Joseph Alleine

Born at Devizes, Wiltshire, early in 1634, Joseph Alleine loved and served the Lord from childhood. A contemporary witness identified 1645 as the year of Alleine�s �setting forth in the Christian race.� From eleven years of age onward, �the whole course of his youth was an even-spun thread of godly conversation.� When his elder brother Edward, a clergyman, died, Joseph begged that he might be educated to take Edward�s place in the ministry of the church. He entered Oxford at age sixteen and sat at the feet of such great divines as John Owen and Thomas Goodwin.Alleine began his studies at Lincoln College in 1649. Two years later, he became a scholar of Corpus Christi College, where the faculty was, in general, more thoroughly Puritan than at Lincoln. Alleine studied long hours, often depriving himself of sleep and food. He graduated from Oxford in 1653 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and became a tutor and chaplain of Corpus Christi. He also devoted much time to preaching to prisoners in the county jail, visiting the sick, and ministering to the poor. In 1655, Alleine accepted the invitation of George Newton, vicar of St. Mary Magdalene Church, Taunton, Somerset, to become Newton�s assistant. Taunton, a wool-manufacturing city of some 20,000, was a Puritan stronghold. Shortly after moving to Taunton, Alleine married his cousin, Theodosia Alleine, whose father, Richard Alleine, was minister of Batcombe, Somerset (see below). She was an active woman who feared God deeply. Early in their marriage, she ran a home school of about fifty scholars, half of them boarders. She would later serve as her husband�s biographer after his death. Alleine rose early, devoting the time between four and eight o�clock in the morning to the exercises of private worship. His wife recalled that he �would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at work at their trades, before he was at communion with God: saying to me often, �How this noise shames me! Doth not my Master deserve more than theirs?� � His ministry in Taunton as preacher and pastor was very fruitful. Richard Baxter recalled Alleine�s �great ministerial skillfulness in the public explication and application of the Scriptures�so melting, so convincing, so powerful.� Alleine was also an excellent teacher, devoting much time to instructing his people, using the Shorter Catechism. He was a passionate evangelist. One contemporary wrote, �He was infinitely and insatiably greedy of the conversion of souls, wherein he had no small success. Ejected for nonconformity in 1662, Alleine took the opportunity to increase his public labors, believing that his remaining time was short. He preached on average one or two sermons every day for nine months until he was arrested and cast into the Ilchester prison. The night before, Alleine had preached and prayed with his people for three hours and had declared, �Glory be to God that hath accounted me worthy to suffer for His gospel!� Alleine�s prison cell became his pulpit as he continued to preach to his people through the prison bars. He also wrote numerous pastoral letters and theological articles. Released on May 20, 1664, after about a year in prison, he resumed his forbidden ministry until arrested again on July 10, 1665 for holding a conventicle. Once more released from prison, his remaining time was �full of troubles and persecutions nobly borne.� He returned to Taunton in February, 1668, where he became very ill. Nine months later, at age thirty-four, weary from hard work and suffering, Alleine died in full assurance of faith, praising God and saying, �Christ is mine, and I am His� His by covenant.