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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23622	The life & death of Mr. Joseph Alleine, late teacher of the church at Taunton, in Somersetshire, assistant to Mr. Newton whereunto are annexed diverse Christian letters of his, full of spiritual instructions tending to the promoting of the power of Godliness, both in persons and families, and his funeral sermon, preached by Mr. Newton.	Alleine, Theodosia.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.; Alleine, Joseph, 1634-1668. Christian letters full of spiritual instructions.; Newton, George, 1602-1681. Sermon preached at the funeral of Mr. Joseph Alleine.	1672 (1672)	Wing A1013_PARTIAL; Wing N1047_PARTIAL; ESTC R19966	231,985	333

morning then making their resolves and piously fore-casting the Work of the day following and by an impartial survey and examination in the evening of their Compliance or Non-compliance with their foregoing Prescriptions unto themselves whether they obtained their designs and ends and how they acquitted themselves in the day foregoing His delight in Self-examination Thus by pointing at the two extreams in each day he happily secured the middle He tacitely convinced them by his own example and great growth in Piety hereby and expresly by many other eminent instances how advantagious a course he had recommended to them To this end he much applauded those two no less excellent than common Books the Practice of Piety and Scudders daily Walk By this course he had taught himself and others as by constant though small gains to arrive to great acquests in Christianity by constant and short accounts the more accurately to know the state of their Souls and the more easily to discern their Progress or Declinings so as the more to rejoyce in and promote the one and the sooner to put limits to and redress the other Also he much inculcated on each Christian that important duty of fore-appointing and fixing his ends not onely in the general but as much as might be particularly and explicitely before each action of the day but especially each solemn Action revolving and conceiving such a Thought and Resolve as this in his Mind His frequent and generous Designs This or this will I do for GOD c. By which heedful course he assured the Observer that he would hallow all his Actions and reap this treble advantage to say no more both of espousing the Divine Direction and Blessing and of obtaining a surer Testimony of his sincerity and also a stronger motive to Diligence and an awful circumspectness in the right discharge of what he undertook In complyance with this his excellent Exhortation unto others he knew not a day wherein he arose without some Heavenly design of promoting GOD's Glory and the good of Souls accounting it a shame that the Covetous should arise with such anxious projects of compassing his desired Wealth the Ambitious his aiery Honours and Grandeur the Voluptuous his vain Pleasures and that the Religious who have so glorious a Prize and Trophies before their eyes should be Men of no Projects or Designs If of any it may be affirmed of him that according to his frequent and vehement Exhortation thereunto he made Religion his business Which worthy advice in the same words he did so often inculcate that a Gentleman meeting a plain honest Countrey Man and discoursing of Mr. Allein cavil'd at this passage which he had often heard from him as appearing unto him absur'd and unintelligible not knowing how any thing as he said could be called a Man's business unless that which is secular so foolishly ignorant of the just Interest and Power of Religion is an unhallowed heart and so apt to quarrel with that wholesome advice and loth to be in earnest in any thing unless in the pursuit of Vanity or Vice His Delight in Meditation Neither did onely the frequent and faithful performance of the two great difficulties of Christianity viz. Reproof and Self-Examination consisting of so many complicated Self-denyals proclaim and improve his great Piety but also his so great acquaintance with the delightsome Work of Heavenly Meditation A Specimen of his profitable managery of this Work and his great Heights herein he often gave in some of his most excellent devotional and contemplative Discourses both dropt from his Mouth and committed to Writing And as was his delight so were his Converses with those Authors who did encrease his contemplative Pleasure but particularly he delighted in Mr. Baxters Platform of Meditation on the Heavenly Felicity in the close of his Saints Everlasting Rest great part whereof he so digested as often to cite it with great pleasure prefacing his Citations with these words Most divinely saith that Man of GOD Holy Mr. Baxter c. And indeed had not his zeal for GOD's Glory and the Salvation of Souls engaged him so much to an Active Life he could have even lived and dyed wholly in Divine Contemplation and Adoration so much did he delight to shrink within himself and to abandon the view of the desperate Adventures and Antick Motions of a mad World that so being shut to these he might onely open his Soul to GOD and Glory displaying it to the glorious Beams of the Sun of Righteousness Therefore did he often delight in his devotions to converse with the Fowls of the Air and the Beasts of the Field since these were more innocent and less degenerate than Man With Streams and Plants did he delight