Thomas Boston Of Ettrick
14
THOMAS BOSTON OF ETTRICK
D. J. Innes
Some of the great Scottish divines of past generations have been “rediscovered” of recent years; others remain in comparative obscurity. Boston of Ettrick, unfortunately, belongs to this latter group. And yet, I verily believe, he was one of the greatest, one of the saintliest, men who has ever adorned the Church in Scotland. His life was characterized by a most close and intimate walk with God; his ministry, in often difficult, sometimes heartbreaking, circumstances, was mightily owned of God; and his potent influence for Christ and the gospel of His saving grace continued, through his writings, for generations after he himself had gone to his reward.
Many, through the years, have borne witness to the worth of Boston, the power of his ministry, and the amazing influence of his written works. The late Dr. Alexander Whyte, recommending the new edition of Boston’s autobiography, which appeared in 1899, had this to say: “His sound and commanding common sense, his immense industry, his great learning, attained to amid unparalleled difficulties, his sometimes Shakespearean style, his life of faith and prayer and pastoral efficiency and success, all combine to make Boston’s Memoirs of his Life, Time and Writings a book to be always at hand in every Scottish manse, as well as in every well-read, patriotic, and pious Scottish home.” His biographer, Dr. Andrew Thomson, one-time minister of Broughton Place, Edinburgh, says, “The assertion is not likely to be challenged that, if Scotland had been searched during the earlier part of the eighteenth century, there was not a minister of Christ within its bounds who, alike in his personal character and in the discharge of his pastoral functions, approached nearer to the apostolic model than did this man of God. It is a fact that, even before he died, men and children had come to pronounce his name with reverence. It had become a synonym for holy living.” In other words, what Robert Murray McCheyne was to early nineteenth century Scotland, Thomas Boston was to early eighteenth century Scotland.
Witness has been borne not only to the greatness of the man, but also to the influence of his message, as it has been communicated to men of many generations through his written works. H. G. Graham, the author of Social Life of Scotland (1901), who was in no way sympathetic to the evangelical faith, has to admit that, in his Fourfold State, Boston “moved the hearts and expressed the faith of a large proportion of the people.” Dr. Thomas McCrie, that great authority on Scottish life and letters, himself born in the same town as Boston, asserted that the Fourfold State was a book that had “contributed more than any other work to mould the religious sentiments of the Scottish people.” Certainly it was to be found, along with the Holy Scriptures, and Bunyan’s glorious dream, in virtually every humble cottage and stately home over a large part of Scotland, in the eighteenth century. Jonathan Edwards, in a letter of 1747 to his Scottish correspondent, Thomas Gillespie (who was a convert of Boston’s ministry), expresses the opinion that the Fourfold State showed “Mr. Boston to have been a truly great divine.”
Is it not time that those who seek to live with God, and live for God, in the twentieth century—an age, in some ways, not unlike the age of Boston, when the love of many has grown cold—should turn back to ponder anew the lessons that they might learn from the life and ministry, the trials and the triumphs of Thomas Boston of Ettrick?
Life and Times
As you will know, the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 brought great and grievous changes in the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland. “In the latter end of March the parliament did rescind all the acts approving the National Covenant, the Solemn League and Covenant, and the abolishing of bishops in Scotland; and they rescinded all acts for presbyterian government during the king’s pleasure.”1 Thus, the Glasgow and Westminster assemblies, Cromwell and the Long Parliament, the Confession of Faith, the Solemn League and Covenant, were all blotted out. Furthermore, on September 6, the Presbyterian system was summarily set aside when the obsequious Scottish Council ordained the Lyon King-at-Arms “to pass to the Market Cross, and make publication of his majesty’s pleasure for restoring the kirk to the right government of bishops,” “and to require all his subjects to compose themselves to a cheerful acquiescence and obedience to the same . . . commanding all, if they find any failing in their obedience thereto . . . that they commit them to prison. . . .” About 400 of the best ministers in Scotland were ejected from their charges; and there followed the classic covenanting period—a reign of terror; the murder of Archbishop Sharpe on Magus Muir (1679); and the Killing Times.
It was during this period—in the year 1676—that Thomas Boston was born in Duns, an important little town in Berwickshire. His parents were godly folk, who refused to bend to prelatic authority, and suffered severely for it. One of Thomas’s earliest memories was of being taken to prison, to provide company for his father in his loneliness.
