The Life and Letters of Joseph Alleine,
published by Reformation Heritage Books, paperback, 332 pages, available at £14.50 from the F P Bookroom.

Joseph Alleine (1633-1668) was one of the most famous of the Puritans. His Sure Guide to Heaven (also published under the title Alarm to the Unconverted) has been reprinted more than 500 times, and was a means of blessing to Whitefield, Spurgeon, and a multitude of others. In 1781 it was translated into Gaelic through the initiative of Lady Glenorchy. In several of the parishes of the Nether Lorn district of Argyll, south of Oban, the precentor would read the translation while the people were assembling for public worship, and the result was a widespread revival of religion. The Moderate-dominated Presbytery of Lorn took alarm and condemned the book for 22 supposed errors, forbidding its people to possess a copy on pain of excommunication!

Alleine was born in Devizes in Wiltshire and studied at Oxford. From 1655 he was the assistant to George Newton, minister of Taunton in Somerset, and in 1662 he and Newton were among the nearly two thousand English ministers ejected following the Act of Uniformity. Alleine continued to preach and was imprisoned more than once, the hardships of prison hastening his early death at the age of 34. He was "a burning and a shining light", and the following well-known account of him, by George Newton, comes from the book under review (p 54):

"He was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls, wherein he had no small success in the time of his ministry; and to this end he poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching: he imparted not the gospel only, but his own soul. His supplications and his exhortations many times were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life and vigour that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved, the hardest hearts. But while he melted thus, he wasted and at last consumed himself."

The book consists of an account of Alleine's life, with chapters contributed by Richard Baxter, George Newton, Alleine's wife (and cousin) Theodosia, and others (pp 21-135); of 49 letters by Alleine (pp 139-302); and of a valuable funeral sermon by George Newton on the text: "But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children" (pp 303-332). The Life is highly interesting and edifying, and the Letters, if anything, even more so. Many of them were written from prison, and others in sickness; the book is thus suitable for the anxious, the downcast, for those surrounded by worldliness, for those feeling the sluggishness and deadness of their souls, and for any who "if need be . . . are in heaviness through manifold temptations". Here, for instance, is a description from the Life of the delight that Alleine took in praising God, and of the encouragement he gave to others to do the same:

"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 [giving it so small a share] 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. . . . Sometimes the greatest part of his own prayer was thanksgiving; 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 marvelling at God's infinite goodness in the gift of His Son our Saviour" (p 131).

In a similar vein, in one of his letters to his flock from prison, he writes: "May your souls and all their powers be taken up with Him; may all the little doors of your souls be set open to Him! Here fix your thoughts, here terminate your desires; here you may light your candle and kindle your fire when almost out. Rub and chafe your hearts well with the deep consideration of the love of Christ, and it is a wonder if they do not get some warmth. The Lord shed abroad His love in your hearts by the Holy Ghost" (p 172).

Most of this book is a reproduction of the 1840 New York edition, but five further letters have been included from other editions and collections, together with the funeral sermon by George Newton. It seems extraordinary that such a book should have been out of print since 1840, but apparently it is so. The reviewer believes that this book is worthy of a place in every Christian home alongside the likes of The Pilgrim's Progress, Boston's Fourfold State, Rutherford's Letters, Guthrie's Christian's Great Interest, and Bonar's Memoir and Remains of M'Cheyne.

(Rev) D W B Somerset