that this love doth call for Oh that ever emptiness and vanity should be thus prized that Jehovah should make account of so worthless so useless a thing as man that ever baseness should be thus preferred that ever nothing should be thus dignified that ever rottenness should be thus advanced a Clod a shaddow Potsheard should be thus glorified Oh Brethren study I beseech you not to require or retaliate there 's impossibility and blaspemy in such a thought but to admire and imitate his love Let love constrain you let love put you upon doing and prepare you for suffering forget not a love so memorable undervalue not a love so unvaluable I would have you all the captives of love may the cords of love draw you towards and knit you to your Redeemer may the divided streams be united in him Alas that our souls are so narrow that the Waters are so shallow with us how little how very little would our love be it he had it all infinitely less than the Glow-worm to the Sun or the Attome to the Universe and have we any of this little to spare for him oh that we might love him with our little All that all our little powers were ingaged for him Brethren here is no excess oh love the Lord ye his Saints he is worthy for whom you shall do this Do but think what love hath done for you and think if you can what it means to do for you This is the love that yarned upon you when in your Blood no eye pitying you This is the love that took you up when you were Robbed and wounded and left for dead and poured in Wine and Oyl into your wounds This is that love that reprieved and spared and pardoned when the Law had condemned you and Justice would have had you delivered up and your Self-condemning consciences gave up all for lost concluding there was no hope This is the love the expensive love that bought you from the power of darkness from the eternal burnings the devouring fire in which you must otherwise have dwelt Do you not remember how you were hungry and it fed you naked and it cloathed you strangers and it took you in sick and it visited you in Prison and it came unto you you were dead and are alive you were lost and are found And me thinks I see how love runs to meet you and falls upon your necks and kisseth the Lips that deserve to be loathed and rejoyces over you and makes a Festival and as it were a Holiday in Heaven for you inviting Angels to rejoyce And if the friends do rejoyce how much more doth the father for saith he These my Sons were dead and are alive were lost aud are found Oh melting love ah Brethren how strange is this that our recovery should be Heavens triumph the joy of God and Angels That this love should feast us and feast over us and our Birth day should be kept in Heaven that this should be the round at Heavens Table and the burden of the Songs above For this my Son was dead and is alive and well what remains but that you should be another manner of People than ever yet you have been more Holy more humble more even more resolved more lively more active where is your Zeal for the Lord of Hosts will slender returns suffice you in answer to such a love God forbid But necessity calls me off from going any further May the love that chose you and redeemed you for ever dwell in you and
serviceable unto you and to enjoy you but I hope the Lord will make my bonds for you to be useful to your edification that is the White I aim at if I may glorifie God and serve your Souls best by being here I shall never wish to come out though I confess liberty of its self is very precious Finally Brethren Farewel be perfect be of good comfort be of one mind live in peace and the God of Love and Peace shall be with you I am My dear Brother Norman salutes you tenderly desiring you to be patient to stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh The ready Servant of your Faith and Joy JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester Octob. 14. 1663. LETTER XII For daily Self-Examination To the most Beloved People the Flock of Christ in Taunton Salvation Most dear Brethren I Would my time were as long as my heart that I might open my self to you but I was not without some discontent diverted when I was setting my self to have Written at large to you Now I am pinched however I could not leave my dear charge altogether unvisited but must needs salute you in a few Lines Brethren how stands it with you doth the main work go on do your souls prosper This is my care beware that you Flag not that you faint not now in the evil day I understand that your dangers grow upon you may your Faith and courage and resolution grow accordingly and much more abundantly to overtop them Some of your enemies I hear are in great hopes to satisfie their Lusts upon you well be not discouraged my dear Brethren but bless the Lord who of his abundant Mercy hat so remarkably preserved you so long beyond all expectation Let it not be a strange thing to you if the Lord do now call you to some difficulty forsake not the Assembling of your selves together as the manner of some is I plainly see the Coal of Religion will soon go out unless it have some better helps to cherish it then a Carnal Ministrie and lifeless Administration Dear Brethren now is the time for you that fear the Lord to speak often one to another manage your duties with what prudence you can but away with that Carnal prudence that will decline duty to avoid danger Is the Communion of Saints worth the venturing for Shut not up your doors against Godly Meetings I am told that it is become a hard matter when a Minister is willing to take pains with you to get place Far be this from you my Brethren What shut out the World suppose there be somewhat more danger to him that gives the Minister entertainment Is there not much more advantage accordingly did not Obed Edom and his House get the blessing by entertaining the Ark there or do you think God hath never a Blessing for those that shall with much Self-denial entertain his Messengers his Saints his Worship are you believers and yet are affraid you shall be loosers by Christ do you indeed not know that he that runs most hazard for Christ doth express most love to Christ and shall receive the greatest reward away with that unbelief that prefers the present safety before the future glory I left you some helps for daily Ezamination I am jealous least you should grow slack and slight and careless in that duty Let me ask you in the name of the Lord doth never a day pass you but you do solemnly and seriously call your selves to an account what your carriage hath been to God and Men speak conscience Is there never an one within the hearing of this Letter that is a neglecter of this duty doth every one of your Consciences acquit you Oh that they did oh that they could tell me would not some of you be put shrewdly to it if I should ask you when you read or thought over the Questions that were given you for your help and would you not be put to a blush to give me an answer And will you not be much more ashamed that God and Conscience should find you tardy not that I would necessarily bind you up to that very Method only till you have found a way more profitable I would desire you yea methinks I cannot but deeply charge you to make daily use of that Awake conscience and do thou fall upon that Soul that thou findest careless in this work and never let him be at rest till thou canst witness for him that he is a daily and strict observer of himself and doth live in the constant practice of this duty What shall neither Gods charge nor your promise nor profit hold you to your work yet I may not doubt but some of you do daily perform this duty The Lord incourage you in it yet give me leave to ask you what you have gained are you grown more universally consciences more strict more humble and more sensible of your many and great defects then you were before If so blessed are you of the Lord if otherwise this duty hath been performe but slightly by you What can you say to this question doth your care of your ways abate or doth it increase by the constant use of this duty If it abate remember from whence you are fallen and repent as good not do it at all as not to the purpose My Pen is apt to run when I am writing unto you I beseech you that my Letters may not be as so much waste Paper to you may they be provocations to your duty and Medicines to any corruptions that they meet with Oh that they might find out mens sins and excite their graces I have run much farther than I thought I should have done but now I am called upon and must shut up The Lord God be a Sun and a Shield to you My most dear Love to you all fare you well in the Lord I am Your Embassador in Bonds JOS. ALLEINE From the common Gaol at Juelchester October 20. 1663. LETTER XIII Motives and Marks of Growth To the most Loving and best Beloved the Servants of Christ in Taunton Grace and Peace Most dear and tender Friends WHose I am and whom under God I desire to serve to build you up in Holiness and comfort hath been through grace my great ambition This is that which I laboured for this is that which I suffer for and in short the end of all my applications to you and to God for you How do your Souls prosper are they in a thriving case what progress do you make in Sanctification doth the house of Saul grow weaker and weaker and the house of David stronger and stronger beloved I desire to be jealous of you with a Godly jealousie lest any of you should lose your ground in these declining times and therefore cannot but be often calling upon you to look to your standing and to watch and hold fast that no man take your Crown Ah! how surely shall you reap in the end if
Crack Let the Heavenly cheerfulness and the restless diligence and the holy raisedness of your Conversations prove the reallity excellency and beauty of your Religion to the World Forget not your Prisener Labour earnestly for me in your Prayers who am night and day labouring and suffering for you I can never bless God enough for his most tender and indulgent care for you which appears so wonderfully in his Fatherly Protection and his Fatherly Provision See that you receive not the Grace of God in vain Remember with trembling that of our Lord To whom much is given of him much shall be required With my most Dear Loves to you all I commend you to your Father and my Father your God and my God remaining Yours in all manner of Obligations JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester January 20th 1663. LETTER XX. The Felicity of Believers To the most Beloved People the Servants of God in Taunton Salvation Most endeared Christians I Have longed and waited for a little breathing time wherein I might write unto you but I have been oppressed hitherto with so many cares and such a throng of business that till now and scarcely now I have had no time of respiration wherein I might sufficiently reflect on you or my self But although so great a part of Taunton be translated to Juelchester with me yet I may not I cannot forget you that are behind Alas poor Taunton how should I bewail thee did I look upon thee onely with the Eye of sense Alas for thy wonted Liberties for thy former plenty and variety wherewith the Lord hath blessed thee He had spread a Table for thee in the midst of thine Enemies Bread hath been given thee and thy Waters have been sure But now a Famine seems to threaten thee and the Comforters that should relieve thy Soul are far from thee Thy Shepheards are removed Thou seest not thy Signs nor thy Prophets and thy wonted helpers are now disabled from giving thee supplies Alas how do thine Enemies triumph and thy Teachers and thine Inhabitants are become their Captives and how great is the Cry of thy Poor and thine oppressed Such would be the Language of Sense if that were suffered to be the Speaker But Faith will speak in another Dialect And therefore amongst my other Counsels that I shall send you this shall be the first Judge not of the present Providences by the conduct of Sense but by the eye of Faith Faith will see that we are then most Honoured when we are most vilified and reproached and set at nought for the sake of Christ and that we are then most happy when the World hath done its worst to make us miserable Faith will tell you that GOD is a very present help when you seem quite to fail of Help and will shew you the Well of Water that is near when the Water in the Bottle is spent What though you seem to have lost Ministers Husbands Friends for a Season Faith will tell you that they are well bestowed and that it will be both your and their Advantage in the Day of Retribution Brethren what are you for Are you for the present World or for that to come Are you for your Temporal enjoyments or do you seek for Glory Honour and Immortallty If you are for this World you have made a very imprudent choice in taking up the Profession of Godliness and cleaving to and owning the hated ways of the Lord But if you are for Glory and for Eternity then be of good Chear all these things do make for us You are Witnesses how often I have told you of these things and I can say with the Apostle I believed therefore have I spoken and therefore I am nothing moved with all these things nor with the things that do yet further abide me I believed and therefore I told you that you should never be losers by Jesus Christ. Nay do I say I told it you You know the Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed you that the Persecuted are doubly blessed that such should rejoice and leap for joy because great is their Reward in Heaven Hath not God said that if we suffer with him we shall also Reign with him and that these light afflictions work for us a weight of Glory And if this be true I pray you tell me whether GOD heth not dealt well with us in counting us worthy of this little Tribulation for his Name Indeed the Sufferings is but little but verily the Reward will not be little I know whom I have trusted I am well assured the Glasse is turned up and ever hour reckoned of our imprisonment and every Scorn and Reproach of our Enemies is kept in Black and White I believe therefore do I speak GOD is infinitely tender of us my Brethren though a Poor and despicable Generation I value not the pop-gun threats of a frowning World 't is well with us we are GODS Favourites Come by Beloved let us sit down under his Shadow Here is safety and rest if God be for us who can be against us Verily he Bottles all our Tears and tells all our Wandrings He numbers all our hairs whosoever toucheth us shall not be Innocent Know you not that we are the Apple of his Eye Hath not he reproved the greatest for his Peoples sakes saying reproach not mine anointed And so we forget how he loved us Are not we his Jewells Doth he not own us for his Members for his Children Ah what a Block doth Unbelief make of man What do you think that all this doth signifie nothing Can you forget your Children Will you suffer your Jewells to lie in the Dirt or make no reckoning of them whether they are lost Verily I write not this without shaming reflectious upon my own stupidity What Beloved of God adopted by God! What a Member of Christ Jesus A vessel of Mercy An heir of Glory What and not yet swallowed up in the sense of Gods infinite love Blush Oh my Soul and be confounded before the most High cover thy face with shame I remember what the Heathen Seneca writes observing the expressions of Gods love to man in his common Providence Verum est usque in delicias amamur that is it is a very truth we are beloved of God even as his darlings My Brethren Have Faith in God Believe his Promises Walk in the sense of his love Comfort your selves in Gods love towards You under all the hatred and envy of men and the contradiction of sinners that You meet with Be strong and of a good courage God is for You. Be assured that he that walketh uprightly walketh surely Forsake not the assembling of your selves together Now see that You speak often to one another and build up each other in the holy Faith God knows I cannot do for you as I would I would have been larger to You but I cannot My most dear Loves I desire You to share among you I am greatly Yours The Peace that
