0A.00.2. Biographical Introduction

Biographical Introduction

Joseph Alleine was born into a Puritan family at Devizes, in Wiltshire, and baptized on April 8th, 1634. England was then in the throes of the stirring events that were soon to lead to the Civil War, and before Alleine was ten years old the Market Square, where his home stood, echoed with the crash of cannon and the peal of musket as Royalist put Roundhead to flight at the battle of Roundway (July 1643). Two years later the tables were turned and Cromwell himself saw to it that the blue banner of Parliament was raised aloft over the old castle that stood opposite the home of Alleine’s childhood. The family circle was also not without its trials. His father, though a clothier of good standing, suffered some of the economic misfortunes of war; and to their grief, Joseph’s eldest brother, Edward, already in the ministry, died in 1645. That same year saw Alleine ’setting forth in the Christian race’ and imploring his father that he might be educated to ’succeed his brother in the work of the ministry’. Thus, in April 1649 we find him going up to Oxford to sit at the feet of such divines as John Owen and Thomas Goodwin. In November 1651 he moved from Lincoln to Corpus Christi College - the latter, under the presidency of the saintly Dr Edward Staunton, being a more thoroughgoing Puritan seminary. Here he took his B.A. on July 6th 1653, became a tutor and subsequently chaplain to the College. Doubtless it was partly due to Alleine’s influence that Henry Jessey could write in 1660: ’1 think there was scarce such a place in the world as Corpus Christi, where such a multitude held forth the power of godliness, and purity of God’s worship. Even an Eden it was, but now a barren wilderness.’

Alleine’s years at Oxford were characterized by piety and diligent study. His warm disposition found him many friends, but if their visits interrupted his studying time ’he had no leisure to let them in, saying, "It is better that they should wonder at my rudeness than that I should lose my time; for only a few will take notice of the rudeness, but many may feel my loss of time."’ As a chaplain he laboured to evangelize country villages around Oxford and also preached to the prisoners in the gaol every fortnight. Such was his training for his future ministry. Not yet twenty- one, he had already learned to be ’infinitely and insatiably greedy for the conversion of souls and to this end he poured out his very heart in prayer and in preaching’.

It is no wonder that a worthy Puritan divine, George Newton (1602-1681), minister of St Mary Magdalen, Taunton, called Alleine to be his assistant in 1655. Taunton, a wool manufacturing town with a population of perhaps some 20,000, was a Puritan stronghold in the West Country. The spirit of the town had been clearly displayed ten years earlier when, with heroic steadfastness, it had withstood more than one desperate Royalist siege - even when half the streets had been burned down by a storm of mortars and many of the inhabitants had died of starvation! It was here, amidst the hills, meadows and orchards of Somerset, that Alleine was to spend his short but unforgettable ministry.

Immediately following the commencement of his work at Taunton, Alleine was married on October 4th, 1655, to his cousin Theodosia Alleine, a woman of singular spirituality, who left a moving account of her husband’s ministry. The only ’fault’ for which she chided her husband was that he did not spend more time with her, to which he would reply, ’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!’ Alleine’s whole life was an illustration of his saying, ’Give me a Christian that counts his time more precious than gold.’ When the week began he would say, ’Another week is now before us, let us spend this week for God’, and each morning, ’Now let us live this one day well!’ ’All the time of his health’, writes his wife, ’he did rise constantly at or before four o’clock, and on the Sabbath sooner, if he did wake; he would be much troubled if he heard any smiths, or shoemakers, or such tradesmen, at work at their trades before he was in his duties with God; saying to me after, "O how this noise shames me! doth not my master deserve more than theirs?" From four till eight he spent in prayer, holy contemplation, and singing of psalms, which he much delighted in, and did daily practice alone, as well as in his family.’