to walk and all these did utter to his attentive Ear the Praise and Knowledge of his Creator and in his unsetled sojournings from place to place he did often to use his Words look back with sweetness and great content on the places of his former pleasant retirements setting as it were a Mark upon those which had marvellously pleased him in his Solitudes by administring to his contemplative delight His delight in Praising c. In the Close His great perfection in holiness was manifest in that he loved so much and lived a life of Praise and Thanksgiving Being arrived to some perfection he desired and designed to antedate the Work and Songs of Spirits made perfect Thus David much proclaimed his perfection in Piety by his so great heights in this Heavenly Employment And its Evident that Saints most devoted to this Heavenly repast are most perfect because the more Men adore and praise the less they want for sad and constant Complaints and pensive Thoughts are the Attendants of great wants and the less men want the more is their perfection His Exhortations to Christians did frequently design to raise them to that sublime life of Praise and Thanksgiving Often hath he reproved Christians charging them with the greatest folly and ingratitude in so much neglecting this so pleasing and profitable duty and in interessing it so little in their Religious Exercises He much condemned them for that too general practice in thrusting so enlarging a part of their Devotions into so narrow a Room as only the close of their Prayers Especially did he excite Christians to this Duty on the Lord's Day as the most proper Work for so Divine a Festival Shaming them with the excellent Example of the Primitive Christians who welcomed in the Sun that brought so glorious a Day as the Christian Sabbath with their Heavenly Hymnes to their Creator and Redeemer And reproving them for so little considering and observing the proper end of its Institution But as he respects his own practice a great yea and sometimes the greatest part of his Prayer was Thanks-giving and indeed he was never so much in his Element either in Prayer or in Preaching as when he was extolling and adoring the Love of Christ and

the wicked World look then O come let us make haste our Lord will come shortly let us prepare If we long to be in Heaven let us hasten with our Work for when that is done away we shall be fetcht O this vain foolish dirty World I wonder how reasonable Creatures can so dote upon it What is in it worth the looking after I care not to be in it longer than while my Mvster hath either doing or suffering work for me were that done farewel to Earth He was much in commending the Love of Christ and from that exciting himself and me to obedience to him often speaking of his Sufferings and of his Glory 〈◊〉 Of his Love-Letters as he called the Holy History of his Life Death Resurrection Ascention and his Second coming The thoughts of which he seemed alwayes to be much ravished with He would be frequently reckoning the choice Tokens Christ had sent him which I remember he would frequently reckon up 1. The Pardon of Sin 2. A Patent for Heaven 3. The Gift of the Spirit 4. The Robe of his Righteousness 5. The spoyles of Enemies 6. The Charter of all Liberties and Priviledges 7. The Guard of his Angels The consideration of this last he did frequently solace himself in saying to me often when we lived alone in the Prison and divers other Places Well my Dear though we have not our Attendants and Servants as the Great Ones and Rich of the World have we have the Blessed Angels of God still to wait upon us to minister to us and to watch over us while we are sleeping to be with us when journeying and still to preserve us from the rage of Men and Devils He was exceedingly affected with the three last Chapters of Saint John's Gospel especially Christ's parting Words and Prayer for his Disciples But it is time for me to set a stop to my Pen God did pour into him and he did pour out so much that it was scarce possible to retain the Converses of one day without a constant Register His Heart his Lips his Life was filled up with Grace In which he did thine both in Health and Sickness Prosperity and Adversity in Prison and at Liberty in his own House and in the Churches of Christ where-ever he came I never heard any that conversed with him but would acknowledge it was to their advantage At my Husbands first coming to Taunton he was entertained by Mr. Newton as a Sojourner and after he was ordained in Taunton in a Publick Association Meeting he administred all Ordinances joyntly with him though he were but an Assistant Mr. Newton would have it so who dearly loved him and highly esteemed of him and seeing him restless in his Spirit and putting himself to many tedious Journeys to visit me as he did once a Fortnight 25 miles he perswaded him to marry contrary to our purpose we resolving to have lived much longer single The 4th of October 1655. after a year and two Months acquaintance our Marriage was consummated And we lived together with Mr. Newton near two years where we were most courteously entertained and then hopeing to be more useful in our Station we took a House and I having been alwayes bred to work undertook to teach a School and had many Tablers and Scholars our Family being seldome less than Twenty and many times Thirty My School usually fifty or sixty of the Town and other places And the Lord