The Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, Letters · Letter 10
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 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.