Together this devoted pair laboured for souls. Theodosia Alleine kept a school for children in her home, while her husband spent five afternoons every week following up the urgent calls to the unconverted which sounded forth Sunday by Sunday from beneath the stately tower of Mary Magdalen. He kept a catalogue of the names of the inhabitants of each street and saw that all were visited and catechized. This resulted in a numerous ingathering of souls.1 ’His supplications and his exhortations’, said George Newton, ’many times were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life, and vigour, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted them and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts.’ It is clear that even in an age when powerful preaching and successful evangelism were comparatively common, Alleine’s ministry was outstanding in the eyes of his brethren. ’Few ages have produced more eminent preachers than Mr. Joseph Alleine’, declared that apostolic North Country Puritan, Oliver Heywood. And Baxter speaks of his’ great ministerial skilfulness in the public explication and application of the Scriptures - so melting, so convincing, so powerful’. A day of grace was nearing its sunset when Alleine entered upon his ministry. Within three years Cromwell was dead. Two years more and the bells at Taunton rang merrily to welcome the homecoming of Charles II and the restoration of monarchy (1660). But the happiness in Puritan hearts was short lived. For the era when, as Philip Henry said, ’a face of godliness was upon the nation’ was over and in 1662, by the infamous Act of Uniformity, 2,000 of the best ministers England ever had were cast out of their pulpits. Among the eighty-five or so ministers who suffered in this way in Somerset we find, as we might well expect, the names of George Newton and Joseph Alleine. But, though debarred from his pulpit, Alleine refused to be silenced; indeed his wife tells us how, ’laying aside all other studies because he accounted his time would be but short’, he increased his preaching activity: ’I know that he hath preached fourteen times in eight days, and ten often, and six and seven ordinarily in these months. At length after surviving many threats Alleine received a summons on May 26th 1663; the following night he appointed to meet his people ’about one or two o’clock in the morning, to which they shewed their readiness: there was of young and old many hundreds; he preached and prayed with them about three hours’. The next day he was thrown into prison at Ilchester. After a year he was released, but only to be confronted by the rigours of the Five Mile Act and the Conventicle Act. Though now declining in health, he nevertheless resumed preaching in secret until July 10th 1666. On that evening whilst he was preaching on Psalm cxlvii 20 to a gathering in a private house, the doors were battered open and he was again taken to prison. Once more he was released, and with undiminished spiritual energy he considered what he might yet do to further the Gospel of Christ. ’Now we have one day more’, he would say to his wife as he rose in the morning, ’here is one more for God, now let us live well this day, work hard for our souls, lay up much treasure in heaven this day, for we have but a few to live.’ His wife tells us how, with true Puritan spirit, his thoughts turned to the possibility of missionary work in Wales or even in China. Never did the evangel of Jesus Christ burn more fervently in any English heart! But Alleine’s work was done, for his physical constitution never recovered from the hardships of his confinements and his body was sinking fast. On November 17th 1668 at the age of thirty-four, God took him away from the evils yet to come, and aged George Newton stood by as his body was laid to rest in the chancel of the church which had once resounded with the ’alarm’ of his calls to the unconverted. This book embodies the substance of Alleine’s message and in so doing provides a true model of Puritan evangelism. Phraseology must differ from age to age and gifts from man to man, but here, we have no hesitation in saying, are the principles which must be present in any true presentation of the Gospel. More than one great evangelist has had his views moulded by the following pages. George Whitefield, while still a student at Oxford, tells us in his Journals how Alleine’s Alarm ’much benefited’ him. Charles Haddon Spurgeon records how, when he was a child, his mother would often read a piece of Alleine’s Alarm to them as they sat round the fire on a Sunday evening, and when brought under conviction of sin it was to this old book he turned. ’I remember’, he writes, ’when I used to awake in the morning, the first thing I took up was Alleine’s Alarm, or Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted. Oh those books, those books! I read and devoured them. . . .’ With his heart thus burning with the fire of Puritan divinity, Spurgeon was prepared to follow in the steps of Alleine and Whitefield.

Countless editions of this book have been issued since it first saw the light in 1671. Dr Calamy wrote concerning it in 1702: ’Multitudes will have cause for ever to be thankful for it. No book in the English tongue (the Bible only excepted) can equal it for the number that hath been dispersed; there have been twenty thousand sold under the title of the "Call", or "Alarm", and fifty thousand of the same under the title of the "Sure Guide

4 to Heaven", thirty thousand of which were sold at one impression.’ As a remarkable illustration of the spiritual influence of this work we may mention one example. Towards the end of the eighteenth century the minister of a Highland congregation, a man more eminent for scholarship than evangelical fervour, was approached by a Society to translate the `Alarm’ into Gaelic. The book was thus passed into his hands and finding it suitable material for the pulpit he commenced to repeat the substance of its successive chapters to his congregation. The result, it is said, `was a widespread awakening, which long prevailed in the district of Nether Lorn’. With the prayer that the substance of this book may again be sounded forth throughout our land and across the seas, we commend this book to the blessing of Him whose word is ’quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword’. ’All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you’ (1 Peter 1:24-25).

1 August 1959 IAIN MURRAY