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PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


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Thomson,  Andrew,  1814-1901. 

Thomas  Boston  of  Ettrick 


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PORTRAIT      OF      THOMAS      BOSTON. 


THOMAS    BOSTON 

OF     ETTRICK:     HIS 
LIFE     AND     TIMES 


REV.    ANDREW    THOMSON,    D.D.,     F.R.S.E., 
Minister  of  Broughton  Place  Church,  Edinburgh 

AUTHOR   OF    "SAMUEL    Rl'THERFORD,"    "  IN    THE    HOLY    LAND," 

"  LIFE   OF    PRINCIPAL    HARPER,    D.U." 

&C.  &C. 


T.      NELSON      A  N  D      SONS 
Lctuioi,  Edinburgh,  and  New  York 

1895 


PREFACE. 


T ~K  J"E  shall  not  be  charged  with  superfluous  authorship 
*  ^  in  having  written  the  following  Memoir  of  Mr. 
Boston  of  Ettrick.  Nearly  a  century  and  a  half  has 
elapsed  since  the  death  of  that  remarkable  man,  and  any- 
thing approaching  to  a  complete  biography  of  him  has  up 
to  this  time  remained  to  be  written. 

Brief  narratives  regarding  some  of  the  salient  points  in 
his  life,  and  estimates  of  his  character,  have  indeed  ap- 
peared at  intervals,  usually  attached  to  some  of  his  works 
when  they  were  republished ;  but  we  are  not  aware  of  any 
book  which,  beginning  with  his  early  youth,  and  giving 
ample  space  to  family  incidents,  has  traced  the  story  of  his 
life  through  all  its  changeful  periods — described  his  con- 
flicts with  surrounding  errors,  his  influence  on  the  condi- 
tion of  the  church  and  the  religious  thought  of  his  times 
■ — producing,  in  fact,  what  we  mean  by  a  biography. 

No  doubt  we  have  Mr.  Boston's  diary,  which  was  written 
by  him  for  his  family  and  published  soon  after  his  death,  and 
must  be  invaluable  to  any  biographer;  but  even  it  contains 
many  gaps  which  need  to  be  filled  up  from  other  sources ; 
and  besides  this,  it  would  not  serve  the  ends  of  biography 
to  be  always  looking  at  the  subject  of  it  through  his  eyes. 


vi  PREFACE. 

We  have  endeavoured,  in  the  following  pages,  to  include  in 
our  narrative  the  whole  range  of  his  life  and  ministry  ; 
with  what  measure  of  success  it  will  be  for  the  intelligent 
and  candid  reader  to  judge. 

Even  in  so  brief  a  preface  as  this,  we  cannot  refrain 
from  mentioning  the  names  of  friends  to  whom  we  are 
conscious  of  owing  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  kindly  advice 
and  cheering  encouragement  in  connection  with  the  writing 
of  this  memoir.  We  owe  a  warm  tribute  of  thanks  to  the 
Rev.  John  Lawson  of  Selkirk,  who  guided  us  for  several 
days  amid  the  classic  scenes  of  Ettrick  and  Yarrow,  and 
showed  us  sacred  spots  that  were  linked  with  the  honoured 
name  of  the  author  of  the  "Fourfold  State;"  and  to  Mrs. 
Dr.  Smith  of  Biggar,  who  possesses,  and  kindly  allowed  us 
to  photograph  a  portion  of,  the  original  manuscript  of  that 
work.  We  have  also  to  thank  our  long-tried  friend  and 
fellow-labourer  in  the  gospel,  Dr.  Blair  of  Dunblane,  who 
was  in  full  sympathy  with  us  in  our  veneration  for  Mr. 
Boston,  and  ever  ready  with  friendly  advice  and  suggestion 
out  of  his  well-stored  mind.  Nor  can  we  omit  to  mention 
the  name  of  W.  White-Millar,  Esq.,  S.S.C.,  the  cherished 
friend  of  a  long  life,  who  grudged  neither  time  nor  trouble- 
in  procuring  for  us  desired  information  on  the  subjects  of 
our  narrative,  and  in  this  way,  as  well  as  by  his  cheerful 
countenance,  turned  our  labour  into  a  pleasure.  And 
not  least  do  we  place  on  grateful  record  our  deep  sense  of 
the  spiritual  benefit  we  have  derived  from  the  study,  for  so 
many  months,  of  the  life  and  character  of  a  man  of  the 
true  apostolic  stamp,  who  would  have  been  justly  regarded 
as  a  star  of  the  first  magnitude,  an  ornament  to  the  Chris- 
tian Church  even  in  the  brightest  and  purest  periods  of 
its  history. 


CONTEN  T  S, 


I.    INTRODUCTORY, 
II.    FROM    BIRTH    TO    EARLY    MANHOOD,       ... 

III.  STUDENT,    TUTOR,    AND    PROBATIONER, 

IV.  SIMPRIN — FINDING  OF  THE  " MARROW  " — A  CALL 

FROM    ETTRICK, 
V.    FIRST   TEN    YEARS    IN    ETTRICK, 
VI.    THE    "  FOURFOLD    STATE " — COMMUNION    FESTI- 
VALS— A    GREAT    SORROW, 
VII.    HOME    LIFE,    STUDY,    PULPIT,    AND    PASTORATE, 
VIII.    HEBREW    STUDIES    AND    FOREIGN    CORRESPOND- 
ENCE, 
IX.    GATHERING    CLOUDS, 
X.    THE    "MARROW"    CONTROVERSY, 
XI.    THE   LAST   DECADE, 
XII.    HOME    IN    SIGHT, 
XIII.    SUPPLEMENTARY, 


33 

56 
95 

134 

151 

i7S 

187 
200 
210 
218 
246 


THOMAS   BOSTON   OF   ETTRICK. 


CHAPTER   I. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

IT  would  be  difficult  to  name  a  man  who  has  a 
higher  claim  to  an  honourable  place  in  the 
Christian  biography  of  Scotland  in  the  eighteenth 
century  than  Thomas  Boston  of  Ettrick.  We  deem 
it  sufficient  of  itself  to  explain  and  justify  this  state- 
ment, that  he  was  the  author  of  the  "  Fourfold 
State."  It  is  a  remarkable  circumstance  that,  from 
the  days  of  the  Reformation  downward,  there  has 
always  been  some  one  book  in  which  the  vitalizing 
element  has  been  peculiarly  strong,  and  which  God 
has  singled  out  as  the  instrument  of  almost  in- 
numerable conversions,  as  well  as  of  quickening  and 
deepening  the  divine  life  in  those  who  had  already 
believed.  Luther's  "  Commentary  on  Galatians," 
Baxter's  "  Call  to  the  Unconverted,"  Bunyan's  "  Pil- 


10  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

grim,"  Alleine's  "Alarm,"  Doddridge's  "Rise  and 
Progress,"  Fuller's  "  Great  Question  Answered," 
Wilberforce's  "  Practical  Christianity  ; "  in  France, 
Monod's  "  Lucille,"  and  in  Germany,  Arndt's  "  True 
Christianity,"  have  been  among  the  great  life-books 
of  their  generation  ;  and  we  may  add  with  confi- 
dence to  this  sacred  list  the  "Fourfold  State"  of 
Boston. 

Within  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  its  publication 
it  had  found  its  way,  and  was  eagerly  read  and 
pondered,  over  all  the  Scottish  Lowlands.  From 
St.  Abb's  Head,  in  all  the  Border  counties,  in  the 
pastoral  regions  shadowed  by  the  Lammermoors  and 
the  Lowthers,  to  the  remotest  point  in  Galloway, 
it  was  to  be  seen,  side  by  side  with  the  Bible  and 
Bunyan's  glorious  Dream,  on  the  shelf  in  every 
peasant's  cottage.  The  shepherd  bore  it  with  him, 
folded  in  his  plaid,  up  among  the  silent  hills.  The 
ploughman  in  the  valleys  refreshed  his  spirit  with  it, 
as  with  heavenly  manna,  after  his  long  day  of  toil. 
The  influence  which  began  with  the  humbler  classes 
ascended  like  a  fragrance  into  the  mansions  of  the 
Lowland  laird  and  the  Border  chief,  and  carried  with 
it  a  new  and  hallowed  joy.  The  effect  was  like  the 
reviving  breath  of  spring  upon  the  frost-bound  earth. 
Many  a  lowly  peasant  with  Boston's  "  Fourfold 
State,"    familiar    through    frequent    perusal    to    his 


INTRODUCTORY.  I  I 

memory  and  heart,  became  an  athlete  in  the  discus- 
sion of  theological  questions,  and,  like  the  Border 
wrestlers  in  an  early  age,  was  rarely  worsted  in  a 
conflict.  One  who  lived  nearer  to  Boston's  age,  and 
was  better  able  to  judge,  has  declared  that,  over  three 
generations,  the  "Fourfold  State"  had  been  the  in- 
strument of  more  numerous  conversions  and  more 
extensive  spiritual  quickening,  in  at  least  one  part  of 
our  island,  than  any  other  human  production  it  was 
in  his  power  to  specify. 

It  would, however, be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  even 
in  our  own  age  this  remarkable  book  had  at  length 
spent  its  force,  and  had  become  as  an  old  defaced 
golden  coin  withdrawn  from  circulation,  or  as  a  sword 
that  had  become  rusty  and  unwieldy,  and  was  trans- 
ferred from  the  armoury  to  the  museum.  In  a  paper 
of  much  ability  and  interest  on  "Religious  Thought  in 
Wales,"  which  was  not  long  since  read  by  Principal 
Edwards  at  a  great  meeting  of  the  Presbyterian 
Alliance  in  London,  it  was  stated  that  if  you  entered 
the  house  of  a  rustic  elder  or  leader  of  the  private 
societies  fifty  years  ago,  you  would  uniformly  find 
that  he  had  a  small  and  very  select  library.  Among 
other  books  you  would  be  sure  to  lay  your  hand  on 
translations  into  Welsh  of  Boston's  "  Fourfold  State," 
Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  Owen  on  the  "  Per- 
son of  Christ "  and  on  the  "  Mortification  of  Sin  in 


12  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Believers,"  and  others.  It  is  also  true  that  in  our 
British  colonies  at  the  present  day,  especially  where 
the  Scottish  element  abounds  in  the  population,  the 
"Fourfold  State"  continues  to  be  sought  after  and 
read  ;  and  we  have  received  testimony  from  natives 
that  it  is  extensively  sold  and  circulated  on  the 
misty  coasts  of  Labrador.  It  is  natural  that  we 
should  wish  to  know  something  of  the  outer  and 
inner  life  of  an  author  whom  God  has  honoured  for 
so  many  generations  and  in  so  many  lands  as  the 
instrument  of  the  highest  form  of  blessing. 

It  was  not  only,  however,  as  the  author  of  the 
"  Fourfold  State,"  and  of  other  books  that  are  after- 
wards to  be  named,  but  as  the  pastor  of  Ettrick,  that 
the  name  of  Boston  long  since  obtained  a  secure  and 
sacred  place  in  the  annals  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
in  Scotland  and  in  the  hearts  of  her  people.  The 
assertion  is  not  likely  to  be  challenged  that,  if  Scot- 
land 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  func- 
tions, 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  syno- 
nym for  holy  living.      Away  up  among  those  green 


INTRODUCTORY.  1 3 

hills  and  limpid  streams  of  Ettrick,  he  rises  before 
our  imagination  as  a  man  striving  daily  to  lead  a 
saintly  life,  endeavouring  by  much  thought  and 
prayer  to  solve  for  himself  difficult  theological  prob- 
lems, and  doing  earnest  battle  against  the  profanity, 
impurity,  worldliness,  and  loose  notions  and  practices 
in  bargain-making  which  he  found  to  prevail  among 
his  parishioners,  and  to  win  them  to  the  obedience  of 
Christ.  He  was  such  a  man  as  might  have  sat  as  a 
living  model  to  Baxter  when  he  wrote  his  "  Reformed 
Pastor."  We  would  place  him  as  a  companion  spirit, 
like-minded  and  like-gifted,  to  that  "  gentle  saint  of 
Nonconformity,"  as  a  pious  English  bishop  has 
recently  termed  him,  Philip  Henry  of  Broad-Oak. 

It  must  be  known  to  many  that  Boston  wrote 
a  "Memoir"  of  himself,  or,  more  correctly,  kept 
a  diary,  which  was  principally  designed  for  the 
benefit  of  his  family  and  "  inner  friends,"  after 
he  had  finished  his  course.  It  is  a  large  volume, 
and  is  invaluable  to  the  biographer  both  on  account 
of  the  fulness  and  accuracy  of  its  information,  and 
because  it  introduces  us  to  a  knowledge  of  the 
writer's  inward  and  spiritual  life,  which,  in  its  degree, 
would  have  been  impossible  except  in  an  autobiog- 
raphy. Next  to  the  "  Confessions  of  Saint  Augus- 
tine," with  their  terrible  fidelity  of  self-revelation,  it 
would   be  difficult   to   name   any  autobiography,  in 


14  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

any  language,  which  bears  so  unmistakably  through- 
out the  marks  of  simplicity  and  truth.  In  so  far  as 
self-display  or  self-laudation  are  concerned,  Boston 
forgets  himself  even  when  he  is  writing  of  himself. 
In  regard  to  the  incidents  of  his  early  life  and  his 
early  ministry,  and  to  the  experiences  of  his  last 
years,  when  begun  defection  in  the  church  drew  him 
forth  reluctantly  into  ecclesiastical  conflict,  and  the 
spirit  of  the  martyr  showed  itself  in  the  good  con- 
fessor, the  biographer  must  derive  much  of  his  in- 
formation from  Boston. 

But  it  is  from  the  records  of  his  Ettrick  life  and 
ministry  that  we  gather  our  most  precious  stores. 
To  the  Christian  reader  there  is  a  sacred  and  heart- 
stirring  interest  in  marking  that  abounding  and 
ardent  prayer  which  was  as  the  air  he  breathed ;  in 
his  practice  of  seeing  God,  not  only  in  extraordinary 
providences,  but  in  the  common  round  of  daily  life; 
and  not  less  in  noticing  the  severity  with  which  he 
searched  his  heart  and  judged  himself  as  if  he  felt 
himself  standing  in  the  burning  light  of  divine  om- 
niscience, and  the  sweet  tenderness  with  which  he 
ruled  his  house,  and  the  holy  passion  with  which  his 
spirit  yearned  for  the  salvation  of  his  children. 
While  to  the  ministers  of  religion  the  Ettrick  ex- 
periences of  Boston,  as  he  himself  has  described 
them,  are  full  of  the  most  wholesome  impulses  and 


INTRODUCTORY.  1 5 

suggestive  lessons.  Alike  in  his  motives  and  in  his 
methods,  as  he  has  enabled  us  to  see  him,  in  his 
study,  in  his  pulpit,  in  his  pastoral  visits,  in  his  meek 
endurance  of  opposition,  in  his  perils  amid  mountain 
mists  and  flooded  mountain  torrents,  in  his  watching 
for  opportunities  of  doing  good,  and  carving  out 
those  opportunities  when  he  did  not  find  them, 
young  ministers  when  entering  on  the  difficulties  and 
responsibilities  of  their  sacred  office  may  learn  the 
secret  of  ministerial  success,  and  those  who  have  not 
succeeded  may  find  out,  while  it  is  not  yet  too  late, 
the  secret  of  their  failure. 

The  more  we  study  that  grand  Ettrick  ministry, 
the  more  deep  will  become  our  impression  that 
the  ideal  of  a  true  Christian  minister,  as  traced 
by  Cowper  in  his  well-known  lines,  and  by  Paul 
himself,  was  in  an  extraordinary  measure  realized 
by  this  man  of  God.  In  later  generations  Ettrick 
has  become  classic  ground.  In  the  poems  of  Sir 
Walter  Scott  and  of  James  Hogg,  "  the  great  min- 
strel and  the  shepherd  poet,"  as  Wordsworth  has 
happily  designated  them,  every  glen  and  hill  and 
stream  has  been  made  sacred  to  literature,  and  its 
name  has  been  wafted  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
But  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  two  generations 
before  these  masters  in  poetry  had  struck  the  chords 
of  their  lyre,  Ettrick  had  already  become  a  house- 


1 6  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

hold  word  in  all  the  cottages  and  castles  of  the 
Scottish  Lowlands,  through  its  association  with  the 
name  of  Boston,  who  by  his  writings  and  his  minis- 
try had,  in  many  a  parish,  turned  the  wilderness 
into  a  fruitful  field,  and  guided  many  a  bewildered 
wanderer  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 


CHAPTER    II. 

FROM    BIRTH    TO   EARLY   MANHOOD — SCHOOLS 
AND   SCHOOLMASTERS. 

THOMAS  BOSTON  was  born  on  the  17th 
day  of  March  1676,  twelve  years  before  the 
benign  Revolution  of  1688,  which  placed  William 
of  Orange  on  the  British  throne,  and  reinstated  the 
Presbyterian  Church  in  its  emoluments  and  privi- 
leges. His  birthplace  was  Duns,  an  important  town 
in  Berwickshire,  situated  on  a  fine  plain  to  the 
south  of  Duns  Law,  which,  in  spite  of  broom  and 
furze,  still  retains  the  vestiges  of  its  occupation  by 
General  Leslie  in  the  stormy  times  of  Cromwell  and 
the  Commonwealth. 

This  neat  Border  town  has  been  more  than  usually 
distinguished  as  the  birthplace  of  eminent  Scotsmen. 
It  claims,  not  without  preponderating  evidence  in 
its  favour,  to  have  been  the  native  town  of  John 
Duns  Scotus,  some  time  in  the  later  part  of  the  thir- 
teenth century,  who  maintained  an  almost  unrivalled 


I  8  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

reputation  for  learning,  dialectic  subtlety,  and  elo- 
quence over  all  Europe,  until  the  scholastic  theology 
and  philosophy  were  exploded.  It  was  said  of 
him  by  one  of  his  contemporaries,  that  "he  wrote 
so  many  books  that  one  man  was  hardly  able  to 
read  them,  and  no  one  man  was  able  to  understand 
them."  It  became  the  birthplace  of  Boston  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and,  about  a  hundred  years 
afterwards,  of  Dr.  Thomas  M'Crie,  who  did  so  much 
to  enrich  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  Scotland  by  his 
lives  of  Knox  and  Melville. 

Boston's  parents  belonged  to  that  humbler  middle 
class  who  have  always  formed  a  large  part  of  the 
moral  salt  of  Scotland.  Reputable  among  their 
neighbours,  his  father,  John  Boston,  was,  as  his  son 
loved  to  describe  him,  an  intelligent  and  pious  man, 
"having  got  good  of  the  gospel  from  his  youth;" 
his  mother,  Alison  Trotter,  was  "  a  woman  prudent 
and  virtuous."  Thomas,  the  subject  of  our  narrative, 
was  the  youngest  of  seven  children. 

During  the  interval  of  twelve  years  between  the 
birth  of  Thomas  and  the  enlargement  and  liberty 
which  came  with  the  Revolution,  both  parents,  who 
refused  to  bend  to  prelatic  authority,  and  preferred 
peace  of  conscience  to  outward  ease  and  the  pleas- 
ing of  men,  were  made  to  suffer  severely  for  their 
Nonconformity.     For  this   offence  alone  the  father 


HIS   PARENTS.  1 9 

was  cast  into  prison.  It  is  the  earliest  reminiscence 
of  the  boy  that  he  was  taken  into  prison  with  the 
father  to  relieve  his  loneliness.  The  experience  left 
a  deep  mark  on  the  child's  memory,  and  he  often 
rejoiced,  in  his  mature  years,  that  he  had  thus  been 
honoured  to  have  fellowship  with  his  father  in  his 
sufferings.  One  is  reminded  of  something  kindred 
in  experience  to  this  in  the  history  of  another  Non- 
conformist family.  The  father  of  that  Isaac  Watts 
who,  by  his  hymns,  was  destined  to  make  all  the 
churches  and  all  succeeding  generations  his  debtor, 
was  also  a  Nonconformist,  and  lay  in  prison  for  his 
Nonconformity  at  the  time  when  the  future  hymn- 
writer  was  born.  The  little  Isaac  was  carried  from 
day  to  day,  in  his  mother's  arms,  to  the  prison  gate, 
near  to  which  she  would  sit  for  hours  on  a  large 
stone  nursing  her  infant ;  for  she  knew  that  the 
innocent  sufferer  whom  she  was  not  allowed  to  see 
was  soothed  and  comforted  by  his  knowledge  of 
their  presence  there. 