cold But now my Brethren I shall not with Paul call upon You so much to remember the Resurrection of Christ as the 〈◊〉 of Christ Behold He cometh in the Clouds and every Eye shall see him Your Eyes and mine Eyes and all the Tribes of the Earth shall mourn because of him But we shall lift up our heads because the Day of our Redemption draweth nigh This is the Day I look for and wait for and have laid up all my hopes in If the Lord return not I 〈◊〉 my self undone my Preaching is vain and my suffering is vain and the Bottom in which I have intrusted all my hopes is for ever miscarried But I know whom I have trusted We are built upon the Foundations of that sure Word we are not built upon the sand of Mortality Nor do we run so as uncertainly but the Word of the Lord abideth for ever upon which word do we hope How fully doth this word assure us that this same Jesus that is gone up into Heaven shall so return and that he shall appear the Second time unto Salvation to them that look for him Oh how sure is the thing How near is the time How Glorious will his Appearing be The thing is sure the Day is set God hath appointed 2 Day wherein he will judge the World by that man whom he hath 〈◊〉 The manner of it is revealed Behold the Lord 〈◊〉 with ten thousand of his Saints The Attendants are appointed and nominated The Son of Man shall come in his Glory and all his holy Angels with him The thing You see is established and every circumstance is determined How sweet are the words that dropped from the pretious Lips of our departing Lord What generous Cordials hath he left us in his parting Sermons and his last Prayer And yet of all the rest those are the sweetest I will come again and receive you to my self that where I am there you may be also What need you any further witness You have heard him your selves assuring you of his Return Doubtless he cannot deceive you you have not onely known but seen and felt the Truth of his promises And will he come Tremble then ye Sinners Triumph ye Saints Clap your hands all ye that look for the Confolation of Israel O Sinners where will you then appear How will you look upon him whom you have pierced Whom you have persecuted Whose great Salvation you have neglected and despised Wo unto you that ever you were born unless you should then be found to be New-born But you O Children of the most high how will you forget your travel and be melted into Joy This is he in whom you have believed whom having not seen 〈◊〉 loved But how will Love and Joy be working if I may so speak with pangs unutterable when you shall see him and hear his sweet Voice commending applauding approving of you and owning you by Name before all the World Brethren thus it must be the Lord hath spoken it See that you stagger not at the Promise but give Glory to God by Believing Again The Time is near Yet a little while and he that shall come will come Behold I come quickly saith he And again The Lord is at hand Sure You are that death cannot be far off O Christian thou dost not know but the next year nay possibly the next week thou mayest be in Heaven Christ will not long endure thine absence but will have thee up to him till the time of his General appearing when he will take us up altogether and so we shall be ever with the Lord. Soul believest thou this If thou dost indeed what remains but that thou shouldest live a Life of Love and Praise studying to do all the good thou 〈◊〉 till thou come to Heaven and waiting all the days of thine appointed time till thy change shall come O my Soul look out and long O my Brethren be you as the Mother of 〈◊〉 looking out at the Windows and watching at the Latices saying why are his Chariot-wheels so long a coming Though the time till you shall see him be but very short yet love and longing make it seem tedious My Beloved comfort your hearts with these Words Look upon these things as the greatest reallities and let your affections be answerable to your expectations I would not have told you these things unless I had believed them for it is for this hope that I am bound with this Chain The Blessing of the Holy Trinity be upon You I am yours and will be The God of Peace be with you I Rest Your Embassador in Bonds JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester August 5. 1666. LETTER XXVIII Of the Love of Christ. To his most endeared Friends the Servants of God in Taunton Salvation Most dearly Beloved MEthinks my Brests are not easie unless I do let them forth unto you Methings there is somethink still to do and my Weeks work is not ended unless I have given my Soul vent and imparted something to the Beloved flock that I have left behind And Oh that my Letters in my absence might be useful to you Assuredly it is my joy to serve You and my Love to you is without dissimulation witness my twice lost Liberties and my impaired Health all which I might have preserved had it not been for my readiness to minister to you But what do I speak of my Love It is the Sense of the infinite Love of God your Father that I would have to dwell upon you Forget me so you remember him Let me be very little so he be very lovely in your Eyes Let him be as the Bucket that goes up though I be as the Bucket that goes down Bury me so that you do but set the Lord always before you Let my name be written in the dust so his Name be written deep upon all your Souls O Lord I am thy Servant truly I am thy servant Glorifie thine own Name by me and thou shalt have my hand to 〈◊〉 that I will be content to be hid in obscurity and to disappear through the overcoming lustre and brightness of thy Glory Brethren understand mine Office I Preach not my self but the Lord Jesus Christ and my self your Servant for Jesus sake Give him your hearts and I have my Errand I am but the Friend of the Bridegroom and my Business is but to give you to understand his Love and to gain your hearts unto him He is an Object worthy of my Commendations and of your affections His Love is worth the writing of and worth the thinking of and worth the speaking of O my Brethren never forget I beseech you how he loveth You. He is in heaven and You are on earth he is in Glory and you in Rags he is in the shining Throne and you in dirty Flesh and yet he loveth you His heart is infinitely tender of you even now while he is at the right hand of the Majesty on High How
feelingly doth he cry out at the hurt of his poor Members on Earth Saul Saul why persecutest thou me Oh of what quick Sense is the Sense of our dear Lord unto us when we are touched on Earth he feels it in Heaven Brethren Christ is real in all that he speaks unto you He is not like a flourishing Lover who fills up his Letters with Rhetorick and hath more care of the dress of his Speech than of the Truth Who ever gave Demonstration of the reallity of his Love at so dear a rate as Christ hath done Men do not use to die in jest Who will impoverish himself to enrich his Friend and divest himself of his honour to advance him and debase himself to admiration below his own degree to contract affinity with him and all this but to make him believe that he loves him Brethren possess your very hearts with this that Christs love doth go out with infinite dearness towards you Even now while he is in all his Glory he earnestly remembers you still This is the High Priest that now is entred into the Holy of Holies doth bear your names particularly remembring every poor believer by name He bears your names but where upon his Brest-plate upon his Heart saith the Text Exod. 28. 29. Ah Christians I may salute you as the Angel did Mary Hail you that are highly favoured Blessed are you among men Sure your Lot is fallen in an happy place What in the Bosom of Christ yea and verily you may believe and doubt not I may apply that of Gabriel O Daniel thou art greatly beloved unto you you are beloved indeed to have your Names written upon the very heart of Christ now he is in Glory Oh let his Name be written then on your hearts Do not write his Name in the Sand when he hath written yours upon his own Brest Do not forget him who hath taken such care that while he is he may never forget you having recorded your Names not onely on his Book but on his Flesh and set you as a Seal upon his Heart He hath you upon his heart but why For a memorial before the Lord continually so saith the Text. Beloved your Lord is so far from forgetting you in all his Greatness and Glory that he is gone into heaven on purpose there to present you before the Lord that you may be alwaies in remembrance before him O Beloved Glory yea and Triumph in his Love Doubtless it must go well with us Who shall condemn It is Christ that died and rose again and is now making Intercession His Interest is potent He is alwaies present Our Advocate is never out of Court Never did Cause miscarry in his hand Trust you safely in him Happy is that man for whom he shall undertake to speak Oh the Riches of Christs Love He did not think it enough to die for You. His Love and care doth not end with his natural Life on Earth but he ever liveth to make Intercession for us His Love is like his Life ever ever Knowing no remission in degree nor intermission of time no cessation of working but is ever ever in motion towards us But when shall I end if I suffer my Soul to run out its length and my running Pen to enlarge according to the demensions of this boundless Field of Divine Love If the Pens of all the World were imployed to write Volumes of Love if the Tongues of all the living were exercised in nothing else but talking of this love If all the Hearts that be were made up of Love and all the Powers and affections of the mind were turned into one to wit the power of Love yet this were no less than infinitely too little either to conceive or to express the greatness of Christs Love O my dearly Beloved may your Souls be swallowed up in this Love Think and think while you will you can never think how much You are beloved See that ye love again by way of Gratitude though not of Requital What though your Souls be but narrow and your powers but little yet love him with all you have Love him with all your hearts and all your strength To the Meditations and to the Embraces of Divine Love I leave you thinking it now not worth while to tell You of my Love Remaining Yours in the Bonds of your most dear Lord Jesus JOS. ALLEINE August 11. 1665. LETTER XXIX Warning to Professors of their Danger To the most Beloved People the Servants of God in Taunton Salvation Most dear Friends MY top Joy is that my Beloved is mine and I am his but next to that I have no Joy so great as that You are mine and I am yours and You are Christs My Relation to Christ is above all He is my Life and my Peace my Riches and my Righteousness He is my Hope and my Strength and mine Inheritance and my Rejoycing In him will I please my self for ever and in him will I glory I esteem my self most Happy and Rich and safe in him though of my self I am nothing In him I may boast without Pride and glory without Vanity Here is no danger of being overmuch pleased neither can the Christian exceed his Bounds in overvaluing his own Riches and Happiness in Christ. I am greatly pleased with the Lot that is fallen to me The Lord hath dealt bountifully with me and none shall stop this my confidence of boasting in Christ. But as my Lot in him is above all so I will assure You it is no small content to me that my Lot is fallen with You. And though many difficulties have fallen to my Lot among You for I have broken my health and lost my Liberty once and again for Your sakes yet none of these things move me I wish nothing more then to spend and to be spent upon the service of your Faith I bless the Lord for it as an invaluable Mercy that ever he called me to be an Embassadour of the Lord Jesus Christ to You-wards In this station I desire to approve my self to him and that I am withdrawn from my Work for a season it is but that I may return to you refreshed and inabled for my Work among You. You may not think that I have forgotten You and consulted my own ease and pleasure but if God prosper my Intentions I shall be found to have been daily serving You in this Retirement I will assure You I am very tender of preserving all that little strength that God doth add to me entirely for Your sakes being resolved not so much as once to broach the Vessel till I draw forth to You. I bless the Lord I am in great tranquility here in this Town and walk up and down the Corporation without any Questioning me Onely it hath pleased the Lord to add to my Affliction since my coming by taking away my dear Father the day of whose glorious Translation was the day after my arriving here But I bless the
eyes that he attained to the right temperament of the Christian Religion and to a truly Evangelical frame of Spirit suitable to the glorious hopes of Faith and to the wonderful love of our Redeemer And when most Christians think that they have done much if they can but weep and groan over their Corruptions and can abstain from the lustful Pollutions of the World in the midst of many doubts and fears LOVE and JOY and a HEAVENLY MIND were the Internal part of his Religion and the large and fervent PRAISES of God and THANKS GIVING for his Mercies especialiy for CHRIST and the SPIRIT and HEAVEN were the External Exercises of it He was not negligent in confessing Sin nor Tainted with any Antinomian Errours but PRAISE and THANKSGIVING were his Natural Strains his frequentest longest and heartiest Services He was no despiser of a broken Heart but he had attained the blessing of a healed joyful Heart The following Narratives the strain of his Letters but above all the admirations of his nearest Friends will tell him that will enquire how his tryumphant Discourses of the Hopes of Glory and his frequent and fervent Thanksgiving and Praise were the Language which he familiarly spake and the very business of his Heart and Life And O how amiable is it to hear the Tongue employed seriously and frequently in that which it was made for even in the praise of him that made it And to see a man passing with joyful hopes towards Immortality And to live as one that seriously believeth that he must quickly be in the Heavenly Church and live with God and Christ for ever O how comely is it to see a man that saith he believeth that Christ hath redeemed him from Hell and reconciled him to God and made him an Adopted Heir of Glory to live like one that was so strangely saved from so great a misery and with the most affectionate gratitude to honour the Purchaser of all this Grace And how uncomely a thing is it to hear a man say That he believeth all this Grace of Christ this Heavenly Glory this Love of God and yet to be inclined to no part of Religion but fears and complainings and scarce to have any words of Praises or Thanksgiving but a few on the by which are heartless affected and constrained O did Christians yea Ministers but Live with the Joy and Gratitude and Praise of Jehovah which beseemeth those that believe what they believe and those that are entring into the Coelestial Chore they would then be an honour to God and their Redeemer and would win the World to a love of Faith and Holiness and make them throw away their worldly Fool-games and come and see what it is that these Joyous Souls have found But when we shew the World no Religion but Sighing and Complaining and live a sadder life than they and yet talk of the glad-Tydings of Christ and Pardon and Salvation we may talk so long enough before they will believe us that seem no more to be Believers our selves or before they will leave their fleshly pleasures for so sad and dreadful a Life as this And as this kind of Heavenly Joyful Life is an honour to Christ and a wonderful help to the Converting of the World so is it a Reward to him that hath it which made this Holy Person live in such a vigour of Duty such fervour of holy Love and such continual Content in God so that the Kingdom of God in him was Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost which others think consisteth in Meats Drinks and Dayes in Shadows and Circumstances in Sidings and in singular Conceits Rom. 14. Col. 2. 16. It was not a Melancholy Spirit that acted him nor did he tempt his People into such an uncomfortable state and strein But in the multude of his thoughts within him the comforts of God did delight his Soul His Meditation of God and his Redeemer was sweet and he rejoyced in the Lord. He delighted in the Law of the Lord and when delight invited him no wonder if it were his Meditation day and night Psal. 1. 2. 104. 34. 119. 103. 94. 19. And how great a Solace was this in his Sufferings when he could be in a Goal and in Heaven at once When he could after the terrible torment of Convulsions have the foresight and taste of Heavenly Pleasures Nihil Crus sentit in Nervo cum Animus est in Coelo saith Tertul. And as he lived so he died in Vigorous Joyful Praises and Thanksgivings Reviving out of his long speechless Convulsion into those fervent Raptures as if he had never been so impatient of being absent from the Lord as when he was just passing into his Presence or rather as if with Stephen he had seen Heaven opened and Christ in his Glory and could not but speak of the unutterable things which he had seen I deny not but his vigorous active Temper might be a great help to all his holy Alacrity and Joy in his healthful State But when that frame of Nature was broken by such Torments and was then dissolving to hear a dying Man about sixteen hours together like the ferventest Preacher in the Pulpit pour out his Soul in Praises and Thanskgiving and speak of God of Christ of Heaven as one that could never speak enough of them and that with a Vivacity and Force as if he had been in former Health and to tryumph in Joy as one that was just laying hold upon the Crown surely in this there was something that was the Reward of all his former Praise and Thankfulness and that which must needs tell the Auditors the diference not onely between the death of a Righteous Believer and the wicked Unbeliever but the weak and distempered Believer also the difference between a sound and a diseased Christian and between the tryumphant Faith and Hopes of one that saw the God and World invisible and the staggering Faith and trembling Hopes of a feeble and distrustful Soul and between the death of one that had been used to converse in Heaven and to make Thanksgiving and Praise his Work and of one that had been used to cleave to Earth and make a great matter of the concernments of the Flesh and to rise but little higher in Religion then a course of outward Duty animated most with troublesome Fears Though he died not in the Pulpit yet he died in Pulpit-Work And I must also note how great an advantage it was to himself and to his Ministerial Works that he was possessed deeply with this true sentiment That the PLEASING of GOD is the proper ultimate end of Man not doubting but it includeth the notion of glorifying him for thus his heart was rightly principled and all his Doctrine and Duties rightly animated And as in all his Ministry he was extraordinarily addicted to open to the Hearers the Covenant of Grace and to explain Religion in the true Notion of Covenanting with God and