It was James II, the Papist, who, to meet his own case, conceded in 1687 liberty of worship, within certain restrictions, all over the kingdom. Most of the sufferers in Scotland were able to take advantage of the indulgence.
This was very significant so far as Thomas Boston was concerned. For one of those now free to exercise his ministry again unmolested was Henry Erskine, the father of Ebenezer and Ralph. He established himself at Whitsome, only some five miles from Duns. Considerable numbers of the Duns people, weary of the sapless and Christless preaching to which they had been constrained to listen in their native town, and no longer held back by the dread of fine or imprisonment, gladly walked to Whitsome Sunday by Sunday. John Boston took his eleven-year-old son; and it was under Erskine’s preaching that Thomas was effectually converted to Christ. He refers to his conversion, in his Soliloquy on the Art of Man Fishing, in these terms: “Little was thou thinking, O my soul, on Christ, heaven, or thyself, when thou went to the Newtoun of Whitsome to hear a preaching; when Jesus Christ first dealt with thee thou got an unexpected cast.” Thereafter, Erskine’s ministry continued to be richly blessed to Boston, so that he would walk those five miles come wind come weather—even when he had to go it alone—to obtain food for his soul and refreshment for his spirit. It is interesting, and not surprising, to learn that Boston’s first sermon—preached when he was twenty-one—“recalled the powerful ministry of Erskine to at least one of his hearers, who spoke contemptuously of him as ‘Mr. Henry Erskine’s disciple.’ ”
James II did not last long; and in 1688 came William of Orange and the Revolution Settlement. This meant much for the Church in Scotland. Presbyterianism was reconstituted; the 1699 Act of Supremacy was abolished; the ejected ministers were restored; and the Church was re-established on the basis of the Confession of Faith and Presbyterian polity. But the settlement was not made by John Knox or Andrew Melville, but by William Carstares—and there were elements of compromise in it: e.g., a middle measure was adopted with regard to patronage. The voice of the people was recognized as a potential element in the settlement of ministers, but the right of nomination was conferred on the heritors and elders. And again, many episcopal incumbents, found willing to submit to the new order of things, were allowed to continue in their charges. Bishop Burnet says of them that they “were ignorant to a reproach, many of them openly vicious, and the worst preachers he ever heard.” Many see in them the roots of the moderate party, which came to dominate the Church of Scotland in the eighteenth century.
This, briefly sketched, was the state of the Church into the ministry of which Boston was in 1697 licensed (aged twenty-one), and in 1699 ordained. The situation with regard to patronage explains why he had such a long and trying period of waiting before he was settled in his first parish. Boston would not curry favor with patrons and heritors: he believed that God would clearly overrule and set him in the place of His appointment. Thus it was that in no less than seven parishes, where the people would have called, hostile forces intervened and prevented his settlement.
From the Revolution until 1715 the difficulties of the Church of Scotland were mainly connected with its relations to the state, to the Dissenters, and to Prelatists. After 1715 its difficulties for many years were internal, and rose out of questions of doctrine and administration.
Both of these periods are reflected in the life and experience of Boston. The former may be illustrated by two facts. Firstly, Boston was a non-juror, i.e, he refused to take the “Oath of Abjuration” which Queen Anne’s Parliament sought to lay upon every minister of the Church. It was a startling and arbitrary measure—unnecessary as a pledge for the loyalty of men who, on their entrance to the ministry, had taken the oath of allegiance to the crown; and in terms so vague and ambiguous as to be perplexing to men of tender conscience. Even later, when it was made more palatable by the addition of modifying clauses, Mr. Boston stood firm, prepared to suffer the loss of all things rather than sin, and openly declaring in characteristic words that “the oath could not be cleansed, and that, like the leper’s house, it needed to be taken down.”
Second, in Ettrick, in Boston’s earlier years there—he was inducted there on the same day as the Act of Union came into force, May 1, 1707—there was a Mr. McMillan, minister and leader of a party among the Presbyterians who had refused to go in with the Revolution Settlement, or to swear allegiance to the new dynasty. Their presence, and constant agitation of points of difference in which he was the frequent object of attack, tried Boston’s sensitive nature, while malcontents and fugitives from discipline were apt to seek refuge in the hostile camp. Boston never entertained separatist principles. In his famous sermon on “The evil and danger of schism,” preached at Ettrick in 1708, he argued strongly against the Cameronian position, and pled for the unity and peace of the Church. “There are no corruptions among us, whether real or pretended, which the church obligeth them to approve or join in the practice of, as terms of commun-ion with her,” etc.
