Taste the Pleasant Fruits of God's Love

A selection from a letter by the Puritan preacher, Joseph Alleine, to his congregation from prison. He was ejected from the Church of England for nonconformity in 1662 and was imprisoned. Alleine wrote letters to his church while incarcerated. He highlights the theme of love in this letter. He writes of their love for God and says, "How little, how very little, would our love be, if he had it all… Oh that we might love him with our little all!" But he writes mainly of God's love for them. To that we now turn in this letter written October 28, 1663.

This is a love worthy of your ambition, worthy of your adoration and admiration. This is the womb that bore you from eternity, and out of which have burst forth all the mercies, spiritual and temporal, that you enjoy. This was the love that chose you; when less offenders, and those that being converted might have been a hundred-fold more serviceable to their Maker's glory, are left to perish in their sins. May your souls be filled with the sense of this love!

But it may be you will say, "How shall I know if I am an object of electing love?" Lest an unbelieving thought should damp your joy, know, in short, that if you have chosen God, he hath certainly chosen you. Have you taken him for your blessedness? And do you more highly prize, and more diligently seek after conformity to him, and the fruition of him than any, than all the goods of this world. If so, then away with doubts; for you could not have loved, and have chosen him, unless he had loved you first. Now may my beloved dwell continually in the thoughts, the views, the tastes of this love. Get you down under its shadows, and taste its pleasant fruits. Oh the provisions that love hath made for you, before the foundation of the world!

Life and Letters of Joseph Alleine, by Rev. Richard Baxter, Theodosia Alleine, and others, with a new introduction by Joel R. Beeke and Herb Samworth, Reformation Heritage Books, reprinted in 2003, pp. 168-69.

He Reigns Over All

A selection from a letter by Samuel Pearce, pastor of the Cannon Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, England, to Mr. Matthias, a friend he met while preaching in Ireland. The General Evangelical Society in Dublin invited him to come to Ireland to preach the gospel. He made several friends on his mission there from the University of Dublin, Mr. Matthias being one of them. Pearce wrote of how much he valued his new friends. He also shared with him the joy in the Lord that he was experiencing at that time. The letter was written in September or October, 1776.

I thank God, I never, I think, rejoiced habitually so much in him as I have done of late. "God is love." That makes me happy. I rejoice that God reigns; that he reigns over all; that he reigns over me; over my crosses, my comforts, my family, my friends, my senses, my mental powers, my designs, my words, my preaching, my conduct; that he is God over all, blessed for ever. I am willing to live, yet I long to die, to be freed from all error and all sin. I have nothing else to trouble me; no other cross to carry. The sun shines without all day long; but I am sensible of internal darkness. Well, through grace it shall be all light by and by. Yes, you and I shall be angels of light; all Mercuries then; all near the Sun; always in motion; always glowing with zeal, and flaming with love. Oh for the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness!

A Heart for Missions: The Classic Memoir of Samuel Pearce, by Andrew Fuller, with an introduction by Michael Haykin, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, 2006, p. 88.

A Helper and Comforter to Others

A selection from a letter by Mrs. Henry Smith, a close friend of Elizabeth Prentiss, to Mr. Prentiss, four months after the death of his dear wife. Elizabeth Prentiss was the author of the beloved hymn, More Love to Thee, O Christ, and the book, Stepping Heavenward, used by God to help many a weary saint traveling on their way to glory. Mrs. Smith reflects on the character of her friend. The letter was written January 2, 1879.

How naturally, modestly, almost indifferently, she received the tributes which poured in upon her! Yet, though she cared little for praise, she cared much for love, and for the consciousness that she was a helper and comforter to others.

More Love to Thee: The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, George Lewis Prentiss, reprinted by Solid Ground Christian Books, p. 289.

The Disinterested Love of God

A selection from a letter by Thomas Chalmers, the Scottish preacher and professor, to the Rev. J. W. Cunningham of Harrow, London. He asked his friend if he had any acquaintance with a doctrine taught by some well-known American divines that he called “the doctrine of the disinterested love of God.” Chalmers feared it would hinder the liberty of men to preach the gospel freely and that it would introduce a requirement for sinners to meet in order to be accepted by God. The letter was written January 8, 1818.

Have you ever attended to the doctrine of the disinterested love of God? I fear that Edwards, Witherspoon, and the American divines have a little darkened the freeness of the Gospel offer by their speculations on the subject. They seem to put all the discredit of selfishness on the love of gratitude, and would suspend the act of acceptance by faith, till somehow or other it could be made contemporaneous with the dawn of love to God on account of His own excellencies. This I do think is a forbidding of those whom God has not forbidden, and I cannot but preach the Gospel without reserve to all men in every state of moral disease.

Letters of Thomas Chalmers, edited by William Hanna, first published 1853, reprinted by The Banner of Truth, 2007, p. 281.