There  is  one  reminiscence  which  shows  how  much 
the  mother  was  of  the  same  mould  and  metal  as  her 
husband  in  refusing  to  obey  men  in  opposition  to 
the  demands  of  conscience,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
how  fully  her  woman's  heart  was  in  sympathy  with 
him  in  his  sufferings  ;  and  she  did  her  utmost  to 
relieve  them.     On  occasion  of  a  second  act  of  recu- 


20  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

sancy,  she  made  every  effort,  by  her  self-straining  and 
industry,  to  provide  the  cruel  fine  which  was  imposed 
by  the  magistrate,  with  the  alternative  penalty  of 
imprisonment  or  the  spoiling  of  his  goods.  On 
venturing  to  ask  for  some  slight  abatement  on  the 
charge,  she  was  refused  with  oaths  and  imprecations 
of  evil.  But,  according  to  the  Spanish  proverb  that 
"  curses  like  ravens  often  come  home  to  roost,"  the 
malediction  speedily  returned  upon  himself  in  ruin 
and  disgrace.  We  proceed  with  the  story  of  the 
son's  life. 

At  an  early  age  young  Boston  was  sent  to  school. 
For  three  years  he  was  under  the  care  of  a  "  dame," 
or  schoolmistress,  whose  manner  of  teaching  was  of 
a  very  simple  and  primitive  kind,  different  in  many 
ways  from  our  modern  methods.  After  the  tiny 
pupil  had  been  sufficiently  drilled  in  the  alphabet 
and  in  the  pronouncing  of  syllables  of  two  or  three 
letters,  his  next  lesson-book,  for  reading  as  well  as 
for  spelling,  was  usually  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon  or 
the  Shorter  Catechism,  in  both  of  which  even  poly- 
syllables were  plentiful.  There  was  no  graduated 
scale  then  of  first,  and  second,  and  third  standards, 
to  make  the  ascent  easy.  It  was  like  requiring 
the  young  scholar  to  climb  a  ladder  that  wanted 
some  of  its  steps,  and  to  take  an  almost  desperate 
bound  upward  as  he  might.     Nevertheless,  the  diffi- 


SCHOOL   LIFE.  21 

culty  was  in  due  time  overcome.  But  in  the  case  of 
little  Boston,  the  "  good-souled  "  schoolmistress  was 
not  content  with  the  usual  routine  of  teaching,  for 
her  heart  was  drawn  out  to  the  gentle  boy.  It  was 
in  an  upper  chamber  in  his  father's  house  that  she 
kept  her  school  ;  and,  especially  in  the  long  winter 
nights,  when  the  other  children  were  not  present,  she 
not  only  made  him  read  to  her  aloud,  but  repeated 
to  him  endless  Scripture  stories,  to  which  the  child 
listened  with  wondering  delight.  We  are  reminded 
by  the  scene  of  Doddridge's  gentle  mother  amplify- 
ing, with  all  a  mother's  loving  simplicity,  the  incidents 
of  Holy  Writ  depicted  on  the  blue  Dutch  tiles  which, 
according  to  the  fashion  of  the  day,  lined  the  chimney 
corner.  The  lessons  were  never  forgotten,  for  nature 
always  paints  her  earliest  pictures  on  the  memory  in 
undying  colours. 

At  eight  years  of  age,  or  thereabouts,  young  Bos- 
ton, having  probably  risen  in  his  attainments  to  the 
level  of  his  kind  schoolmistress,  and  having  already 
shown  a  marked  capacity  for  instruction,  passed  into 
the  grammar  school  of  his  native  town  under  the 
mastership  of  Mr.  James  Bullerwall,  who,  in  addition 
to  his  promoting  his  further  progress  in  the  element- 
ary branches  of  education,  engaged  to  instruct  him 
in  English  grammar,  in  Latin,  in  which  many  of  the 
Scottish  schoolmasters  had  been  eminent  since  the 


22  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

days  of  George  Buchanan,  and  also  to  qualify  him 
for  translating  some  of  the  easier  parts  of  the  Greek 
New  Testament.  From  the  first,  the  boy  was  dili- 
gent and  dutiful  in  his  attention  to  his  school  tasks, 
profiting  above  the  rest  of  his  own  class,  by  means 
of  whom  his  progress  was  the  more  slow. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  the  estimate  which  he 
formed  of  himself  at  this  period  of  his  school  life,  and 
also  to  obtain  a  glimpse  of  the  youth  as  he  appears 
among  his  schoolmates  on  the  playground.  He  says, 
after  his  own  quaint  manner:  "  By  means  of  my  edu- 
cation and  natural  disposition  I  was  of  a  sober  and 
harmless  deportment, and  preserved  from  the  common 
vices  of  children  in  towns.  I  was  at  no  time  what 
they  call  a  vicious  or  roguish  boy  ;  neither  was  I  so 
addicted  to  play  as  to  forget  my  business,  though  I 
was  a  dexterous  player  at  such  games  as  required  art 
and  nimbleness.  And  toward  the  latter  end  of  this 
period,  having  had  frequent  occasion  to  see  soldiers 
exercised,  I  had  a  peculiar  faculty  at  mustering  and 
exercising  my  school-fellows  accordingly,  by  the 
several  words  and  motions  of  the  exercise  of  the  mus- 
ket, they  being  formed  into  a  body  under  a  captain." 

We  cannot  help  thinking,  especially  when  we 
call  to  mind  a  later  passage  in  his  autobiography 
in  which  he  tells  us  that  "  in  the  natural  temper  of 
his  spirit  he  was  timorous,"  that  it  would  have  been 


HIS   CONVERSION.  23 

for  his  advantage,  both  in  his  school  life  and  after- 
wards, if  he  had  been  a  good  deal  more  of  an  athlete 
than  he  was.  We  say  this  in  full  remembrance  of 
the  protests  of  the  gentle  author  of  the  "  Tirocinium." 
It  is  probable  that  more  of  the  friendly  conflicts  of 
the  school-ground  would  have  helped  to  give  Bos- 
ton's natural  timidity  to  the  winds.  Athletic  exer- 
cises in  the  open  air  and  in  the  midst  of  fanning 
breezes  not  only  benefit  the  body,  but  the  mind 
through  the  body,  and  no  good  moral  education  is 
complete  without  them.  We  should  endeavour  to 
keep  "  the  harp  of  thousand  strings  "  in  tune  for  God. 
Looking  back  upon  a  period  of  more  than  sixty 
years,  we  can  remember  excursions  of  our  school  in 
autumn  to  the  hazel-wood  behind  the  hills,  the  rush 
in  summer,  after  school  hours,  to  the  swimming  feats 
in  the  bright  river  not  far  off,  and  the  bracing 
winter  amusements,  secured  by  holiday,  on  the 
bosom  of  the  frozen  lake  ;  and  we  cherish  the  con- 
viction that  the  mental  and  moral,  as  well  as  the 
physical  part  of  our  nature,  gained  by  the  exercise. 

It  was  not  until  some  time  during  the  closing 
years  of  young  Boston's  attendance  at  the  grammar 
school  that  he  came  under  the  supreme  influence  of 
the  religion  of  Christ.  In  the  case  of  those  whose 
earliest  thoughts  have  been  associated  with  Bible 
instruction,  who  from   their  childhood  have   looked 


24  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

on  the  example  of  pious  parents  and  breathed  the 
atmosphere  of  Christian  homes,  the  great  change 
lias  often  come  so  gradually  and  imperceptibly 
that  it  was  impossible  for  themselves  or  others  to 
tell  the  exact  moment  of  the  dawning  of  the  new 
life.  Their  sense  of  sin  and  their  apprehension  of 
the  Divine  love  in  Christ  were  so  simultaneous  that, 
according  to  the  beautiful  figure  of  Cesar  Malan, 
their  spiritual  quickening  was  like  the  awakening 
of  an  infant  by  its  mother's  kiss — the  moment 
that  it  opened  its  eyes  it  looked  up  into  the  coun- 
tenance of  love.  This  was  not  quite  the  manner  of 
Boston's  great  change;  neither  was  it  in  his  case 
associated  with  those  terrible  birth-throes  into  the 
new  life  which  are  associated  with  the  repentance 
of  some,  especially  when  their  previous  career  has 
been  stained  with  profanity  or  vice.  His  conver- 
sion in  some  of  its  features  was  different  from 
both  of  these,  and  its  story  is  alike  interesting  and 
suggestive. 

When,  in  1687,  James  II.,  for  purposes  of  his  own, 
relaxed  the  restraints  on  Presbyterian  worship,  the 
Rev.  Henry  Erskine  was  one  of  the  first  to  take 
advantage  of  the  begrudged  boon.  Originally  he 
had  been  a  Presbyterian  minister  at  Cornhill,  on  the 
south  of  the  Tweed,  until,  under  the  Act  of  Uni- 
formity  which    extinguished  so    many  of  the   best 


HENRY   ERSKINE.  25 

lights  of  English  Nonconformity,  he  had  been  driven 
from  his  charge.  During  the  intervening  years  he 
had  moved  from  place  to  place  on  both  sides  of  the 
Border,  taking  eager  advantage  of  opportunities  for 
preaching  wherever  they  could  be  found,  when  at 
length  this  sudden  outburst  of  liberty,  so  soon  to  be 
enlarged  and  consolidated  by  the  Revolution,  brought 
him  to  Whitsome,  a  little  village  down  in  the  Merse, 
about  five  miles  from  Duns.  He  was  a  man  of 
gentle  birth,  being  related  to  one  of  the  noble  families 
of  Scotland,  of  much  natural  eloquence  and  evan- 
gelical fervour,  to  whom  the  preaching  of  Christ  was 
welcome  as  the  air  he  breathed.  To  many  it  may 
add  a  peculiar  interest  to  know  that  he  was  the 
father  of  Ebenezer  and  Ralph  Erskine,  who,  many 
years  afterwards,  were  to  become  the  founders  of  the 
Scottish  Secession  Church. 

Considerable  numbers  of  the  Duns  people,  who 
had  long  been  weary  of  the  sapless  and  Christless 
preaching  to  which  they  had  been  constrained  to 
listen  in  their  native  town,  no  longer  held  back 
by  the  dread  of  fine  or  imprisonment,  were  gladly 
willing  on  every  Sabbath  morning  to  travel  all  the 
way  to  Whitsome  to  attend  upon  Mr.  Erskine's 
ministry,  which  was  impregnated  by  gospel  truth 
and  glowed  with  that  love  which  the  gospel  in- 
spired.    It  was  indeed  a  time  of  refreshing.     Never 


26  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

did  fainting  traveller  in  an  Eastern  wilderness  more 
welcome  the  cooling  fountain  under  the  shadow  of 
the  palm-trees,  than  did  those  weekly  pilgrims 
welcome  the  message  of  Heaven's  love  for  which 
they  flocked  to  Whitsome.  And  John  Boston  was 
regularly  there  with  his  son  Thomas.  Our  young 
scholar  was  among  the  first  whose  heart  was  effec- 
tually touched  and  won  to  Christ  through  Mr. 
Erskine's  preaching  in  that  Border  village.  Partic- 
ularly, two  sermons,  the  former  on  the  words,  "  O 
generation  of  vipers,  who  hath  warned  you  to  flee 
from  the  wrath  to  come?"  speaking  of  man's  guilt 
and  ruin  ;  and  the  second  on  the  text,  "  Behold  the 
Lamb  of  God,"  holding  up  before  his  anxious  gaze 
the  cross  and  the  Crucified  One  as  the  divinely  pro- 
vided means  of  his  deliverance,  marked  the  great 
turning-point  in  his  spiritual  history,  and  brought 
him  into  "  the  valley  of  decision."  "  By  these,"  he 
says,  "  I  judge,  God  spake  to  me.  However,  I  know 
I  was  touched  quickly  after  the  first  hearing,  wherein 
I  was  like  one  amazed  with  some  new  and  strange 
thing.  Sure  I  am,  I  was  in  good  earnest  concerned 
for  a  saving  interest  in  Jesus  Christ.  My  soul  went 
out  after  him,  and  the  place  of  his  feet  was  glorious 
in  mine  eyes."  From  that  time,  every  Sabbath 
morning,  as  it  dawned  upon  the  young  convert, 
seemed  to  arise  with  healing  on  its  wings. 


SAINTLY   COMMUNION.  2.J 

Nor  were  his  benefit  and  enjoyment  confined  on 
those  days  to  the  Whitsome  assemblies.  The  con- 
versation of  his  fellow-pilgrims,  especially  on  their 
way  homeward — many  of  whom  were  men  of  much 
Christian  knowledge  and  ripe  religious  experience 
— was  found  by  him  to  be  so  edifying  and  cheering 
as  to  make  him  unconscious  of  fatigue  or  weariness 
by  the  way.  There  were  "Greathearts"  in  that  com- 
pany; and  in  their  fellowship,  in  which  he  listened 
much  but  said  little,  he  had  no  need  that  any  one 
should  exolain  to  him  what  was  meant  by  the  "  com- 
munion of  saints."  And  when  winter  came  with  its 
cold  and  frost,  and  he  was  sometimes  alone  on  his 
journey,  and  the  swollen  stream  of  the  Blackadder, 
without  boat  or  bridge,  needed  to  be  waded  by  him, 
he  never  hesitated  or  turned  back  ;  for  he  knew  that 
the  heavenly  manna  which  was  in  store  for  him  in 
the  Whitsome  sanctuary  would  a  hundredfold  more 
than  compensate  him  for  all  the  sacrifice.  "  Such 
things,"  he  says,  "  were  then  easy,  for  the  benefit  of 
the  word  which  came  with  power." 

There  was  another  good  influence  besides  those 
which  have  just  been  named,  to  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  look  back  in  his  riper  years  with  delighted 
remembrance.  He  and  two  of  his  elder  schoolmates 
were  in  the  habit  of  meeting  frequently  in  a  chamber 
of  his  father's  house  for  prayer,  the  reading  of  Scrip- 


28  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

ture,  and  spiritual  converse,  "  whereby,"  he  tells  us, 
"  we  had  some  advantage  both  in  point  of  knowledge 
and  tenderness."  It  was  probably,  in  some  measure, 
an  imitation  by  the  young  lads  of  what  they  had 
seen  in  the  practice  of  their  pious  parents.  In  this 
case  the  gratified  parents  would  hail  the  budding  life 
as  a  fulfilment  of  the  promise  to  those  in  mature  age 
who  "  feared  the  Lord,  and  spake  often  one  to  an- 
other," that  "  God  would  pour  out  his  spirit  upon 
their  seed,  and  his  blessing  upon  their  offspring,  and 
they  should  spring  up  as  among  the  grass,  and  as 
willows  by  the  water-courses." 

But  with  this  glow  of  affection  in  religion,  we 
need  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  at  this  period 
in  his  early  discipleship  there  was  an  alloy  of 
weakness  and  imperfect  knowledge  which  at  times 
disturbed  his  stability  and  peace.  He  records  an 
experience  of  this  kind  by  which  many  young 
Christians,  both  before  and  since,  have  been  per- 
plexed and  distressed.  We  describe  it  in  his  own 
words,  and  with  his  own  reflections  :  "  Having  read 
of  the  sealing  of  the  tribes  (Rev.  vii.),  Satan  wove 
a  snare  for  me  out  of  it — namely,  that  the  whole 
number  of  the  elect,  or  those  who  were  to  be  saved, 
was  already  made  up,  and  therefore  there  was  no 
room  for  me.  Thereby  one  may  see  what  easy  work 
Satan,  brooding  on  ignorance,  hath  to  hatch  things 


A   VERY   TRACTICAL   QUESTION.  29 

which  may  perplex  and  keep  the  party  from  Christ." 
He  needed  some  one  to  teach  him  that  the  doctrine 
of  divine  election  was  never  meant  to  be  a  barrier  to 
scare  away  the  anxious  heart  from  the  fountain  of 
life,  but  to  make  those  who  had  drunk  of  its  living 
waters  praise  and  magnify  the  divine  grace  that 
had  led  them  to  it,  that  they  might  drink  and  live 
for  ever.  He  does  not  tell  us  how  long  he  was 
entangled  in  this  snare,  and  in  what  way  he  was 
at  length  delivered  from  it.  Perhaps  some  words 
spoken  by  the  good  pastor  at  Whitsome  may  have 
been  as  the  stretched-out  hand  that  broke  "  the 
subtle  fowler's  snare." 

Having  passed  through  the  usual  curriculum  of  the 
grammar  school  in  his  native  town,  and  probably 
exhausted  the  resources  of  his  master,  for  he  tells 
us  that  "  before  he  left  the  school  he  saw  no  Roman 
author  but  what  he  found  himself  in  some  capacity 
to  turn  into  English,"  the  very  practical  question 
now  arose  in  the  mind  of  John  Boston,  What  was 
next  to  be  done  with  his  promising  son  Thomas  ? 
As  the  good  parents,  who,  like  Zacharias  and  Elis- 
abeth, "  were  righteous  before  God,"  without  an)' 
illusion  of  parental  partiality  which  sometimes  sees 
a  genius  in  a  dunce,  marked  their  son's  superior 
and  expanding  natural  gifts,  and  noted  with  delight 
his  young  and   earnest  piety,  the  thought  pressed 


30  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

itself  on  the  minds  of  both  that  they  should  give  him 
to  the  Lord  in  the  Christian  ministry  ;  all  the  more 
when  they  learned  from  their  son  himself  that  his 
own  desires  had  already  begun  to  point  tremblingly 
in  the  same  direction.  Such  holy  ambition  for  their 
children  has  been  no  uncommon  thing  even  in 
troublous  times  in  Scotland,  and  the  Scottish  Church 
in  all  its  best  periods  has  received  some  of  its  most 
eminent  ministers  from  lowly  cottage  homes.  But 
it  was  wisely  required  by  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Scotland,  from  the  Reformation  downwards,  that 
all  entrants  into  the  Christian  ministry  should  pass 
through  a  course  of  preparatory  study  in  one  of  its 
universities.  And  the  worthy  father  was  not  long  in 
discovering,  to  his  own  and  his  son's  great  disap- 
pointment, that  the  needed  expenditure  for  this  end 
was  beyond  his  means.  The  bright  dream  was 
marred  ;  the  res  angustte  domi  blocked  the  way. 
The  good  purpose,  however,  was  not  abandoned  ; 
but  meanwhile,  during  the  two  following  years, 
Thomas  was  employed  in  a  notary's  office  in  his 
native  town,  at  the  end  of  which  time  his  father's 
improved  circumstances  made  it  possible  for  him  to 
fulfil  his  heart's  desire. 

The  favouring  tide  had  come  which  was  to  float 
his  son  into  the  midst  of  all  the  new  scenes  and 
aspirations  of  a  college  life.     A  similar  practice  had 


in  god's  school.  31 

not  been  unusual  among  the  children  of  the  English 
Puritans  at  some  point  in  their  advance  to  the  pas- 
toral office,  even  when  there  was  no  barrier  of  poverty 
to  hold  them  back — a  memorable  instance  of  which 
we  have  in  the  student  days  of  Matthew  Henry, 
whose  "  Commentary,"  so  unique  in  its  excellence, 
has  made  all  succeeding  generations  his  debtor. 