The latter period is also illustrated by two facts from Boston’s life—points to which we shall give more attention later: the part he played in the “Marrow Controversy” of 1717–22, and the protest he lodged against the sentence passed on Professor Simson by the Assembly of 1729.
The first Original Secession Associated Presbytery was constituted in December 1733. The first presbytery of the Relief church came into being in 1752. Thomas Boston did not live long enough to witness either secession. He died on May 20, 1732, aged fifty-six, having been minister of Simprin, 1699–1707, and of Ettrick, 1707–32. His son, who became minister of Jedburgh, joined Mr. Gillespie in the first Relief Presbytery.
The Saint
The outstanding characteristic of Thomas Boston was his saintliness; he was a man separated unto God, a holy man. We are reminded of the words of Robert Murray McCheyne: “How awful a weapon in the hand of God is a holy minister.” Thomas Boston was such a one. Robert Chambers, writing in 1834, states that Boston’s name was still held in great reverence by the people of the south of Scotland. “Who was the best man that ever lived?” was a question which passed among the boys of Peebles. “Mr. Boston, minister of Ettrick,” was the answer.
I would like us to look a little closer at three aspects of Boston, the saint: namely, his prayer life, his humility, and his afflictions. They are in fact closely connected and interwoven—but for the purposes of study we may treat them separately.
His Prayer Life
Innumerable quotations could be produced to illustrate this. A few, which particularly struck and challenged me, must suffice. In his student days his habits were eminently devotional. While at Kennet, as tutor to Colonel Bruce’s stepson, he had what he described as a “thriving time for his soul.” He set aside times for fasting, which did not however so much consist in partial abstinence from food as in temporary isolation, in which he gave himself with mingled prayer to self-examination, especially with reference to heart sins. He had also his seasons of prolonged secret devotion, in which “prayer overflowed its banks like Jordan in the time of harvest.” The same was true of his years as a probationer, while he waited for God’s call to God’s place to come.
His biographer records, “We notice in this trying period of his life the same abounding in prayer, and severe heart-searching and striving against heart sins, which no eye could see but God’s, as we remarked in his student life. Again and again we meet with such exclamations as ‘Oh, how my heart hates my heart!’ ” And, as you read his memoirs, recounting the whole course of his ministry—there is hardly a page where he does not refer to his retiring into his closet to lay some matter before the Lord. “In every condition he found an errand to the heavenly mercy seat. For comfort in affliction, guidance in perplexity, help to repel temptation, strength for hourly duties and double strength for sacred work, he hastened with his empty vessel to the fountain of life; sometimes, when accusing himself of spiritual decay, or dreading the thought of divine desertion, ‘wrestling for the blessing until the dawning of the day.’ ”
It is impossible to labor this point too much: it was the fundamental secret of both the man and his ministry and authorship in the highest forms of blessing, to this one holy habit, in which he laid hold on omnipotence! The same outward action would have been powerless and fruitless without this wrestling devotion, which said, “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me.” Boston’s memoirs remind me of nothing so much as of Brainerd’s Journals and of Andrew Bonar’s Diary. The primary secret of these men’s mighty ministries is to be found in their secret lives with God.
Boston wrote a Memorial concerning Personal and Family Fasting and Humiliation—and I would like to close this section with a couple of quotations from that work. A word of comfort—“The laying over of a matter on the Lord, believing in prayer, gives great ease to a burdened heart; it turns a fast sometimes into a spiritual feast.” And a word of warning—“Lay no weight on the quantity of your prayers—that is to say how long or how many they are. These things avail nothing with God, by Whom prayers are not numbered but weighed.” Oh for men of prayer in the work of the ministry today!
His Humility
This, of course, is inseparably linked with the previous section: prayer and pride just don’t go together! And if the text for the previous section was “men ought always to pray and not to faint,” the text for this section must be “seekest thou great things for thyself? Seek them not.” For this is the particular aspect of Boston’s humility to which I think we should give our attention here.
Boston was an extremely able man—linguist, theologian, and scholar. And he was an outstanding and mighty preacher. Yet he was content to pass his days in two comparatively small country parishes, faithfully shepherding his flock. He believed that God had sent him there, and he was content. He never sought the limelight, though he was prepared fearlessly to take his stand for truth and righteousness, when he felt that laid upon him.