was pleased to bless us exceedingly in our endeavours So that many were converted in a few years that were before Strangers to God All our Scholars called him Father And indeed he had far more care of them than most of their natural Parents and was most tenderly affectionate to them but especially to their Souls His course in his Family was Prayer and reading the Scriptures and singing twice a day except when he catechised which was constantly once if not twice a Week Of every Chapter that was read he expected an account of and of every Sermon either to himself or me He dealt with them and his Servants frequently together and apart about their Spiritual states pressing them to all their Duties both of First and Second-Table and calling them strictly to account Whether they did not omit them He also gave them Books suitable to their Capacities and Condition which they gave a weekly account of to him or me but too often by publick Work was he diverted as I am apt to think who knew not so well what was to be preferred His lords-Lords-Days Work was great for though he Preacht but once in his own Place yet he was either desired by some of his Brethren to supply theirs on any Exigency or would go where was no Minister and so was forced often to leave his Family to me to my great grief and loss In his Repetitions in Publick as well as Catechising his own Family came all in their turns to Answer in the Congregation both Scholars and Servants When I have pleaded with him for more of his time with my Self and Family he would answer me His Ministerial Work would not permit him to be so constant as he would for if he had Ten Bodies and Souls he could imploy them all in and about Taunton And would say Ah my Dear I know thy Soul is safe But how many that are Perishing have I to look after O that I could do more for them He was a Holy Heavenly Tenderly-Affectionate Husband and I know nothing I could complain of but that he was so taken up that I could have but very little converse with him His love was expressed to me in his great care for me Sick and Well in his Provision for me in his Delight in my Company saying often He could not bear to be from me but when he was with God or imployed for him and that often it was hard for him to deny himself to be so long absent It was irksome to him to make a Meal without me nor would he manage any Affair almost without conversing with me concealing nothing from me that was fit for me to know being far from the Temper of those Husbands who hide all their Concerns from their Wives which he could not indure to hear of especially in Good Men. He was a faithful reprover of any thing he saw amiss in me which I took as a great evidence of his real good will to my Soul and if in any thing he gave me offence which was but seldom so far would he deny himself as to acknowledge it and desire me to pass it by professing to me he could never rest till he had done so and the like I was ready to do to him as there was far more reason by which course if any difference did arise it was soon over with us He was a very tender Master to his Servants every way expressing it to their Souls and Bodies giving them that incouragement in their places they could desire expecting from his whole

more did as Thuanus at large or as Scultetm in his Curriculum vitae suae at least or yet as Junius and many others that give us a Breviate of the most considerable Passages of their own lives Because no man knoweth usually those intimate Transactions of God upon mens Souls which are the Life of such History or at least no useless part But men are commonly supposed to be so selfishly partial and apt to over-value all their own and to fish for applause and it is so meet to avoid appearances of Pride and Ostentation that few think meet to take this course And the next desirable is That their intimate Friends would write their Lives at large who are best able as Camerarius hath done Melancthons and Beza Calvins and as the Lives of Bucholtzer Chytreaas and many more are written But none of all this must be expected concerning this our Brother Because he was young and taken away before any had thoughts of gathering up his Words or Actions for any such use Those that have done this little being his Fathers and Seniors who looked to have died long before him And because he lived in a time of Trouble and Division and Suspition in which every man had great concernments of his own to mind and in which men are afraid of praising the Holy Servants of God lest it offend those that in some things differed from them The special Excellency of this Worthy Man lay chiefly in the Harmony and Compleatness of such particular Gifts and all of them in a high Degree as use to exalt the fame of others in whom some one or few of them is found And all these in a man so young as unless in one Job Picus Mirandula one Keckerman one Pemble in a Countrey is rarely to be found Do you desire the Preparatives of Languages and Philosophy In these he was Eximious as his Treatise de Providentia Licensed for the Press of which more anon doth shew with several other Manuscripts of like nature How throughly had he searched the Writings of Philosophers How fully had he found out how much Natural Reason doth attest and speak for the Attributes and Providence of God and the Principles of a Godly Life And how much Super-natural Revelation presupposeth and findeth ready to entertain it and