goodness which he had in himself Whoever they were that came to visit or to be 〈◊〉 with him it was their own fault if they got not by him so much good as to be for ever the better for him It was hardly possible to be in his company and not to hear such things from him as if well weighed might have been enough to make one out of conceit with Sin and in love with Vertue as long as one lived Though he did not say as Titus once yet by his actions we may judge he thought that he had even quite lost a day when none had gained somewhat by him He lived as if he had been quickned with that saying which I have somewhere met with in Tertullian Quid prodest esse quod esse non prodest To what purpose is it to live and not to live to some good purpose But this was that this ardent love to the Souls of men that quickly depriv'd us of his company it carried him down into the Countrey where how he demeaned and carried himself let others speak CHAP. III. A brief Character of him by that Reverend Person Mr. R. A. who was nearly related to him shewing how eminently he wus qualified for the Ministerial Service and Warfare unto which he was called OF his Extract I shall say little He was the Son of a godly Father Mr. Tobie Allein sometime of the Devizes an understanding affectionate prudent and signally humble and experienced Christian who died suddenly but sweetly his Son surviving him not above a year or two He having been languishing for some time at length he seemed to be upon eecovery and went about his House on the morning before he died he arose about four about 10 or 11 he came down out of his Closet and called for something to eat which being prepared he gave Thanks but could not eat any thing His Wife perceiving a sudden change in him perswaded him to go to his Bed He answered No but I will die in my Chair and I am not afraid to die He sat down and only said My Life is hid with Christ in God and then he closed his Eyes with his own hands and died immediately No more of the Father Concerning his Son I shall speak What he was and what his temper and behaviour was As a Man As a Christian. As a Minister 1. As a Man He was 1. Of quick natural parts and great acquired Abilities concerning which I shall need say no more there being a fuller Account given by another Hand 2. Of a composed grave and serious temper and behaviour not at all morose but full of candour free affable chearful and courteous 2. As a Christian. He was for exemplary Holiness and Heavenliness of mind and life much elevated above the ordinary Rank He lived much in delightful Communion with God his Soul was greatly exercised in Divine Contemplation and he would sometimes speak to provoke others whom he wished the same delights to the same exercise what ineffable pleasure sweetness and satisfaction his Soul had found in his stated Meditations on the Divine Attributes distinctly one by one In his Discourses he would speak much and passionately to the commending and exalting of the Divine Goodness and of the inexpressible dearness and tenderness of the Divine Love In Prayer he was not ordinarily so much in confession or complaining of Corruption and Infirmities though he expressed a due sense of these as in the admiring and praising of God in his Infinite Glorious Perfections in the mention of his wonderful Works particularly of those Wonders of his Love revealed in Jesus Christ. In some of his Letters to me when he had been speaking of the Grace and Goodness of God to him of the sense whereof he would seem to be even quite swallowed up he would break off with some such Expressions as these I am full of the Mercies of the Lord O Love the Lord for me O praise the Lord for my sake O help me help me to praise the Lord. His whole Life was adorned and beautified with the admirable lustre of his particular personal Graces 1. He was a Man of Love His sweet amicable and courteous converse was such as made him the deliciae of his Acquaintance and made way for the entertainment both of his serious Counsels and severer Reproofs He grew dear unto the Saints that knew him because they saw in his very face and all his Carriages how very dear they were to him His compassion to those in distress his bounty to those in want wherein he abounded beyond his ability his forbearance in case of offences his affectionate Language and Carriage his readiness to all obliging Offices of Love to his Relations to his Friends to Strangers to Enemies did evidently declare how he loved them Especially his Love was let forth in fuller streams upon the Congregation where he exercised his Ministry The People of his Care were the People of his Delight His ardent longing for their Souls his rejoycing in their Souls prosperity his bleedings and breakings of Soul under any of their falls or infirmities his uncessant labours among them both publickly and from House to House his frequent and affectionate Letters to them when he was absent his earnest desire to live and die and be buried amongst them declaring to them That if he died within fifty miles of Taunton his will was to be brought and buried there that his Bones might be laid with their Bones his Dust mingled with their Dust these all declare how greatly they were in his Heart 2. He was a Man of Courage 1. He feared no dangers in the way of his Duty knowing that He that walks uprightly walks surely In cases less clear he was very inquisitive to understand his way and then he fixed without fear 2. He feared not the faces of Men but where occasion was he was bold in admonishing and faithful in reproving which ungrateful Duty he yet managed with such prudence and such expressions of Love and compassion to Souls as made his way into hearts more easie and his work more succesful 3. He was a Son of Peace Both a zealous Peace-maker among differing Brethren in case of personal Quarrels and Contentions and he was also of sober and peaceful Principles and an healing Spirit as to Parties or Factions upon the account of Religion He had an awful and reverend regard to Magistrates abhorring all provoking and insolent expressions or mutinous and tumultous Actions against them 4. He was a Man of Truth and Righteousness Both as to his own personal practice and also was much in pressing it upon others especially professors of Religion to be examplarily just in their dealings and true in their words to be wary in promising and punctual in performing O how often and passionately have I heard him bewailing the Sins of Promise-breaking and deceitful dealing whereof such as he hath known to be guilty have understood both by Word and Writing how
left poor starvling Flocks and we thought that the Countrey had been now stript and yet GOD hath provided for them Thus hath the Lord been pleased to furnish us with Arguments for our Faith against we come to the next distress Though you should be called forth to leave your Flocks destitute you that are my Brethren in the Ministry and others their Families destitute yet doubt not but GOD will provide remember your Bonds upon all occasions Whensoever you are in distress remember your old Friend remember your tryed Friend Thirdly Let Divine Mercy be as Oyl to the flame of your Love O love the Lord all ye his Saints Brethren this is the Language of all GOD's dealings with you they all call upon you to love the Lord your God with all your hearts with all your Souls with all your strength What hath GOD been doing ever since you came to this Prison All that he hath been doing since you came hither hath been to pour Oyl into the flames of your Love thereby to encrease and heighten them GOD hath lost all these Mercies upon you if you do not love him better then you did before You have had supplies to what purpose is it unless you love GOD the more If they that be in want love him better than you it were better you had been in their case You have had health here but if they that be in sickness love GOD better than you it were better you had been in sickness too See that you love your Father that hath been so tender of you What hath GOD been doing but pouring out his Love upon you How were we mistaken For my part I thought that GOD took us upon his Knee to Whip us but he took us upon his Knee to Dandle us We thought to have felt the strokes of his Anger but he hath stroked us as a Father his Children with most dear Affection Who can utter his loving Kindness What my Brethren shall we be 〈◊〉 than Publicans the Publicans will love those that love them Will not you return Love for so much Love Far be this from you Brethren you must not only exceed the 〈◊〉 but the Pharisees too therefore surely you must love him that loveth you This is my Business now to bespeak your love to GOD to unite your hearts to him Blessed be God for this Occasion for my part I am unworthy of it Now if I can get your Hearts nearer to GOD than they were then happy am I and blessed are you Fain I would that all these Experiences should knit our Hearts to GOD more and endear us for ever to him What So much bounty and kindness and no returns of Love At least no further returns I may plead in the behalf of the Lord with you as they did for the Centurion He loveth our Nation say they and hath built us a Synagogue So I may say here He hath loved you and poured out his Bounty upon you How many friendly Visits from those that you could but little expect of Whence do you think this came It is GOD that hath the Key of all these Hearts He secretly turned the Cock and caused them to pour forth kindness upon you There is not a motion of love in the Heart of a Friend towards you but it was GOD that put it in Fourthly Keep your Manna in a Golden Pot and forget not him that hath said so often Remember me You have had Manna rained plentifully about you be sure that something of it be kept Do not forget all the Sermons that you have heard here O that you would labour to repeat them over to live them over You have had such a Stock that you may live upon and your Friends too if you be communicative a great while together If any thing have been wanting time for the Digesting hath been wanting See that you well Chew the Cud and see that you especially remember the Feasts of Love Do not you know who hath said to you so often Remember me How often have you heard that sweet Word since you came hither What Do you think it is enough to remember him for an hour No but let it be a living and lasting remembrance Do not you write that Name of his in the Dust that hath written your Names upon his Heart Your High Priest hath your Names upon his Heart and therewith is entered into the Holy Place and keeps them there for a Memorial before the Lord continually O that his Remembrance might be ever written upon your Hearts written as with a Pen of a Diamond upon Tables of Marble that might never be worn out That as Aristotle saith of the cutious Fabrick of Minerva that he had so ordered the Fabrick that his Name was written in the midst that if any went to take that out the whole Fabrick was dissolved So the Name of Jesus should be written upon the substance of your Souls that they should pull all 〈◊〉 before they should be able to pull it out Fifthly Let the Bonds of your Affliction strengthen the Bonds of your Affection Brethren GOD hath sent us hither to teach us among other things the better to Love one another Love is lovely both in the sight of GOD and Men and if by your Imprisonment you have profited in Love then you have made an acceptable proficiency O Brethren look within Are you not more indeared one to another I bless the Lord for that Union and Peace that hath been ever among you but you must be sensible that we come very far short of that Love that we owe one to another we have not that love that indearedness that tenderness that complacency that compassion towards each other that we ought to have Ministers should be more indeared one to another and Christians should be more dear to each other then they were before We have eaten and drunk together and lived on our Fathers Love in one Family together we have been joyned together in one common Cause and all put into one Bottom O let the Remembrance of a Prison and of what hath passed here especially those Uniting Feasts ingage you to love one another Sixthly Let present Indulgence fit you for future hardships and do not look that your Father should be alwayes dandling you on his Knee Beloved GOD hath used you like Fondlings now rather than like Sufferers What shall I say I am at a loss when I think of the tender indulgence and the yearnings of the Bowels of our Heavenly Father upon us But my Brethren do not look for such Prisons again Affliction doth but now play and sport with you rather than Bite you but do you look that Affliction should hereafter fasten its Teeth on you to purpose And do you look that the Hand that hath now gently stroked you may possibly buffet you and put your Faith hard to it when you come to the next Tryal This fondness of your Heavenly Father is to be expected only while
Barnards which was about five Miles from Bath there to finish his last Work for God that ever he did on Earth which was to promote the Exercise of Catechising in Somersetshire and Wiltshire Mr. Barnard having had a great deliverance as well as himself he proposed this to him as their Thank-Offering to God which they would joyntly tender to him They had ingaged one to another to give so much for the Printing of six thousand of the Assemblies Catechism among other Friends to raise some Money for to send to every Minister that would ingage in the Work and to give to the Children for their Incouragement in Learning This Work was finished by Mr. Barnard after my Husband was gone to his Rest. He finding himself to decline again apprehended it was for want of using the Bath and therefore desired to return and I being fearful he should ride home seeing some Symptoms of his Fits sent for the Horse-Litter and so carried him again to Bath Where by the Doctors advice after he had taken some things to prepare his Body he made use of the Hot Bath the Cross-Bath being then too cold and so he did for four dayes and seemed to be refreshed and the strength that he had in his Limbs to recover rather than abate and two of his Taunton Friends coming to see him he was chearful with them But on the third of November I discerned a great change in his Countenance and he found a great alteration in himself but concealed it from me as I heard after For some Friends coming to visit him he desired them to pray for him for his time was very short But desired them not to tell me of it All that day he would not permit me to move out of the Chamber from him except once while those Friends were with him After we had dined he was in more then ordinary manner transported with Affection towards me which he expressed by his returning me thanks for all my pains and care for him and with him and putting up many most affectionate requests for me to GOD before he would suffer me to rise as we sat together At Night again at Supper before I could rise from him he spake thus to me Well now my dear Heart my Companion in all my Tribulations and Afflictions I thank thee for all thy pains and labours for me at Home and Abroad in Prison and Liberty in Health and Sickness reckoning up many of the Places we had been in in the dayes of our affliction And with many other most endearing and affectionate Expressions he concluded with many Holy Breathings to God for me that he would requite me and never forget me and fill me with all manner of Grace and Consolations and that his Face might still shine upon me and that I might be supported and carried through all difficulties After this he desired me to see for a 〈◊〉 of 〈◊〉 and I procuring one for him he turned his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that I might not see and read the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Death in the latter end of that Book which I 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of him Whether he did apprehend his end was near To which he replyed He knew not in a few dayes I would see and so fell into Discourse to divert me desiring me to read two Chapters to him as I used to do every night and so he hasted to Bed not being able to go to Prayer and with his own hands did very hastily undoe his Coat and Doublet which he had not done in many months before As soon as he was in Bed he told me He felt some more than ordinary stoppage in his Head and I brought him something to prevent the Fits which I feared But in a quarter of an hour after he fell into a very strong Convulsion Which I being much afrighted at called for help and sent for the Doctors used all former and other means but no success the Lord was pleased to give then to any But they continued for two dayes and nights not ceasing one hour This was most grievous to me that I saw him so like to depart and that I should hear him speak no more to me fearing it would harden the Wicked to see him removed by such a stroak For his Fits were most terrible to behold And I earnestly besought the Lord that if it were his pleasure he would so far mitigate the heavy 〈◊〉 I saw was coming upon me by causing him to utter something of his Heart before he took him from me which he gratiously answered me in for he that had not spoke from Tuesday Night did on Friday Morning about three a Clock call for me to come to him speaking very understandingly between Times all that day But that Night about nine a Clock he brake out with an audible voice speaking for sixteen hours together those and such like words as you formerly had account of and did cease but a very little space now and then all the Afternoon till about six on Saturday in the Evening when he departed About three in the Afternoon he had as we perceived some conflict with Satan for he uttered these words Away thou foul Fiend thou Enemy of all Man-kind thou subtile Sophister art thou come now to molest me Now I am just going Now I am so weak and Death upon me Trouble me not for I am none of thine I am the Lords Christ is mine and I am his His by Covenant I have sworn my self to be the Lords and his I will be Therefore be gone These last words he repeated often which I took muc ' notice of That his covenanting with God was the means 〈◊〉 used to expel the Devil and all his Temptations The time we were in Bath I had very few hours alone with him by reason of his constant using the Bath and Visits of Friends from all Parts thereabouts and sometimes from Taunton and when they were gone he would be either retyring to GOD or to his Rest But what time I had with him he alwayes spent in Heavenly and Profitable Discourse speaking much of the Place he was going to and his Desires to be gone One Morning as I was dressing him he looked up to Heaven and smiled and I urging him to know why he answered me thus Ah my Love I was thinking of my Marriage Day it will be shortly O what a joyful day will that be Will it not thinkest thou my dear Heart Another time bringing him some Broth he said Blessed be the Lord for these refreshments in the way home but O how sweet will Heaven be Another time I hope to be shortly where I shall need no Meat nor Drink nor Cloaths When he looked on his weak consumed Hands he would say These shall be changed This vile Body shall be made like to Christs Glorious Body O what a glorious Day will the Day of the Resurrection be Methinks I see it by Faith How will the Saints lift up their heads and rejoyce and how sadly will