Young  Boston  was  made  to  see  that  this  tempor- 
ary delay  was  for  his  lasting  advantage.  God  took 
him  into  His  school,  that  he  might  thus  early  "  learn 
to  labour  and  to  wait."  Moreover,  in  the  notary's 
office  he  acquired  habits  of  order  and  business  which, 
as  will  be  seen  afterwards,  proved  of  great  value  to 
him  in  later  life  ;  and  when,  at  length,  he  entered  the 
university,  it  was  with  more  matured  faculties,  which 
made  his  benefit  from  his  studies  all  the  greater. 
When  God  delays  his  blessings,  it  is  that  they  may 
come  at  last  with  a  fuller  stream  and  upon  a  more 
prepared  heart.  This  was  Boston's  own  devout  ac- 
knowledgment long  afterwards,  when,  looking  back 
upon  this  period  of  his  life,  he  marked  the  guiding 
hand  of  Providence  in  all.  "  Thus,"  says  he,  "  the 
Lord,  in  my  setting  out  in  the  world,  dealt  with  me, 
obliging  me  to  have  recourse  to  Himself  for  this 
thing,  to  do  it  for  me.  He  brought  me  through 
many  difficulties,  tried  me  with  various  disappoint- 
ments, at  length  carried  it  to  the  utmost  point  ol 


32  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

hopelessness,  seemed  to  be  laying  the  grave-stone 
upon  it  at  the  time  of  my  mother's  death  ;  and  yet, 
after  all,  he  brought  it  to  pass.  And  this  has  been 
the  usual  method  of  Providence  with  me  all  along 
in  matters  of  the  greatest  weight.  The  wisdom 
appearing  in  leading  the  blind  by  a  way  they  knew 
not,  shined  in  the  putting  off  that  matter  to  this 
time,  notwithstanding  all  endeavours  to  compass  it 
sooner  ;  for  I  am  perfectly  convinced  I  was  abun- 
dantly soon  put  to  the  college,  being  then  but  in  the 
fifteenth  year  of  my  age  ;  and  the  manner  of  it  was 
kindly  ordered,  in  that  I  was  thereby  beholden  to 
none  for  that  my  education ;  and  it  made  way  for 
some  things  which  Providence  saw  needful  for  me." 


CHAPTER  III. 

STUDENT,  TUTOR,  AND  PROBATIONER. 

THE  face  of  young  Boston  was  now  turned  with 
strong  desire  towards  the  Christian  ministry. 
Accordingly,  in  the  beginning  of  the  winter  of  1691. 
he  proceeded  to  Edinburgh  to  enter  on  a  course  of 
stud\-  in  the  Arts  classes  of  its  university,  which 
should  extend  over  three  annual  sessions — this  being 
required  by  the  Scottish  Church  of  all  aspirants  to 
the  sacred  office  before  entering  on  the  more  direct 
study  of  theology.  Coming  from  a  country  town  in 
Berwickshire,  in  which  almost  even.-  inhabitant  was 
known  to  him,  into  the  midst  of  the  noise  and  bustle 
of  a  large  city,  without  friend  or  acquaintance  to  ac- 
knowledge him,  the  somewhat  timid  youth  must  for  a 
time  have  felt  a  depressing  sense  of  loneliness  even 
in  the  midst  of  thousands.  But  he  had  reached  an 
age  when  the  desire  for  knowledge  in  minds  like  his 
becomes  intense  and  sometimes  omnivorous  ;  and 
when  he  saw  vast  fields  of  instruction  opening  before 


34  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

him  that  stirred  him  into  intellectual  activity,  this  and 
higher  considerations  were  not  long  in  dispelling  the 
temporary  shadows,  and  making  his  university  plea- 
sant to  him,  and  himself  ready  to  work  with  a  will. 

The  information  he  gives  us  in  his  autobiography 
regarding  this  period  of  his  life  is  comparatively 
scanty.  He  mentions,  however,  that  in  addition  to 
further  and  more  advanced  training  in  the  Greek  and 
Roman  classics,  his  prescribed  subjects  of  study  were 
"  logics,  metaphysics,  ethics,  and  general  physics  ; " 
the  last  named  of  which  in  our  days,  when  new 
sciences  have  in  the  interval  sprung  into  existence, 
and  others  have  expanded  into  almost  indefinite 
magnitude,  would  demand  for  even  one  of  its  de- 
partments the  whole  period  of  his  triennial  curricu- 
lum. His  own  report  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
acquitted  himself  is  condensed  into  this  modest 
statement,  in  which  he  very  considerably  underrates 
himself,  that  he  "  always  took  pains  with  what  was 
before  him,  and  pleased  the  regent."  The  proficiency 
which  we  discover  at  a  later  period  in  his  knowledge 
of  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages  gives  testimony 
not  only  to  his  assiduity  but  to  his  success. 

From  what  he  tells  us  of  his  almost  incredibly 
small  expenditure  during  those  three  years  of  his 
curriculum,  we  are  led  to  conclude  that  he  restricted 
himself  to  much  too  scanty  a  fare   at  his   solitary 


STUDENT   DAYS.  35 

meals  ;  not  indeed  from  any  fit  of  juvenile  asceticism, 
but  that  he  might  lighten  the  burden  on  the  little 
home  exchequer  at  Duns.  Indeed  he  lets  out  the 
fact  that  during  his  first  two  years  at  the  university, 
having  "tabled  himself,"  he  did  fare  but  sparingly. 
But  Nature  is  sure  to  exact  a  heavy  interest  from 
those  who  overdraw  their  account  in  her  coffers. 
His  over-strained  economy  was  most  unwise,  and  he 
had  to  pay  dear  for  it,  as  many  an  earnest  student 
has  done,  in  a  permanently  weakened  constitution  ; 
though  his  experience  showed,  as  in  the  case  of 
Baxter  and  Doddridge,  how  much  mental  energy 
may  live  and  work  in  a  frail  physical  frame. 

There  was  one  exercise  by  which  our  student  be- 
gan to  relieve  the  tedium  of  his  long  winter  nights, 
and  this  was  in  the  study  and  practice  of  vocal 
music,  in  which  he  took  lessons  from  a  qualified 
teacher.  He  gives  prominence  to  this  in  his  diary, 
and  tells  us  that  his  voice  was  good,  and  that  he  had 
delight  in  music.  It  formed  a  pleasant  alterative 
after  long  hours  of  severe  study,  and  gradually,  as 
he  adopted  the  practice  of  singing  psalms  in  private, 
it  became  the  cherished  habit  of  his  life.  He  de- 
lighted in  it  as  holy  Herbert  did  in  his  lute.  He 
was  conscious  that  it  not  only  soothed  his  over- 
sensitive spirit  when  at  times  he  seemed  to  "  see  too 
clearly  and  to  feel  too  vividly,"  but  that,  in  his  private 


36  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

devotions,  it  helped  his  soul  to  soar  more  easily 
upward,  like  the  lark  which  sings  while  it  soars. 
Many  good  men  and  ministers  in  those  and  earlier 
days  had  found  the  same  experience.  It  is  well 
known  that  Philip  Henry  was  not  content  with  sing- 
ing to  himself  the  fragment  of  a  psalm,  but  that  he 
sought  the  full  advantage  of  being  brought  into 
sympathy  with  all  its  changes  of  thought  and 
emotion  by  singing  it  to  the  end.  The  practice  is 
not  common  in  our  days,  though  it  is  understood 
that  it  still  lives  and  lingers  among  the  various 
sections  of  our  Methodist  brethren.  One  thing  we 
know  from  personal  recollection,  that  in  some  of 
those  mountain  districts  of  Scotland  over  which  the 
influence  of  Boston  in  his  later  years  had  beneficially 
spread,  it  was  no  uncommon  thing,  in  our  own  early 
days,  for  the  shepherds  tending  their  flocks  away  up 
among  the  silent  hills,  to  awaken  their  echoes  with 
the  "  grave  sweet  melody  of  psalms,"  until  the  place 
hemmed  in  by  the  mountains  seemed  like  an  oratory 
or  a  sanctuary  of  God's  building. 

Our  young  scholar's  attendance  during  the  three 
prescribed  annual  sessions  was  at  length  honourably 
terminated  by  his  receiving,  some  time  in  the 
summer  of  1694,  what  was  then  termed  Laureation. 
This  was  something  more  in  value  than  "  a  certifi- 
cate of  satisfaction  "  which  it  was  the  custom  to  give 


THEOLOGICAL   STUDIES.  37 

among  the  English  Nonconformists,  and  approached 
nearer  in  its  testimony  of  proficiency  to  our  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts. 

Having  thus  completed  his  three  years'  course  of 
preparatory  study  in  classical  literature,  philosophy, 
and  science,  and  received  his  Laureation,  young 
Boston's  next  onward  step  towards  the  Christian 
ministry,  to  which  his  heart  owned  a  growing  attrac- 
tion, was  to  devote  himself  for  a  corresponding 
series  of  years  to  the  systematic  study  of  theology, 
the  teaching  of  which  to  his  fellow-men,  both  as  a 
preacher  and  as  an  author,  was  in  a  few  years  to  be- 
come the  congenial  work  of  his  life,  and  ultimately 
to  make  his  name  a  household  word  over  all  Scot- 
land. The  kind  and  seasonable  presentation  to 
him  of  a  bursary  by  his  native  Presbytery  of  Duns 
and  Chirnside  opened  his  heart  in  gratitude,  and 
relieved  his  ingenuous  mind  by  assuring  him  that 
he  would  not  be  unduly  drawing  for  help  upon 
home  resources.  Accordingly,  early  in  the  winter 
of  1695,  certified  by  a  loving  testimonial  from  his 
presbytery,  and  laden  with  commendations,  he  re- 
turned to  the  university  to  attend  upon  its  theo- 
logical classes  ;  a  great  snowstorm,  aggravated  by 
intense  cold,  for  a  time  stopping  his  way,  for  de- 
liverance from  which  he  does  not  fail  to  record  his 
devout  gratitude  when  he  testifies  how  it  had  not 


38  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

only  impeded  his  journey,  but  for  a  time  even  en- 
dangered his  life. 

For  any  knowledge  of  the  Hebrew  language  which 
he  received  at  this  period,  he  appears  to  have  been  in- 
debted to  a  Rev.  Mr.  Rule ;  but  the  benefit  must  have 
been  slight,  for  the  professor  is  simply  named  by  him 
without  one  grateful  note  of  praise.  It  is  different 
with  the  professor  of  "  theology  proper,"  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Campbell,  from  whose  prelections  and  examinations, 
as  well  as  encouraging  looks  and  words,  he  owns 
himself  to  have  derived  lasting  benefit.  It  is  plea- 
sant to  notice  in  this  age  of  ours,  in  which  veneration 
is  certainly  not  an  outstanding  virtue,  especially 
among  the  young,  the  ingenuous  enthusiasm  with 
which  he  dilates  on  the  excellences  of  his  professor. 
He  names  him  again  and  again  as  "  the  great  Mr. 
George  Campbell,"  and  in  one  place  describes  him 
with  felicitous  appreciation  as  "  a  man  of  great 
learning  but  excessively  modest,  undervaluing  him- 
self, but  much  valuing  the  tolerable  performances  of 
his  students." 

We  are  led  to  conclude  from  other  reminiscences 
of  Boston  that  much  of  the  instruction  was  conveyed 
by  means  of  catechisms  and  text-books  in  Latin, 
which  were  probably  good  for  their  generation,  but 
have  long  since  been  superseded  or  forgotten  ;  and 
the  further   information  that   the  professor  was  ac- 


A    RELUCTANT   CHOICE.  39 

customed  to  meet  with  his  students  in  his  chamber 
as  well  as  in  his  lecture-room,  favours  the  impression 
that  he  thus  brought  himself  into  contact  with  each 
individual  mind  in  his  class,  winning  the  student's 
confidence,  learning  his  wants,  discovering  his  weak 
points,  drawing  out  his  powers,  and  kindly  helping 
him  to  grapple  with  his  difficulties — an  immense 
advantage  when  the  character  and  personality  of  the 
man  add  to  the  power  and  influence  of  the  teacher. 

But  there  was  an  alternative  course  open  to  the 
student.  After  a  period  of  regular  attendance  on 
the  theological  classes  in  the  university,  he  was  at 
liberty  to  withdraw  and  place  himself  under  the  care 
of  one  or  other  of  the  presbyteries  of  the  church,  for 
theological  training  and  general  oversight ;  one  of  the 
ends  intended  by  this  being  that  the  student  should 
have  an  opportunity  of  self-support  by  labouring  as 
a  schoolmaster  in  one  of  the  parish  schools,  or  being 
engaged  as  a  tutor  in  some  family  of  rank  and 
social  position.  It  was  evidently  with  a  good  deal 
of  reluctance  and  regret  that  our  young  theologian, 
who  had  found  so  much  profit  and  enjoyment  in 
sitting  at  the  feet  of  "  the  great  Mr.  George  Camp- 
bell," succumbed  to  this  alternative,  and  made  choice 
yield  to  necessity,  for  a  time,  in  a  beautiful  district 
in  Dumfriesshire.  There  he  taught  in  a  parish  school, 
but  in  the  midst  of  uncongenial  surroundings   un- 


40  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

favourable  to  religion  and  even  unfriendly  to  morality, 
from  which  his  sensitive  nature  recoiled  and  sought, 
though  for  a  time  in  vain,  to  be  relieved.  At  length, 
a  more  attractive  sphere  opened  to  him  in  his  being 
engaged  as  tutor  in  the  family  of  Colonel  Bruce  of 
Kennet  in  Clackmannanshire.  He  was  to  find  in  this 
chosen  home  that  there  were  additional  schools  in 
which  divine  Providence  became  the  teacher,  and  in 
which  aspirants  to  the  sacred  office  might  learn 
many  a  useful  lesson  which  could  not  be  so  effi- 
ciently taught  in  theological  halls  and  colleges. 

Boston's  one  pupil,  a  step-son  of  Colonel  Bruce, 
was  a  boy  of  nine  years  of  age,  who  attended  daily 
on  the  parish  school ;  and  as  the  principal  work  of 
the  tutor  consisted  in  the  superintendence  of  the 
boy  in  the  preparation  of  his  lessons,  and  in  the 
oversight  of  his  general  conduct,  especially  during 
the  frequent  absence  of  the  head  of  the  family  on 
his  military  duties,  there  was  a  considerable  margin 
of  time  remaining,  even  when  his  lenient  studies 
under  his  presbytery  were  taken  into  account,  for 
works  of  usefulness  that  might  seem  to  be  laid  by 
divine  Providence  to  his  hand.  A  famine  which 
prevailed  in  the  land  and  was  of  long  continuance, 
and  which  of  course  pressed  with  unusual  severity 
on  the  poor,  drew  the  nascent  pastor  to  their  homes, 
in  willing  ministries  of  material  help  supplied  from 


LIFE  AT   KEN  NET.  41 

Kcnnet  House,  and  also  in  Christian  consolation. 
He  gratefully  owns  that  he  obtained  many  of  his 
most  precious  lessons  in  Christian  experience  from 
those  low-roofed  cottages. 

Though  he  did  not  claim  to  possess  the  functions 
of  a  family  chaplain,  he  charged  himself,  during  the 
absence  of  Colonel  Bruce,  with  the  conduct  of  family 
worship,  associating  with  this  religious  instruction. 
Nor  was  he  slow  to  reprove  sin  when,  on  some 
occasions,  it  obtruded  itself  upon  his  notice.  This 
part  of  his  action  was  sometimes  resisted,  and  even 
resented,  as  passing  beyond  his  province.  But  his 
naturally  shrinking  and  timorous  nature  stood  its 
ground  faithfully,  and  this  experience  helped  to 
strengthen  him  where  he  was  naturally  weak.  We 
find  him  gratefully  noting  this,  in  some  remarkable 
sentences  which  we  shall  quote.  At  the  same  time, 
we  are  led  to  conclude  from  some  words  in  his  diary 
that  there  were  occasions  in  which  his  young  zeal 
was  not  sufficiently  tempered  by  discretion,  or 
marked  by  that  holy  wisdom  which  selects  the 
mollia  tempora  fundi,  and  aims  to  do  the  right  thing 
at  the  right  time  and  in  the  best  way.  The  whole 
passage  is,  on  more  than  one  account,  interesting : — ■ 

"  I  am  convinced  that  God  sent  me  to  Kennet  in 
order  to  prepare  me  for  the  work  of  the  gospel  for 
which  he  had  designed  me  ;   for  there  I  learned  in 


42  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

some  measure  what  it  was  to  have  the  charge  of 
souls  ;  and  being  naturally  bashful,  timorous,  and 
much  subject  to  the  fear  of  man,  I  attained,  by  what 
I  met  with  there,  to  some  boldness  and  not  regard- 
ing the  persons  of  men  when  out  of  God's  way. 
There  I  learned  that  God  will  countenance  one  in 
the  faithful  discharge  of  his  duty,  though  it  be  not 
attended  with  the  desired  success  ;  and  that  plain 
dealing  will  impress  an  awe  on  the  party's  con- 
science, though  their  corruption  still  rages  against 
him  that  so  deals  with  them.  It  was  by  means 
of  conversation  there  that  I  arrived  at  a  degree  of 
public  spirit  which  I  had  not  before ;  and  there  I 
got  a  lesson  of  the  need  of  prudent  and  cautious 
management  and  abridging  one's  self  of  one's 
liberty,  that  the  weak  be  not  stumbled  and  access 
to  edify  them  be  precluded — a  lesson  I  have  in 
my  ministry  had  a  very  particular  and  singular  occa- 
sion for." 

Our  student's  habits  during  all  this  Kennet  period 
were  eminently  devotional.  We  are  not  therefore 
surprised  to  learn  from  his  own  grateful  testimony 
that,  in  spite  of  drawbacks  and  hindrances  before 
which  a  feebler  piety  would  have  been  discouraged, 
it  was,  on  the  whole,  a  "  thriving  time  for  his  soul." 
He  set  aside  times  for  fasting,  which  did  not,  how- 
ever, so    much    consist    in    partial    abstinence   from 


BETHEL   EXPERIENCES.  43 

food  as  in  temporary  isolation,  in  which  he  gave 
himself  with  mingled  prayer  to  self-examination, 
especially  with  reference  to  heart  sins — a  practice 
much  more  common  in  those  days  than  in  our  own, 
but  in  respect  to  which  we  are  disposed  to  accept 
the  saying  of  Foster,  that  "  no  man  will  regret  on  the 
day  of  judgment  that  he  had  been  a  most  rigid 
judge  of  self."  He  had  also  his  seasons  of  prolonged 
secret  devotion,  in  which  "  prayer  overflowed  its 
banks  like  Jordan  in  the  time  of  harvest."  These 
were  times  of  great  spiritual  strengthening  and 
enlargement,  as  well  as  of  holy  joy,  upon  which  he 
afterwards  delighted  to  look  back,  as  Jacob  may  be 
imagined  to  have  remembered  his  Bethel  dreams 
and  visions,  and  the  two  privileged  disciples  their 
Emmaus  walk.  All  around  Kennet,  indeed,  there 
were  sacred  places  linked  in  his  memory  with  devout 
experiences  in  which  they  had  seemed  to  him  as  the 
very  gate  of  heaven.  Particularly  there  was  one 
spot  which  we  have  visited,  in  the  orchard  around 
Kennet,  and  which  he  describes  with  characteristic 
minuteness  as  "  having  been  under  an  apple  tree  with 
two  great  branches  coming  from  the  root."  "  There," 
says  he,  "  I  anointed  the  pillar  and  vowed  the  vow." 