befriend it in the Light and Law of Nature How excellently able was he to deal with the Naturalist at his own Weapons aud to shame them that call Religion an unproved or unreasonable thing No doubt it was an excellent help to his own Faith to have so clear and full a sight of all those Subsidiary natural Verities which are known propriae luce and are out of the reach of those malignant Suggestions by which the Tempter is often questioning Supernatural Truths Few Christians and too few Divines do dig so deep and proceed so wisely as to take in all these natural helps but overpassing those presupposed Verities do ost leave themselves open to the subtil affaults of the Tempter who knoweth where the Breach is and will some times urge such Objections on them as need a Solution 〈◊〉 those helps which they are ignorant of Do you look for an high degree of Zeal In this he was Marvellous being a living Fire continually burning in the love of God and Man still mounting upward and kindling all that were capable about him As prone to Fervour and Activity as earthen Natures to Cold and Idleness not weary of well doing not speaking slightly and with indifferent affection of the great Jehovah and of holy things but with the reverence and seriousness as became one that by Faith still saw the Lord Not doing God's Work with an unwilling or a sluggish heart as if he did it not nor as those that fear being losers by God or of giving him more than he deserveth or getting Salvation at too dear a rate But as a Soul that was Kin to Angels which are active Spirits and a flame of Fire that came from God the Lord of Life and Father of Spirits and liveth in God and is working and passing up to God As one that knew that none other work was worthy of a Man and approveable by any Reason save that which is made a Salve to sense except onely the Souls Resignation Obedience and Love to God and the seeking of the Heavenly durable Felicity in the use of all those Means which God in Nature and Scripture hath appointed for the obtaining of it It is too common to find men that are long and deep Students in Philosophy and the Doctrinals and Methods of Theologie to be found none of the most Zealous or serious Divines and for the learnedst Doctors to be but of the coursest and weakest sort of Christians Because they exercise the Head almost alone and take little pains to work what Truths they know upon their Hearts As if the head were more diseased with sin than the Heart is and the Heart had not as much need of a Cure Or as if God's Grace did not as much dwell in the Will as in the Understanding and the Heart had not the noblest Work to do Life Light and Love are the Inseparable Influences and Effects of the Sanctifying Spirit But yet sometimes the Indisposition of the Receiver may keep out one of them more than the rest Light alone may be profitable to the Church by breeding Light in others But Life and Love also are as suitable means to produce their like as Light is And without them it is not a flashy Light and frigid Knowledge that will save the Soul And on the other side alass how ordinary is it for Zeal to make a bussle in the Dark and for those that are very earnest to be very blind And strong Affections not to God himself but about the exercise of Religious Duties to be guided by a weak Understanding And so for such well-meaning Persons to make most haste when they are out of the way and to divide and trouble the Church and Neighbourhood by their fervency in Errour till late Experience hath ripened them to see what mischief their Self-conceitedness hath done O! how happy were the Church of God if great Understanding and fervent Zeal were ordinarily as well conjoyned as they were in this worthy Man And many have much Reading and plentiful Materials for Learning who yet were never truly Learned as being Injudicious and never having well digested what they Read into the habits of solid Understanding But so was it not with this our Brother as his very Letters fully witness How clearly and solidly doth he resolve that great Question which he speaketh to As one that had Theologie not in his Books only but in his Head and Heart And I account it no small part of his Excellency that his Judgment led him to dwell so much on the great Essentials of Godliness and Christianity the Love of God and a holy just and sober Life And that he laid not out his

to weep Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me And in the second place we have his permission in which he alloweth them to weep but weep for your selves and for your Children And yet you see he doth not here command and forbid the same things in the same respect but in relation to a diverse object In relation to himself he forbiddeth them to weep Weep not for me In relation to themselves he alloweth them to weep but weep for your selves and for your Children The total final and irreparable 〈◊〉 of Jerusalem was near at hand our Saviour had it in his eye when he spake these words He wept apace for this himself but a little while before as you may see Luke 19. 