Family that respect and obedience to his Commands which their Rule required reproving them that were careless and negligent in observing them He was frequent in keeping solemn dayes of Humiliation especially against a Sacrament He was a very strict observer of the Sabbath the Duties of which he did perform with such joy and alacrity of Spirit as was most pleasant to joyn with him both in Publick and in the Family when we could enjoy him And this he did much press upon Christians to spend their Sabbaths more in 〈◊〉 and Thanksgivings as dayes of holy rejoycing in our 〈◊〉 All the time of his Health he did rise constantly at or before four of the Clock and on the Sabbaths sooner if he did wake he would be much troubled if he heard any Smiths or Shoomakers or such Tradesmen at work at their Trades before he was in his Duties with God Saying to me often O how this Noise shames me Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs From four till eight he spent in Prayer Holy Contemplation and singing of Psalms which he much delighted in and did daily practise alone as well as in his Family Having refreshed himself about half an hour he would call to Family-Duties and after that to his Studies till eleven or twelve a Clock cutting out his Work for every hour in the day Having refreshed himself a while after Dinner he used to retire to his Study to Prayer and so Abroad among the Families he was to visit to whom he alwayes sent the day before going out about two a Clock and seldom returning till seven in the Evening sometimes later He would often say Give me a Christian that counts his time more precious than Gold His Work in his publick Ministry in Taunton being to Preach but once a Sabbath and Catechise he devoted himself much to private Work and also Catechised once a Week in Publick besides and repeated the Sermon he Preached on the Sabbath-Day on Tuesday in the Evening He found much difficulty in going from House to House because it had not been practised a long time by any Minister in Taunton not by any others of his Brethren and he being but a Young Man to be looked upon as singular was that which called for much Self-denyal which the Lord inabled him to Exercise For after he had Preached up in Publick the Ministers Duty to their People and theirs to receive them when they came to them for their Spiritual Advantage he set speedily upon the Work In this Work his course was to draw a Catalogue of the Names of the Families in each Street and so to send a day or two before he intended to visit them that they might not be absent and that he might understand who was willing to receive him Those that sent slight Excuses or did obstinately refuse his Message he would notwithstanding go to them and if as some would they did shut their Doors against him he would speak some few affectionate words to them or if he saw cause denounce the Threatnings of God against them that despise his Ministers and so departed and after would send affectionate Letters to them so full of love and expressions of his great desires to do their Souls good as did overcome their Hearts and they did many of them afterwards readily receive him into their Houses Herein was his Compassion shewed to all Sorts both Poor and Rich not disdaining to go into such Houses amongst the Poor as were often very offensive to him to sit in he being of an exact and curious temper yet would he with joy and freedom deny himself for the good of their Souls and that he might fulfil his Ministry among those the Lord had given him the oversight of I perceiving this Work with what he did otherwise to be too hard for him fearing often he would bring himself to Distempers and Diseases as he did soon after besought him not to go so frequently His answer would be What have I strength for but to spend for God What is a Candle for but to be burnt And he would say I was like Peter still crying O spare thy self But I must not hearken to thee no more than my Master did to him Though his Labours were so abundant I never knew him for nine years together under the least Distemper one quarter of an hour He was exceeding temperate in his Dyet though he had a very sharp Appetite yet did he at every Meal deny himself being perswaded that it did much conduce to his Health His converse at his Table was very profitable and yet pleasant never rising either at home or abroad without dropping something of God according to the Rule he laid down to others He was very much in commending and admiring the Mercies of God in every Meal and was still so pleased with his provision for him that he would often say He fared deliciously every day and lived far better than the Great 〈◊〉 of the World who had their Tables far better furnished For he enjoyed God in all and saw his Love and Bounty in what he received at every Meal So that he would say O Wife I live a voluptuous life but blessed be God it is upon Spiritual Dainties such as the World know not nor taste 〈◊〉 of He was much in minding the Poor that were in want of all things often wondering that God should make such a difference between him and them both for this World and that to come and his Charity was ever beyond his Estate as my self and many other Friends did conceive but he would not be disswaded alwayes saying If he were Prodigal it was for God and not for himself nor sin There were but few if any Poor Families especially of the godly in Taunton but he knew their necessities and did by himself or Friends relieve them So that our Homes were seldom free of such as came to make complaints to him After the times grew dead for Trade many of our godly men decaying he would give much beyond his ability to recover them He would buy Pease and Flitches of Bacon and distribute twice a year in the cold and hard Seasons He kept several Children at School at his own Cost bought many Books and Catechisms and had many thousands of Prayers printed and distributed among them And after his Brethren were turned out he gave four pounds a year himself to a publick Stock for them by which he excited many others to do the same and much more which else would never have done it And on any other occasions as did frequently fall in he would give even to the offence of his Friends So that many would grudge in the Town to give him what they had agreed for because he would give so much Besides all this the necessities of his own Father and many other Relations were still calling upon him and he was open handed to them all So that it hath been sometimes even incredible to our selves to
you and my Testimony I finished with you though I thought I had espoused you till death and when I was entred into that Sacred Office which through rich Grace I was imployed in I told you in the close of what I spake before the laying of the holy Hands upon me most gladly do I take up this Office with all the persecution affliction difficulties an tribulation and inconveniencies that do and may attend it and blessed be God I am through his goodness of the same mind still and my tribulations for Christ do to him be Glory for to me belongs nothing but shame and confusion of face confirm my choice and my resolution to serve him with much more than my labours Verily Brethren it is a good choice that I have commended to you Oh! that there might not one be found among you that hath not made Maries choice I mean of that good part which shall never be taken away from you Brethren let them take up with the world that have no better portion be content that they should carry the Bell and bear away the riches and perferments and glory and splendor of the World Alas you have no reason to envy them verlly they have a lye in their right hand Ah! how soon will their hopes fail them how soon will the crackling blast be out and leave them in eternal darkness they shall go to the generation of their Fathers they shall never see light like sheep they shall be laid in their Graves and the upright shall have Dominion over them in the morning But for my Brethren I am jealous that none of you should come short of the Glory of God I am ambitious for you that you should be all the heirs of an endless life the living hopes of the Saints the inheritance incorruptible undefiled and that fades not away Ah my Brethren why should not you be all happy I am jealous for you with a Godly jealousie left a promise being left you of entring into his rest any of you should come short of it O look diligently left any man fail of the Grace of God Alas how it pities me to see this Rest neglected How it grieves me that any of you should fall short of mercy at last That any of that flock over which the holy Ghost hath made me in part overseer should perish when Christ hath done so much for you and when his under Officers through his Grace for we are not sufficient of our selves have done somewhat to recover and save them Ah dear Brethren I was in great earnest with you when I besought you out of the 〈◊〉 many a time to give a Bill of Divorce to your sins and to accept of the match and the mercy that in the name of God Almighty I did there offer to you Alas how it pitied me to look over so great a Congregation and to think that I could not for my life I could not perswade them one quarter of them in likelihood to be saved how it moved me to see your diligence in flocking not only to the stated Exercises but to the Repetitions and to most hazardous opportunities for which you are greatly to be commended since the Law forbad my publike Preaching and yet to think that many of you that went so far were like to perish for ever for want of going further I must praise your diligent attendance on all opportunities Blessed be God that made a willing ministry and a willing people for I remember how I have gone furnished with a Train How I went with the multitude to the House of God with the voice of joy and praises with the multitude that kept Holy-days The remembrance of which moves my soul but O my flock my most dear flock how fain would I carry you farther then the external and outward profession O! how loath am I to leave you there How troubled to think that any of you should go far and hazard much for Religion and yet miscarry for ever by the hand of some unmortified lust as secret pride or untamed passion or an unbridled tongue or which I fear most of all a predominate love of the World in your hearts Alas must it be so and is there no remedy but I must carry you to Heavens-gate and leave you there Oh that I should leave the work of your Souls but half done and bring you no 〈◊〉 than the almost of Christianity Hear O my people hear although I may command you upon your utmost peril in the Name of the Lord Jesus that shall shortly judge you I beseech you I warn you as a Father doth his Children to look to the setling and securing of your everlasting condition and for life take heed of your resting in the outter-part of Religion but to be restless till you find the through-change of Regeneration within that you are quite new in the frame bent of your hearts for here is the main of Religion in the hidden man of the heart For Christs-sake for your Soul-sake look to it that you build upon the Rock that you be sure in the Foundation-work that you do 〈◊〉 deliver over your selves to the Lord to be under his command and at his dispose in all things see that you make no exceptions no reserve that you cast over-board all your worldly hopes and count upon parting with all for Christ that you take him alone for your whole happiness Wonder not that I so often inculcate this If it be well here it is well all if unfound here the ertor is in the Foundation and you are undone Brethren I see great tryals coming when we shall see Professors fall like leaves in the Autumn unless they be well setled therefore is it that I would so fain have you look to your standing and to secure the main And for you whose Souls are soundly wrought upon O make sure whatever you do get and keep your evidences clear How dreadful would your temptations be if you should be called to part with all for Christ and not be sure of him neither get a right and clear understanding of the terms of life which I have set before you in that form of 〈◊〉 with God in Christ that I commended to you I would that none of you should be without a Copy of it be much in observing your own hearts both in duties and out-crying mightily to God for assurance If you cannot discern your estate your selves go to some body that is able and faithful and fully open your Case your Evidences and doubts and be extraordinary strict and watchful in your whole course and I doubt not but you will quickly grow up to assurance I cannot tell how to make an end methinks I could write all the day to you but my straights of time are great and my Letter already too long yet I cannot conclude till I have given you my unfeigned thanks for your most kind and gracious Letter Surely it shall be in store with me
overshaddow you and bear you safe to the Kingdom In the Holy Arms of Divine Love I desire to leave you May you live under its daily Influences and be melted and overcome with its warming Beams with its quickning piercing powerful Rays My most dear love to you all See that you live not in a dull fruitless liveless course Be patient be watchful instant in Prayer servent in Spirit serving the Lord I am very healthful and chearful through grace See that none of these things move you that befal us Fare you well my dear Brethren farewel in the Lord I am Yours in the strongest Bonds of Affection and Affliction JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Jeulchester Octob. 25. 1663. LETTER XI Remember Christ crucified and crucifie Sin To the Faithful and Well-beloved People the Servants of Christ in Taunton Salvation Most dear Christians I Am by Office a Remembrancer the Lords Remembrancer for you and your Remembrancer in the behalf of Christ-My business is with the Apostle to stir up your pure minds by way of Remembrance And what or whom should I remember you of but your most mindful Friend your Intercessour with the Father who hath you alwayes in remembrance appearing in the presence of God for you May his Memory ever live in our Hearts though mine should die Oh Remember his Love more than Wine Remember in what a Case he found you and yet nothing could anihelate his Heart nor divert the purpose of his Love from you He loathed not your Rags nor your Rottenness He found you in a loathsome Vomit and filthiness in a nasty and Verminous Tatters think not these expressions too odious No Pen can describe no Heart can imagine the odiousness of sin in his sight in which you lay and rolled your selves as the filthy Swine in the mire Yet he pitied you his Bowels were moved and his Compassions were kindled when one would have thought his wrath should have boiled and his indignation have burned down to Hell against you he loathed not but loved you and washed you from your sins in his own Blood Ah monstrous and polluted Captives Ah vile and putrid Carkases that ever the holy Jesus should take the hands of you and should his own self wash you and wrinse you methinks I see him weeping over you and yet it was a wore costly Bath by which he cleansed you Ah Sinners look upon the streaming Blood flowing out wharm from his blessed Body to fetch out the ingrained filthiness that you by sin had contracted Alas what a horrid filthiness in sin that nothing but the blood of the Covenant could wash away and what a love is Christs than when no Sope nor Nitre could suffice to cleanse us when a whole Ocean could not wash nor purifié us would opon every vein of his heart to do the work look upon your crucified Lord do you not see a sacred stream flowing out of every Member Ah how those Holy Hands those unerring Feet do run a stream to purge us Alas how that innocent Back doth Bleed with cruel scourgings to save ours how the great drops of Blood fall to the ground from his sacred Face in his miraculous sweat in his bitter and bloody Agony to wash and beautifie ours how his wounded hearts and side twice pierced first with love and pity and then with Souldiers cruelly do pour out their healthful and saving Flouds upon us Lord how do we make a shift to forget such a love as this ah mirrors or rather Monsters of ingratitude that can be unmindful of such a Friend do we thus requite him is this our kindness to such an obliging friend Christians where are your affections to what use do you put your faculties what have you memories for but to remember him What have you the power of loving for but that you should love him wherefore serves joy or desire but to long for him and delightfully to embrace him may your souls and all their Powers be taken up with him May all the little Doors of your souls be set open to him Here fix your thoughts here terminate your desires here you may light your Candle and kindle your Fire when almost out Rub and chase your hearts well with the deep consideration of the love of Christ and it is a wonder if they do not get some warmth The Lord shed abroad his love in your hearts by the Holy Ghost Oh! that this love might constrain you Brethren what will you do now for Jesus Christ. Have you never a Sacrifice to lay upon his Altar come and I will shew you what you shall do let your hands be in the blood of your sins fall foul with them search them out with diligence search your hearts and your houses whatever iniquities you find there out with them put them far from your Tabernacles if you crucifie them not you are not Jesus his Friends Godforbid that there should be a lying Tongue or any way of deceit in your Shops That his service should give place to the World in your Families Far be it from any of you my Brethren that you should be careful to teach your children and servants the way of your Trades and Callings and neglect to instruct them in the way of Life Is weekly Catechising up in every one of your Families The Lord convince any of you that may be guilty of this neglect Oh! set up God in your Houses and see that you be not slovenly in Closet performances beware of serving the Lord negligently serve not the Lord with that which costs you nothing look to it that you content not your selves with a cheap and easie Religion Put your flesh to it be well assured that the Religion that costs you nothing will yeeld you nothing keep up the life of Religion in your Family and Closet duties Fear nothing like a customary and careless performance of Gods Service Judge your own selves whether lazie wishes idle complaints and yawning Prayers are like to carry you through the mighty difficulties that you must get through if ever you come to Heaven When you find your selves going on in a liftless liveless heartless course and have no mind to your work ask your selves is this to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence or can I hope to win it without see that you sacrifice your selves to the Lord that you deliver up your selves to him that now you live to Christ himself As Christ hath made over his life and death to you so let it be your care to live and die to him labour to forget your selves and look upon all your enjoyments as Christs goods upon your time parts strength as his Talents look upon your selves only in the quality of Servants and Stewards that are to husband all these for your Lords advantage and as those that must give an account And pray for me that I may take the Counsel that I give I bless the Lord I want nothing but the opportunity of being