I suppose the outstanding example of Boston’s humility was his readiness to accept the call to Simprin. Simprin was an unattractive place. The parish was of the smallest, having only 88 examinable persons. The stipend was meager in the extreme. He disliked the idea of settling in such a mean place where he would be buried out of sight. But, on reflection, he knew that God was calling him there—and he went. And we may well ask what would have happened to him, and to his ministry, had he refused.
His Afflictions
Here I believe we find one of the outstanding lessons of Boston’s life and ministry. Jesus said: “. . . every branch (in Me) that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” Are we, like Boston, seeking to go all the way with God? Then we must not be surprised when the heavenly Husbandman’s sharp pruning knife cuts us to the quick—and leaves us bleeding and mystified. His ways are not our ways; indeed His ways are passing strange.
The sum of Boston’s afflictions can be told in few words; but don’t gloss over their implications—the accompanying desolation, anguish, pain, and sorrow. He lost both his parents comparatively early—his mother in 1691, when he was only fifteen (and this event threatened for a time to put an end to his hopes of entering the ministry); and his father in 1701, when he was not yet twenty-five and recently settled in Simprin. Obviously a loving and devoted father himself, he had the sad experience of laying six of his own bairns in the grave—two while he was still at Simprin, and four at Ettrick. He himself was often ill, suffering from much pain and weakness, physically. And, as though this were not enough, his last twelve years were clouded by a great and grievous domestic grief. In the summer of 1720 his wife, to whom he was deeply devoted, began to show unmistakable symptoms of insanity. To quote his own words: “her imagination was vitiated in a particular point, to her great disquietment, accompanied with bodily infirmities and maladies exceeding great and numerous.” And this dark eclipse of the spirit, though sometimes diminished, seldom wholly passed away. Indeed, in later years, the gloom became darker still. It touched Boston on his tenderest point. At length the dear sufferer was confined to one apartment, which her husband touchingly called “the inner prison,” and there she spent months and years, the subject of a mental malady which no science or human device could even mitigate. Allusions to this great sorrow appear again and again in Boston’s diary, and, as we read them, we seem to hear his groans and sighs.
God, in His wisdom, permitted these afflictions, and used them to mellow Boston’s character and enrich his ministry. Two tiny glimpses of the way that suffering was blessed to him must suffice here. The first comes from his closet. At a time of great bodily suffering, he says, “My heart was made by grace to say, Welcome, welcome; and kissed the rod, for the sake of Him Who groaned and died on the cross for me; and I was even made to weep for joy in His dying love to me.” Thus, his own pain gave him a greater appreciation of his Savior, and a deeper love for Him who had suffered so unspeakably on behalf of sinners.
The second is that, next to his Fourfold State, his series of sermons published under the title of The Crook in the Lot have been the most widely read, and the most greatly blessed of God, of all his writings. The subtitle of that series was “The sovereignty and wisdom of God in the afflictions of men, together with a Christian deportment under them.” The foundation truths which he sought to expound were (1) that whatever crook there is in anyone’s lot, it is of God’s making; (2) that whatever God sees meet to mar, no one will be able to mend in his lot; and (3) that the considering of the crook in the lot as the work of God—that is, of His making—is the proper means to bring one to a Christian deportment under it. Thus we see how suffering gave Boston an understanding of affliction, and ability to help and comfort his fellows in it, which he could not have gained in any other way.
The Minister
At an early age Boston felt called to the work of the ministry; and through years of preparation—in a notary’s office in Duns, at college in Edinburgh, and in practical training at Dumfries and Kennet—he looked forward to that work, with a mixture of apprehension and keen anticipation. He knew increasingly that God had laid His hand upon him to this end.
The Call to a Charge
Boston was sorely tried on this issue three times in the course of his life: during the long period of waiting for a first charge; when the call to Ettrick came to him; and later, while at Ettrick, when a call was sent to him by the people of Closeburn. To ponder the sections of his memoirs recording these different crises is, I believe, to learn some very significant lessons. May I pick out two or three?
