been changed? Have you been soundly convinced of your sins? Of your damnable and undone condition? And your utter inability to lick yourselves whole by your own duties? Have you been brought to such a sense of sin, that there is no sin, but you heartily abhor it? Are you brought to such a sense of the beauty of holiness, and of the laws and ways of God, that you desire to know the whole mind of God? Would you not excuse yourselves by ignorance from any duty, and do not you allow yourselves in the neglect of any thing conscience charges upon you as a duty? Are your very hearts set upon the glorifying and enjoying of God, as your greatest happiness? *Had you rather be the holiest than be the richest and greatest in the world? And is your greatest delight in the thoughts of your God, and in your conversings with God in holy exercises! Is Christ more precious than all the world to you? And are you willing upon the thorough consideration of the strictness and holiness of his laws, to take them all for the rule of your thoughts, words and actions, and though religion may be dear, do you resolve, if God assist you, to go through with it, let the cost be what it will? Happy the man that is in such a case. This is a Christian indeed, and whatever you be and do short of this, all is unsound. But you that bear in your souls the marks above-mentioned, upon you I lay no other burden, but to hold fast, and make good your ground, and to press forwards towards the mark. Thankfully acknowledge the grace of God to your souls; and live rejoicingly in the hopes of the glory of God; live daily in the praises of your Redeemer; and study the worthiness, excellency, and glory of his attributes: let your souls be much taken up in contemplating his glorious perfection, and blessing yourselves in the goodly portion you have in him: live like those that have a God, and then be disconsolate if you can: if there be not more in an infinite God to comfort you, than in a prison, or poverty or affliction to deject you, our preaching is vain and your faith is vain. Let the thoughts of God be your daily repast: and never be satisfied till your hearts run out as freely, naturally, unweariedly after God, as others do after the world. Farewell my dear brethren, the Lord God Almighty be a protection to you, and your exceeding great reward; Farewell in the Lord. I am, _Your’s in the bowels of the Lord Jesus_, JOS. ALLEINE. _From the common gaol, in |Ivelchester|, September 11, 1663._ LETTER VII. [How to shew love to ministers, and to live joyfully.] _To the most loving and dearly beloved, my Christian friends in |Taunton|, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ_. _Most endeared brethren_,