you prize the Promises more and hug and imbrace them with greater dearness and live more upon them Tenthly If you grow of a more publick Spirit A selfish Spirit is unworthy of a Christian are the common concernments of Gods Glory and the prosperity of the Church much upon your hearts will it no way content you to dwell in plenty peace and safety your selves except you may see peace upon Israel do the wounds in Gods Name and Glory go deep into you are the sins of others your sorrows Time and room and strength fails to add means too as I intended I have trespassed in length already may these be helps to you to put you forward and to help you in discerning your growth I must conclude abruply and commend you to God with my dear loves to you all I take leave and can only tell you that I am Yours in the Lord Jesus JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester Octob. 31. 1663. LETTER XV. Perswasion to Sinners and comfort to Saints To my dearly Beloved the Inhabitants of the Town of Taunton Grace Mercy and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Most dearly Beloved I Have been through mercy many years with you and should be willingly so many years a Prisoner for you so I might eminently and effectually further your Salvation I must again yea again and again thank you for your abundant and intire affections to me which value as a great mercy not in order to myself if I know my own heart but in order to your benefit as I may thereby be a more likely Instrument to further your good Surely so much as I do value your love which is not a little yet had I rather if I am not unacquainted with my self be forgotten and forsaken of you all and buried in oblivion So that your eyes and hearts might be hereby fixed on Christ and sincerely engaged to him Brethren I have not bespoken your affections for my self O that I might win your hearts universally to Jesus Christ though I had lost them for ever O that I might be instrumental to convert you to him though you were diverted from me I am perswaded that I should much rather choose to be hated of all so this might be the means to have Christ honoured and set up savingly in the hearts of you all And indeed there is nothing great but in order to God nothing is much material or considerable as it is terminated in us It matters not whether we are in Riches or poverty in sickness or Health in honour or disgrace so Christ may be by us magnified in the condition we are in Welcome Prison and Poverty welcome Scorn and Envy welcome pains or contempt if by these Gods glory may be most promoted What are we for but for God what doth the Creature signifie separated from his God why just so much as the Cypher separated from the Figure or the letter from the Syllable we are nothing or nothing worth but in reference to God and his ends Better were it that we had never been than that we should not be to him Better that we were dead than we should live and not to him Better that we had no understandings than that we should not know him Better that we were Blocks and Bruits than that we should not use our Reason for him What are our Interests unless as they may be subservient to his Interest or our esteem or reputation unless we may hereby glorifie him do you love me I know you do but who is there that will leave his sins for me I mean at my requests with whom shall I prevail to give up himself in strictness and self denial to the Lord who will be intreated by me to set upon neglected duties or reform accustomed sins O wherein may you rejoyce me in this in this my Brethren in this you shall befriend me if you obey the voice of God by me if you be prevailed with to give your selves up throughly to the Lord would you lighten my burden would you loosen my bonds would you make glad my heart let me hear of your owning the ways and servants of the Lord in adversity of your coming in of your abiding and patient continuing in the ways of holiness O that I could but hear that the prayerless Souls the prayerless Families among you were now given to prayer that the prosane sinner would be awakened and be induced by the preaching of these Bonds which heretofore would not be prevailed with to leave their drunkenness their loose company their lying and deceit and Wantonness by all the threatnings of God that cou'd be pronounced against them nor all the beseechings wooings and entreaties that I was able to use with them will you not be made clean when shall it once be how long shall the patience of God wait for you how long shall the Lord Jesus stretch our his hands toward you O sinners cast your selves into his Arms Why should you die Why will you forsake your own Mercy will you perish when mercy wooes you confess and forsake your sins and you shall find mercy will you part with Christ and sell your Souls to perdition for a little ease and delight to your flesh or a little of the gain of unrighteousness or a little Ale or vain mirth or loose company why these are the things that part between Sinners and Christ. I know many are spun with a finer thred and are not so far from the Kingdom of God as the prayerless ignorant Sabbath-breaking intemperate sort are But I must once again warn you of staying in the Suburbs of the City of Refuge O what pity is it that any should perish at the Gates that any should escape the pollutions of the world and do many things yea and suffer it may be too and yet should fall short of the glory of God for want of a through work of grace Oh you halting Christians that halt between Christ and the World that are as Ephraim like a Cake not turned dow-baked Professors that have Lamps without Oyl that cry Lord Lord but do not the will of our Father which is in Heaven how long will you stay in the place of the breaking forth of Children and stick between the Womb and the World your Religion will carry you among the profane despisers of Godliness but do own the people of the Lord and do love the Ministers and Ordinances therefore all is well I tell you Godliness is a heart-work it goes deep and spreads far unless the frame of your hearts and the drists of your course be changed unless you be universally conscientious and unreservedly delivered up to the Lord for all times and conditions whatever be the cost you are none of Christs how far soever you go in common workings and external performances Hear then O people and let nor profaneness swallow you up let not an almost Christianity deceive you orignorance carry you blindfold to perdition
not what thanks to render to you nor to God for You for all the unexpressable love which I have found in you toward me and not terminatively to me but to Christ in me for I believe it is for his sake as I am a Messenger and Embassador of his to You that you have loved me and done so much every way for me and I think I may say of Taunton as the Psalmist of Jerusalem If I forget thee let my right hand forget her cunning if I do not remember thee let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth I would not my dear Brethren that You should be dejected or discouraged at the Late disappointments For through the goodness of God I am not but rather more satisfied than before and this I can truly say nothing doth sadden me more than to see so much sadness in your faces As on the contrary nothing doth comfort me so much as to see your Chear and Courage Therefore I beseech you Brethren faint not because of my Tribulation nor of Gods delays but strengthen the hands and the feeble knees And the Lord bolster up your hands as they did the hands of Moses that they may not fall down till Israel do prevail Let us fear lest there be some evil among us that God being angry with us doth send this farther tryal upon us Pray earnestly for me lest the eye of the most jealous God should discern that in me which should render me unfit for the mercy You desire And let every one of you search his heart and search his house to see if there be not 〈◊〉 there Let not these disappointments make you to be nevertheless in love with Prayers but the more out of love with sin Let us humble our selves under the mighty hand of God and he shall exalt us in due time And for the Enemies of God you must know also that their foot shall slide in due time Let the Servants of God encourage themselves in their God for in the things wherein they deal proudly he is above them Therefore fret not your selves because of evil-doers commit your Cause to him that judgeth righteously Remember that you are bid if you see oppression of the poor and violent perverting of Judgment and Justice in a Province not to marvel at the matter Verily there is a God that Judgeth in the Earth And you have the liberty of Appeals Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him and fret not your selves because of the men that bring wicked devises to pass take heed that none of you do with Peter begin to sink now you see the waters rough and the winds boysterous these things must not weaken your Faith nor cool your Zeal for they are great Arguments for the strengthning of it What clearer evidence can there be for the future Judgment and Perdition of the ungodly and Coronation of the Just in another life than the most unjust proceedings that are here upon Earth Shall not the Judge of all the Earth see right to be done We see here nothing but confusion and disorder the wicked receiveth according to the work of the Righteous and the Innocent according to the work of the Wicked The Godly perish and the Wicked flourish these do prosper and they do suffer What! Can it be ever thus No doubtless there must be a day when God will Judg the World in Righteousness and rectifie the present disorders and reverse the unrighteous Sentences that have been passed against his Servants And this evidence is so clear that many of the Heathen Philosophers have from this very Argument I mean the unrighteous usage of the Good concluded that there must certainly be Rewards and Punishments adjudged by God in mother World Nor yet lose your Zeal Now is the time that the love of many doth wax cold but I bless God it is not so with you I am sure your love to me is as true Friends should be like the Chimneys warmest in the Winter of Adversity and I hope your love to God is much more and I would that You should abound yet more and more Where else should you bestow your Loves Love ye the Lord ye his Saints and cling about him the faster now ye see the World is striving to separate you from him How many are they that go to knock off your fingers O methinks I see what tugging there is The World is plucking and the Devil is plucking Oh hold fast I beseech you hold fast that no man take your Crown Let the Water that is sprinkled yea rather poured upon your Love make it to flame up the more Are you not betrothed unto Christ Oh Remember Remember your Marriage-Covenant Did you not take him for Richer for Poorer for better for worse Now prove your love to Christ to have been a true Conjugal love in that you can love him when most slighted despised undervalued blasphemed among men Now acquit your selves not to have followed Christ for the Loaves Now confute the Accuser of the Brethren who may be ready to suggest of the best of You as he did of Job Doth he serve the Lord for nought And let it be seen that You loved Christ and Holiness purely for their own sakes that You can love a naked Christ when there is no hopes of worldly advantage or promoting of self-interest in following him Yet beware that none of you do stick to the wayes of Christ and Religion upon so carnal an Account as this because this is the Way that you have already taken up and you count it a shame to recede from your Principles I am very jealous lest some Professors should miss of their Reward for this Least they should be accounted Turn-coats and Hypocrites therefore they will shew a 〈◊〉 of spirit in going on since they have once begun and cannot with honour retreat Would you chose holiness and strictness if it were to do again Would you enter yourselves among Gods poor people if it were now first to do Would you have taken up the Profession of Christ though you had foreseen all this that is come and coming This will do much to evidence your sincerity But I forget that I am writing a Letter being prone to pass all bounds when I have thus to do with you The Lord God remember and reward you and your Labours of Love The Eternal God be your Refuge and put under you his everlasting Arms. The Peace of God that passeth all understanding Keep your Hearts Christs Legacy of Peace I leave with you and Rest with my dear affections to You all Your Embassador in Bonds JOS. ALLEINE LETTER XXIV Councel for Salvation To the most Beloved the Servants of Christ in Taunton Salvation Most endeared Christians MY continual Solicitude for your State will not suffer me to pass in quiet one week without Writing to you unless I am extraordinarily hindred Your Sincerity Stedfastness and Proficiency in the Grace of God is the matter of my
Lord I do believe and expect the return of the Redeemer with all his Saints and the most glorious Resurrection of my own dead Body with all Believers and this makes me to rest in Hope and fills me with unspeakable more Joy than the death of my self or any other Saint can with grief And now I make it my business to be rendred serviceable to you and do by this return You my hearty thanks for your earnest Prayers and Intercessiors to God in my behalf for it is he that must do the Cure I seem to my self to be ritired to this place as a Vessel rent and shatter'd and torn in the Service that is come to recruit in the Harbour And here I am as it were rigging and repairing and Victualling to put forth again in the Service which I shall do with the first Wind as soon as I am ready What is my life unless I am serviceable And though I must for the present forbear my wonted Labour yet I shall not cease to exhort You and call upon you while I am absent from You to stand fast and to grow up in your holy Faith Be warned my dearly Beloved that You fall not upon these dangerous Rocks upon which so many Professors have been split There are three Things which I beseech you carefully to beware of First Lest while Christ is in your mouths the world run away with your hearts There is many a seeming Professor that will be found a meer Idolater Many a Soul goes down to Hell in this sin in the midst of his Profession and never 〈◊〉 it till it be too late Remember I beseech You that the Oxen the Farm Wife Merchandize all of them lawful Comforts did as effectually keep men from a sound and saving closing with Christ as the vilest lufts of the worst of men Whatever You find your hearts very much pleased in and in love with among these earthly Comforts set a mark upon that thing and remember that there lies your greatest danger What you love most you must fear most and think often with your selves This if any thing is like to be my ruine Oh the multitudes of Professors that perish for ever by the secret hand of this mortal Enemy I mean the over-valuing of Earthly things The hearers compared to the thorny Ground did not openly fall away and cast off their Profession as the stony ground did but while others withered away the blade of Profession was as green and fresh as ever and yet their inordinate affection to the things of this life did secretly undo all at last Little do most Professors think of this while they please themselves in their estates while they delight themselves so freely in their Children in their Wives in their habitations and possessions that these be the things that are like to undo them for ever How little is that Scripture thought of which speaks so dreadfully to worldly Professors Love not the world for if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him Are there not many among us who though they do keep up Prayer and other holy Duties yet the strength and vigour of their hearts goeth out after earthly things And those are their chief Care and their chief Joy Such must know and they are none of Christs and they were better to understand it now and seek to be renewed by Repentance then hereafter when there shall be no place for Repentance Secondly Lest while iniquity doth abound your love to Christ doth wax cold Remember what an Abomination Laodicoa was to Christ because she grow so luke-warm and what a controversie he had with Ephesus a sound Church because she did but slacken and grow more remiss in her love A Friend is born for Adversity and now is the time if you will prove the sincerity of your love and friendship to Jesus Christ by following him zealously resolvedly fully now he is most rejected and opposed Thirdly Lest you keep up a 〈◊〉 and fruitless Profession without Progression See to it my Brethren that You be not onely Professors but proficients Many Professors think all is well because they keep on in the Exercises of Religion but alas You may keep on Praying and hearing all the Week long and yet be not one jot the further Many there are that keep going but it is like the Horse in the Mill that is going all day but yet is no further than when he first began Nay it oft times happens in the Trade of Religion as it doth in Trading in the World where many keep on in Trading still till for want of care and caution and examining their accounts whether they go forward or backward they Trade themselves out of all Oh look to it my Brethren that none of You rest in the doing of Duties but examine what comes of them Otherwise as You may Trade your selves into Poverty so you may hear and pray your selves into hardness of heart and desperate security and formality This was the very Case of wretched Laodicea who kept up the Trade of Religious Duties and verily thought that all was well because the Trade still went on and that she was increased in spiritual Goods and in a gaining way but when her accounts were cast up at last all comes to nothing and ends in wretchedness poverty and nakedness Most dear Brethren I wish and pray for the prosperity of you all but above all I wish your Souls prosperity with which after my most dear Loves to You all having already exceeded the bounds of an Epistle I commend You to the living God Remaining Your fervent well wisher and Embassador in Christ. JOS. ALLEINE Devises June 22. 