Boston was never in a hurry: he certainly did not commit himself to the first suggestion made. It was 21⁄4 years after his licensing before he was settled in Simprin. Toward the end of that period he recorded that “he had now reached the full sea-mark of his perplexing circumstances. He felt like one standing in the dark, and not knowing what his next step should be.” Again, a long time elapsed between the first suggestion that Boston move to Ettrick, and his actual induction there. During that time he weighed the whole matter up most carefully, sought the advice of friends, and above all sought the mind of the Lord. You can read all about it in his memoirs; it goes on for pages! He himself testifies that the word, “He that believeth shall not make haste,” was helpful to him.
Boston never took the initiative; and, when an invitation was extended to him, he made his own position abundantly plain to those inviting him. This was no easier in his day than it is in ours. Much could be said on this subject—but I think it is best summed up by a quotation from his Soliloquy. There, among the “rules of carnal wisdom,” he sets down these: “Labour to get neat and fine expressions, for that doth very much commend a preaching to the learned, and without these they think nothing of it. Endeavour to be somewhat smooth in preaching and calm, and do not go out upon the particular sins of the land, or of the persons to whom thou preachest. Be but fair especially to them that have the strike in parishes, till you be settled in a parish to get stipend.”
It need hardly be added that Boston was never swayed by other than the highest motives. The two considerations which perhaps weighed most in taking him to Ettrick were, first, that the call had come unsought; and, second, the great need that he saw to exist in that parish. When it came to the Closeburn call, in 1716–17, promising higher emolument and increased social prestige, Boston increasingly felt that it was not of the Lord; and eventually pled most movingly, before the Commission of Assembly, for his retention in Ettrick. How many men, in the Church of Scotland today, one wonders, would be prepared to do that?
The Preaching of the Word
Boston was preeminently and outstandingly a preacher of the Word. Perhaps we have taken too long to get to this central point? But no: for I believe that, behind the public power, there is always the private price; and how great that price is in many cases God alone fully knows.
As a probationer Boston was greatly used in the preaching of the Word. Wherever pulpits were thrown open to him, testimonies were received of the highest forms of blessing which multitudes had derived from his ministry. It was a frequent experience to be told by some who came to him with streaming eyes that his words had been to them the seeds of a new and heavenly life; while others would be found waiting at the church gates to tell him, with mingled wonder and gratitude, how, while unknown to him, he had seemed by his searching representations to have been reading their history and their hearts.
Boston’s power and usefulness as a preacher increased as the years went on. In the earlier years of his Simprin life, he had frequent difficulty in fixing on a text. Sometimes even more time was consumed in finding a text that suited his present state of mind than was usually occupied in the composition of a sermon. But in his later years at Simprin, it was his custom to select large paragraphs of Scripture, which in their succession of verses, supplied texts for many sermons. We find him, for instance, lingering over the few verses of the epistle to the church at Laodicea from January to the end of May, and apparently loath to leave the passage even then. In his mid-week service he preached from the Song of Solomon for nearly three years, 1704–07!
Each Lord’s Day he preached forenoon and afternoon, and in the evening he expounded the Shorter Catechism. He instituted a weekly service on Thursday, and on Tuesday evening presided at the weekly meeting for conference and prayer. He began his work at Simprin by preaching “the doctrine of man’s natural state, judging the sight and sense thereof to be the foundation of all real religion.” He followed this up by preaching on “Christ the remedy,” and then on “the application of the remedy.” His power lay in his strenuous and persuasive declaration of the love of God in Christ to sinners of mankind. His fine sermon from the text “Compel them to come in” begins: “And are they not happy that are in? And why will ye not come in too? Christ’s house is not yet filled. Many have come in, but there is room for more. And we are sent to compel you to come in . . . ,” etc. He once exclaimed, in the context of the controversy raging in the kirk in his later years, “Our great business (is) to preach Christ, if we could get leave to do it for our divisions. . . . Oh, sirs, what would come of the many perishing souls up and down Scotland, that are strangers to Christ and their own soul’s state, if, as these men would have it, all should leave us, and we be left to preach to the empty walls, or hold our tongues?”
So much could be said about Boston’s preaching ministry, and the thousands who attended on it—especially in his later years. But I must desist; and you must read it for yourselves.