The  prescribed  years  of  his  theological  training 
were  now  approaching  their  end,  when  it  was  ex- 
pected that  our  earnest  student  would  at  once  offer 


44  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

himself  to  one  of  the  presbyteries  within  whose 
bounds  he  had  resided  for  "  trials  and  examinations," 
with  a  view  to  his  becoming'  a  licentiate  or  pro- 
bationer of  the  Scottish  Church,  and  eligible  to  the 
pastoral  office  in  one  of  its  parishes.  Good  men  in 
those  districts,  who  had  learned  to  appreciate  his 
blossoming  gifts  and  ardent  piety,  vied  with  each 
other  in  seeking  to  induce  him  to  apply  for  license 
within  their  bounds.  But  growing  diffidence,  arising 
from  a  deepened  sense  of  the  responsibilities  of  the 
pastoral  office,  made  him  hesitate  for  a  time  about 
taking  the  decided  step.  At  length,  a  visit  to  Duns 
on  another  matter  bringing  him  under  the  old  home 
influences,  his  scruples  vanished,  and  he  consented 
to  be  proposed  for  license  by  his  native  presbytery. 
An  elaborate  course  of  examinations,  associated  with 
written  exercises  in  theology,  "dragged  its  slow  length 
along"  through  several  months,  and  ended  in  a  unani- 
mous record  of  approval  and  resolution  to  enrol  his 
name  on  the  list  of  probationers.  With  mingled 
feelings  of  humility  and  gratitude,  the  young  licen- 
tiate now  stood  within  sight  of  the  sacred  office 
which  was  to  him  not  the  object  of  a  mere  human 
ambition,  but  of  a  holy  passion  to  serve  the  best  of 
Masters  in  the  best  of  causes. 

Our    probationer's   superior   preaching  gifts  were 


"SETTING   FIRE   TO   THE   DEVIL'S   NEST."       45 

readily  acknowledged  and  appreciated,  especially 
by  his  more  serious  and  earnest  hearers  who  had  had 
some  experience  of  the  power  of  Christian  truth  in 
their  own  hearts.  It  is  evident,  however,  that,  in  the 
earlier  months  of  his  novitiate,  his  sermons  consisted 
too  exclusively  in  denunciations  of  sin  and  threaten- 
in  sfs  of  divine  wrath  and  retribution.  It  might  have 
been  said  of  him  in  measure,  as  Cotton  Mather  had 
long  before  said  of  the  great  missionary  Elliot,  that 
"  his  pulpit  was  a  Mount  Sinai,  and  his  words  were 
thunderbolts."  No  doubt  this  was  necessary  in  its 
own  place  and  degree.  The  ploughshare  of  the  law 
must  turn  up  the  furrows  for  receiving  the  good 
seed  of  the  gospel ;  but  the  ploughshare  is  impotent 
alone.  He  had  hoped  thereby,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  "  to  set  fire  to  the  devil's  nest."  But  "  old 
Adam  proved  too  strong  for  young  Melancthon." 
A  kind  hint  from  a  minister  of  long  experience 
helped  the  young  and  intrepid  minister  to  see  his 
mistake.  "If  you  were  entered,"  said  he,  "  on  preach- 
ing Christ,  you  would  find  it  very  pleasant."  The 
immediate  effect  of  this  word  spoken  with  a  wise 
love  was  to  make  him  so  far  modify  his  strain  of 
preaching,  and  to  season  and  vitalize  all  his  dis- 
courses with  the  gospel  of  Heaven's  love.  From  that 
day  no  one  had  cause  to  complain  to  him,  "  Sir, 
we  would  see  Jesus."     The  change  was  followed  by 


46  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

a  life-long  gratitude  to  his  fatherly  mentor.  "  I 
have  often,"  said  he,  "  remembered  that  word  of  Mr. 
Dysart  as  the  first  hint  given  me  by  the  good  hand 
of  my  God  towards  the  doctrine  of  the  gospel." 

It  was  natural  to  anticipate  that,  in  the  case  of  so 
impressive  and  attractive  a  preacher,  with  so  much 
glowing  earnestness  of  spirit,  he  would  not  have 
needed  to  wait  long  for  a  settlement.  Perhaps 
Boston  himself,  without  any  undue  self-appreciation, 
may  have  shared  in  this  expectation,  all  the  more 
that  there  -were  many  vacant  parishes  longing  and 
looking  out  for  one  who  should  break  among  them 
the  bread  of  life  ;  but,  in  fact,  his  probation  extended 
over  the  somewhat  protracted  and  dreary  period  of 
two  years  and  three  months.  The  explanation  of 
this  lays  open  some  not  very  pleasing  glimpses 
into  the  ecclesiastical  condition  of  the  times.  There 
were  dark  shadows  and  portents  upon  a  picture  which 
revealed  many  things  that  were  bright  and  promis- 
ing. For  one  thing,  though  the  right  of  election 
to  the  pastoral  office  in  the  Scottish  Church  was 
nominally  in  the  free  call  of  the  people,  it  was 
practically  to  a  great  extent  in  the  hands  of  the 
principal  heritor  or  landed  proprietor  in  the  parish, 
whose  veto,  though  not  formally  given,  was  in  many 
instances  potent  enough  to  hinder  a  settlement ;  and 
Boston's  sense  of  the  sacredness  which  belonged  to 


WAITING   FOR   A   SETTLEMENT.  47 

the  call  or  free  choice  of  a  Christian  congregation, 
as  well  as  his  tenderness  of  conscience,  held  him 
sensitively  back  from  any  approaches,  by  way  of 
solicitation  or  otherwise,  to  those  who,  to  use  his 
own  words,  "  had  the  stroke  in  such  matters." 

Then  one  of  the  greatest  blunders  and  most 
mischievous  compromises  which  helped  to  vitiate 
the  Revolution  Settlement  which  re-established  the 
Presbyterian  Church  and  restored  to  her  her  former 
immunities,  was  the  allowing  as  many  of  the 
Episcopal  incumbents  as  were  willing  to  accept 
the  Presbyterian  polity  and  form  of  worship,  to 
continue  in  their  charges  and  retain  their  emolu- 
ments. Bishop  Burnet  declared,  in  terms  which 
one  would  like  to  believe  were  somewhat  over- 
coloured,  that  these  conformists  "were  ignorant  to  a 
reproach,  many  of  them  openly  vicious,  and  the 
worst  preachers  he  ever  heard."  By  a  natural  in- 
stinct, these  men  with  their  easy  pliancy  were  almost 
certain  to  use  their  influence  and  secret  manoeuvring 
and  management  against  such  a  man  as  Boston, 
whose  life  and  character  were  a  standing  rebuke  and 
condemnation  of  theirs.  In  seven  different  parishes 
where  the  popular  voice,  if  left  to  its  own  free  and 
unbiassed  choice,  would  have  fallen  upon  our  young 
evangelist  with  his  expanding  gifts  and  ardent  zeal, 
these  hostile  forces  dashed  the  cup  from  his  lips.     It 


48  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

was  impossible  that  he  should  not  deeply  feel  these 
repeated  disappointments,  though  he  knew  that  he 
owed  them  in  part  to  his  determination,  at  whatever 
loss  and  hazard,  not  to  walk  into  the  sacred  office 
over  the  body  of  a  wounded  conscience. 

In  the  midst  of  this  long  succession  of  hopes  de- 
ferred, of  expectations  which  blossomed  only  to  be 
blighted,  it  is  pleasant  to  note  that  his  spirit  was 
sustained  by  the  testimonies  he  received,  wherever 
pulpits  were  thrown  open  to  him,  of  the  highest 
forms  of  blessing  which  multitudes  had  derived 
from  his  ministry  of  the  Word.  Everywhere,  as  in 
the  fresh  bloom  of  our  religion  in  the  preaching  of  the 
apostles,  "  the  Lord  gave  testimony  unto  the  word 
of  his  grace."  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. 
Even  ripe  and  aged  saints  were  not  slow  to  express 
their  astonishment  how  one  so  young  could  reflect 
in  his  teaching  their  deepest  and  most  hidden  ex- 
periences as  "  face  answereth  to  face  in  a  glass." 
Could    there    be   any  more  distinct   sealing    of   the 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW.  49 

Holy  Spirit  upon  his  ministry  than  this  ?  Thus  he 
interpreted  the  providence,  and  "  thanked  God,  and 
took  courage." 

There  is  one  fact  recorded  in  his  experience  at 
this  period  which  is  not  without  its  suggestiveness. 
There  were  occasions  in  which  he  preached  under 
much  mental  depression  and  restraint,  and  these  he 
was  sometimes  tempted  to  regard  as  tokens  of 
divine  displeasure  and  desertion,  which,  for  the  time, 
might  leave  his  ministry  unblessed.  Probably  these 
alternations  of  light  and  shadow  in  the  same  day,  or 
even  in  the  same  hour,  sometimes  had  their  explana- 
tion in  physical  weakness  or  ill  health,  as  seen  and 
judged  by  Him  who  "  knoweth  our  frame,  and  re- 
membereth  that  we  are  dust."  One  thing  is  certain, 
that  some  of  those  very  occasions  on  which  there 
was  an  absence  of  happy  frames  and  eloquent  speech 
were  signally  blest.  There  was  a  rich  harvest  of  the 
sea  when  the  man-fisher  seemed  to  be  dragging  out 
from  the  deep  an  empty  net. 

We  notice  in  this  trying  period  of  his  life  the 
same  abounding  in  prayer,  and  severe  heart-search- 
ing 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  exclama- 
tions as,  "  Oh,  how  my  heart  hates  my  heart ! " 
Even  some  of  his  dreams  wounded  his  moral  sensi- 

4 


50  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

bility,  and  he  could  have  prayed  with  good  Bishop 
Ken, — 

"  When  in  the  night  I  sleepless  lie, 

My  soul  with  heavenly  thoughts  supply  ; 
Let  no  ill  dreams  disturb  my  rest, 
No  powers  of  darkness  me  molest." 

We  shall  introduce  another  fact  in  his  own  words 
which  exemplifies  the  same  habit  of  unsparing  self- 
scrutiny  in  connection  with  somewhat  novel  con- 
ditions. We  must  imagine  our  young  probationer 
to  have  been  listening  to  the  preaching  of  a  rival 
candidate,  Mr.  J.  G.,  for  a  vacant  charge.  Mark  how 
he  schools  his  heart  against  prejudice,  and  into  just 
and  even  generous  appreciation  : — 

"  On  the  Saturday's  afternoon,  there  comes  a  letter 
to  my  hand,  desiring  me  to  give  the  one-half  of  the 
day  to  Mr.  J.  G.,  whom  those  that  were  against  me 
had  an  eye  upon.  The  letter  I  received  contentedly, 
granted  the  desire  of  it,  and  blessed  the  Lord  for  it. 
In  these  circumstances,  seeing  what  hazard  I  was  in 
from  an  evil  prejudice,  I  committed  my  heart  to  the 
Lord  that  I  might  be  helped  to  carry  evenly.  I  cried 
to  the  Lord  for  it,  and  got  that  word,  '  My  grace 
shall  be  sufficient  for  thee.'  On  Sabbath  morn- 
ing, I  found  in  myself  a  great  desire  to  love  Christ 
and  to  be  concerned  solely  for  his  glory  ;  and  prayed 
to  that  effect  not  without  some  success.     He  (Mr.  J. 


A   CRUCIBLE   OF   FIRE.  5 1 

G.)  got  the  forenoon,  for  so  it  was  desired  by  them. 
I  was  helped  to  join  in  prayer,  was  much  edified  both 
by  his  lecture  and  sermon,  yet,  in  the  time,  I  was 
thrice  assaulted  with  the  temptation  I  feared  ;  but 
looking  up  to  the  Lord,  got  it  repulsed  in  some 
measure,  and  found  my  soul  desirous  that  people 
should  get  good,  soul-good,  of  what  was  very  seri- 
ously, pathetically,  and  judiciously  said  to  us  by  the 
godly  young  man.  Betwixt  sermons  I  got  a  sight  of 
my  own  emptiness,  and  then  prayed  and  preached  in 
the  afternoon  with  much  help  from  the  Lord.  Yet 
for  all  that,  I  wanted  not  some  levity  of  spirit,  which 
poison  my  heart  sucked  out  of  that  sweet  flower." 

On  the  whole  much  genuine  gold  was  revealed  by 
that  crucible  of  fire. 

Two  years  of  this  probationary  life  had  now 
come  and  gone,  and  the  prospect  of  settlement 
in  a  parochial  charge  seemed  as  remote  as  ever. 
Mr.  Boston  began  to  question  with  himself  whether 
the  many  tokens  of  divine  blessing  upon  his  some- 
what wandering  ministry  were  not  to  be  regarded  by 
him  as  providential  signs  that  his  mission  was  rather 
to  be  that  of  an  evangelist  itinerating  and  preaching 
from  place  to  place,  than  that  of  a  settled  pastor. 
But  such  an  arrangement  did  not  seem  practicable. 
To  quote  his  own  words,  "  he  had  now  reached  the 
full  sea-mark  of  his  perplexing  circumstances.     He 


52  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

felt  like  one  standing  in  the  dark,  and  not  know- 
ing what  his  next  step  should  be."  We  notice  in 
his  diary  at  this  period  a  growing  heavenliness  of  spirit 
and  a  more  unqualified  self-surrender  and  willing- 
ness to  follow  whithersoever  God  might  lead,  blam- 
ing himself  with  more  severity  than  others  generally 
would  have  done  for  the  occasional  risings  of  itching 
desires  after  a  settlement.  Texts  of  Scripture  like 
the  following  were  as  ointment  poured  forth:  "The 
meek  will  he  guide  in  judgment,  and  the  meek  will 
he  teach  his  way  " — "  He  hath  determined  the  times 
before  appointed,  and  the  bounds  of  their  habitation." 
And  we  find  these  words  in  his  diary :  "  My  soul 
desires  to  lay  itself  down  at  his  feet.  Let  him  do 
with  me  as  he  will.     I  am  his  own." 

And  now  had  come  "the  time  for  God  to  work."  In 
the  small  parish  of  Simprin,  down  in  the  Merse,  about 
five  miles  towards  the  east  of  Duns,  "  least  among 
the  thousands  of  Judah,"  God  had  provided  for  him 
a  sphere  in  which  he  should  find  welcome  rest  in  the 
congenial  work  of  a  minister  of  Christ.  The  rustic 
people  were  unanimous  in  their  choice  of  him  for 
their  pastor,  and  for  the  first  time  in  his  experience 
there  was  no  spectral  lay-patron  to  neutralize  the 
people's  action  and  to  stop  the  way.  The  principal 
heritor  cordially  joined  with  the  simple  people  in 
their  call ,  and  with  no  vitiating  elements  to  make  his 


CALLED   TO   SIMPRIN.  53 

course  of  duty  uncertain,  he  heard  the  voice  of  God 
in  the  voice  of  the  people,  and  obeyed  it.  We  can 
imagine  devout  ministers  in  some  of  the  surrounding 
parishes  to  have  wondered  much  that  a  man  of  such 
rare  gifts  and  capabilities  should  have  been  placed 
by  the  manifest  leadings  of  Providence  in  so  narrow  a 
sphere.  As  for  Mr.  Boston  himself,  if  such  a  question 
as  this  ever  for  a  moment  cast  its  shadow  over  his 
mind,  he  thought  of  his  responsibility  for  the  care  of 
souls,  "  watching  for  them  as  those  who  know  that 
they  must  give  an  account,"  and  was  satisfied.  More- 
over, we  find  him  saying  in  one  of  his  mental 
soliloquies,  "  I  know  not  what  honourable  use  the 
Lord  may  have  for  me  there."  But  could  those 
kindly  onlookers  whom  we  have  imagined  have  been 
permitted  to  look  on  the  whole  of  that  plan  of  God 
of  which  every  good  man's  life  is  the  development, 
their  wonder  would  have  been  turned  into  praise. 
Simprin  was  the  chosen  place  in  which,  through 
strangely  varied  incidents  in  which  God  was  pleased 
to  work,  Boston  should  receive  great  enlargement  in 
his  knowledge  of  divine  things,  which  should  not 
only  be  of  large  and  lasting  benefit  to  himself  and 
his  ministry,  but  should  favourably  influence  the 
religious  thought  and  teaching  of  Scotland  for 
generations  to  come.  Moreover,  within  seven  busy 
years  he  was,  by  his  earnest  preaching  not  taught  in 


54  THOMAS  BOSTON. 

the  schools  of  human  rhetoric,  but  kindled  and 
sustained  by  fire  from  off  the  altar  of  God,  by  his 
pastoral  oversight  and  all-pervading  prayer,  to  trans- 
form his  parish,  putting  a  new  look  upon  everything, 
and  to  "cause  the  desert  to  blossom  as  the  rose." 
Surely  this  more  than  solved  the  mystery.  We  find 
him  writing  many  a  year  afterwards  in  grateful  and 
adoring  retrospect,  "  I  will  ever  remember  Simprin 
as  a  field  which  the  Lord  blessed." 

"  When  obstacles  and  trials  seem 
Like  prison  walls  to  be, 
I  do  the  little  I  can  do, 
And  leave  the  rest  to  Thee. 

"  111  that  He  blesseth  is  our  good, 
And  unblest  good  is  ill ; 
And  all  is  right  that  seems  most  wrong, 
If  it  be  His  sweet  will." 

We  shall  be  forgiven  if,  in  closing  this  chapter, 
we  mention  the  fact  that,  in  the  latter  part  of  his 
course  as  a  probationer,  Mr.  Boston  composed  a 
small  treatise,  which  evidently  grew  out  of  passing 
experiences,  and  which,  in  its  devout  thinking  and 
practical  sagacity,  would  have  been  worthy  of  a 
minister  of  twice  his  age.  The  little  book  was  not 
published  at  the  time,  but  only  appeared  after  a  long 
interval.     We  shall  enrich  our  chapter  by  quoting  a 


ON    THE   ART   OF    MAN-FISHING.  55 

few  sentences.  It  was  entitled  "A  Soliloquy  on  the 
Art  of  Man-fishing  ; "  and  it  was  founded  on  those 
words  of  Jesus  to  Simon  and  Andrew  when,  standing 
by  the  seaside,  he  called  them  away  from  their  em- 
ployment as  fishermen,  in  order  that  they  might  be 
trained  and  qualified  by  him  for  becoming  the  minis- 
ters and  apostles  of  his  religion,  and  thus  coming  forth 
at  length  as  "  fishers  of  men."  The  young  author 
explains  that  when  Jesus  thus  said  to  those  sincere 
and  simple  men, "  Follow  me,"  his  language  meant  a 
great  deal  more  than, "  Leave  your  nets  and  boats 
and  come  after  me,  and  learn  to  be  the  preachers 
of  my  word  ; "  but,  in  addition,  that  if  they  would 
do  good  to  souls,  and  gain  them  to  him  by  their 
ministry,  then  they  were  to  imitate  him  "  in  their 
character  and  preaching,  to  make  him  their  pattern, 
to  write  after  his  copy,  as  a  fit  means  for  the  gaining 
of  souls." 


CHAPTER  IV. 

Simprin  as  Mr.  Boston  found  it — Marriage — Redoubled 
happiness  —  Death  of  first-born  child  —  A  strange 
dream  strangely  fulfilled  —  the  young  minister's 
efforts  to  do  good  —  growing  signs  of  blessing — 
Story  of  the  finding  of  the  "Marrow" — All  Sim- 
prin SHARES  THE  INFLUENCE — A  CALL  FROM  ETTRICK. 