1666. LETTER XXX An Admiration of the Love of God To the loving and most Dearly Beloved the Servants of God in Taunton Salvation My most dear Friends I Love you and long for you in the Lord and I am weary with forbearing that good and blessed Work that the Lord hath committed to me for the furtherance of your Salvation How long Lord how long shall I dwell in silence How long shall my Tongue cleave to the Roof of my Mouth When will God open my Lips that I may stand up and praise him But it is my Fathers good pleasure yet to keep me in a total disability of publishing his Name among you unto him my soul shall patiently subscribe I may not I cannot complain that he is hard to me or useth me with Rigour I am full of the Mercies of the Lord yea Brimful and running over And shall I complain Far be it from me But though I may not murmur methinks I may mourn a little and sit down and wish O if I may not have a Tongue to speak would I had but Hands to Write that I might from my Pen drop some heavenly Councels to my Beloved People Methinks my feeble Fingers do even Itch to Write unto you but it cannot be alas my Right-hand seems to have
forgot her cunning and hath much ado with trembling to lift the Bread unto my Mouth Do you think you should have had so little to shew under my Hand to bear witness of my Care for you and Love to you if God had not shook my Pen as it were out of my Hand But all that he doth is done well and wisely and therefore I submit I have purposed to borrow Hands wherewith to Write unto my Beloved rather then to be silent any longer But where shall I begin or when should I end If I think to speak of the Mercies of God towards me or mine enlarged affections towards you methinks I feel already how strait this Paper is like to be and how insignificant my Expressions will be found and how insufficient all that I can say will prove at last to utter what I have to tell you but shall I say nothing because I cannot utter all this must not be neither Come then all ye that fear the Lord come and I will tell you what he hath done for my Soul O help me to love that precious Name of his which is above all my Praises O love the Lord all ye his Saints and fear before him magnifie the Lord with me and let us exalt his Name together he hath remembred my low estate because his Mercy endureth for ever O blessed be you of the Lord my dearly Beloved O thrice blessed may you be for all your Remembrances of me before the Lord you have wrestled with the Lord for me you have wrestled me out of the very Jaws of Death it self O the strength of Prayer Surely it is stronger than Death See that You even honour the power and prevalency of Prayer Oh be in Love with Prayer and have high and venerable thoughts of it What Distresses Diseases Deaths can stand before it Surely I live by Prayer Prayer hath given a Resurrection to this Body of mine when Physicians and Friends had given up their hopes Ah my dearly Beloved methinks it delights me to tell the Story of your Love how much more of the Love of God towards me I have not forgotten O my dearly Beloved I have not forgotten your tender Love in all my Distresses I remember your kindness to me in my Bonds when once and again I was delivered up to a Prison for your sakes I remember with much delight how You refreshed and comforted me in my Tribulations how open your hearts were and your hands were not straightned neither for I was in want of nothing I may not I must not forget what painful Journies you took to visit me when in places Remote the hand of the Lord had touched me and though my long Sickness was almost incredible Expensive to me yet your supplies did not a little lighten my Burthen And though I put it last yet I do not mind it least that You have been so ready in returning Praises to God in my behalf your Thanksgiving to God my dear Brethren do administer abundant cause to me of my giving thanks unto You. And now my Heart methinks is big to tell You a little of my Loue to You surely You are dear unto me but though it be sweet to tell the Story of Love yet in this I will restrain my self For I fear least as the Wise man saith of the beginning of strife so I should find of the beginning of Love that it is like the letting forth of the Water and the rather I do forbear because I hope you have better Testimonies than Words to bear Witness herein unto You. But if I sing the Song of Love O let Divine Love overcarry the Praise I found my self in straights when I began to speak of the natural Love between my dear People and an unworthy Minister of Christ to them and it seemed that all that I have said was much too little but now I have to speak of the Love God it seems to be by far too much O infinite Love never to be Comprehended but ever to be Admired Magnified and Adored by every Creature O let my Heart be filled let my Mouth be filled let my Papers be filled ever ever filled with the thankful Commemoration of this matchless Love O turn your Eyes from other Objects O Bury me in Forgetfulness and let my Love be no more mentioned nor had in remembrance among You so that You may be throughly possessed and inflamed with the Love of God This my Beloved this is that Love which is ever to be Commended and Extolled by You. See that You studie this Love fill your Souls with wonder and feast your Souls with joy and be ravished with rich contentment in this Divine Love Take your daily walk and lose your selves in the Field of Love Drink O Friends yea drink abundantly O Beloyed fear no excess O that your Souls may be drencht and drowned in the Love of Christ till You can every one say with the ravisht Spouse I am sick of Love Marvel not that I wander here and seem to forget the bounds of a Letter this Love obligeth me Yea rather constraineth me Who in all the Earth should admire and commend this Love if I should not I feel it I taste it the sweet Savour thereof Reviveth my Soul it is Light to mine Eyes and Life co mine Heart the warm Beams of this blessed Sun O how have they Comforted me Ravished and Refreshed me both in Body and Soul My benumbed Limbs my withered Hands my feeble Knees my Bones quite naked of Flesh do yet again Revive through the Quickning Healing and Raising influence of Divine Grace and Love Now my own Hands can feed me and my own feet can bear me my Appetlte is quick my Sleep comfortable and God is pleased to give some increase continually though by insensible Degrees And shall not I praise that Love and Grace that hath done all this for me Yea what is this to all I have to tell You My Heart is enlarged but I told You Paper could not hold what I have to speak of the Goodness of the All-Gracious God in which I live I am forced to end least you should not bear my length My dearly Beloved I send my Heart unto You divide my Love amongst you all and particularly tender it to your Reverend and Faithfull Pastour whose Presence with you and Painfulness and Watchfulness over you and Zeal and Courage for you in so dangerous a time is matter of my great Joy and Thanksgivings unto God The Grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all Fare you well in the Lord I remain Your unworthy Minister and servent Well wisher in the Lord JOS. ALLEINE LETTER XXXI To the most endeared People the Inhabitants of Taunton Salvation Most dearly Beloved and longed for my Joy and Crown MY Hearts desire and Prayer for you is that you may be saved This is that which I have been Praying and Studying and Preaching for these many Years and this is the end of my Venturing
love signifies little unless it serve thine Eternal good I rest thine own JOSEPH ALLEINE LETTER XXXVI To his Wife Desires after Heaven My Dear Heart MY heart is now a little at rest to write to thee I have been these three days much disturbed and set out of frame Strong solicitations I have had from several hands to accept very honourable preferment in several kinds some friends making a Journey on purpose to propound it but I have not found the invitations though I confess very honourble and such as are or will be suddenly embraced by men of far greater worth and eminency to suit with the inclinations of my own heart as I was confident they would not with thine I have sent away my friends satisfied with the reasons of my refusal and am now ready with joy to say with David Soul return unto thy rest But alas that such things should disturb me I would live above this lower region that no passages or providence whatsoever might put me out of frame nor disquiet my soul and unsettle me from my desired rest I would have my heart fixed upon God so as no occurrences might disturb my tranquility but I might be still in the same quiet and even frame Well though I am apt to be unsettled and quickly set off the hinges yet methinks I am like a Bird out of the nest I am never quiet till I am in my old way of Communion with God like the needle in the Compass that is restless till it be turned towards the the Pole I can say through grace with the Church with my soul have I desired thee in the night and with my Spirit within me have I sought thee early my heart is early and late with God and 't is the business and delight of my life to seek him But alas how long shall I be a seeking how long shall I spend my days in wishing and desiring when my glorified Brethren spend theirs in rejoycing and enjoying look as the poor imprisoned captive fighs under the burdensome clog of his Irons and can onely pear through the Grace and think of and long for the sweetness of that liberty which he sees others enjoy such methinks is my condition I can only look through the Grate of this Prison my flesh I see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob sitting down in the Kingdom of God but alass I my self must stand without longing striving fighting running praying waiting for what they are enjoying Oh happy thrice happy pouls when shall these Fetters of mine be knocked off when shall I be set at liberty from this Prison of my body you are cloted with glory when I am clothed with dust I dwell in flesh in a House of Clay when you dwell with God in a House not made with hands eternal in the Heavens I must be continually clog'd with the cumbersome burden of this Dung-hill Body that had it not a soul dwelling in it like Salt as it were to preserve it would soon turn to putrefaction and corruption and be as odious and loathsome as the filthiest Carrion when you have put on incorruption and immortaliey What continual molestation am I subject to by reason of this flesh what pains doth it cost me to keep this earthen Vessel from breaking it must be fed it must be clothed it must be exercised recreated and which is worst of all cherished with time-devouring sleep so that I live but little of the short time I have alotted me here but oh blessed souls you are swallowed up of immortality and life your race is run and you have received your Crown How cautious must I be to keep me from dangers how apt am I to be troubled with the cares and fears of this life molesting my self with the thoughts of what I shall eat and what I shall put on and wherewithal I shall provide for my self and mine when your souls are taken with nothing but God and Christ and 't is your work to be still contemplating and admiring that love that redeemed you from all this Alas how am I encompast with infirmities and still carry about me Death in my bosome what pains and cost must I be at to repair the rotten and ruinous building of this earthly Tabernacle which when I have done I am sure will shortly fall about my ears when you are got far above mortality and are made equal with the Angels Oh I groan earnestly to be clothed upon with my house which is from Heaven being willing rather to be absent from the Body and present with the Lord Oh when shall I come and appear before him When shall I receive the Purchase of my Saviour the fruit of my prayers the harvest of my labours the end of my Faith the Salvation of my soul Alas what do I here this is not my resting place My treasure is in Heaven and my heart is in Heaven Oh when shall I be where my heart is woe is me that I sojour in 〈◊〉 and dwell in the Tents of Kedar Oh that I had wings 〈◊〉 a Dove that I might flie away and be at rest Then would I hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest and be out of the reach of fears disturbances and distractions How long shall I live at such a distance from my God at such a distance from my Countrey Alas how can I be merry how can I sing the Lords Song in a strange Land no I will hang my Harp upon the Willows and sit down and weep when I remember Sion But yet my flesh shall rest in hope and I will daily bathe my soul in the sweet thoughts of my blessed home I will rejoyce in hopes of what I do not yet enjoy and content my self with the taste of what I shall shortly have my fill of But stay this Pen run not beyond thy Commission Alas now I receive what I have gotten I perceive I have set down what I would be rather than what I am and wrote more of my dears heart than my own penning rather a Copy for my self than a Copy of my self Well I thank God I have got some heat by it for all the Lord grant thou mayst get a thousand times more The Lord grant the request I daily pour out before him and make us helps and furtherances to each others soul that we may quicken and promote and forward one another in his ways Help me by thy Prayers as thou dost always The God of all peace and comfort be with thee my sweet love Farewel Thine beyond Expression Joseph Aleine LETTER XXXVII God is a satisfying Portion My most dear Pylades HAd not my right hand long since forgot her cunning and the Almighty shook the Pen out of my hand I should long ere this have been writing to thee but it is a wonder of Divine Power and goodness that my soul had not before this time dwelt in silence and that death had not put the long period to all my Writing and