The Work of Visitation
Boston was obviously not only a mighty preacher, but also a faithful pastor—and he related the one to the other, applying the preaching in the homes, and gaining suggestions for future sermons from the homes. It is when we see these two parts of his ministry combining and cooperating, preaching and pastoral visitation, and all of course conjoined with prayer, that we can the more easily account for that rich harvest of souls which he was again and again called upon to reap. The living sympathy of the man watered the good seed of the Word which had been sown. And those home visits, winning the affection and the confidence of the people, invested his preaching with a double power, and opened the way for the entrance of the Word. Boston visited each of his families at least once a year, in Ettrick—until increasing infirmity no longer made it possible. Paragraphs such as this—actually taken from his Simprin ministry—are not infrequent in the memoirs: “Being with E. P. the night before she died, I had no satisfaction in converse with her; which affected me exceedingly. Thereupon I came in to my closet, and set myself to wrestle with God on her account; and then went to her again, and was much comforted in her; so that my spirit was more than ordinarily elevated. She said she fixed on that word, ‘Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the Lord.’ ”
The Courts of the Church
It is clear that Boston adhered to his ordination oaths, and played a faithful and not ineffective part in the work of presbytery, synod, and general assembly. In October 1702, Boston was chosen for the important office of clerk to the synod of Merse and Teviotdale; and he held that office until 1711. He fulfilled his duties in this post in an exemplary manner, gaining not only the approval, but also the praise, of not a few. For example, Lord Minto, an eminent statesman, who had also been a judge, went so far as to say that “Mr. Boston was the best clerk he had ever known in any court, civil or ecclesiastical.”
The Controversialist
Boston came into greatest prominence in the General Assembly of the Church, first in the course of the Marrow Controversy, 1717–22; and then over the case of Prof. Simson of Glasgow. He was not by nature a contentious or a bellicose man; nor did he desire to attract public attention. But in both these significant cases he felt in duty bound to take his stand openly on the side of what he considered to be truth and righteousness.
The Marrow Controversy
The Marrow of Modern Divinity was first published in London, in 1645; and it was one of the books specifically commended by the Westminster Assembly of divines. In substance it was “an exposition of the federal theology—the difference between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace being carefully explained.” Thus, its says: “. . . the law of Christ in regard of substance and matter, is all one with the law of works. Both these laws agree in saying, Do this. But here is the difference. The one saith, Do this and live: and the other saith, Live and do this. The one saith, Do this for life; the other saith, Do this from life.” Extracts from Reformed and Puritan divines, along with some original material, were woven into a conversation in which Evangelista, the champion of the true gospel way, disposes of all his opponents.
In 1700 Boston, who had at the time no clear views on the doctrine of grace and was concerned to get the claims of God’s law and the relation of a child of grace thereto satisfactorily adjusted, found a copy of the first part of the Marrow in one of the houses in his parish. “What time, precisely, this happened, I cannot tell,” he records, “but I am very sure that, by the latter end of the year 1700, I had not only seen that book, but digested the doctrine thereof in a tolerable measure; since by that time I was begun to preach it, as I had occasion, abroad.” “I rejoiced in it as a light which the Lord had seasonably struck up to me in my darkness.”
Some fifteen years after Boston had discovered the Marrow, increasing conflict arose within the Church as a whole concerning the nature of the covenant of grace, whether it was absolute or conditional. The charge of Arminianism, for example, was brought against Prof. Simson of Glasgow. And during an assembly debate in 1717, Boston told John Drummond of Crieff of the Marrow, and of what it had come to mean to him. Drummond followed this up, succeeded in obtaining a copy, and told James Webster of Edinburgh about it. He, in turn, brought it to the attention of James Hog of Carnock, who, in 1718, reissued it. At about the same time the assembly debate concerning the action of the presbytery of Auchterarder further charged the atmosphere. This presbytery, concerned for the doctrine of free grace, was requiring students applying for license to sign certain propositions, one of which read, “I believe that it is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake our sins in order to our coming to Christ.” The sinister look of this proposition led to its condemnation by the assembly. But the fault of the proposition was in its wording rather than in its meaning and intention. And the assembly’s action seemed to Boston and his friends to be a direct blow at the doctrine of free grace.