M 


R.  BOSTON  was  ordained  at  Simprin  on  21st 
September  1699.  He  had  now  reached  the 
object  of  his  holy  ambition,  and  was  ready  to  say  of 
his  church  and  parish,  "  This  is  my  rest,  here  will  I 
dwell.  I  found  my  heart  well  content  with  my  lot, 
and  the  sense  of  God's  calling  me  to  that  work  with 
the  promise  of  his  presence.  Oh,  it  satisfies  my  soul, 
and  my  very  heart  blesseth  him  for  it.  For  really 
it  is  the  doing  of  the  Lord,  and  wondrous  in  my 
eyes." 

The  text  from  which  he  preached  on  the  first  Sab- 
bath after  his  ordination  struck  the  loud  and  solemn 
keynote  of  his  whole  ministry  :  "  For  they  watch  for 
souls   as   they   that    must   give   an   account."     The 


CONDITION    OF   SIMPRIN.  57 

solemn  thought  of  the  care  of  souls  which,  as  a 
preacher,  he  must  feed  with  the  manna  of  heavenly 
truth,  and  as  a  pastor  he  must  tend  and  guide  in  the 
way  of  life,  with  the  foresight  of  that  day  of  reckon- 
ing in  which  he  must  give  an  account  of  his  steward- 
ship, haunted  him  like  an  angel's  presence,  and  made 
him  well  content  with  the  obscurity  of  his  position, 
the  rustic  manners  of  his  people,  and  the  smallness 
of  his  charge.  A  mere  hireling,  whose  earthborn 
ambition  never  rose  above  a  comfortable  manse,  a 
good  stipend,  and  a  respectable  social  position, 
would  have  turned  away  from  poor  Simprin  with 
disappointment  or  disdain,  because  he  was  an  hire- 
ling ;  all  the  more  that  both  church  and  manse  were 
dilapidated  and  going  fast  to  ruin,  and  the  people 
had  been  described  as  generally  ignorant  and  coldly 
indifferent.  But  our  young  minister  judged  of  the 
matter  by  another  standard.  There  was  even  a 
peculiar  fascination  to  his  consecrated  spirit  in  his 
being  called  to  "  break  up  the  fallow  ground,"  and  to 
give  his  days  and  nights  to  the  winning  of  souls. 
Was  not  this  the  part  of  the  Lord's  vineyard  to 
which  God  had  appointed  him  ?  And  woe  was  unto 
him  if  he  turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  divine  voice  which 
said  to  him,  "  Go  and  work  there." 

We  find  Mr.  Doddridge,  the  author  of  "  The  Rise 
and  Progress  of  Religion  in  the  Soul,"  in  the  same 


58  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

spirit,  though  more  in  a  vein  of  contented  pleasantry, 
writing  to  a  friend  who  had  condoled  with  him  in  a 
letter  on  his  being  buried  alive  in  the  obscure  coun- 
try village  of  Kibworth.  He  admits  that  his  rustic 
flock  consisted  mainly  of  graziers  and  their  depend- 
ants. "  I  have  not,"  he  adds,  "  so  much  as  a  tea-table 
in  my  whole  diocese,  although  about  eight  miles  in 
extent,  and  but  one  hoop  petticoat  within  the  whole 
circuit.  I  am  now  with  a  plain,  honest,  serious 
people.  I  heartily  love  them  myself,  and  I  meet 
with  genuine,  undissembled  affection  on  their  side. 
Instead  of  lamenting  it  as  my  misfortune,  you  should 
congratulate  me  upon  it  as  my  happiness  that  I  am 
confined  to  an  obscure  village,  seeing  that  it  gives 
me  so  many  advantages  to  the  most  important  pur- 
poses of  devotion  and  philosophy,  and  I  hope  I  may 
add  of  usefulness  too." 

Eight  days  after  his  ordination,  Mr.  Boston  renewed 
his  dedication  of  himself  to  God,  and  subscribed 
anew  his  solemn  covenant  in  the  following  charac- 
teristic document,  which  long  afterwards  was  found 
among  his  papers  : — 

"  I,  Mr.  Thomas  Boston,  preacher  of  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  being  by  nature  an  apostate  from  God,  an 
enemy  to  the  great  Jehovah,  and  so  an  heir  of  hell 
and  wrath,  in  myself  utterly  lost  and  undone,  be- 
cause of  my  original  and   actual  sins,  and  misery 


SOLEMN   COVENANT.  59 

thereby  ;  and  being,  in  some  measure,  made  sensible 
of  this  my  lost  and  undone  state,  and  sensible  of  my 
need,  my  absolute  need,  of  a  Saviour,  without  whom 
I  must  perish  eternally;  and  believing  that  Jesus 
Christ,  the  eternal  Son  of  the  eternal  God,  is  not 
only  able  to  save  me  (though  most  vile  and  ugly, 
and  one  who  has  given  him  many  repulses),  both 
from  my  sins  and  from  the  load  of  wrath  due  to  me 
for  them,  upon  condition  that  I  believe,  come  to  him 
for  salvation,  and  cordially  receive  him  in  all  his 
offices,  consenting  to  the  terms  of  the  covenant : 
therefore,  as  I  have,  at  several  opportunities  before, 
given  an  express  and  solemn  consent  to  the  terms 
of  the  covenant,  and  have  entered  into  a  personal 
covenant  with  Christ,  so  now,  being  called  to  under- 
take the  great  and  mighty  work  of  the  ministry  of 
the  gospel  for  which  I  am  altogether  insufficient,  I 
do  by  this  declare  that  I  stand  to  and  own  all  my 
former  engagements,  whether  sacramental  or  any 
other  whatsoever :  and  now  again  do  renew  my 
covenant  with  God  ;  and  hereby,  at  this  present  time, 
do  solemnly  covenant  and  engage  to  be  the  Lord's, 
and  make  a  solemn  resignation  and  upgiving  of 
myself,  my  soul,  body,  spiritual  and  temporal  con- 
cerns, unto  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  without  any  re- 
servation whatsoever  ;  and  do  hereby  give  my  volun- 
tary consent  to  the  terms  of  the  covenant  laid  down 


60  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  the  word  of  truth  ;  and  with 
my  heart  and  soul  I  take  and  receive  Christ  in  all 
his  offices,  as  my  Prophet,  to  teach  me,  resolving 
and  engaging  in  his  strength  to  follow,  that  is,  to 
endeavour  to  follow,  his  instructions  :  I  take  him  as 
my  Priest,  to  be  saved  by  his  death  and  merits  alone  ; 
and  renouncing  my  own  righteousness  as  filthy  rags 
and  menstruous  cloths,  I  am  content  to  be  clothed 
with  his  righteousness  alone,  and  live  entirely  upon 
free  grace  :  likewise  I  take  him  for  my  Advocate 
and  Intercessor  with  the  Father :  and,  finally,  I 
take  him  as  my  King,  to  reign  in  me  and  to  rule 
over  me,  renouncing  all  other  lords,  whether  sin  or 
self,  and  in  particular  my  predominant  idol ;  and  in 
the  strength  of  the  Lord  do  resolve  and  hereby  en- 
gage to  cleave  to  Christ  as  my  sovereign  Lord  and 
King,  in  death  and  in  life,  in  prosperity  and  in  ad- 
versity, even  for  ever,  and  to  strive  and  wrestle  in 
his  strength  against  all  known  sin  ;  protesting  that 
whatever  sin  may  be  lying  hid  in  my  heart  out  of 
my  view,  I  disown  it  and  abhor  it,  and  shall,  in  the 
Lord's  strength,  endeavour  the  mortification  of  it 
when  the  Lord  shall  be  pleased  to  let  me  see  it. 
And  this  solemn  covenant  I  make  as  in  the  presence 
of  the  ever-living,  heart-searching  God,  and  subscribe 
it  with  my  hand,  in  my  chamber  at  Dunse,  about 
one  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  the  fourteenth  day  of 


DIFFICULTIES   AND   DISAPPOINTMENTS.         6 1 

August,  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  ninety-nine 
years. — T.  BOSTON." 

The  young  minister  lost  no  time  in  entering  on 
his  sacred  work.  "  The  King's  business  required 
haste."  It  was  true  that  the  half-ruined  and  unin- 
habitable condition  of  his  manse  made  it  necessary 
that  he  should  reside  for  a  time  in  Duns,  which  was 
about  six  miles  distant,  and  this  both  consumed 
much  of  his  time  and  impeded  his  labours.  But  still 
he  would  do  what  he  could,  and  while  his  work  was 
unpleasantly  diminished,  this  was  no  reason  why  it 
should  stand  still. 

It  was  reasonable  that  one  of  his  earliest  mea- 
sures should  be  the  visitation  of  every  household 
in  his  parish,  not  only  that  he  might  endeavour 
to  win  the  confidence  of  his  people  in  his  good 
intentions,  and  that  they  might  be  convinced  of 
his  earnestness  of  purpose,  but  that  he  might 
ascertain  for  himself  the  amount  of  their  Christian 
knowledge  and  their  general  moral  and  religious 
condition.  The  diagnosis  was  disappointing  and 
saddening.  The  whole  truth  had  not  been  told 
him.  Their  ignorance  was  such  that  they  needed 
to  be  instructed  in  the  simplest  elements  of  divine 
truth,  and  their  indifference  to  everything  spiritual 
and  heavenly  was  in  proportion  to  their  ignorance. 
Their   thoughts    were    bounded    by   the   ploughing 


62  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

of  their  fields,  the  sowing  of  their  seeds,  and  the 
gathering  in  of  their  crops,  in  the  circle  of  the 
seasons.  Two  facts  revealed  much.  In  all  that 
parish,  with  its  seventy  "  examinable "  persons,  he 
could  find  only  one  house  in  which  there  was  the 
observance  of  family  worship.  And  such  was  the 
prevailing  spiritual  death,  or  languor  that  was  on  the 
verge  of  death,  that  the  Lord's  Supper  had  not  once 
been  observed  in  the  parish  for  several  years.  We 
can  imagine  the  devoted  young  pastor,  as  he  realized 
the  cheerless  picture,  again  and  again  putting  to 
himself  the  question,  "  Can  these  dry  bones  live  ?  " 
and  yet,  in  another  moment  of  kindling  hope,  pros- 
trating himself  in  the  solitude  of  his  little  prophet's 
chamber,  and  sending  up  the  cry  to  heaven,  "  Come 
from  the  four  winds,  thou  Spirit  of  the  Lord,  and 
breathe  upon  these  slain,  that  they  may  live."  This 
was  the  condition  in  which  he  found  Simprin.  We 
are  now  to  see  what  it  became  under  his  ministry, 
and  by  what  means,  in  the  following  seven  years. 

He  proceeded  to  "  build  up  the  waste  places,"  and 
to  set  in  order  the  various  agencies  of  an  earnest  min- 
istry. The  forenoon  and  afternoon  Sabbath  services, 
which  had  long  been  irregularly  and  fitfully  observed, 
were  instituted  anew;  the  smallness  of  the  parish 
having  this  advantage,  that  it  made  attendance  easy 
even    for    the    most    remote    parishioner.       Already 


BUILDING   UP   THE   WASTE   PLACES.  63 

alive  to  the  fact  that  such  a  people  needed,  in  the 
first  instance,  a  ministry  of  conviction  and  alarm, 
such  as  that  of  Elliot  in  olden  times  to  which  we 
have  already  referred,  or  that  of  John  the  Baptist 
on  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  among  the  self-satisfied 
and  hardened  Pharisees,  his  earliest  discourses,  with 
their  glowing  personal  applications  to  his  somewhat 
astonished  hearers,  were  principally  on  man's  de- 
pravity and  guilt;  as  if  he  had  already  in  his  mind 
the  germ  of  that  "  Fourfold  State  "  which,  in  another 
age,  was  to  exercise  so  powerful  and  beneficent  an 
influence  upon  the  religious  thought  and  the  spiritual 
life  of  Scotland. 

Simultaneously  wTith  this,  he  commenced  the  life- 
long practice  of  pastoral  visitation  from  house  to 
house,  its  predominant  services  consisting  in  re- 
ligious exhortation  and  prayer.  To  this  he  con- 
tinued to  attach  an  importance  only  second  to  his 
pulpit  ministrations,  not  merely  because  of  its  direct 
influence,  but  because  it  brought  him  into  direct 
contact  with  individual  minds,  and  made  him  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  and  condition  of  the  individ- 
ual families,  while  it  helped  him  the  better  to  select 
topics  seasonable  for  pulpit  instruction,  and  to  adapt 
them  to  their  business  and  bosoms.  One  is  apt  to 
think  that  his  gift  of  music  must  often  have  been 
brought  into  service  in  the  singing  of  psalms,  in  the 


64  THOMAS   BOST<: 

winding  up  of  those  edifying  family  gatherings. 
And  when,  in  the  depth  of  winter,  with  his  church 

t  :>red  and  his  manse  renovated  and  made  in- 
habitable, he  was  able  at  length  to  give  his  whole 
strength  and  time  to  his  sacred  work,  he  proceeded 
to  institute  a  Sabbath-evening  service  for  his  people, 
in  order  to  their  more  familiar  and  systematic  in- 
struction in  the  elementary  truths  of  the  Christian 
faith,  in  which  he  found  them  most  grievously  ill- 
informed  ;  uniting  with  this  the  catechetical  exam- 
ination of  his  hearers,  one  by  one,  in  the  lessons 
which  the}-  had  heard. 

We  find  in  his  autobiography  a  summary  state- 
ment of  his  instructions  in  one  of  those  Sabbath- 
evening  exercises,  on  the  subject  of  "  divine  provi- 
dence," which  we  may  take  as  a  specimen.  In  com- 
mon with  the  Nonconformists  of  England  at  the 
same  period,  he  seems  to  have  taken  the  Shorter 
Catechism  as  his  text-book,  while  leaving  himself  free 
for  individual  freedom  of  treatment.  "  The  evening 
service  concerning  the  providence  of  God  was  sweet 
to  me ;  and  in  converse  after  it,  it  was  a  pleasure  to 
think  and  speak  of  the  saints'  grounds  of  encour- 
agement from  that  head — under  trouble,  particu- 
larly, how  it  is  their  God  that  guides  the  world,  and 
nothing  do  they  meet  with  but  what  comes  through 
their  Lord's  fingers  ;  how  he  weighs  their  troubles 


EARNEST   EFFORTS.  65 

to  the  least  grain,  that  no  more  falls  to  their  share 
than  they  need  ;  and  how  they  have  a  covenant 
right  to  chastisements,  to  the  Lord's  dealing  with 
them  as  with  sons,  to  be  rightly  educated,  not  as 
sen-ants  whom  the  master  will  not  strike  but  send 
away  at  the  term." 

We  are  struck  with  the  evidence  which  the  whole 
of  our  young  minister's  plan  and  action  at  this  period 
affords  us  of  the  earnest  anxiety  with  which  he 
thought  for  his  people  in  all  his  arrangements.  The 
practice  of  questioning  his  hearers  on  those  Sabbath 
evenings,  immediately  after  his  familiar  conversa- 
tional lessons,  enabled  him  at  once  to  see  how  far  he 
had  succeeded  in  making  himself  understood,  and 
gave  him  an  opportunity  of  reiterating  his  instruc- 
tions, and  of  further  explanation  where  he  saw  it  to 
be  needed.  He  was  unwilling  to  move  beyond  their 
pace.  Another  fact  reveals  his  conscientiousness 
and  zeal  in  these  instructions.  He  tells  us  that  he 
endeavoured  to  enlist  and  retain  their  attention  and 
interest  by  the  free  use  of  similitudes  drawn  from  the 
natural  world,  enlisting  their  imaginations  by  those 
natural  pictures.  But  in  his  first  endeavours,  he  was 
disappointed,  and  mortified  to  find  that  he  had  only 
half  succeeded.  His  catechizings  brought  to  light 
the  fact  that  while  they  remembered  the  similitudes, 
they  failed  to  retain  the  divine  truths  of  which  they 


66  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

were  meant  to  be  the  vehicle  ;  kept  hold  of  the 
earthly,  but  let  drop  the  heavenly  ;  relished  the  shell, 
but  not  the  kernel.  "  The  natural  man  receiveth 
not  the  things  of  the  Spirit  of  God." 

But  this  monotony  of  unfruitfulness  was  not  long 
to  continue.  Before  spring  was  ended,  there  began  to 
appear  signs  not  only  of  awakening  inquiry  but  of 
spiritual  quickening,  like  the  music  of  the  early  song- 
birds, which  not  only  tells  us  that  winter  is  past,  but 
is  hailed  as  a  prophecy  of  summer.  The  heart  of  the 
young  pastor  was  gladdened  by  these  few  but  wel- 
come experiences.  He  thought  that  he  saw  in  them 
the  sealing  of  the  Holy  Spirit  upon  his  labours,  and 
that  their  voice  to  him  was,  "  Be  of  good  cheer ; " 
and  they  sent  him  to  his  closet  with  songs  of  thanks- 
giving, so  that  he  could  already  write  in  his  diary : 
"  With  joy  I  saw  myself  in  Simprin  as  in  my  nest, 
and  under  the  covert  of  Christ's  wings." 

But  when  midsummer  came,  there  occurred  an 
event  which,  next  to  his  conversion  and  ordination 
to  the  Christian  ministry,  exercised  the  most  import- 
ant and  beneficent  influence  upon  all  his  future  life. 
Early  in  his  probationer  life,  he  had  formed  an 
acquaintance  with  a  lady  of  good  family  in  Clack- 
mannanshire, which  had  speedily  ripened  into  a 
tender  affection.  He  informs  us,  indeed,  that  on  the 
first  day  on  which  he  looked  on  her  his  heart  had 


CATHERINE   BROWN.  67 

been  drawn  out  to  her  with  a  preference  which  in- 
creased with  intercourse,  while  it  was  fully  recipro- 
cated by  the  object  of  his  choice.  And  what  helped 
much  to  strengthen  his  love,  while  it  introduced  into 
it  a  new  and  sacred  element,  was  the  living  religious 
sympathy  which  existed  between  them,  so  that 
Boston  beheld  in  his  Catherine  Brown  not  only  a 
sweetheart  but  a  sister  in  Christ.  He  tells  us,  in 
his  own  characteristic  manner,  that  from  the  first 
"  he  discerned  in  her  the  sparkles  of  grace."  Had 
this  divine  quality  been  wanting,  or  its  existence 
even  dubious,  it  was  certain  that  he  would  never 
have  told  his  love.  But  there  was  no  cause  even 
for  uncertainty  ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  the 
honourable  attachment  which,  in  his  own  words, 
"  needed  rather  to  be  bounded  than  strengthened," 
soon  ripened  into  mutual  devotement  and  betrothal, 
to  be  consummated  in  honourable  wedlock  when 
Providence  should  make  their  way  plain,  and  should 
be  ready  to  arise  and  bless  the  banns. 

Probably  neither  of  them  anticipated  that  a  period 
of  nearly  three  years  would  intervene  before  marriage 
would  be  made  practicable  through  Mr.  Boston's 
settlement  in  a  pastoral  charge.  And  there  must 
have  been  an  occasional  sinking  of  the  heart  on  the 
part  of  both  when  the  cup  of  ecclesiastical  preferment, 
as  it  rose  to  his  lips,  was  again  and  again  dashed  away. 


68  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

But  during  all  that  wearisome  interval  of  hope  de- 
ferred, the  betrothed  maiden  looked  on  with  quiet 
and  trustful  patience,  giving  no  sign  of  murmuring 
or  disappointment,  and  did  much  to  encourage  Bos- 
ton in  waiting  God's  time,  which  would  be  seen  and 
owned  by  them  to  be  the  best  when  it  came.  It  was 
with  reference  to  this,  as  well  as  to  later  periods, 
that  we  find  him  making  this  grateful  record  :  "  I 
was  made  often  to  bless  the  Lord  that  ever  I  was 
made  acquainted  with  her." 