Converse O my Pylades what shall I say unto thee now I begin to write where shall I begin when shall I end methinks I am as a full Bottle quite inverted where the forward pressing of the overhasty Liquor makes the evacuation more flow and my thoughts are like a thronging croud sticking in the door Long is the Song of Love that I have to tell thee I rejoice in the constancie of thy Love that the waters of so long a silence and so great a distance have not yet quenched it but thy desires are towards me and thy heart is with me though Providence hath hindred me from thy much desired Company I will assure thee it hath been a pleasure to my heart a good part of this summer to hope that I should come one half of the way to give thee a meeting but such is my weakness hitherto that I am forced to put off those hopes till the Spring when if God give me strength to ride I intend to see thee before mine own Home I thank thee for all the dear expressions of thy servent love Methinks I see it and feel how it runs through all the Veins of every Letter nay every Line I needed not so chargeable a Testimony as thy golden Token with which I was something displeased because I thought thou needest more than my self but the love there-by expressed is most dearly welcome to me What thou talkest of Retribution and of Justice doth not so well relish with me because the Phrases seem improper to the love profest between us I never looked for any return from thee but love which is the paying of all thy Debts my expences have indeed been vast and almost incredible but surely goodness and mercy hath followed me and do follow me in every place and in every change of my condition so that as to temporals I have lack of nothing and as for spirituals I abound and superabound and the streams of my comforts have been full and ruuning over the joy of the Lord hath been my strength at weakest and in the multitude of my thoughts within me his comforts have refresh'd my Soul I have found God a satisfying portion to me and have sat down under his shadow with full delights and his fruit is most sweet to my taste he is my strength and my Song for I will take of him and write of him with perpetual pleasure Through grace I can say methinks I am now in my Element fince I have begun to make mention of him I am rich in him and happy in him and my soul saith unto him with David Thou hast made me most blessed for evermore and happy is the hour that ever I was born to be made partaker of so blissful a Treasure so endless a felicity so Angelical Prerogatives as I have in him O sweet are his converses how delightful it is to triumph in his Love Suffer me to be free with thee where should I pour out my Soul if not into thy bosom did the poor woman call upon her friends and neighbours to rejoyce together with her at the finding of a lost Groat and shall not I tell to thee the keeper of the sacrets of my Soul and the friend of my inmost bosom what a friend is the Lord to me though an unworthy sinner shall not I run and tell thee what a treasure I have found And here methinks the story of the Lepers comes not unaptly to my mind who said one to another when they had eat and drunk and carried away silver and gold and rayment and went and hid it we do not well this day is a day of good tidings and we hold our peace It is fit that I should be cloathed with shame I acknowledge before God who trieth the hearts I am unworthy everlastingly unworthy but it is not fit that he should lose his praise nay rather let him be the more ador'd and magnifi'd and admir'd for ever and ever and let my Secrets say Amen Bless the Lord O my soul bless the Lord O my Friend let us exalt his Name together he is my solace in my solitude he is my standing comforter my tried friend my sure refuge my safe retreat he is my Paradise he is my Heaven and my heart is at rest in him and I will sit and sing under his shadow as a Bird among the Branches and whither should I go but unto him Shall I leave the fatness of the Olive and sweetness of the Fig-tree and of the Vine and go and put my trust under the shadow of the Bramble No I have made my everlasting choice this is my rest for ever he is my Well-beloved in whom I am well pleased Suffer me to boast a little here I may Glory without vanity and I can praise him without end or measure but I have nothing to say of my self I find thou dost overvalue me and magnifie me above my measure set the Crown upon the head of Christ let nothing be great with thee but him give him the glory but thy love pleaseth me only I have this exception that thou art in love with thine own Idol as Austin somewhere speaks to a friend of his that did too much magnifie him and magnifiest a Creature of thine own sancie and not thy poor Orestes God that knoweth all things knoweth my poverty how little how low and how mean I am and how short I come of the attainments of the Saints who yet do themselves come so exceedingly short of the Rule that God hath set before us I often think of the Complaint of the devout Monsier I feel my self very poor this week and very defective in the love of God if you would know wherein you may pleasure me love God more that what is wanting in me may be made up in the abundance of your love in this my Pylades in this thou mayest most highly pleasure me love God a little the better praise him a little the more for my sake let me have this to please my self in that God is a little the better loved for me and that I have blowed up if it be but one flash nay but one spark of Divine Love in the bosom of my dearest friend towards him But why my Pylades why is thy stile towards me changed why hast thou lost the old and wonted strain of our former pleasing familiarity this I could not but observe with some disgust is it because thy heart is changed but this is a question in which I cannot ask any resolution I am satisfied and at rest in thy love but what this alterations means I know not art thou willing by degrees to grow strange it cannot be thou seest however that I cannot change my voice Busides I find some jealous passages in thy last lines unto us but cast thou think that 〈◊〉 can be put into the ballance against my old Friend my own my Covenant Pylades or can a friend of words come into any competition or
comparison with thine experienced love I cannot entertain the thoughts of this without some disdain But thy needful cautions are acceptable to me I desire to foresee and provide for manifold changes and storms I know I am not yet in the Harbor O pray with me that I enter not into Temptation for I am very weak in Spirit as well as in body God knoweth But there is no end with me somewhere or other I must break off and thou wilt say it is time to shut up for once onely know that I am thy daily Orator and will be whilest I am and yet once more I must have room to add my thankful acknowledgement of thine and thy costly kindness and so with our most dear affections to you both I commend you to the God of love still abiding Thy fast and sure Orestes Bath Octob. 13. 1668. LETTER XXXVII To a person of Quality to be constant Most Honoured Sir MAny charges have passed over both you and my self since my last Writing to you but I am glad to hear that in that great change of your condition you have made so wise and happy a choice Mine unfeigned desire to God is for your Temporal and Spiritual prosperity and that the blessings of both Worlds may be heaped up upon you Yet I should desire you not to expect too much here nor to count it a strange thing if you meet with disappointments It is enough if you have the Lord for your portion and Heaven for your Inheritance though the World should not answer your expectations I doubt not but you will be likely as well we to meet with manifold temptations the Lord make you when you have done all to stand Hold out a while in faith patience and self-denial and you shall be as sure as God can make you of the Crown Now arise and shine and hold forth the power of holiness in all your converse We have lived in times when Religion was the way to credit and esteem and then it was more difficult to discern the sincerity of ones profession because men might be drawn to it upon worldly ends But now is the time when God will prove us if we will appear for him and own his ways when they are the common scorn of the World Oh Sir think it not hard if God do call you forth to own him in such a time as this when few of your rank and quality will bear you company but look upon it as a special advantage to prove your sincerity and your fidelity to the Lord your Maker The holy and blessed life of that noble Marquess Galeacius I should much commend to your reading and Imitation Court not the world nor its preferments Moses his self-denying choice which the World would have branded for unparalled folly when he voluntarily left all the Court-preferments and pleasures the wisest Judge commends for the greatest Wisdom If Religion will make you vile resolve with that Royal Worthy that you will be yet more vile Remember who accounted the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the Treasures of Egypt Verily it is a greater honour to you to be vilified for Christ than to be dignified with the highest Titles that the greatest on Earth can confer and to be call'd Puritan or Phanatique for the bold and constant owning of the power of Christianity than to have whole Pages filled up with the honourable offices and marks of Dignity that earthly Princes can bestow Now then is your time to get the true honour Few of your places and dignity will take this way to get it But he that can but use the prospective of Faith and look as far as the approaching Judgment will easily see the vanity of the worlds riches and slattering preferments and the everlasting glory and honour wherewith the dispised Saints shall surely be Crowned Fix your eyes and Meditations here and that will set you above the worlds temptations when by its offers or threatnings it would make you to warp and to let go your hold-fast of Eternal life Now is the time for you to make Heaven sure and when that is done you are prepared for the worst that can come I desire you to accept of my service and respects and my Wives which I do hereby present unto you and to your most deserving yoak-fellow whom I unfeignedly honour though I never saw her not so much for her noble blood which yet calls for great respects as for her far more noble qualifications and priviledges of her second birth Pardon my boldness with you in troubling you so long I am Sir Your most Oblidged Friend and Servant JOS. ALLEINE Feb. 26. 1661. LETTER XXXVII Dear Couzin THough I have been in the valley of the shadow of death though I have had more than one foot in the Grave and have been in deaths often yet the love and remembrance of you ever liveth on my heart I have long had neither feet to walk nor hands to write yet I have borrowed hands as you see rather than I would stay any longer from warning and admonishing of you Dear Couzin that soul of yours that precious immortal soul is of no light value with me I pray hard for its Salvation I have a Godly fear for you lest your soul should miscarry in a crowd of worldly business and of earthly cares Ah my dear Niece it comforts me that you are so setled for this world and are in want of nothing I bless the Lord for this but me thinks this doth not satisfie me Oh that I could be sure that you were once safe setled in Christ though you are I trust comfortably furnished with earthly things yet in this you are but half provided for have you a Treasure in Heaven have you laid hold on eternal life have you made sure work for everlasting have you past the straits of the New-Birth do your bear upon you the marks of the Lord Jesus If you shall pass by a sumptuous Fabrick and a great Lordship and should lay claim to all as your inheritance and please your self with the hopes of enjoying all this when you had nothing to shew no Writing no Evidence to produce as a ground for any such hope would not every one say this were a piece of strange vanity and imprudence much greater folly is it to promise our selves a part in Paradise and rest satisfied in a meer perswasion that we are the Heirs of Heaven when we cannot prove our Title from the Book of God nor produce from within our selves the sure and certain marks of the children of God Ah Dear Couzin Rouze up your self make conscience to deal plainly and freely with your soul say within your self I have hopes for Heaven but where are my grounds and my Evidences do I not build without a foundation do I venture my Salvation upon meer uncertainties What have I what do I more than others I pray I hear I read but may not a meer Hypocrite do all this I
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us Verily Sir it is but a very little while that Prisons shall hold us or that we shall dwell in dirty flesh 〈◊〉 tells us of 〈◊〉 that he was ashamed to see himself in the Body to see a divine and immortal Soul in a 〈◊〉 of Flesh for so they held the body to be but the worst shackles are those of sin Well they must shortly off all together our Lord doth not long intend us for this lower Region Surely he is gone to prepare a place for us Doubtless it is so yea and he will come again and receive us to himself that where he is we may be also And what have we to do but to believe and wait and love and long and look out for his coming in which is all our hope 'T will be time enough for us to be preferred then We know before hand who shall then be uppermost Our Lord hath shewed us where our place shall be even at his own right hand and what he will say to us Come ye blessed c. Surely we shall stand in his Judgment He hath promised to stand our Friend Let us look for the joyful day As sure as there is a God this day will come and then it shall go well with us What if Bonds and Banishments abide us for a season This is nothing but what our Lord hath told us The world shall rejoyce but ye shall weep and lament You shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy Oh how reviving are his words I will see you again and your heart shall rejoyce and your joy no man taketh from you If that miserable wretch leapt chearfully off the Ladder saying I shall be a Queen in Hell With what joy should we do and suffer for God who have his Truth in pawn that we shall be Crown'd in Heaven Verily they are wonderful Preparations that are making for us The Lord prepare us apace and make us meet to be Partakers It was the highest Commendation that ever that Worthy R. Baxter received which fell from the Pen of his scoffing Adversary Tilenus who saith of him Totum Puritanismum totus spirat Oh that this may be true of us and ours Let your true yoke-fellow and my Christian Friends with you in the Bonds of the Gospel have my hearty Commendations And these Counsels I pray you give them from me for the improving of their present state 1. To habituate themselves both as to their thoughts and discourses more throughly than ever unto Holiness Brethren I would teach you the Lesson that I resolve to learn with you That your minds and tongues may as naturally run on the things of Heaven as others on the things of this world Why should it not be thus I am sure God and Heaven do as well deserve to be thought on and talked of by us as froth and vanity can deserve of the world There are many that have in a great measure learnt this lesson and why should not we be some of them What if it be hard at first Every thing is so to a beginner Besides is not ours a Religion of self-denial Further if we do but force our selves a while to holy Thoughts and Heavenly Discourse it will grow habitual to us and then it will be most natural familiar and heavenly sweet Oh what gainers will you be if you do but learn this Lesson Verily it 's the shame of Religion that Christians are so unlike themselves unless upon their knees Sirs our lives and language should tell the world what we are and whither we are going Christians let little things content you in the world but aspire after great things in the grace of God Many real Christians do little think what high frames of Holiness they might grow up to even in this life with pains and diligence Sirs be you men of great designs Think it not enough if you have wherewith to bear your charges to Heaven but aspire with an holy ambition to be great in the Court of Heaven Favourites of the most High of 〈◊〉 growth great experience singular communion that you may burn and shine in your places and convince the world that you may savour of Heaven where ever you come and that there may be an even-spun thred of Holiness running through your whole course 'T is the disgrace of Profession that there is so little difference to be seen in the ordinary coversation of Believers from other men Is it not a shame that when we are in company with others this should be all the difference that is to be seen onely that we will not curse and swear as do the worst of men Christians if you will honour the Gospel bring forth your Religion out of your Closets the world can't see what you do there into your Shops Trades Visits c. and exemplifie the rules of Religion in the management of all your Relations and in your ordinary converse Let there be no Place or Company that you come into in which you do not drop something of God This will be the glory of Religion and we shall never convince the World till we come to this May you come my Brethren out of your Prisons with your faces shining having your minds seasoned and your tongues 〈◊〉 with Holiness May your mouths be as a Well of Life from whence may flow the Holy Streams of Edifying Discourse May you ever remember as you are sitting in your Houses going by the Way lying down rising up what the Lord doth then require of you Deut 6. 7. 2. To improve their present retirements from the World for the settling of their spiritual estates 'T is a common complaint amongst Christians That they want Assurance Oh if any of you that wanted Assurance when you came to Prison may carry that blessing out what happy gainers would you be Now you are called more than ever to self-searching Now bring your Graces to the Touchstone Be much in Self Observation See what your hearts do with most love and delight go out unto what are your greatest hopes and your chief designs See whether God's Intrest be uppermost in you prove this and prove all Rest not in probable hopes Think not that is enough that you can say you hope 't is well God lookes for extraordinary things from you under such great helps such extraordinary Dispensations Be restless till you can say that You know 't is well that you know you are passed from Death to Life Think not that this is a priviledge that only a few may expect Observe but these three things 1. To acquaint your selves throughly with the conditions of Life and take heed of laying the marks of Solvation cither too high or too low 2. To be much in observing the frame and bent and workings of your own hearts 3. To universally conscientious and to be constant in even and close walkings and then I
