I LOVE you, and long for you in the Lord, and I am weary with forbearing that good and blessed work that the Lord hath committed to me, for the furtherance of your salvation. How long, Lord, how long shall I dwell in silence? How long shall my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth? When will God open my lips, that I may stand up and praise him? But it is my Father’s good pleasure yet to keep me in a total disability of publishing his name among you; unto him my soul shall patiently subscribe. I cannot complain that he is hard to me: I am full of the mercies of the Lord, and shall I complain? Far be it from me.
*But though I may not murmur, methinks I may mourn a little, and sit down and wish, O if I may not have a tongue to speak, would I had but hands to write, that I might from my pen drop some heavenly counsels to my beloved people. But it cannot be; alas, my right hand seems to have forgot her cunning, and hath much ado with trembling to lift the bread into my mouth. Do you think you should have had so little to shew under my hand, to bear witness of my care for you, and love to you, if God had not shook my pen as it were out of my hand? But all that he doth is done well, and wisely, and therefore I submit. I have purposed to borrow hands wherewith to write unto my beloved, rather than be silent any longer.
But where shall I begin, or when should I end? If I think to speak of the mercies of God towards me, or mine enlarged affections towards you, I feel already how in-sufficient all I can say will prove at last to utter what I have to tell you: but shall I say nothing because I cannot utter all? This must not be neither.
Come then all ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what he hath done for my soul. Oh help me to love that precious name of his, which is above all my praises. O love the Lord all ye his saints, magnify him with me, and let us exalt his name together! He hath remembred my low estate, because his mercy endureth for ever. Blessed be you of the Lord, for all your remembrances of me before the Lord. You have wrestled with the Lord for me, you have wrestled me out of the jaws of death: O the strength of prayer! Surely it is stronger than death. See that you have the honour the power and prevalency of prayer: Oh be in love with prayer, and have high and venerable thoughts of it. What distresses, diseases, or death, can stand before it? Surely I live by prayer, prayer hath given a resurrection to this body of mine, when physicians and friends had given up their hopes.
O infinite love never to be comprehended, but ever to be admired, magnified, and adored by every creature! O let my heart be filled, let my mouth be filled, let my papers be filled with the thankful commemoration of this matchless love. O turn your eyes from other objects! O bury me in forgetfulness, and let my love be no more mentioned nor had in remembrance among you, so you be throughly possessed and inflamed with the love of God. See that you study this. Fill your souls with wonder, and be ravished with this love: take your daily walk, and lose yourselves in the field of love. O that your souls may be drowned in the love of Christ, ’till you say with the spouse, I am sick of love. Who in all the earth should admire and commend this love, if I should not? I feel it, I taste it, the sweet savour thereof reviveth my soul; it is light to mine eyes, and life to mine heart; the warm beams of this blessed sun, O how have they comforted me, ravished, and refreshed me both in body and soul! Now my own hands can feed me, and my own feet can bear me, my appetite is quick, my sleep comfortable, and God is pleased to give some increase continually though by insensible degrees: and shall not I praise that love which hath done all this for me? My heart is enlarged; but I told you paper could not hold what I have to speak of the goodness of the all-gracious God, in which I live. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all. Farewell in the Lord, I remain
Your unworthy minister and servent
Well-wisher in the Lord,
JOS. ALLEINE.
LETTER XXIII.
To the servants of Christ in Huntingdon, grace and peace.