But  when  Boston  became  minister  of  the  church 
and  parish  of  Simprin,  every  barrier  to  marriage  was 
taken  out  of  the  way,  and  about  ten  months  after- 
wards the  two  attached  friends,  whose  hearts  had 
for  years  been  one,  joined  hands  in  holy  wedlock, 
and  pledged  themselves  to  each  other  by  sacred 
bonds  which  nothing  but  death  could  sever.  The 
solemn  rite,  which  had  been  preceded  by  much  heart- 
searching  and  prayer,  and  was  engaged  in  with  a 
deep  and  chastened  joy,  took  place  at  Culross,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Forth,  on  July  17,  1700,  and  was 
conducted  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Mair,  who  was  Boston's 
friend,  and  minister  of  the  parish.  "The  action,"  says 
Mr.  Boston,  "  was  gone  about  most  sweetly  by  Mr. 
Mair.  The  Lord  directed  him  to  most  seasonable 
and  pertinent  exhortations,  and  they  came  with 
power  and  life.    Of  a  truth  God  owned  it,  and  it  was 


MARRIAGE.  69 

sweet  both  to  him  and  to  us."  A  few  days  afterwards, 
when  the  grateful  husband  led  his  bride  into  the 
humble  manse  of  Simprin,  he  felt  that  he  had  indeed 
received  a  gift  from  the  Lord.  The  words  of  Luther 
when  writing  of  his  wife  Catherine  Bora  would  not 
have  been  unsuitable  to  Boston  when  speaking  of 
his  wife  Catherine  Brown  :  "  The  greatest  gift  of 
God  is  an  amiable  and  pious  spouse  who  fears  God, 
loves  his  house,  and  with  whom  one  can  live  in  per- 
fect peace."  It  was  a  union  which  stood  the  tests 
of  time  and  trial. 

Thirty  years  after  his  marriage,  we  find  Mr.  Bos- 
ton bearing  his  testimony  to  this  in  words  which 
have  often  been  admired  since,  and  in  whose  holy 
beauty,  tenderness,  and  gushing  thankfulness  he  rises 
above  himself:  "Thus  was  I,  by  all-wise  Providence, 
yoked  with  my  wife,  with  whom  I  have  now,  by  the 
mercy  of  God  (1730),  lived  thirty  years  complete  ;  a 
woman  of  great  worth,  whom  I  therefore  passionately 
loved  and  inwardly  honoured  ;  a  stately,  beautiful, 
and  comely  personage,  truly  pious,  and  fearing  the 
Lord  ;  of  an  evenly  temper,  patient  in  our  common 
tribulations  and  under  her  personal  distresses ;  a 
woman  of  bright  natural  parts  and  an  uncommon 
stock  of  prudence  ;  of  a  quick  and  lively  apprehen- 
sion in  things  she  applied  herself  to;  of  great  presence 
of  mind  in  surprising  incidents  ;  sagacious  and  acute 


70  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

in  discerning  the  qualities  of  persons,  and  therefore 
not  easily  imposed  upon  ;  modest  and  grave  in  her 
deportment,  but  naturally  cheerful ;  wise  and  affable 
in  conversation,  having  a  good  faculty  at  speaking 
and  expressing  herself  with  assurance ;  endowed 
with  a  singular  dexterity  in  dictating  of  letters;  being 
a  pattern  of  frugality  and  wise  management  of  house- 
hold affairs,  therefore  entirely  committed  to  her;  well 
fitted  for  and  careful  of  the  virtuous  education  of 
her  children  ;  remarkably  useful  to  the  country-side, 
both  in  the  Merse  and  in  the  Forest,  through  skill 
in  physic  and  surgery,  which,  in  many  instances,  a 
peculiar  blessing  appeared  to  be  commanded  upon 
from  heaven  ;  and,  finally,  a  crown  to  me  in  my 
public  station  and  appearances.  During  the  time 
we  have  lived  together  hitherto,  we  have  passed 
through  a  sea  of  trouble  as  not  seeing  the  shore 
but  afar  off.  I  have  sometimes  been  likely  to  be 
removed :  she  having  had  little  continued  health, 
except  the  first  six  weeks,  her  death  hath  sometimes 
stared  us  in  the  face,  and  hundreds  of  arrows  have 
pierced  my  heart  on  that  score  ;  and  sometimes  I 
have  gone  with  a  trembling  heart  to  the  pulpit,  lay- 
ing my  account  with  being  called  out  of  it  to  see  her 
expire.  And  now  for  the  third  part  of  the  time  we 
have  lived  together — namely,  ten  years  complete — 
she  has  been  under  a  particular  racking  distress,  and 


OPEN   FAMILY   WORSHIP.  7 1 

for  several  of  these  years  fixed  to  her  bed  ;  in  the 
which  furnace  the  grace  of  God  in  her  hath  been 
brightened,  her  parts  continued  to  a  wonder,  and  her 
beauty,  which  formerly  was  wont  upon  her  recoveries 
to  leave  no  vestige  of  the  illness  she  had  been  under, 
doth  as  yet,  now  and  then,  show  some  vestiges  of 
itself." 

It  was  probably  not  long  after  his  marriage  that 
the  earnest  minister,  ever  on  the  outlook  for  new 
opportunities  of  benefiting  his  people,  threw  open 
his  house  to  any  who  might  be  willing  to  attend  on 
his  morning  family  worship.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  his  young  wife,  who  was  ready  to  be  his 
helpmate  in  his  ministry  as  well  as  in  the  common 
details  of  home  life,  would  sympathize  with  him  in 
this  arrangement,  and,  casting  aside  all  thoughts  of 
domestic  inconvenience,  would  give  cordial  welcome 
to  all  that  came.  The  project  was  successful.  Many 
of  his  parishioners  came  regularly  to  the  service. 
Mr.  Boston  mingled  with  the  devotional  exercises 
a  brief  exposition  of  Scripture,  for  which  he  never 
failed  to  prepare  himself  by  previous  study  ;  and  the 
interested  worshippers  returned  to  their  home  cares, 
or  their  out-of-door  industry,  toned  for  the  day. 

But  his  sky  was  not  to  be  long  without  clouds. 
The  first  year  of  his  Simprin  pastorate  was  scarcely 
ended,  when  he  was  called  to  mourn  over  the  death 


72  THOMAS  BOSTON. 

of  his  father,  in  his  seventieth  year.  The  stroke  was 
not  unexpected,  but,  as  he  tells  us  in  his  diary,  "  it 
went  to  the  quick  with  him."  "It  was  a  heavy  death 
to  me,  the  shock  of  which  I  had  much  ado  to  stand." 
There  were  filial  ties  and  sacred  memories  of  peculiar 
strength  and  tenderness  which  bound  him  to  his 
father.  He  remembered  how,  when  a  boy,  he  had 
borne  him  company  night  and  day  when  he  was 
suffering  imprisonment  for  conscience'  sake.  He 
could  not  forget  the  sacrifices  which  he  had  made 
for  a  series  of  years,  out  of  his  straitened  means,  in 
order  to  obtain  for  him  such  a  university  education 
as  was  required  of  candidates  for  the  Christian 
ministry.  And  ever  since,  the  hoary  head  had  been 
found  in  the  way  of  righteousness.  There  must 
have  been  grateful  joy,  mingled  with  natural  sorrow, 
when  the  bereaved  son  could  write  thus  of  his 
father :  "  He  was  one  who,  in  the  worst  times,  re- 
tained his  integrity  beyond  many  ;  and  in  view  of 
death  gave  comfortable  evidences  of  eternal  life  to 
be  obtained  through  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

A  few  weeks  after  the  father's  death,  another  event 
happened  in  the  family  history,  in  which  joy  and 
sorrow  were  strangely  mingled.  On  the  24th  May 
1 70 1,  Mrs.  Boston  gave  birth  to  her  first  child, 
Catherine,  "  having,"  says  the  devout  father,  "  at  the 
holy  and  just  pleasure  of  the  sovereign  Former  of  all 


JOY  AND  SORROW.  73 

things,  a  double  harelip,  whereby  she  was  rendered 
incapable  of  sucking."  On  the  way  to  the  chamber 
he  was  met  by  the  nurse,  who  intimated  to  him  the 
case  of  the  child,  "  with  which,"  says  he,  "  my  heart 
was  struck  like  a  bird  shot  and  falling  from  a  tree. 
Howbeit,"  he  adds,  "  I  bore  it  gravely,  and  my  afflicted 
wife  carried  the  trial  very  Christianly,  and  wisely 
after  her  manner."  It  was  a  weakly  child,  requiring 
to  be  watched  night  and  day  through  all  the  months 
of  summer ;  but  when  autumn  came,  the  little  one 
began  to  revive.  Money  affairs  requiring  that  Mr. 
Boston  and  his  wife  should  visit  her  former  home 
in  Clackmannanshire,  they  proceeded  thither  in  the 
beginning  of  harvest.  On  their  return  home  after  a 
brief  stay,  made  shorter  on  account  of  Mrs.  Boston's 
imperfect  health,  they  rested  for  a  night  in  her 
sister's  house  at  Torryburn,  Fifeshire.  There,  in  the 
morning  before  rising  from  bed,  she  had  a  remark- 
able dream.  She  dreamed  that  she  saw  her  child 
perfect  in  form,  "the  natural  defect  being  made 
up,  and  extraordinarily  beautiful."  This  making  an 
impression  on  their  minds  to  which  they  could  not 
be  indifferent,  they  hastened  their  way  homeward. 
On  arriving  at  Black's  Mill,  about  nine  miles  from 
Simprin,  they  were  met  by  friends,  when  their  hearts 
were  pierced  with  the  information  that  their  little 
infant  was  both  dead  and  buried.     "  After  which," 


74  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

says  Mr.  Boston,  "  we  came  home  in  great  heaviness, 
and  found  that  that  very  day  and  hour  of  the  day, 
as  near  as  could  be  judged,  when  my  wife  had  the 
dream  aforesaid,  the  child  had  died."  They  could 
not  help  connecting  the  death  with  the  dream  which 
had  been  sent  to  them  beforehand  "  with  healing  on 
its  wings." 

It  may  be  interesting  to  some  ministers  of  Christ 
in  our  own  days  to  be  told  of  some  of  our  young 
pastor's  early  ministerial  experiences — those  "  lessons 
in  black  print,"  as  Foster  calls  them.  They  may 
even  suggest  valuable  hints  both  for  encouragement 
and  warning.  In  the  earlier  years  of  his  Simprin 
life,  he  had  frequent  difficulty  in  fixing  on  a  text 
for  the  following  Sabbath.  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.  There  was  something 
more  than  perplexity  and  worry  in  this,  when,  as 
occasionally  happened,  the  week  was  already  far 
advanced,  and  in  his  growing  anxiety  he  seemed  to 
hear  the  sound  of  the  Sabbath  bell  summoning  him 
to  his  sacred  work.  This  was  even  beyond  the  ex- 
perience of  John  Newton,  the  good  pastor  of  Olney, 
who  was  seldom  helped  to  more  than  one  text  in 
the  week,  and  who  compared  himself  to  a  servant  to 
whom  a  key  had  been  given  that  only  opened  one 


EARLY   MINISTERIAL   EXPERIENCES.  75 

drawer  at  a  time,  but  never  had  committed  to  him  a 
bunch  of  keys  which  opened  all  the  drawers. 

But  in  his  later  years  at  Simprin,  it  was  Mr.  Bos- 
ton's custom  to  select  large  paragraphs  of  Scripture, 
which,  in  their  succession  of  verses,  supplied  texts 
for  many  sermons, — a  practice  which  carried  with  it 
the  great  advantage  of  enabling  him,  sometimes  con- 
sciously and  sometimes  unconsciously,  to  gather  ma- 
terial from  his  reading  and  observation,  not  only  for 
the  wants  of  the  present  week,  but  for  those  of  many 
weeks  to  come.  We  find  him,  for  instance,  lingering 
over  the  few  verses  of  the  epistle  to  the  Church  of  La- 
odicea  from  January  to  the  end  of  May,  and  appa- 
rently loath  to  leave  the  passage  even  then,  with  the 
feeling  that  the  golden  mine  had  not  yet  been  made 
to  yield  up  all  its  riches.  One  statement  which  he 
makes  is  specially  valuable  and  suggestive,  that  his 
afflictions  not  unfrequently  found  his  texts  for  him, 
and  that  those  sermons  were  the  most  profitable  to 
others  which  had  taken  their  shape  and  colouring 
from  his  personal  and  family  history,  and  had  been 
suggested  by  the  events  of  his  own  life. 

A  valuable  lesson  may  also  be  gleaned  by  some 
from  another  experience  in  his  early  ministry.  It 
had  been  his  practice,  at  first,  to  delay  his  prepara- 
tions for  his  pulpit  to  the  last  days  of  the  week,  the 
consequence  of  which  too  often  was  that  when  Satur- 


76  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

day  came  much  of  his  sermon  yet  remained  to  be 
written.  It  was  not  long  ere  he  began  to  find  the 
inconvenience  and  evil  of  this  delay,  and  to  resolve 
that  the  writing  of  his  discourses  for  the  Sabbath 
should  be  over,  at  the  latest,  on  the  Friday  evenings. 
In  more  than  one  respect  he  found  the  advantage  of 
this  wise  change.  The  intervening  rest  of  Saturday 
secured  for  him  a  greater  reserve  of  strength  and 
freshness  for  his  Sabbath  ministrations.  It  may  even 
have  preserved  him  at  times  from  mistaking  mental 
and  physical  depression  for  divine  desertion.  It 
saved  him  also  from  the  fretting  and  worry  which 
were  certain  to  come  out  of  undue  haste  or  inconve- 
nient interruptions,  while  it  gave  him  time  to  preach 
the  sermc  i  to  his  own  heart  before  he  preached  it  to 
his  people.  Much  is  revealed  regarding  his  frequent 
state  of  mind  on  closing  the  writing  of  one  of  his 
sermons  :  "  Oh  that  it  were  written  in  my  heart  as  it 
is  in  my  book." 

It  must  have  been  a  painful  surprise  to  a  minister 
of  such  lofty  aims  and  gentle  charity  as  Mr.  Bos- 
ton, to  have  been  told  by  certain  of  his  hearers 
that  he  was  suspected  of  indulging  in  "person- 
alities "  in  his  preaching,  and  that  they  even  be- 
lieved that,  in  some  things  which  he  had  recently 
spoken,  he  had  been  aiming  at  them.  It  is  super- 
fluous to  say  that  few  things  can  be  more  unworthy 


SCARCITY  OF   BOOKS.  77 

of  a  minister  of  Christ,  or  a  more  shameful  degrad- 
ing of  his  sacred  office,  than  when  he  uses  his  pulpit 
to  gratify  a  secret  vindictiveness  or  spite.  But  such 
suspicions  are  commonly  groundless,  and  are  to  be 
accounted  for  by  an  overweening  self-importance 
on  the  part  of  some  of  his  hearers,  or  by  an  uneasy 
conscience  in  others,  which  smarts  under  faithful 
preaching  when  it  unveils  to  the  man  some  secret 
besetting  sin,  or  purpose  of  evil.  Indeed  it  is  a  poor 
sign  of  a  minister's  discriminating  skill  and  fidelity 
in  his  pulpit  when  his  preaching  does  not  at  times 
make  individuals  among  his  hearers  uneasy  almost 
to  resentment,  and  his  "  drowsy  tinklings  only  lull  his 
flock  to  sleep."  "  I  should  suspect  his  preaching  had 
no  salt  in  it,"  says  the  wise  and  witty  Thomas  Fuller, 
"  if  no  galled  jade  did  wince.  But  still  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  archer  aimed  because  the  arrow 
hit." 

Some  of  our  readers  will  be  interested  by  another 
phase  in  Mr.  Boston's  early  Simprin  experiences. 
We  find  him  mourning  again  and  again  over  the 
fewness  of  his  books,  and  especially  of  commentaries 
on  the  Word  of  God.  He  even  describes  himself  in 
one  place  as  having  been  wounded  in  his  feelings, 
"  touched  to  the  quick,"  by  observing  the  smile  which 
passed  over  the  countenance  of  a  brother  minister 
from  a  neighbouring  parish,  when  he  showed  him 


yS  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

his  little  book-press  with  its  scantily  supplied  shelves. 
Among  the  cherished  few,  he  tells  us,  were  Zanchy's 
works,  and  Luther  on  the  Galatians,  "  which  he  was 
much  taken  with  ; "  and  Providence  also  laid  to  his 
hand  Beza's  "  Confession  of  Faith."  Circulating 
libraries,  and  book  posts,  and  other  expedients  with 
which  the  modern  country  parson  is  gratefully  famil- 
iar, were  unknown  in  those  days,  and  there  is  no 
evidence  that  the  weekly  carrier's  cart  from  the  great 
city  regularly  touched  at  Simprin.  Only  once  in  the 
year  did  our  pastor's  straitened  means  admit  of  his 
bringing  home  a  carefully  selected  book  parcel,  not 
very  portly,  to  add  to  his  little  stores.  .  He  came, 
however,  ere  long  to  see  that  there  were  compensating 
advantages  even  in  this.  For  he  had  time  to  read 
and  digest  the  supplies  of  one  year  before  the  next 
greedily-waited-for  annual  parcel  of  books  arrived. 
The  reproach  could  not  have  been  flung  at  him  that 
it  was  more  easy  to  furnish  our  library  than  our 
understanding.  And  even  by  his  lack  of  commen- 
taries, he  was  thrown  back  the  more  upon  his  own 
mental  resources,  and  closed  up  to  independent 
thought ;  while  he  early  began  to  register  in  a  "  Book 
of  Miscellanies"  the  difficulties  of  interpretation 
which  he  could  not  surmount,  and  the  problems  in 
theology  which  he  could  not  immediately  solve  ;  and 
not  unfrequently  the  solution  came  in  maturer  years. 


THE   BEST   INTERPRETER   OF   SCRIPTURE.       79 

One  precious  testimony  of  Boston's,  more  than 
once  repeated  by  him  even  at  this  early  period  of 
his  ministry,  will  find  its  echo  in  the  heart  of  every 
devoted  minister  of  Christ — that  a  heavenly  frame  of 
mind  is  the  best  interpreter  of  Scripture.  There  are 
great  texts,  especially  those  which  belong  to  the 
region  of  Christian  experience,  which  sound  to  the 
man  of  mere  lexicons  and  grammars  as  paradoxes 
or  riddles,  and  before  which  he  will  sit  for  days  and 
weeks  vainly  guessing  and  groping  at  their  meaning, 
but  which  sweetly  open  themselves  almost  at  once 
to  the  mind  which  has  "  tasted  that  the  Lord  is 
gracious,"  and'  disclose  to  him  all  their  golden  stores. 
It  is  a  profound  saying,  expressing  in  another  form 
Boston's  meaning,  that  "  the  best  scriptural  inter- 
preter is  the  man  with  a  scriptural  mind." 

