The Life and Death of Joseph Alleine, Letters · Letter 29
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 In this station I desire to approve my self to him, and that I am withdrawn from my Work for a season, it is but that I may return to you refreshed, and inabled for my Work among You.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. OnelyOnly 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 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 overvaluing 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 onelyonly 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.