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
evidence that his sins were pardoned and his Person accepted in Jesus into eternal Life and had more glorious fore-tastes of Heaven I remember once coming in when he was kneeling down to Family Prayer his Heart was in that Duty carried forth into such expressions of love and praise for the sealings of everlasting Love and Life as I never heard before or since and such as I am fully satisfied none could express but who had received the White Stone with the new Name in it But this was not accidental to him or unusual for whatever Clouds he might possibly have though I know of none yet I am sure for a good time before his death he lived in the very dawning to Glory both in the full assurance of it as his Portion and a Spirit of Sanctity Love and Praise like unto it And though in the very hour of his dying his Disease had heat his Head and in his Raptures he had Expressions which at another time his Grace and Reason would not have used yet all the Copies I have seen of those Transports in the substance of them speak only fuller assurance of God's Love to him and his highest returns of love to Christ again And I do not at all wonder that a Person shining so much with the Divine Image and living so uninterruptedly in the clearest and nearest Divine Communion should enjoy such assurance of God's everlasting Love and be filled so with Joy therein and making such returns of Love and Praise thereto CHRISTIAN LETTERS FULL OF Spiritual Instructions TENDING To the Promoting of the Power of Godliness both in Persons and Families Anno Dom. 1672. CHRISTIAN LETTERS Full of SPIRITUAL INSTUCTIONS Tending To the Promoting of the Power of Godliness both in Persons and Families LETTER 1. To his Wife to Dispose her to his Acceptance of Taunton on small Maintenance My Dear Heart BY this time I hope thou hast received mine by Martin and also an Answer touching their Resolution at Taunton My thoughts have been much upon that Business of late so small as the outward Incouragements in point of Maintenance are and methinks I find my heart much Inclining that way I will tell thee the Principles upon which I go First I say this for a Foundation That a mans Life consisteth not in the Abundance of the things that he possesseth It was accounted a wise Prayer that 〈◊〉 put up of old that he might only be Fed with Food convenient for him And certain it is that where men have least of the World they esteem it least and live more by Faith and in dependance upon God casting their care and burden upon him O the sweet breathings of Davids soul the strong actings of his Faith and Love that we find come from him when his condition was low and mean in the World How closely doth he cling How fully doth he Relie upon God The Holy Ghost seems to make it a Priviledge to be brought to a necessity of living by Faith as I think I have formerly hintted thee out of Deut. 11. 10. 11. where Canaan is prefer'd before AEgypt in regard of its dependance upon God for the former and latter Rain which in AEgypt they could live without and have supplies from the River And certainly could we that are unexperienced but feel the Thorns of those cares and troubles that there are in gathering and keeping much and the danger when Riches increase of setting our hearts upon them we should prize the happiness of a middle condition much before it Doubtless Godliness with contentment is great gain Seekest thou great things for thy self saith the Prophet to Baruch seek them not Certainly a good Conscience is a continual Feast and enough for a happy Life no man that Wareth intangleth himself with the affairs of this Life that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a Souldier We should be but little Incumbred with the things of this World and withal free from a World of Intanglements which in a great place committed wholly to our charge would be upon our Consciences as no small Burden Secondly I take this for an undoubted truth that a dram of Grace is better than a Talent of Wealth and therefore such a place where our Consciences would be free and we had little to do in the World to take off our hearts and thoughts from the things of Eternity and had the advantage of abundance of means and the daily opportunities of warming our hearts with the 〈◊〉 Society and Conference of Heavenly Christians and no temptations to carry us away nor discouragements in our walking with God and the due performance of our duty is if we pass a true and Spiritual Judgement as the Holy Ghost in Scripture would without comparison before another place void of those Spiritual helps and advantages Let us think with our selves what though our Purses our Estates may thrive better in a place of a larger maintenance yet where are our graces our souls like to thrive any way answerable to what they are in this We should have but little in the World and we could live hereafter but alas what is this if it be made up to us as it will surely be in Communion with God and his People If we thrive in Faith and Love Humility and Heavenly mindedness as above all places I know we are likely to do there what matter is it though we do not raise our selves in the World the thing it may well be accounted but mean but alas let us look upon it with a spiritual Eye and then we shall pass another Judgement of it Oh! who would leave so much Grace and so much comfort in Communion with Christ and his Saints as we may gain there for the probabilities of living with a little more gentility and handsomness in the world 'T is a strange thing to see how Christians generally do judge so carnally of things looking to the things that are seen and Temporal and not the things that will stick by us to Eternity What is it worth a year is the Maintenance certain and sure What charges are there like to be these are the questions we commonly ask first when we speak of setling But alas though those things are duly to be considered too yet what good am I like to do what good am I like to get Both which questions I think might be as comfortably Answered concerning this as any place in England These should be the main Interrogatories and the chief things we should judge of a place to settle in by What if we have but a little in the World Why then we must keep but a short Table and shall make but a little noise in the World and must give the meaner entertainments to our Friends O but will not this be abundantly made up if we have more outward and inward Peace as we may well count we shall have One dram of saving Grace will weigh down all this Let others 〈◊〉 themselves in
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
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