We  have  noticed  the  manner  in  which  our  young 
Simprin  pastor  hungered  for  books,  and  how  scanty 
was  his  supply  of  this  mental  pabulum  during  the 
earlier  years  of  his  ministry.  But  there  was  one 
book  to  which  we  have  now  to  advert  which  came 
into  his  possession  without  his  seeking,  even  the 
name  of  which  he  had  never  before  heard,  which 
was  destined  to  exercise  over  himself  and  his  min- 
istry a  most  powerful  and  benignant  influence,  and 
ultimately  and  partly  through  him,  over  the  theo- 
logical   thinking    and    the    ecclesiastical    history   of 


80  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Scotland  for  ages  to  come.  Other  ministers,  such 
as  Mr.  Hog  of  Carnock,  soon  became  associated 
with  him  in  his  experience  and  action ;  but  his 
was  the  hand  which  beyond  all  others  put  the 
leaven  into  the  meal.  This  remarkable  book  was 
''  The  Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity."  Its  author 
was  Mr.  Edward  Fisher,  a  gentleman  commoner  of 
Brasenose  College,  Oxford.  Its  first  part  was 
published  in  May  1645,  and  its  second  part  three 
years  after;  and  it  consisted  largely *of  extracts  from 
the  writings  of  the  Reformers  and  the  Puritans, 
these  having  reference  mainly  to  questions  con- 
nected with  the  way  of  a  sinner's  access  to  God. 
We  see  the  familiar  names  of  Luther  and  Calvin 
and  Beza  shining  out  from  the  great  multitude  of 
honoured  names,  and  the  editor  himself  contributes 
an  occasional  sentence  or  brief  passage.  But  he 
prefers  to  describe  himself  as  one  who  has  gathered 
sweet-scented  and  medicinal  flowers  from  many  a 
garden,  and  bound  them  together  in  one  bunch  of 
mingled  sweetness  and  healing  power.  The  book 
was  strongly  recommended  by  the  famous  Joseph 
Caryl,  who  held  the  office  of  censor  of  theological 
works,  from  the  Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines. 
And  the  fact  that  the  entire  work  passed  through  ten 
editions  in  a  few  years  after  its  publication,  proves 
the  avidity  with  which  it  was  sought  after  and  read. 


THE   FINDING   OF   THE   "MARROW."  8l 

The  story  of  the  manner  in  which  the  "  Marrow  " 
found  its  way  into  this  obscure  corner  of  Scotland, 
and  into  Mr.  Boston's  hands,  presents  a  remarkable 
instance  of  the  unlikely  means  and  the  minute  inci- 
dents by  which  God  not  unfrequently  works  out 
his  great  designs,  especially  for  the  advancement  of 
his  kingdom  among  men.  How  little  did  Luther 
dream  when  he  found  a  copy  of  the  Latin  Bible  in 
the  Augustinian  monastery  at  Erfurth,  and  began 
to  read  it,  that  he  was  "  the  monk  whom  God  had 
chosen  to  shake  the  world,"  and  that  this  discovery 
was  to  be  the  first  step  in  his  training  for  his  glo- 
rious mission.  The  way  of  Boston's  finding  the 
"  Marrow,"  though  greatly  inferior  in  importance,  be- 
longs to  the  same  class  of  providences.  We  shall  best 
give  the  narrative  of  the  finding  of  the  "  Marrow  " 
in  Boston's  own  quaint  words  : — "  As  I  was  sitting 
one  day  in  a  house  of  Simprin,  I  espied  above  the 
window-head  two  little  old  books,  which  when  I 
had  taken  down  I  found  entitled,  the  one  '  The 
Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity,'  the  other  '  Christ's 
Blood  Flowing  Freely  to  Sinners.'  These,  I  reckon, 
had  been  brought  home  from  England  by  the 
master  of  the  house,  who  had  been  a  soldier  in 
the  time  of  the  civil  wars.  Finding  them  to  point 
to  the  subject  I  was  in  particular  concern  about,  I 
brought  them  both  away.     The  latter,  a  book   of 


82  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Saltmarsh's,  I  relished  not,  and  I  think  I  returned 
it  without  reading  it  quite  through.  The  other,  be- 
ing the  first  part  of  the  '  Marrow,'  I  relished  greatly, 
and  purchased  it,  at  length,  from  the  owner,  and  it 
is  still  to  be  found  among  my  books.  I  found  it 
to  come  close  to  the  points  I  was  in  quest  of,  and 
to  shew  the  consistency  of  these  which  I  could  not 
reconcile  before,  so  that  I  rejoiced  in  it  as  a  light 
which  the  Lord  had  seasonably  struck  up  to  me  in 
my  darkness." 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how,  in  looking 
at  the  doctrine  of  election  by  itself,  apart  from  the 
uses  and  connections  in  which  it  is  presented  in 
Scripture,  Boston  in  his  earlier  years  at  Simprin 
should  sometimes,  to  use  his  own  words,  have  found 
himself  confused,  indistinct,  and  hampered  in  his 
proclamation  to  men  of  the  free,  open,  and  universal 
liberty  of  access  to  God  in  Christ  for  salvation.  But 
when  he  was  brought  to  see,  from  a  hundred  passages 
in  the  "  Marrow,"  that  the  gospel  was  the  fruit  and 
expression  of  God's  love  to  every  "  man  of  woman 
born,"  that  "  God  so  loved  the  world  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  Son,"  or,  to  quote  the  words  which  be- 
came the  recognized  formula  of  "Marrow"  theology, 
that  "Jesus  Christ  was  God  the  Father's  deed  of 
gift  and  grant  unto  all  mankind  lost,"  the  morning 
mists  passed  away,  he  saw  God's  wondrous  method 


A   NEW   LIGHT.  83 

of  mercy  in  its  full-orbed  light  and  radiance,  and 
began  from  that  hour  to  sound  "  the  gospel  trumpet's 
heavenly  call "  with  a  new  energy  and  delight  which 
his  people  and  those  in  the  surrounding  parishes 
were  not  slow  to  recognize  and  relish.  "  The  time 
of  the  singing  of  birds  had  come." 

There  is  one  statement  in  an  early  passage  of  his 
autobiography,  probably  having  reference  to  this  very 
period,  in  which  our  young  minister  describes  him- 
self as  conversing  with  a  visitor  about  "  the  measure 
of  humiliation  requisite  in  a  sinner  before  he  can 
come  to  Christ."  If  up  to  this  time  he  had  been 
hampered  by  this  question,  which  has  made  so  many 
to  stumble  and  hold  back  on  their  way  to  Christ 
and  peace,  we  may  well  believe  that  the  teaching 
of  the  "  Marrow "  would  tell  him  how  to  deal  with 
such  an  inquirer.  He  would  insist  on  an  immediate 
and  unqualified  closing  with  the  message  of  heaven's 
love.  He  would  assure  the  anxious  one  that  he 
would  never  become  better,  but  worse,  by  waiting. 
Why  should  you  linger,  even  for  a  day,  when  the 
gate  stands  wide  open,  and  the  feast  is  ready,  and 
the  King  is  waiting  with  open  arms  to  welcome  you 
in  ?  The  only  way  to  be  made  clean  is  to  go  to 
the  fountain;  the  only  way  to  be  made  warm  is 
to  go  to  the  fire.  In  this  way  had  Boston  come  to 
plead  with  men  when  preaching  on  such  texts  as 


84  THOMAS  BOSTON. 

"  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy 
laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest " — "  Ho,  every  one 
that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to  the  waters,"  on  which  the 
lamp  of  the  "Marrow"  had  shed  a  new  light. 

During  the  following  fifteen  years,  the  "  Marrow  " 
doctrine  spread  far  and  wide  over  many  of  the  fairest 
provinces  of  Scotland  ;  it  became  incorporated  with 
the  preaching  of  not  a  few  of  its  best  ministers;  and 
multitudes  of  sincere  believers  were  so  quickened  by 
it  that  their  experience  seemed  like  a  new  conversion ; 
while  myriads  of  careless  professors  and  open  sinners 
entered  with  joy  into  the  kingdom  of  the  saved. 
There  is  truth  in  the  remark  that  the  Marrowmen, 
first  of  all  among  our  Scottish  divines,  entered  fully 
into  the  missionary  spirit  of  the  Bible,  and  were  able 
to  see  that  Calvinistic  doctrine  "  was  not  inconsist- 
ent with  world-conquering  aspirations  and  efforts." 

We  return  to  our  narrative.  From  the  time  that 
Boston  had  drunk  of  the  reviving  waters  of  the 
"  Marrow,"  his  work  in  Simprin  was  carried  on  with 
increased  freedom  and  crowned  with  greater  success. 
Conscious  that  he  had  been  put  in  trust  with  a  divine 
message  which  was  fitted  for  all,  needed  by  all,  and 
commanded  to  be  proclaimed  to  all,  he  preached  with 
an  enlarged  hope  and  earnestness.  And  Simprin 
was  not  only  improved  but  visibly  transformed. 
There  was  a  new  face  upon  everything.     "  Instead 


REMARKABLE  TRANSFORMATION.  85 

of  the  thorn  there  had  come  up  the  fir  tree,  and 
instead  of  the  brier  there  had  come  up  the  myrtle 
tree."  When  he  entered  on  his  ministry  in  Simprin 
there  was  not  a  single  house  in  which  family  wor- 
ship was  observed :  within  a  period  of  less  than  seven 
years  there  was  not  a  single  home  in  all  the  parish 
without  its  family  altar  and  its  morning  and  evening 
sacrifice  of  praise  and  prayer.  As  it  had  been  with 
Baxter  at  Kidderminster,  when  at  the  stated  hours 
every  house  resounded  with  the  voice  of  psalms,  so 
it  had  come  to  be  the  experience  of  Boston  in  the 
cottages  of  this  rural  parish.  And  these  are  among 
the  surest  signs  of  thriving  religious  life  among  a 
people,  just  as  there  are  certain  flowers  on  the  Alps 
which  are  sure  to  appear  at  a  high  elevation. 

Moreover,  in  the  later  years  of  his  Simprin  pas- 
torate, and  especially  on  extraordinary  communion 
occasions,  multitudes  came  streaming  from  the 
neighbouring  parishes  to  be  "present  at  the  feast;" 
and  many  carried  away  with  them  in  their  hearts 
the  memory  of  words  and  thoughts  that  never  died, 
their  awakened  interest  giving  an  increased  enthu- 
siasm and  fervour  to  Boston's  preaching,  so  that  his 
lips  seemed  touched  with  hallowed  fire,  and  he  rose 
above  himself.  Writing  in  his  diary  at  the  recollec- 
tion of  one  of  those  sacramental  seasons,  we  find  him 
testifying,  "  If  I  ever  preached,  it  was  on  that  day ;" 


86  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

"  I  will  ever  remember  Simprin  as  a  field  which  the 
Lord  had  blessed." 

In  speaking  of  such  successes  as  thus  crowned 
and  rewarded  the  ministry  of  Boston  even  at  this 
early  period,  while  we  must  look  for  the  explanation 
mainly  in  the  divine  adaptation  of  the  gospel  and 
doctrine  which  he  preached,  we  must  look  also  at  the 
personality  of  the  preacher.  Such  a  man  preached 
to  his  people  in  his  daily  life.  They  beheld  the 
witness  to  the  divinity  of  his  message,  in  its  divine 
fruits,  as  he  lived  and  moved  before  them.  They 
could  not  doubt  regarding  such  a  man  that  he  "  be- 
lieved, and  therefore  spoke."  We  have  already 
quoted  his  own  testimony  that  he  preached  his 
sermons  to  his  own  heart  before  he  preached  them 
to  his  people.  And  then  they  were  studied  in  an 
element  of  prayer.     His  was  the  prayer  ardent  which 

"  Opens  heaven,  and  lets  down  a  stream 
Of  glory  on  the  consecrated  hour 
Of  man,  in  audience  with  the  Deity." 

With  what  an  intensity  of  gratitude  do  we  find  him 
recording  in  his  diary  instances  of  blessing  in  answer 
to  prayer :  "  My  soul  went  out  in  love  flames  to  the 
Advocate  with  the  Father." 

This  was  emphatically  a  formative  period  in  Bos- 
ton's life.  As  an  instance  of  this,  we  may  mention 
the   habit   which   he   had    already   formed   of   daily 


SPIRITUAL   LESSONS.  87 

meditation  on  the  ways  of  Providence,  especially  in 
connection  with  his  own  spiritual  life  and  ministry, 
and  his  extracting  from  these  experiences  the  les- 
sons which  they  suggested.  By  this  means,  the 
divine  word  and  the  divine  ways  were  made  to 
shed  mutual  light,  and  often  the  moral  which  they 
suggested  was  condensed  into  a  proverb  and  pre- 
served. In  this  manner  his  autobiography  becomes 
even  at  this  early  stage  of  his  life  like  his  manse 
garden,  a  place  abounding  with  wholesome  fruits 
and  medicinal  plants.  We  shall  enrich  our  narra- 
tive with  a  few  of  these  : — 

"  Spiritual  decays  suck  the  sap  out  of  mercies." 

"  There  may  be  an  enlargement  of  affection  where 
there  is  a  straitening  of  words." 

"  The  way  of  duty  crossing  people's  way  is  a  safe 
way." 

"When  the  Lord  means  a  mercy  to  a  people  he 
helps  them  beforehand  to  pray  for  it." 

"  A  depending  frame  is  a  pledge  of  mercy  desired." 

"  Satan  is  sure  to  lay  hold  of  us  in  a  special 
manner  when  there  is  some  great  work  that  we 
have  to  do." 

"  There  is  no  keeping  foot  without  new  supplies 
from  the  Lord." 

Early  in  the  beginning  of  1706,  Mr.  Boston  was 
surprised  by  receiving  the  news  of  his  having  been 


88  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

called  to  be  minister  of  the  parish  of  Ettrick  in 
Selkirkshire.  It  was  not  a  welcome  surprise.  No 
doubt,  Simprin  was  a  little  parish  with  a  scanty 
population,  by  no  means  equal  to  his  capacity 
of  work  and  oversight  ;  but  during  those  seven 
years  of  his  pastorate  over  that  rustic  flock,  it  had 
entwined  itself  around  his  affections.  It  was  his 
"  first  love."  There  was  not  one  among  his 
parishioners  whom  he  did  not  know,  and  the  short 
and  simple  annals  of  whose  family  life,  in  which 
"  the  dews  of  sorrow  were  lustred  o'er  with  love," 
which  he  could  not  have  repeated.  We  are  re- 
minded of  Goldsmith's  lines  : — 

"  Even  children  followed  with  endearing  wile 

And  plucked  his  gown,  to  share  the  good  man's  smile." 

And  his  ministry  had  been  singularly  blessed  among 
them.  They  were  indeed  his  "  living  epistles."  How 
could  he  endure  to  be  severed  from  a  people  who, 
in  so  many  simple  forms  and  ways,  reciprocated  his 
affection  ?  Moreover,  when  the  call  from  Ettrick 
came  at  length  into  his  hands,  "  his  health,"  as  he 
records  in  his  diary,  "  was  so  broken  that  he  looked 
rather  like  one  to  be  transported  to  another  world 
than  into  another  parish."  But  still  "  the  Call  "  was 
there.  It  was  a  reality.  It  had  come  to  him  un- 
sought  and  undesired.      He  was  conscious   in  his 


CALLED   TO   ETTRICK.  89 

own  heart  that  he  would  not  have  so  much  as 
lifted  up  a  finger  to  bring  it  forth  ;  but  now  that 
it  had  come  to  him,  he  must  look  it  full  in  the  face, 
and  endeavour  to  ascertain  what  was  the  will  of 
his  Master  in  heaven.  Unbiassed  by  any  poor  am- 
bitions or  mercenary  motives,  this  would  be  the 
only  factor  in  determining  his  decision.  He  tells 
us  that,  "  leaving  all  in  God's  hands,  he  was  willing 
from  the  first  to  go  or  stay  as  the  Lord  might  give 
the  word."  And  "  when  the  eye  was  thus  single,  the 
whole  body  was  full  of  light." 

At  the  same  time,  while  he  was  thus  prepared  to 
obey  the  divine  will,  it  was  necessary  that  he  should 
do  his  utmost  to  ascertain  what  this  will  was.  He 
could  not  hope  to  hear  a  voice  from  heaven  saying, 
"  This  is  the  way,  walk  ye  in  it."  For  this  end  he 
visited  Ettrick,  preached  to  the  people,  and  sought 
by  personal  observation  and  otherwise  to  inform 
himself,  especially  regarding  the  moral  and  religious 
condition  of  the  parish.  Up  to  this  time,  his  heart's 
preference  had  been  to  remain  in  Simprin.  But  what 
he  saw  and  heard  during  those  days  in  "  the  Forest " 
made  him  hesitate,  and  even  incline  to  make  it 
the  object  of  his  choice,  not  because  his  work  would 
be  easy,  but  because  the  crying  wants  of  the  people 
were  so  great.  "  The  desolation  in  that  parish,"  he 
says,  "  ever  since  I  saw  it,  hath  great  weight  on  me, 


90  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  I  am  convinced  I  should  have  more  opportunity 
to  do  service  for  God  there  than  here  ;  but  success 
is  the  Lord's."  Still,  like  Moses  in  the  wilderness, 
who  would  not  move  with  his  myriad  host  until  the 
pillar  of  cloud  and  fire  moved,  he  would  take  no 
step  until  Providence  gave  its  sign.  "  The  Lord 
helped  me  to  believe  that  he  would  clear  me  in  the 
matter  in  due  time,  and  to  depend  on  him  for  the 
same ;  while  the  word,  '  He  that  believeth  shall 
not  make  haste,'  was  helpful  to  me."  Well  know- 
ing, as  he  tells  us,  that  "  several  who  had  interest 
with  God  at  the  throne  of  grace  were  concerned 
to  pray  for  light  to  him,"  he  at  length  determined 
to  wait  for  the  action  of  the  synod  in  whose  bounds 
the  congregations  both  of  Simprin  and  Ettrick  were 
placed,  and  to  accept  its  decision  as  the  indication 
of  the  divine  will. 

And  on  the  6th  day  of  March  1707,  the  synod 
having  met,  transferred  Mr.  Boston  to  Ettrick,  a 
place  with  which  his  name  has  continued  to  be 
linked  by  many  sacred  associations  in  the  minds  of 
Christians  throughout  Scotland  and  in  many  other 
lands,  up  to  the  present  day.  m  Grey-headed  elders 
were  there  from  Simprin,  weeping  much  at  the 
thought  of  his  being  severed  from  them  ;  and  when 
he  beheld  their  unfeigned  grief,  "  how,"  says  he, 
"  could  my  eyes  fail  to  trickle  down  with  tears  ?  " 


FAREWELL  SERMON    AT   SIMPRIN.  9 1 

On  the  1st  day  of  May  1707,  Mr.  Boston  was  for- 
mally inducted  as  minister  of  Ettrick — a  day,  as  he 
did  not  fail  to  note,  remarkable  in  after  ages  as 
"  that  in  which  the  union  of  Scotland  and  England 
commenced  according  to  the  articles  thereof  agreed 
upon  by  the  two  Parliaments."  On  the  Sabbath 
after  his  admission,  he  began  his  ministry  at  Ettrick 
by  preaching  from  the  text  1  Sam.  vii.  12  :  "Then 
Samuel  took  a  stone,  and  set  it  between  Mizpeh 
and  Shen,  and  called  the  name  of  it  Eben-ezer, 
saying,  Hitherto  hath  the  Lord  helped  us."  It  was 
not  until  the  15th  day  of  June  that  he  preached  his 
farewell  sermon  to  his  Simprin  people  on  John  vii. 
37  :  "  In  the  last  day,  that  great  day  of  the  feast, 
Jesus  stood  and  cried,  saying,  If  any  man  thirst,  let 
him  come  unto  me,  and  drink."  It  was  characteristic 
of  the  man  to  choose  that  grand  evangelical  text  for 
such  an  occasion,  when  all  the  associations  and 
incidents  were  likely  to  prepare  and  attune  the 
hearts  of  the  people  for  hearing.  The  multitude 
was  very  great,  consisting  not  only  of  his  sorrow- 
ing Simprin  flock,  but  of  thousands  besides,  who 
had  come  crowding  from  all  the  surrounding  parishes 
to  listen  to  a  voice  which  the  greater  number  of 
them  knew  they  would  hear  no  more.  The  place 
was  at  once  a  Bochim  and  a  Bethel.  He  notices 
with  glowing  gratitude    that    "  the   Lord    who    had 


92  THOMAS  BOSTON. 

been  with  him  in  his  ministry  there,  was  with  him 
at  the  close,  and  much  of  God's  power  appeared 
in  it."  It  might  have  been  said  that  "  that  last 
day  was  the  great  day  of  the  feast."  There  was  a 
holy  awe  over  the  hushed  and  expectant  multitude  ; 
and  though  many  a  face  that  was  turned  to  the 
preacher  was  suffused  with  tears,  there  was  a  pre- 
vailing element  of  joy  which  the  text  and  the 
words  which  were  spoken  on  it  did  not  fail  to 
produce  and  sustain.  It  was  like  the  drawing  of 
the  loaded  net  by  the  disciples  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee  at  the  morning  dawn,  which  they  could 
scarcely  drag  to  the  land  because  of  the  multitude 
of  fishes. 