41. He behold the city and wept over it First he beholds it with his eye and then his eye affects his heart Wo and alas saith he while in a pang of holy pity and compassion the tears come flowing down his cheeks If thou hadst known even thou at least in this thy day the things which belong unto thy peace but now they are hid from thine eyes And therefore he alloweth them to weep for this who are to have a share and portion in that dreadful desolation But for himself who willingly submitted to the death which he was leading to and all the other circumstances of his passion who was beloved of him who had appointed and designed him to it who was God as well as Man and therefore able to endure it and to overcome it too and who was shortly to be rescued from the jaws of death and so triumphantly to enter into Glory He forbiddeth them to weep weep not so me but weep for your selves and for c. So that the purpose of our Saviour is not wholly to suppress but to rectifie their sorrow They wept for him out of a childish kind of pity but they wept not for their sins nor the unseen calamities that were about to come upon them And therefore Christ endeavours to withdraw their sorrow from the wrong and fix it on the right object And to this end he shews them why they should not weep and why they should Weep not for me but for your selves and for your Children Two Observations lie before us in the Text. The first That it is not unlawful nor unfit sometimes to express our grief in tears The second That we are very oubject to misplace our grief and to mistake the ground and object of our sorrow I shall speak to these in order beginning with the first Doct. That it is not unlawful nor unfit sometimes to express our grief in tears We have our Saviours warrant for it in the Text weep for your selves and for your children There weep and weep on How often are we called upon to weep in Scripture Oh what a cloud of weepers shall we find there who are all witnesses to this great truth And some of them the wisest and the holiest mentioned in the Book of God without exception Our Saviour Christ himself the holy One and the Wisdom of God was a very great Weeper He was a man of sorrows not of a few but many sorrows Isa. 53. 3. You never read he laughed in all his Story but you find he wept often In the days of his flesh he offered up strong cries and tears to God Heb. 5. 7. He wept for his beloved Lazarus John 11. 35. And if we do the like on this occasion we have a great Example in our eye He melted over poor undone Jerusalem with many tears who had over-pass'd the day of her gracious Visitation Look up and down among the poor afflicted and distressed People of the Lord and you shall find that tears have been as ordinary with them as their daily food Thou feedest them saith Asaph Psal. 80. 5. With the bread of tears and givest them tears to drink Tears were both their Meat and Drink and it seems they had their fill of this Diet This was the Legacy our Saviour lest to his Diseiples ye shall 〈◊〉 John 16. 22. It is observed of the Saints they sow in tears they go forth weeping bearing precious Seed Psal. 126. 5. 〈◊〉 time of sowing is a time of weeping They sow in showry weather in a rainy time the Seed they sow most commonly is steep'd in tears Mine eye saith holy David is consumed with grief Psal. 6. 7. He wept so much that he was shriveled up to nothing like a bottle in a smoak as his own expression is Plal. 119 83. You see then it is not unlawful nor unfit sometimes to express our grief in tears But you will ask me what these times are I will tell you in a word Sinning times and Suffring times are weeping times A word or two of these in order 1. Sinning times are weeping times And that whether they be sinning times with others or our selves 1. Sinning times with others must be sorrowing times with us Our Saviours Bowels rowl'd within him when he look'd about and saw the hardness of the Peoples hearts Mark 3. 5. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes saith holy David to the Lord Psal. 119. 136. because men keep not thy Law If they will not hear saith Jeremiah Chap. 13. 17. My soul shall weep in secret places for their pride and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears My Soul and Eye shall weep together You shall observe that those whom God appointed to be marked and singled out for preservation in a common desolation were such as sighed and cried for the abominations of Jerusalem Ezek. 9. 4. They did not only keep themselves from the abominations of the time and place on which the Providence of God had cast them but they mourned for them in others They were not meer abstainers but they were mourners weepers too and so were snatched as fire-brands out of the burnings and set as monuments of the Mercy of God Brethren if you define to be preserved in times of common desolation when the judgments of the Lord are abroad upon the earth and on the places of your habitation and to be safe in the day of his anger work your hearts to this temper while other men are sinning be you mourning While others are committing horrible abominations be you lamenting and bewailing them sighing and crying for those abominations That when God comes to visit he may find the sighs breathing from your hearts the drops running down your cheeks and all about you wet with tears 2. And as sinning times with others so our own sinning times especially must be our weeping times Though David were a good man yet he was a great sinner and so he was a great weeper In Psal. 6. 6. We find him even drowned in tears All the night long faith he I make my Bed to swim and water my Couch with my tears An Hyperbolical expression of unmeasurable weping So Mary Magdalon had much forgiven her and thereupon she loved much and wept much