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
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
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
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
cast away upon you So that our Brother might have said in reference to many as the Prophet did I have spent my strength in vain However he is glorious with his God But I am very much afraid that many of you will find this holy witness who is now ascended Witnessing against you when the day of trial comes Dear Friends Be not offended if I tell you that your sins have had a stroke in the Sickness and the Weakness and the death of your deservedly beloved Minister They were our sins that killed Christ He was bruised for our iniquities and broken for our sins He bare our sins in his Body on the Tree And so they are our sins that kill the Ministers of Christ. You have often seen your Saviour slain before you by and for your sins Now you have seen a holy Minister of his slain by the same hands And yet your sins live still to do more such work and the Lord knows where it will end There is no Execution done upon them who have done such dreadful Execution in our view Oh let your hearts break and your Tears run down till your Lusts be broken mortified and destroyed or else they will break you and destroy you If you have any love to Christ to the Ministers of Christ or to your Selves you may see cause enough to weep though not for our deceased Brother yet for your selves and for your sins That 's the first thing then weep for the sins that you have done 2. For the Judgments that now you may be like to suffer To this our Saviour referreth in the Text weep for your selves and for your children That is for the extremity of Wrath and 〈◊〉 V engeance that is about to come on you and them Even so say I to you my Brethren with the Apostle James 5. 1. Go to now weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you Oh let not that complaint of the Prophet Isaiah 57. 1. Be renewed against you The Righteous perisheth and no man laieth it to heart and merciful men are taken away none considering that the Righteous is taken away from the evil to come Our dear Brother now deceased was a Righteous man yea a Preacher of Righteousness The Lord you see hath taken him away Oh what evil is to come When such as he are hous'd what dreadful storms may there be like to fall Brethren the holy Ministers of God are the peoples Life-guard The Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof 2 Kings 13. 14. They are anointed Cherubs that Cover They are a Shelter and a Covering from the Storm and from the Rain Sometimes they are called Shepherds and the business of a Shepherd is to keep and save the Flock Sometimes they are called Angels and Angels are the Guardians of the Lords people They Guard and Cover and Protect a People Now this they do while they instruct them so to walk that wrath may not come upon them while they Intercede with God and stand up in the breach to keep out the Indignation that is flowing in upon it A praying Minister and such a one have you lost one that bare you on his Heart continually before the Lord as Aaron did the names of Israel on his Breast-plate I say a praying Minister is a Protection to the People It s true the fervent Prayers of the meanest Saint are an Incredible defence to any place to save it from the shokes of God And therefore even they are stiled Intercessors Isa. 59. 16. Because they mediate with God when he is Angry and by their zealous Supplications hold his hands But yet however though it be a certain truth that God hath much respect to the Petitions of his weakest Servants yea though perhaps some private Christians may Excel a holy Minister in Prayer yet God hath more regard to the Intreaties of his faithful Ministers who have a special Charge and commission to be his Remembrancers for the good of that People which he 〈◊〉 to their charge and their Petitions are of more avail and power with God both to Procure his Blessings and avert his Judgments Moses and Aaron among the Priests and Samuel among them that call on his Name They called upon the Lord and he answered them Psal. 99. 6. Why doubtless so he heard the Prayers of his other Saints But these his holy Priests and Prophets had the Ear of God as special Favourites have their Princes Ears and could be Heard and Answered when others were denied Access and Audience And this is not obseurely Intimated in that Protestation of the Lord to Israel concerning their approaching Desolation Ezek. 14. 14. Though these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it they should deliver but their own souls By which he insinuates that when the absolute Decree is once gone forth it can by no means be revok'd so he suggests withal that if it had been feasible these holy 〈◊〉 would have done it q. d. were those three men in Israel they would put me to it hard and try me shrewdly to forbear the Land I should be hardly able to deny them He said he would destroy them had not Moses stood before him in the breach to turn away his wrath Psal. 106. 23. Oh how did Moses stand against him and bind the Hands of the Almighty when he was about to strike So that the Lord intreats and flatters with him to let him alone Exod. 32. 10. While such as Moses are Intercessors for a People God forbears he holds his Hands and restrains his Indignation as he that means to strike observes what strength there will be likely to oppose him And when he looks and sees that there is no Intercessor then he goes on with his design Isa. 59. 16. Then his Arm brings Salvation to him and he puts on the Garments of Vengeance Brethren you are in greater danger then you are aware by the removal of your Praying Minister For you have lost one Intercessor if any breach should happen between God and you Yea you have lost your Covering if a storm of Wrath should fall So that it may be said of you as it was once of Israel when Moses was a way that you are naked And what are you in Laodicea's case indeed Do you not know that you are naked Are you naked and are you not afraid Are you naked and not ashamed This would become a state of Innocence indeed in which it was observed of Adam and his Wife that they were both naked and were not 〈◊〉 Gen. 2. 5. But will it suit with such a state of sin and danger as the best of you are in Do you not find your selves uncovered Have you no sense and feeling of it Especially at such a time as this when the Judgments of the Lord are abroad upon the Earth upon the Land upon this very place in which you live more waies then I am able to express Alas alas you are uncovered whether you know it