1. Preface by Rev. Thomas Boston Jr.
Preface by Rev. Thomas Boston Jr.
no other recommendation than to assure the public, that the author of it was that great and good man whose name it bears in the title-page, “and whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches.” It was first published in the year 1738, when the secession from the established Church of Scotland was upon the growing hand. And being credibly informed, that several people in that way have the assurance to say the sermon is not Mr. Boston's, or that it is somehow adulterate, I embrace the opportunity of declaring to the world, that the following sermon was preached by the late Reverend Mr. Boston, my worthy and much honoured father, at Ettrick, in the year 1708, on occasion of reading from the pulpit a sentence of the Commission of the General Assembly of this church against Messrs. Macmillan and Macneil; and that the printed copy of it is in every respect agreeable to the original written with his own hand, which is in my custody.
The sermon discovers the truly evangelical spirit of its author; a spirit tender of the peace, as well as the purity of the church. No man could be more tenacious than he, of what he judged truth; while, at the same time, he could love, esteem and honour his brethren who differed from him, and very freely hold communion with them. This being my father's real and well-known character, it surprised me to find that several people gave it out, with great assurance, that, had he been living in our world, he had long ere now left the established church, because of her corruptions. How they came by this spirit of divination, I shall not pretend to say. Meantime, the following sermon seems to be no great evidence of what they assert; nor was there anything in the author's conduct while he lived that looked like it.
I remember, many years ago, some honest country people, who did not separate from the established church, but had such scruples at their own ministers that they could not receive sealing ordinances from them, addressed him most earnestly to baptise their children upon lines from their fellowship meetings. This he would by no means consent to do, because he thought it a breach of the peace and order of the church, and a cruel weakening the hands of his fellow servants. Accordingly he wrote a letter to one of them, in which he thus expresses himself: “The way I have learned Christ, is to entertain those principles and practices which I apprehend him to teach me in his word, be for them, or against them, who will; and to have such a sense of the imperfection cleaving to the best while here, and of the design of Providence in leaving it for our trial, that I dare not think to look him in the face, and set myself to counter-work others in their endeavours to bring sinners to him, because they see not with my light, and so take other courses than I in some particulars.”
I have sometimes thought that a Secession from the established church, was it managed with prudence and temper, and with the sole view of promoting Christianity, might be of considerable use. But alas! it is to be feared, that the Secession in this nation has contributed but little to the revival of real religion, though a great deal to the fomenting a spirit of wrath, bitterness and persecution; especially since the preachers began to multiply, and to make room for themselves by delivering so many of their brethren into the hands of the devil. This dreadful Antichristian Bull, designed to fix a mark of infamy on some of the chosen and faithful servants of Jesus Christ, has opened the mouths of the wicked, saddened the hearts of the saints, and astonished the most part of sober and thinking people. Who would have imagined that men who had been for a course of years crying out of the tyranny and oppression of the Church of Scotland would have given the world such a flagrant instance of both in their own conduct? Oh, how pitiable is the case of the poor people, who have their heads and hands filled with Acts, Declarations and Testimonies, about Church Government, Patronages, Burgher-oaths, etc., while their hearts are filled with pride and self-conceit, and with envy and bitterness against all but these of their own party! “O my soul, come not thou into their secret,” in point of church communion; “unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united,” in point of separation.
Divided sentiments and divided affections, I take to be two very different things. The former is the natural and necessary consequence of the present imperfect state of saints; the latter is highly provoking to God, and dishonourable to his Son Jesus Christ, as it is diametrically opposite to the new commandment of brotherly love, upon which we find no small stress laid in the New Testament. There it is made the distinguishing badge and mark of Christ's disciples: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another,” John 13:35. The disciples of John the Baptist were distinguished by the austerity and monkishness of their behaviour: The disciples of the Pharisees were known by their broad phylacteries, and the enlarged borders of their garments: The disciples of the Heathen Philosophers had their respective peculiarities in their opinions or practice, whereby it was manifest to which sect they belonged. Now, when Jesus Christ came into the world, and made disciples in it, he appointed that mutual love, harmony and concord should be their distinguishing characteristic.
Oh, the beautiful simplicity, purity and humility that runs through the whole gospel of Jesus Christ! He does not say, as vain men would readily expect, By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye can cleanse the lepers, cure the sick, raise the dead, cast out devils, and speak with divers tongues; but he makes that plain and practical thing, brotherly love, the criterion of his disciples. The power of working miracles, like the gift of prophecy, was not always confined to the moral character. Many in the church of Corinth excelled in spiritual gifts, while they were living in strife and contention, and likewise drenched in fleshly abominations. They wanted the peculiar badge of discipleship mentioned by our Saviour, while there was envy, strife and divisions among them; one saying, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos.” 1 Corinthians 1:12.
Moreover, the scripture represents our walking in brotherly love and unity as a proper means of convincing the infidel world of the truth and excellency of the Christian religion. Remarkable to this purpose are these words of our Saviour in his prayer before his passion: “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE THAT THOU HAST SENT ME.” John 17:21. The first Christians, by their walking in love and unity among themselves, gave such an amiable representation of their religion to their Pagan neighbours that many of them renounced their own and embraced it. Mankind has, in all ages, been more pliant to example than to precept, reason, or argument. And I am apt to believe that if Christians would walk in love, and exemplify the other excellent precepts of the gospel in their lives, saying much less, and doing a great deal more, it would be a more effectual remedy against the prevailing infidelity of the age than all the elaborate defences and apologies for Christianity that have hitherto appeared.
