A26694:540
Remains of that excellent minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. Joseph Alleine being a collection…Remaines of that excellent minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. Joseph Alleine being a collection…
Remains of that excellent minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. Joseph Alleine being a collection of sundry directions, sermons, sacrament-speeches, and letters, not heretofore published ...Remaines of that excellent minister of Jesus Christ, Mr. Joseph Alleine being a collection of sundry directions, sermons, sacrament-speeches, and letters, not heretofore published ...
London: printed for Peter Parker, 1674
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Letters › Letter: To the dearly beloved the flock of Christ in Taunton, Salvation.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
To the dearly beloved the flock of Christ in Taunton, Salvation.
Most loving and dearly beloved,
THE care of you is continually upon me. I desire no other felicity than to serve the glory of Christ in you: and to enjoy him with you. And blessed be his hame he is no stranger, neither to us, nor you. Let all his prisoners praise him: let all his people praise him. Now is the sweetness, beauty, excellency of Christ to be seen. Now may we learn the suavity of his communion, the worth of his promises, the all-sufficiency of his fullness. Now taste and see. Sit you down under the safest, sweetest shadow of his protection, and eat of his fruit. The tree is good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, (except fully blind) And a tree to be desired to make one wise. Take of the fruit thereof and eat, not as Jonathan, who tasted but a little of the honey upon the top of his rod, but eat abundantly. This is no forbidden fruit. Here is no surfeiting. You must live upon him every ⟨p. 253⟩day, and in every duty. May every one of you be able to say as Paul, to me to live is Christ: then you live like Christians when Christ is the staff of your life. When Christ is both its Spring and its end. When you take root in him, and grow up into him. May every one of you be a tree of Righteousness, whose roots may spread into him, whose aspiring top may be still shooting upward, reaching out toward him: live as those that have no life but in him. And study to be able to say as Paul, that it is not you that live, but Christ living in you. You live in vain while you live not for him: without Christ you are dead while you live. You are of him, and through him, and for him. From whom shall he have glory, if not from you? the inanimate & unreasonable Creatures, cannot praise him, unless in a dumb and silent manner, as they are the occasion and incentives of our praising him. The devils and ungodly will not praise him. The silver Trumpet of his praise is found only in the hands of a few poor believers. Ah! sound you forth his praise in the world; let your lips sing, let your light shine. Let your lives be at last as a canle wasted and burnt out in holding forth the light. Now beloved, study that you may go out with comfort, that you may have your hearts as full as they can hold, with joy; to think when you are ready to breath forth your last, well my days are run out for Christ, and my strength is exhausted in the service of Christ.