The Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, Letters · Letter 25
LETTER XXV.
To the loving and most Beloved People, the Servants of God in Taunton, Grace and Peace.
Most dearly Beloved,
ALthough I am forced at the present, to be at a distance from You; yet I would not have you ignorant, that the dear remembrance of you is always fresh with me, and the care of your eternal Welfare is always living upon my heart. Therefore as my Beloved Friends I warn you, and cease not to stir you up by way of remembrance, being jealous for you with a Godly jealousie, that no man take your Crown. My dearly Beloved, I know you have many Enemies, and above all, I fear your bosom Enemies: and as the Watchman of the Lord, I give you careful warning, and exhort you all not to be high-minded, but fear. Blessed is the man that feareth always. Look diligently, lest any of you fail of the Grace of God. You have made much and long Profession of the Name of Jesus Christ: Oh, look to your Foundations, see upon what Ground you stand. Look to your sincerity. You must every one of you stand shortly before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and be tried for your lives: Oh, try your selves throughly first. 'Tis easie to mistake Education for Regeneration, and common Conviction and Illumination for Conversion, and a partial Reformation and external Obedience, for true Sanctification. Therefore I beseech you every one, to examine whether you are in the Faith. Prove your own selves. Tell not me, you hope you are sincere, you hope you shall go to Heaven: Never put it off with Hopes, but pray, and try, and search, till you are able to say, yea, and know you are passed from Death to Life, and that you know you have a Building, not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens.
Suppose I should ask you one by one, Where are your Evidences for Heaven? Could you make out your Claim? Can you bring me Scripture-proof? Can you shew me the Marks of the Lord Jesus? What mean you to live at Uncertainties? Brethren, it is an intollerable Ignorance for any of you in these dayes of glorious Light, not to be able to tell the distinguishing Marks of a sound Believer. And it is intollerable carelesness of your everlasting Welfare, if you do not bring your selves to the Trial by these Marks. What are your hands filled with Books, and your ears filled with Sermons, that tell you so plainly from the word of God, how you shall know whether you are in Christ, and are you still to seek? Oh, stir up your own selves. Take heed, lest a Promise being left of entring into his Rest, any of you fall short of it at last by Vnbelief. You are a Professing People, you pray, and you hear, and you run upon some Adventures for Jesus Christ: But, O look to your sincerity. Look to your Principles, look to your Ends, else you may lose all at last. Examine, not onelyonly what is done, but whence 'tis done, look to the Root, as well as to the Fruit. Eye, not onelyonly your Actions, but your Aims. Remember what a strict and severe Eye you are under. The Lord Jesus makes strict observation upon all your works and wayes. He observes who of you be fruitful, and who be barren and unprofitable. He knows who of you be thriving and who be declining. He observes, who be warm, and who lukewarm: who be sound Christians, and who of you have onelyonly a name to live.
Return, O backsliding Christians: You have lost your former Convictions, and lost your former Affections. You are grown remiss in your watch, and your Zeal is turned into a kind of indifferencie, and your diligence into negligence. Your Care is turned into Security, and your tenderness into senslessness. Oh, your case is dangerous. The Lord Jesus hath a great Controversie with you. Oh, remember whence you are fallen, and repent, and do your first works. Strengthen the things that remain, and are ready to die. Oh, rub and chafe your swooning Souls, and ply them with warm applications, and rousing considerations, till they recover their former heat. And know ye from the Lord, that the backsliders in heart shall be filled with his own wayes.
O ye barren and fruitless trees: Behold the Axe is lifted up to fell you to the ground, except you bring forth fruits, and those worthy of Repentance. May not Christ say to some among you, Behold these three years have I come, seeking fruit, and finding none? How is it then that you read not the Sentence passed on the fruitless Tree? O sleepy Professors, how long will you drive on in this heavy course? How long will you continue in an unprofitable and customary Profession? Would you be the joy of our Lord, why know ye, that the thriving Plant is the Masters praise, and his hearts delight. Christians, put on, press towards the Mark, be adding to your Faith, Virtue; and to Virtue, Knowledge, &c. See that you grow extensively, in being abundant in all forts of good works. Be pitiful, be courteous, gentle, easily to be entreated. Be slow to anger, soon reconciled. Be patient, be ye temperate, be ye chearful. Study not every one onelyonly his own things, but the good of his Neighbor. Think it not enough to look to your own Souls, but watch for others Souls. Pray for them, warn them, be kind to them, study to oblige them, that by any means you may win them, and gain their Souls.
Labour to grow intensively, to do better the things that you did before, to be more fervent in Prayer, more free and willing in all the ways of the Lord, to hear with more profit, to examine your selves more thorowly, to mind Heaven more frequently than heretofore.
And you, O carnal and unsound Professors, that reckon your selves to be in Christ, but are not new Creatures; that because you have the good opinion of the Godly, and are outwardly conformable to the wayes of God, perswade your selves you are in a good condition, although your hearts have not yet to this day been renewed: O Repent speedily. Repent, and be converted. What though we cannot distinguish the Tares from the Wheat? Yet the Lord of the Harvest can. Christ will find you out, and condemn you for rotten and unsound, unless you be soundly renewed by repentance, and effectually changed by converting Grace.
Brethren, I fervently wish your Salvation, and to this, while I am able, I shall bend my ardent endeavours, I am now taking advice for my health, and hope in some few Weeks to be restored to you. In the mean time I commend me to Your Prayers, and you to the Grace of God, remaining.
Yours in the Lord Jesus, JOS. ALLEINE. Dorchester, July 7th. 1666.