Required reading
Sure Guide to Heaven (Puritan Paperbacks) by Joseph Alleine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Chapter 1 (read the whole chapter) and Chapter 2 (read up to point 4).
My notes and thoughts
Chapter 1: Alleine seeks to strike at the common mistakes that people base their hope upon. He does not take on the task lightly, but recognises that to take away people's false assurance is painful to them: 'I know that he will find hard work that goes to pluck away your hopes. It cannot but be unpleasant to you and truly it is not pleasing to me. I set about it as a surgeon when about to cut off a mortified limb from his beloved friend, which of necessity he must do though with an aching heart.' I think Alleine has nailed on the head the reason we don't like to attack people's false hopes, it unpleasant for them and for us. But attack we must.
Chapter 2: Luther would be proud of this chapter's beginning - no room for human freewill! (see Luther's Bondage of the Will for his blast against the notion that man has anything to do with his salvation). Also good to see Alleine viewed preaching as an important instrument for conversions - but the sermon itself is not alone. The reasons preaching fails: 'The sermon does not prosper because it is not watered by prayers and tears, nor covered by meditation.' Good reminder to pray and meditate on our sermons before we preach them and to have our hearers do the same.
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