Into this confused atmosphere of disagreement and debate came the new edition of the Marrow. It was immediately hailed by one party with opprobrium, and by the other with delight. Its wealth of paradoxical language, and what some regarded as “excessive Paulinism,” gave Principal Hadow of St. Andrews, Alan Logan, of Culross, and Robert Wodrow, the historian, opportunity to proceed against it. They succeeded in convincing the Assembly of 1720 that it taught such heresies as a universal atonement, that assurance is of the essence of faith, that holiness is not necessary to salvation, and that the believer is not under the moral law as a rule of life. The accusers of the Marrow, who, it should be noted, were a mixture of logical, or hyper-Calvinists (like Hadow), and Moderates of the later type, undoubtedly feared that it would fortify antinomianism. But its champions, like Boston, Gabriel Wilson, and Ebenezer Erskine, were what we might call religious Calvinists, persuaded that it taught the pure doctrine of free grace, and that it would be an antidote against “neonomian” or “Baxterian” propaganda.
To take but one example. One of the most fruitful phrases which the Marrow bequeathed to Scottish religion was “the deed of gift and grant to mankind lost.” The assembly divines held that this phrase implied a universal atonement, whereas the Confession taught that Christ died for the elect alone. The Marrowmen, who also believed in a limited atonement, replied that though “the purchase and application of redemption is peculiar to the elect . . . yet the warrant to receive Him is common to all.” The Marrow phraseology may appear “to look like a cheat upon mankind to assert the one and yet to teach the other,” as John Grant of Auchenlek suggested in a letter to Wodrow. But this is the point: the Marrowmen defied logic, and kept their grip on “the deed of gift and grant to mankind lost.” How else could they take seriously the command to preach the gospel to every creature? The missionary passion, which, a century later, began to possess the Church, owed much to their unswerving tenacity.
In the Assembly of 1721 Boston, along with eleven of his brethren, laid before the assembly “The Representation,” remonstrating against the condemnation of the Marrow, and the prohibition imposed on ministers, forbidding them to preach, write, print, or circulate anything in its favor. This “Representation” was written with fearless candor, and yet in a respectful and conciliatory spirit. It was condemned, and its twelve supporters—the Marrowmen—were rebuked at the bar of the assembly. In his diary Mr. Boston has this record: “I received the rebuke and admonition as an ornament put upon me for the cause of truth.”
The Simson Controversy
As we have already had occasion to notice, in 1714–17, Professor Simson of Glasgow was accused of teaching Arminianism. He was following the “Baxterian” or “neonomian” line of teaching; that is, that the gospel is a new law, whose saving benefits the sinner may obtain by fulfilling the divine conditions of repentance and faith. It claimed to be strictly orthodox, but men like Boston, Webster, and Hog believed that such a theology, conceding a saving initiative to the corrupt will of the sinner, must be disruptive of the doctrine of sovereign grace. The mild rebuke which the assembly gave to Simson, in 1717, was in reality a tacit admission that neonomianism, in some form or other, had come to stay.
Simson’s mind then turned to speculation on the doctrine of the Trinity; and for three years (1727–29) the presbytery of Glasgow and the General Assembly, with the whole nation as intensely interested auditors, sought to discover whether Simson really taught his students heretical, Arian doctrine. What Simson appears really to have been doing was that he was including in the special properties of the Father, incommunicable to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, certain attributes, such as necessary existence which are essential qualities of true deity.
Eventually, the assembly acted. But, when it did, it was only to suspend Simson from teaching and preaching, and to leave him in possession of all the emoluments of his office. Boston felt that this sentence was “not adequate to the offence”—and rose in the assembly of 1729 to make a lone protest. “I cannot help thinking,” he began, “that the cause of Jesus Christ, as to the central and supreme point of His deity, has been at the bar of the assembly requiring justice; and, as I am shortly to answer at His bar for all I do or say, I dare not give my assent to the decision of this Act. . . .” He stood alone, though friends, not members of that year’s assembly—like Gabriel Wilson, Thomas Hog, and the Erskines—supported his stand. It must have taken very considerable moral courage, especially in an aging and sorely tried man.
The Scholar
In conclusion, we must not overlook the genuine scholarship, and the literary labors, of Thomas Boston.
He was an able linguist. He left school at the age of thirteen; and by then he knew Latin well, so that he could translate any author at sight. It may be comforting to you to know, however, that he does make this comment about his studies in Edinburgh: “I was also for a while at that time, I suppose, with Mr. Alexander Rule, Professor of Hebrew; but remember no remarkable advantage I had thereby!” But the comfort turns to wonder as we learn that at Simprin he acquired French and Dutch, and made progress in Hebrew. And in 1710, he became the proud possessor of a Hebrew Bible, and “plied the original close.” This became his darling study. Indeed, he not only wrote an essay of considerable length on the divine origin and authority of the Hebrew accents, but he also translated it into Latin, which in those days of course was the common language of learned divines. His solid learning, and the ingenuity of his reasonings, along with his modesty and outshining piety, were recognized by all—and his work had a considerable circulation.