doubt not but you will grow up speedily to a settled assurance and know and feel that peace of God that passeth all understanding and this will be somewhat worth your carrying out of Prison But I return to your self But what shall I say I have more need to receive from you than abilitie to give only I will tell you my wishes for you I wish that your body may prosper as your soul also prospereth I wish That you may see the travel of your Soul that you may find your People thriving under your hands in all manner of holy conversation and godliness that whosoever converses with them may see and hear by them that God is in them of a Truth I wish your enlargement from your bonds and your enlargement in them That your Prison may be but the Lanthorn through which your Graces Experiences Communion and Prison-attainments may shine most brightly to all beholders I wish your Prison may be a Paradice of Peace and a Patmos of Divine discoveries Lord Jesus set to thy Amen I am SIR Your unworthy Brother and Companion in the Kingdom and Patience of JESUS JOS. ALLEINE Jan. 10. 1664. LETTER XL. Directions to the Ministers of Somersetshire and Wistshire for the instructing of Families by way of Catechising SIR THIS Letter cometh to you like the men of Macedonia to Paul crying to you Come and help us O how insufficient do we find our selves for the Praises of GOD What Reason have we to call upon our selves and to call upon all our Friends and yet we foresee that all will be too little a Sacrifice at last and too slender a return to the most High God who hath made us such wonders of Mercy and such signal instances of his Divine Power and Rich Grace You are not ignorant of our Estate how the Sentence of Death had passed upon us how our Flesh and our Hearts failed and Friends and Physicians gave up their Hopes But God that raised the Dead was pleased to make us the Monuments of his wondrous Mercy O that the same God would make us the special instruments of his Praise and Glory Of a Truth Sir we perceive our Hearts are too little our Tongues are too shore our Expressions are too low either to conceive or utter what we owe to the Great God O help help Bless the Lord O our Souls Bless the Lord O our Friends O that all that have Wrestled with God for us might joyn Hand in Hand to make some suitable returns to the God of our lives and may bring in every one his Sacrifice and all contribute to make one common stock of Praises that many Thanksgivings may abound to God on our behalfs O what hath Prayer done for us while we live we must Honour Prayer and admire the Power of Prayer we owe our limbs and our lives to Prayer O that a goodly crop of praise may grow up unto God as a return for his Mercies that the seed of Prayers and showers of tears may procure sheaves of joy and Songs of deliverauce But O what shall we render wherewithall shall we come before the Lord or bow our selves to the Most High God O where shall we find a sitting sacrifice Verily we will give our selves and our All to him But alas what are we and what is this little that we call our All Therefore have we found in our hearts to write to you and others that we might excite you to the Divine Praises with us And O that the Lord might be loved the better and glorified the more for our sakes Will you tell us wherein we may shew our love to Him wherein we may best please and serve Him O that you would Herein assuredly you would most highly gratifie us O that we might do some singular thing for God for certainly they are not common things that he hath done for us We pray you call upon those that fear the Lord to help us in celebrating his loving kindness O how it pleaseth our very Hearts to think that God should be Loved and Honoured the better for us That we may be instruments if it be but for the blowing up of one flash nay the kindling of one spark of Divine Love in the Hearts of his Children towards him Sir You cannot pleasure us in any thing so much as in this To love and admire God and spread his Praise more and more that what is wanting through our weakness may be made up in your abundance But we have need to crave your 〈◊〉 for our length but the love of Christ constraineth us 〈◊〉 we hope you will pass by an error of Love While we have been deyifing what to do for our God we thought we could no way better serve him than by provoking such as you are to set up his great Name with us We love and Honour you not onely as you are a Member but a Minister of Christ Jesus our LORD and therefore deserve to be doubly dear unto us And because we could think of no more pleasing a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving we have stirred up our selves and Friends with us to send to you a Prophet in the Name of a Prophet this poor Token of Love which though but small yet we trust will be a sweet savour unto God and will be accepted with you being our two Mites cast into God's Treasury But look not upon your self as obliged to us hereby but put it upon the Account of Christ to whose precious Name we dedicate it and from whom although he be so much already before hand with us yet we expect a recompence at the Resurrection of the just And being further desirous to promote the work of God in our low and slender Capacities we have been bold to provoke your self with other our Fathers and Brethren in the Ministry to set about that necessary and much neglected work of Catechising not a little pleasing our selves in the sweet hope that by your means we may be instrumental to spread the sweet savour of the knowledg of our God in every place and being well perswaded of your readiness to forward so blessed a work we have stirred up our selves and our Friends to expend a considerable Sum of Money to furnish Ministers with Catechisms a hundred whereof we have sent unto you beseeching you to use your best prudence and utmost diligence for the spreading of them and for others improvement by them that our labour and charge in so good a work prove not at last of no effect Sir we shall humbly propose unto you but not impose upon you But let us be bold with you in Ghrist to lay our requests before you as touching this concernment they being indeed what judicious friends and brethren have thought fit to propound 1. That the People be publikely and privately instructed about the high necessity and great usefulness of this Dutie 2. That these Catechisms be freely given to all that will promise to use them 3. That you would be pleased
very subject to misplace our grief and to mistake the Ground and Object of our sorrow So did these Daughters of Jerusalem you see they wept where they should not and they wept not where they should And therefore Christ Corrects their Sorrow in the Text Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your Children A great part of the sin and corruption that hath invaded humane nature consists in the disorder and distemper of our passions and affections lies especially in two things either when we miss the right object or transgress the just measure When they are either ill placed or ill proportioned When we mistake in either of them When we are troubled where we should not or too much troubled where we should we are much to be condemned And both of these we are very subject to The first is pertinent to our purpose we are extreamly apt to grieve and to be troubled where we should not It is no wonder that we find Esau faulty here mistaken in the object of his sorrow He sought Repentance and sought it carefully with tears as you may see Heb. 12. 17. But what Repentance did he seek with tears Alas he missed his mark he sought not his own but his Fathers Repentance feign he would have his Father to Repent of his pouring out the blessing on his younger brother Jacob and consequently to revoke it and to call it back again But when he saw that was not to be done and heard his Father say I have blessed him and he shall be blessed he lifted up his voice and wept Gen. 27. 38. Yea the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour Christ himself mistook in this that they misapplyed their sorrow They were extreamly grieved and troubled that Christ was ready to depart and to withdraw his fleshly presence from them Whereas he tells them plainly It is expedient for you that I go away John 16. 7. It is not only expedient for me but it is expedient for you so that here was no real cause of grief and sorrow And hence our Saviour puts a stop upon it John 14. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled q d. I see that you misplace your grief Come it must not be so I will not have it to be so lot not your hearts be troubled Poor Mary was greatly at a loss in this particular she stood besides the sepulcher of Christ Weeping John 11. 20. Why what 's the matter The Body of the Lord is gone Had she found him dead there it seems she had been very well content So that her grief and sorrow was in deed although she did not understand it and intend it so that Christ was Risen She should have wept over an unbelieving heart that doubted of the Resurrection of her Saviour and not over an empty Grave from which his Body was deliver'd God having loosed the pains of Death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it Acts 2. 24. I might add other instances but these may satisfie to clear the point That we are very subject to misplace our grief and to mistake the ground and object of our sorrow And there are two especial causes of it viz. Either because our understanding is 〈◊〉 or our Affections are mislaid Reas. 1 Sometimes we are very subject to misplace our grief because our understanding is misled We do not Judg aright of that which is indeed the only or the greatest cause of trouble Some apprehend their tears are fitter to be spent on their Afflictions then their sins They see no great hurt in sin but they feel much in Affliction Affliction is a grievous thing to them but corruption is not so There is a principle in Nature which makes a man averse from penal evil but there is none at all that maketh him averse from sinful evil so that a man needs nothing else but Nature to make him sensible of penal evils of Afflictions but he needs more then Nature to make him sensible of sin And hence it is because the greater part of men have nothing else but Nature in them that they are so exceedingly affected with the one and so regardless of the other Now these affections follow apprehensions as they always do They are mistaken in their judgments and so they misapply their passions They look upon their sins as small matters but they amplifie their troubles and afflictions as he in the Poet I am ten times twenty times an hundred times miserable And hence they weep for their afflictions and will not be comforted while they have not a tear to spend upon their sins And this in probability was Israels case Ier. 30. 15. They were extreamly troubled at the miseries that were upon them but they were little troubl'd at their sins They cryed because of their Afflictions they did not only sigh and mourn and grieve and weep but more then so they cry'd aloud which shews extremity of sorrow But we hear nothing of any sorrow for their sins And therefore God comes in and interrupts them why what 's the matter with you can you tell why you take on in this fashion Why criest thou for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine Iniquitie because thy sins are increased And so for penal evils they mistake there too They think that Temporal Judgments are greater and heavier then spiritual judgments They take the bodily plague to be worse then the plague of the heart a famine of Corn then the famine of the word and so they grieve more for the one then for the other and they had rather lose their Saviour then their 〈◊〉 That is the first reason then why we misplace our grief Because our understanding is misled 2. The second is Because our Affection is misled I mean our love for love is the commander of our other passions It is the first and great wheel of the soul that carries all the rest about and governs them as it pleaseth Love is the strongest of the passions and Affections and therefore all the rest yield to it and are greatly sway'd by it And by this means it comes to pass that if we misplace our Love we are in danger to misplace our sorrow For we shall surely grieve for that most which we love best whether it be best or not Oh what a deal of vain unnecessary sorrow do many throw themselves into by misapplying this Affection Their love is setled where it should not be or it is stronger then it ought to be to such a friend to such a comfort to such a relation and when they find a disappointment by the removall or the change of that which they have set their hearts too much upon their grief is answerable to their love Strong affections especially when they miscarry in the object of them do cast men into strong Afflictions Oh how was David overcome with the death of Absalom though yet indeed the cutting of him off was
passeth all Understanding keep your Hearts and minds I am Yours to serve you and for you with all readiness of mind JOS. ALLEINE From the Prison at Juelchester July 28th 1665. LETTER XXI What do you more than others To the most Dearly Beloved the Servants in Taunton Grace and Peace Most loving and entirely Beloved YOu are a great Joy to me I know not what thanks to render to the Lord for you when I hear of your Constancy and Pidelity and Zeal in adhering to him and his Ways even in such a time as this you are highly favoured Blessed be the Lord God of Israel that he hath regarded the low Estates of his Servants That he should ever Indulge you as he hath and Hover over you even as the Eagle stirreth up her Nest and fluttereth over her Young spreadeth abroad her Wings taketh them beareth them on her Wings for so hath the Lord your God dealt with You He hath kept you as the Apple of his Eye and since the Streams of Cherith were dried up yet to this day he hath not suffered the handful of Meal to wast nor the Oyl in the Cruse to fail but though you have no certainty to trust to hath continually provided for you to the full How should I love and bless the Lord for this his great Grace towards you while I live Now I beseech you my Brethren that you consider the Kindness of the Lord for the Lord your God is he that careth for you and that you love the Lord your God and fear him for ever for he is your Life and the Length of your Daies And as Job had a holy fear of his Children least they should have offended So my most dearly Beloved I am jealous of you with a Godly jealousie lest any of you should receive this Grace of God in vain I must not cease to put you in mind that God doth look for no small matters from You. Remember my most endeared Charge that the Lord doth look for singular things from you that there be not a barren Tree nor a Dwarf Christian among you where the Lord doth strow much he looks to gather much and where he soweth much he expects to reap accordingly Whose account my Beloved is like to be so great as yours O look about you and think of the Master coming to Reckon with you for his Talents when he will expect no small increase Beloved what can you do How much are you grown What spoil have you made upon your Corruptions What progress in Grace Suppose Christ should put that awakening Question to you What do you more than others Beloved God doth expect more of his People than of any others in the World besides And well he may For First He hath bestowed more on them than on others Now where much is given much shall be required Can you think of that without trembling He hath bestowed on them singular Love more than on others You only have I known of all the Families on Earth He hath a distinguishing Love and Favour for his People and he looks that his Love should be a constraining Argument to Obedience Again he hath laid out a singular care on his People more than on others He cares for no man for nothing in all the World in comparison of them He reproveth Kings for their sakes He will give Nations and Kingdomes for their Ransome So precious are they in his sight and so dearly Beloved that he will give men for them and People for their Life He withdraweth not his Eyes from the Righteous he will not indure them out of his sight The Eyes of the Lord are upon the Righteous and first the Eye of his more accurate Observation God can wink at others as it were and overlook what they do with little notice but he hath a most curious eye upon his People he marketh their steps and booketh their words he weigheth their Actions and pondereth all their goings And should not they walk more cautiously and charily than any alive that are under so exact and curious an Eye Secondly the Eye of special Care and Protection Behold the Eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him I will guide thee with mine Eye And should not they be infinitely tender and careful how to please the Lord who have his singular Care laid out on them In short God hath bestowed on them singular Priviledges more than others These are a peculiar Treasure to him above all People a Kingdome of Priests an Holy Nation a singular separated People they dwell alone they are diverse from all People When the whole World lies in wickedness these are Called and Chosen and Faithful Washed and justified and Sanctified in the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God The rest are the Refuse These the Jewels These are taken and they are left Shall not Gods Priests be Cloathed with Righteousness and shall not Princes Live above the rate of Peasants Secondly He hath intrusted them with more than others Not onely with the Talents of his Grace for the increase whereof they must give a strict account but also with the Jewel of his Glory How tenderly should they walk that are entrusted with such a Jewel Remember your Makers Glory is bound up in your fruitful walking Thirdly He hath qualified them more than others He hath put into them a Principle of Life having quickned them together with Christ. He hath set up a Light in their Minds when others lie in Darkness He hath given them other Aids than others have even his Spirit to help their Infirmities when others lie like Vessels that are Windbound and cannot stir Fourthly He hath provided for them other manner of things than for others These are the little Flock to whom it is his good pleasure to give the Kingdom great are the preparations for them The Father hath prepared the Kingdome for them from the Foundations of the World The Son is gone to Heaven on purpose to prepare a place for them The Spirit is preparing them and making them meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light And should these be like other People Brethren beloved God and Men do expect you should do more than others see that that you be indeed singular For 1. If you do no more for God than others he will do more against you then others You onely have I known therefore will I punish you The barren Tree in the Vineyard must down whereas had he been in the Common he might have stood much longer God looked for Grapes from his Vineyard on which he had bestowed such Care and Cost more than ordinary but when they bring forth wild Grapes he will lay them waste in a worse manner than the Forrest When Christ came to the Figg-tree seeking Fruit and met with none he Curst it from the Root whereas had it been a Thorn or Bramble it might have stood as before 2. If you do no