Neither do I design the least reflection on these learned and worthy persons who have signalised themselves in the defence of our holy religion against the bold attacks of Atheists and Deists; their works praise them in the gates, and I acknowledge myself, among others, much obliged to several of them, for their clear and conclusive reasonings on some controverted points. But I would have the bulk and body of our people to be convinced, that it is in their power, though they want languages and learning, to do a great deal towards gaining the infidel world, namely, by their walking in brotherly love, in holy harmony and concord with one another, and exemplifying the other precepts of the gospel in their conversation.
The unsuccessfulness of the gospel is a common complaint, for which there is too much ground. But were we to ask the several divided parties in our Zion, what they judge to be the cause of it? each of them would resolve it into something that is immediately connected with their particular scheme or system: However, if we will go to the New Testament for the solution of this problem, we will find, that the new commandment of brotherly love is growing obsolete, and out of practice with the most part of professors, and a wrathful, bitter, and divisive spirit entering in among them, are both the causes and the evidences of the gospel's unsuccessfulness. See 1 Corinthians 3:1-4. Galatians 5:13-15,19-21. James 3:13-16.
Christians, I beseech you consider that deep concern for your union among yourselves, expressed by your Redeemer in his valedictory prayer, John 17:21-23. “That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” There ye have this Oneness twice in a breath. “And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.” Here we have it a third time. “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one.” This is the fourth time he comes over it, so very intent was he upon it. Here is a great deal of work made about a thing that is almost gone into desuetude among us. But did we rate and value things after the example of Jesus Christ, it would not be so. Should you hear a minister, with great warmth, pressing some duty from the pulpit, and when he returns home, should you at his closet door hear him wrestling with God in prayer, that he would give the people what he had so warmly pressed upon them; you would easily believe the good man was deeply concerned in the matter. What Christ had insisted on most in preaching, that he enlarged most upon in prayer: He had preached peace to them, peace was the legacy he desired to leave with them; and after all, he puts up with great earnestness, no less than four petitions for it at a throne of grace.
Surely it would be most pleasing and delightful to your dearest Redeemer, now exalted at the right hand of God, to look down among you, and behold you walking in love, in harmony and concord with one another. This would be the answer of his valedictory prayer, and the fruit of the travail of his soul. Why then will you grieve and vex your best friend, your friend at the court of heaven, with your clamour and noise, your wrath and bitterness, your strife and contention? Methinks I hear him addressing you from heaven in such words as these:
My children, have ye forgotten, or have ye willingly laid aside the very badge of your Christian profession, the distinguishing character of the heavenly family, while, instead of mutual love and friendship, ye are daily biting and devouring one another? Is this all the fruit of my pacificatory sacrifice offered for you? Is this all the influence of my sanctifying spirit upon you? There is but little in your differences, but there is great danger and disgrace in your dissentions. Should ye, the children of the same family, who lay together in the same womb of election, and are born to the same inheritance; should ye, whose names I bear together on my heart, and present unto God, be thus split and divided from one another in your affections? Will ye rend and tear my mystical body? Will ye crucify me afresh, and expose me to open shame by this most unchristian spirit and behaviour? Do not I bear with you all, with your ignorance, your frowardness, your follies and frailties, and will you bear no thing with one another? Do not I hold communion with you all? And are ye crumbled into sects and parties, heartily hating one another? Is the old Corinthian clamour and noise raised among you, some crying, I am of Paul, others, I am of Apollos? Is this the treatment ye give the Holy Spirit whom I have sent into your hearts? Will ye thus grieve and vex your Comforter? Will ye, by your strife and contention, provoke him to quit his habitation? Will ye spoil the holy angels of their joy, and give ground of triumph to the spirits of darkness, and their auxiliaries in the world, who impatiently wait for your stumbling and falling, that they may insult over you, crying, Aha, aha! so we would have it?
As serious Christians are agreed in the Essentials of our holy religion, even though they should differ in opinion about lesser matters, this ought not to divide them in Affection; nor can such differences be justly urged as a sufficient cause for that monstrous thing, schism, in the church of Christ. Indeed, should any man deny the doctrine of Original Sin, the Decrees of God, and in the business of Salvation ascribe more to man's free will than to God's free grace; should he laugh at Justification through the imputed Righteousness of Christ, and sneer at the doctrine of the Saints Perseverance; especially, should he deny a Trinity of Persons in the Godhead. As these are the distinguishing doctrines of Revealed Religion, I leave it to all who are serious and sound in the faith, what they are to think concerning such people. I beg leave to quote a passage from the celebrated Mr. [James] Harvey, whom no man in his senses will think to be either enthusiast or bigot. After this excellent writer has observed, that differences about lesser matters may subsist among Christians, where the Christian love continues, he adds, “But if one denies the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and degrades the incarnate God to the meanness of a mere creature; if another cries up the worthiness of human works, and depreciates the alone meritorious righteousness of the glorious Mediator; if a third addresses the incommunicable honours to a finite being, and bows to the image, or prays to the saint: These are errors, in my opinion, unhappily derogatory to the Redeemer's dignity, and not a little prejudicial to the comfort of his people: Against these, therefore to remonstrate, bespeaks not the censorious bigot, but the friend of truth, and the lover of mankind. Whereas to stand neuter and silent, while such principles are propagated, might be an instance of criminal remisiness, rather than of Christian moderation.” Meditations, volume one, pages 173-174, edition sixth.
To conclude, “Let us, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. And, above all these things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.” Colossians 3:12-14. “If there be therefore any Consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies; fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.” Philippians 2:1-2. To promote this noble temper and disposition of soul was the design of the author of the ensuing discourse, and that it may be blessed of God for that effect, is the prayer of him who desires to love all these, of whatsoever denomination they be, that love our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oxnam-Manse, January 23, 1753.
Thomas Boston.