He was a thorough theologian. One example, over and above the outstanding example provided by his Fourfold State, must suffice. From time to time it happened, especially in his early years at Simprin, that in the course of his Sunday preparation he came across questions which at one and the same time perplexed and interested him. They were theological problems which were new to him, and required more of thought and reading and prayer satisfactorily to answer than he could give at the moment. He did not cast them aside, but carefully noted them, that he might turn back to them for concentrated study when the opportunity arose. In a large volume, which he called his Miscellanea, he stated the subject in the form of queries, leaving an ample number of blank pages for recording the answer when the knot of difficulty had been untied, and for stating the reasons by which his conclusions had been reached.
He was an influential author. We have had occasion to refer to most of his major publications already. They reflect pretty accurately the different aspects of Thomas Boston—the man and his ministry. The first place must, of course, be given to the Fourfold State, which shows us Boston the theologian and preacher. Then his early work, A Soliloquy on the Art of Man Fishing—written when he was still a probationer—shows us Boston the evangelist. The Crook in the Lot shows us Boston the tender pastor, able to comfort the afflicted from his own deep experience of affliction. And, published in the last year of his life, his Memorial concerning Personal and Family Fasting and Humiliation shows us Boston the saint. There were other works published posthumously—his exposition of the Shorter Catechism, edited by his son; series of sermons, notably his communion sermons; and, last but not least, his memoir of himself, his life, time, and writings—written primarily for his children, and dedicated to them.
The Fourfold State was one of those books by which God has chosen to work, and work mightily; and a little more must be said of it. The writing of it took Boston much time, and perhaps even more prayer. For years he hesitated to launch it on the uncertain sea of public opinion. It was eventually published in 1720—although it had first been suggested to him by his friend Dr. Trotter in the Simprin days. Its full title informs us briefly of its content: “Human nature in its fourfold state of primitive integrity, entire depravity, begun recovery, and consummate happiness or misery.” In other words, it is really a miniature systematic theology. But Boston’s aim was, while presenting Christian truths in systematic form and seeking to show their mutual relationship and dependence, to adapt his language to the general capacity of his readers and to bring the whole to bear upon their greatest needs and their eternal well-being. In fact, by means of the Fourfold State, Boston preached the gospel of heaven’s great love, not only to his people in Ettrick, but to the whole of the south and southeast of Scotland. It was read by multitudes, and literally thousands were converted through it. Indeed, we find him mentioning in the last chapter of his diary that he had received a comfortable account of its acceptableness and usefulness in places far more distant, particularly in the highlands.
The late Dr. Young of Perth has this to say about Boston’s work in the Fourfold State. “He took the bewildered child of trespass familiarly by the hand, and descending to the level of his untutored capacity, gave him a clear and consecutive view of the innocence from which he had fallen, the misery in which he was involved, the economy of restoration under which he was situated, and the hope which, by submitting to that economy, he might warrantably entertain. His eye, as he wrote, was upon the unawakened sinner, that he might arouse him from his dangerous lethargy; upon the anxious enquirer, that he might guide his steps into the right way; and upon the young convert, that he might guard him against devious paths and perilous delays. He never failed to show the bearing of Christian doctrine upon the conscience, the affections and the life, and to mingle with the light of systematic arrangement beseeching tenderness and practical appeal.” That surely is eloquent testimony to any work.
Now, to conclude our paper, let Boston speak again the closing words of his autobiography: “Upon the whole, I bless my God in Jesus Christ, that ever He made me a Christian, and took an early dealing with my soul; that ever He made me a minister of the gospel, and gave me some insight into the doctrine of His grace; and that ever He gave me the blessed Bible, and brought me acquainted with the originals, and especially with the Hebrew text. The world hath all along been a step-dame to me; and wheresoever I would have attempted to nestle in it, there was a thorn of uneasiness laid for me. Man is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed from that quarter. ‘All is vexation and vanity of spirit’—‘I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord.’ ” We, too, would bless the Lord for such a faithful soldier of Jesus Christ, and seek to follow in his steps.