On  the  Thursday  following,  Mr.  Boston  with  his 
wife  and  two  children,  Jane  and  Ebenezer,  arrived 
at  their  new  mountain  home  among  the  green  hills 
of  Ettrick.  No  doubt  there  were  some  momentary 
misgivings  and  regrets  on  that  eventful  day,  but 
he  was  borne  up  by  the  consciousness  that  it  was 
an  overpowering  sense  of  the  divine  call  and  lead- 
ing that  had  brought  him  there.  "  Thus,"  says  he, 
"  I  parted  with  a  people  whose  hearts  were  knit 
to  me,  and  mine  to  them  ;  nothing  but  the  sense 
of  God's  command  that  took  me  there  making  me 
to  part  with  them."  The  times  were  not  few  in 
later  years  when  he  looked  back  with  wondering 


CHOSEN    CLERK   OF   SYNOD.  93 

gratitude,  and  even  with  fond  heart-longings,  upon 
his  "  halcyon  days  at  Simprin." 

We  must  not  omit  to  mention  that,  in  October 
1702,  Mr.  Boston  was  chosen  to  the  important  office 
of  Clerk  to  the  Synod  of  Merse  and  Teviotdale, 
and  that  he  held  that  office  till  1711.  Probably  his 
suitableness  for  conducting  the  business  of  church 
courts  had  already  in  some  measure  revealed  itself 
in  the  narrower  sphere  of  his  own  presbytery,  which 
was  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  synod.  The  clerk's 
special  duties  were  the  recording  of  the  proceedings 
of  the  synod  in  its  minute-book,  maintaining  its 
correspondence  with  the  presbyteries  and  sessions 
within  its  bounds,  helping  in  the  education  and  over- 
sight of  students  within  the  bounds  of  the  synod 
who  were  preparing  for  the  work  of  the  Christian 
ministry  ;  as  well  as  the  visiting  of  presbyteries  and 
sessions  in  which  the  interference  and  advice  of 
the  synod  were  needed.  Very  different  this  from 
the  routine  duties  of  a  quiet  pastoral  charge  such 
as  that  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed.  But  he 
did  not  shrink  from  the  responsibility,  all  the  more 
that  the  call  to  it  had  come  unsought.  Moreover, 
he  knew  that  the  work  would  only  come  to  him  at 
intervals  ;  while  perhaps  he  was  not  altogether  un- 
conscious that  the  parts  of  it  which  were  most 
difficult   were   those   for   which   he    had    a   natural 


94  THOMAS  BOSTON. 

liking,  and,  as  often  happens  in  such  cases,  a 
peculiar  fitness.  His  habits  of  order  had  been 
early  formed.  And  the  synod  was  not  long  in 
discovering  that  it  had  made  a  wise  and  happy 
choice.  We  find  good  men  thus  recording  the 
traditions  regarding  him  which  they  had  received 
from  his  contemporaries :  "  He  had  a  great  know- 
ledge and  understanding  of  human  nature,  of  the 
most  proper  methods  of  addressing  it,  and  the  most 
likely  handles  for  catching  hold  of  it.  And  he  had 
an  admirable  talent  at  drawing  a  paper."  We  gather 
from  passages  in  his  diary  that  not  unfrequently, 
when  the  synod  was  about  to  vote  upon  a  question 
on  which  it  appeared  from  the  previous  discussions 
there  was  not  entire  unanimity  among  the  members, 
he  succeeded  in  preparing  such  a  minute  as,  by  its 
happily-chosen  words  and  well-balanced  phrases,  pro- 
duced in  the  end  entire  harmony  where,  a  little  be- 
fore, this  issue  had  seemed  very  unlikely.  But  the 
testimony  of  Lord  Minto,  an  eminent  statesman, 
who  had  also  been  a  judge,  confirmed  and  exceeded 
all  the  others — that  "  Mr.  Boston  was  the  best  clerk 
he  had  ever  known  in  any  court,  civil  or  eccle- 
siastical." 


CHAPTER   V. 

MR.  BOSTON'S   FIRST   TEN   YEARS   IN    ETTRICK. 

Ettrick  scenery,  history,  and  people — Great  names— Con- 
dition of  the  parish — The  Abjuration  Oath — Rebellion 
— False  alarms— Call  to  another  parish — Mr.  Boston 
pleads  against  his  removal — Retained  in  Ettrick — 
Universal  joy. 

THE  parish  of  Ettrick  is  in  the  south-west  of 
Selkirkshire.  Its  surface  has  been  described 
as  a  "  sea  of  hills,"  which  are  finely  varied  in  appear- 
ance, beautifully  rounded  at  the  top  and  covered 
with  green  grass  to  the  summit.  Some  of  its  hills, 
such  as  Ettrick  Pen,  rise  more  than  2,000  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea,  and  form  part  of  the  highest 
mountain  range  in  the  southern  highlands  of  Scot- 
land. Some  centuries  before  the  days  of  Boston, 
the  whole  of  that  tract  of  land  which  stretches  along 
the  margin  of  "lone  St.  Mary's  Loch,"  and,  including 
both  Ettrick  and  Yarrow,  extends  northward  to  the 
Tweed,  was  covered  by  the  Ettrick  forest.  But  now 
there  is  scarcely  a  straggling  tree  with  its  naked 
branches  to  suggest  traditions  of  what  once  had  been. 


96  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

"  The  scenes  are  desert  now  and  bare, 
Where  flourished  once  a  forest  fair, 
When  these  waste  glens  with  copse  were  lined 
And  peopled  by  the  hart  and  hind." 

But  in  the  interval  of  less  than  two  centuries,  since 
the  days  of  the  good  pastor  of  whom  we  are  writing, 
what  changes  have  come  over  Ettrick  and  its  twin- 
sister  Yarrow !  Over  the  whole  region  there  has 
been  spread  the  mantle  of  romance,  and  it  has  be- 
come classic  ground.  In  common  with  the  lake 
district  in  Cumberland  across  the  borders,  where 
Wordsworth  and  Coleridge  and  Southey  found  a 
congenial  retreat,  and  did  much  to  enrich  the  litera- 
ture of  the  world,  this  district  of  Scotland,  with  its 
green  hills,  and  lonely  glens,  and  sparkling  streams, 
became  the  favourite  haunt  and  home  of  poets. 
More  than  once  Wordsworth  was  drawn  to  it  from 
his  own  Rydal  Mount  and  Grasmere,  and  in  his 
"  Yarrow  Visited  "  and  "  Yarrow  Revisited  "  he  has 
owned  the  power  of  its  fascination  over  him.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  received  impulse  and  inspiration  alike 
from  its  scenery  and  its  Border  ballads  and  teeming 
traditions  of  war,  and  love,  and  chivalry,  gradually 
becoming  what  Wordsworth  called  him  in  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  admiration,  "the  favourite  of  the  world." 
But  Ettrick  claimed  one  as  emphatically  her 
own,  as  having  been  born  and  bred  within  her 
boundaries — James    Hogg,    the    Ettrick    Shepherd. 


THE   ETTRICK   SHEPHERD.  97 

His  birth-place  was  in  a  half- ruined  cottage  in  the 
little  village  of  Ettrick,  not  far  from  the  old  parish 
church  and  its  straggling  retinue  of  trees.  With 
no  advantage  of  education  or  social  position,  with 
every  influence  against  him  except  his  indomitable 
courage  and  perseverance,  and  after  many  struggles 
and  many  failures,  he  rose  at  length  to  a  first  place 
among  the  poets  of  Scotland.  His  sphere  was 
unique,  but  within  it  he  was  a  master  and  stood 
unapproached.  In  expressing  and  depicting  human 
passions  and  affections,  Burns  stood  far  above  him  ; 
but  in  the  region  of  pure  imagination,  especially  in 
the  world  of  the  supernatural,  he  was  in  his  element 
In  the  beautiful  picture  of  Kilmany,  for  instance, 
we  feel,  while  reading,  as  if  he  must  have  actually 
lived  with  her  in  the  enchanted  land.  In  the  hands 
of  others  who,  in  their  own  departments,  are  great 
poets,  their  supernatural  characters  are  found  after 
all  to  be  real  flesh  and  blood.  But  in  such  poems 
as  the  "  Queen's  Wake "  and  others  we  are  carried 
away  to  fairyland,  and  feel  for  a  time  as  if  we  were 
in  it.  As  has  been  happily  said,  "  we  find  ourselves 
walking  in  an  enchanted  circle,  on  a  cloudless  land, 
in  a  sunless  world  "  {Delta  . 

But  we  must  now  turn  back  to  the  year  171 1,  and 
resume  the  story  of  him  who,  before  the  days  of 
James  Hogg,  had  made  the  name  of  Ettrick  sacred, 


9S  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  won  for  himself  also,  by  other  and  undying  claims, 
the  designation  of  the  "  Ettrick  Shepherd." 

Mr.  Boston's  first  impressions  of  the  people  of 
Ettrick  as  he  found  them  were  not  encouraging, 
but  the  reverse.  Nothing  indeed  but  the  sense  of 
his  divine  call  to  this  new  sphere  and  his  faith  in 
Him  who  could  "make  his  strength  equal  to  his 
day,"  could  have  kept  him  from  fearing  and  even 
fainting  at  the  prospect  which  opened  before  him. 
The  discouraging  causes  came  from  more  than 
one  quarter.  First,  the  parish  had  been  without  a 
minister,  or  the  regular  observance  of  the  public 
ordinances  of  religion  of  any  kind,  for  the  previous 
four  years.  It  was  impossible  that  a  people  num- 
bering many  hundreds,  and  left  for  so  long  a  time 
to  wander  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd,  should  not, 
in  such  circumstances,  have  greatly  degenerated. 
The  neglected  and  apparently  forsaken  parish  had 
become  morally  and  spiritually  like  an  unploughed 
field  which  was  covered  with  tangled  weeds  and 
thorns,  and  sheltered  many  foul  creatures.  The 
new  minister  notes  in  his  diary,  in  his  own  charac- 
teristic manner  and  with  observant  sagacity,  that 
"  he  did  not  find  the  people's  appetite  for  ordin- 
ances to  have  been  sharpened  by  the  long  fast 
which  they  had  got  for  about  the  space  of  four 
years  ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were  cold  and  indiffer- 


FIRST   IMPRESSIONS   OF    ETTRICK.  99 

ent  about  divine  things,  but  keen  about  worldly  gains 
to  a  proverb." 

Speaking  of  his  parishioners  in  their  characteristic 
moral  features,  and  perhaps  thinking  the  while  of 
the  quieter  and  less  self-asserting  people  whom  he 
had  left  behind  him  in  the  Merse,  he  describes  them 
as  "  naturally  smart  and  of  an  uncommon  assurance, 
self-conceited  and  censorious  to  a  pitch,  and  using 
an  indecent  freedom  both  with  church  and  state." 
At  the  first,  when  he  came  among  them,  and  for 
some  time  after,  he  was  greatly  shocked  and  dis- 
couraged by  the  indecent  and  disorderly  behaviour 
of  many  of  the  people  during  divine  worship,  some  of 
them  rising  with  rude  noise  and  seeming  impatience, 
and  others  who  had  never  entered  the  church,  walk- 
ing up  and  down  in  the  surrounding  churchyard  with 
loud  talking  while  the  service  was  proceeding.  So 
common  was  this  unseemly  outrage  that  two  of  the 
elders  were  at  length  appointed  in  rotation  to  watch 
against  the  offenders,  and  to  see  that  no  one  withdrew 
from  the  church  during  the  service  without  adequate 
reason,  or  occasioned  noise  and  confusion  around  the 
church  doors. 

It  was  also  not  a  little  painful  to  the  sorely-tried 
pastor  to  notice  that,  "  during  his  preaching,"  the 
majority  among  his  hearers  gave  little  heed  to  what 
was  spoken  on  divine  themes,  but  pricked  their  ears 


IOO  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  were  all  attention  when  there  was  any  allusion 
to  public  affairs,  or  to  the  current  news  of  the  day. 
Two  other  scandals  filled  up  this  dark  and  repulsive 
picture.  One  was  the  prevalence  of  profane  swear- 
ing even  among  those  who  frequented  public  ordin- 
ances, "the  same  fountain  sending  forth  sweet  and 
bitter,"  and  the  frequent  occurrence  among  church 
members  of  sins  of  impurity,  even  in  their  grosser 
forms.  When  would  this  Augean  stable  be  cleansed 
and  turned  into  a  temple  of  God  ?  There  was  only 
one  power  in  the  universe  that  could  do  it. 

Another  circumstance  which  tended  not  a  little, 
in  the  earlier  years  of  Mr.  Boston's  Ettrick  ministry, 
to  disturb  his  peace  and  to  hamper  him  in  his 
work,  was  the  presence  in  his  parish  of  Mr.  Mac- 
millan,  the  minister  and  leader  of  a  party  among 
the  Presbyterians  who  had  refused  to  "  go  in  "  with 
the  Revolution  Settlement  of  1688,  or  to  swear 
allegiance  to  the  new  dynasty  which  began  with 
William  of  Orange.  Without  questioning  the  sin- 
cerity and  conscientiousness  of  Mr.  Macmillan  and 
his  followers,  of  whom  there  was  a  considerable 
number  in  the  parish,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
their  presence  and  constant  agitation  of  points  of 
difference  in  which  Mr.  Boston  was  the  frequent 
object  of  attack,  must  have  acted  as  an  irritant 
upon  his  sensitive  nature  ;  while  malcontents  and 


PUBLIC   AND   PRIVATE   TRIALS.  IOl 

fugitives  from  discipline  were  apt  to  seek  refuge  in 
the  hostile  camp.  Still,  in  the  face  of  all  these 
frowning  discouragements,  he  never  regretted  his 
having  come  to  Ettrick  ;  and  while  he  may  some- 
times have  thought  of  Simprin  with  a  sigh,  and 
written  of  himself  in  dark  moments  in  his  diary 
as  "  like  a  bird  shaken  out  of  its  nest,  or  an  owl 
in  the  desert,"  he  believed  that  a  kindly  hand  was 
leading  him  amid  the  encircling  gloom,  and  that 
the  time  was  surely  coming  when  "  at  eventide 
there  would  be  light." 

With  these  public  trials  in  the  first  years  of  his 
ministry  in  Ettrick,  there  were  mingled  others  of 
which  the  home  was  the  scene.  Within  the  brief 
period  of  eleven  months,  Mr.  Boston  was  called  to 
lay  two  infant  children  in  the  grave.  After  the  cus- 
tom of  many  of  the  Old  Testament  saints,  who  often 
made  the  name  given  to  their  children  a  memorial  of 
blessings,  or  an  expression  of  consecration  and  faith, 
he  named  the  first-born  of  these  Ebenezer,  as  at 
once  a  testimony  of  gratitude  and  an  act  of  dedi- 
cation. And  when  the  second  was  born  soon  after 
the  death  of  the  first,  the  hallowed  name  was  trans- 
ferred to  it  with  much  earnest  pleading  in  prayer  that 
its  young  life  might  be  spared.  But  it  was  not  long 
ere  sovereign  Wisdom  removed  this  little  flower  also 
to  His  upper  garden.     This  second  bereavement  not 


102  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

only  pierced  the  tender  father's  heart,  but  for  a  little 
time  stumbled  his  faith,  as  if  the  dedication  of  his 
child  had  been  rejected. 

One  scene  in  the  death -chamber  has  been  de- 
scribed by  himself  in  words  of  pathos  which  can 
scarcely  be  read  without  tears :  "  When  the  child 
was  laid  in  the  coffin,  his  mother  kissed  his  dust. 
I  only  lifted  the  cloth  off  his  face,  looked  on  it, 
and  covered  it  again,  in  confidence  of  seeing  that 
body  rise  a  glorious  body.  When  the  nails  were 
driving,  I  was  moved,  for  that  I  had  not  kissed 
that  precious  dust  which  I  believed  was  united  to 
Jesus  Christ,  as  if  I  had  despised  it.  I  would  fain 
have  caused  draw  the  nail  again,  but  because  of 
one  that  was  present  I  resented  and  violented 
myself."  His  later  reflections  reveal  the  riper  fruits 
of  his  parental  sorrow,  and  have  been  profitable  to 
many  who  have  been  similarly  called  to  hear  "  deep 
calling  unto  deep."  "  I  see  plainly  that  divine 
sovereignty  challenges  a  latitude,  and  I  must  stoop 
and  be  content  to  follow  the  Lord  in  an  untrodden 
path  ;  and  this  made  me,  with  more  ease,  to  bury 
my  second  Ebenezer  than  I  could  do  rny  first. 
That  Scripture  was  very  profitable  to  me,  '  It  was 
in  my  heart  to  build  a  house  unto  the  Lord.'  I 
learned  not  to  cry,  How  will  the  house  be  made 
up  ?  but  being  now  in  that  matter  made  a  weaned 


EARNEST   PULPIT   MINISTRATIONS.  IOJ 

child,  desired  the  loss  to  be  made  up  by  the  presence 
of  the  Lord." 

At  length,  the  anxious  pastor  began  to  be  cheered 
under  his  frowning  discouragements,  by  being  told 
of  some  who  had  spoken  of  his  sermons  as  "  ripping 
up  their  case  and  discovering  the  secrets  of  their 
hearts."  This  was  like  the  ploughshare  turning  up 
the  hard  soil  for  the  reception  of  the  seed.  Those 
rousing  sermons  were  seasonably  followed  by  others 
unfolding  to  his  hearers  the  divine  method  of  salva- 
tion, the  "still,  small  voice"  coming  after  the  thunder 
and  the  tempest.  In  these  there  were  already  to  be 
seen  some  of  the  germs  of  his  "  Fourfold  State," 
which,  in  due  time,  was  to  be  given  to  the  world, 
and  to  be  one  of  the  life-books  of  his  own  and  suc- 
ceeding ages,  by  means  of  which  myriads  were  to  be 
brought  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  Along  with  this, 
he  associated  catechetical  lectures  on  Christian  doc- 
trine, as  he  had  previously  done  in  Simprin,  using 
the  Shorter  Catechism  as  his  text  -  book,  as  had 
been  the  common  practice  some  generations  before 
among  the  English  Puritans  such  as  the  saintly 
Flavel  and  others.  And  mingled  with  these  were 
occasional  sermons  against  the  besetting  sins  of  his 
parish,  such  as  profane  swearing  and  impurity;  for 
he  was  not  slow,  when  occasion  called  for  it,  to  aim 
his  winged  arrows  at  a  mark. 


104  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Alongside  of  Mr.  Boston's  ministry  in  the  pulpit 
there  were  all  the  appliances  of  an  enlightened  and 
earnest  pastorate  —  twice  in  the  year  catechizing 
groups  of  his  people  in  the  various  districts  of  his 
parish,  and  once  in  the  year  visiting  each  of  his 
families,  like  Paul  at  Ephesus,  from  house  to  house. 
In  such  a  parish  as  Ettrick,  extensive  and  moun- 
tainous, abounding  also  in  mountain  streams  whose 
channels  were  often  his  only  pathway,  this  part  of 
his  work  proved  to  be  laborious  and  dangerous,  even 
when  at  length  he  provided  himself  with  a  pony. 
Moreover,  it  was  no  uncommon  experience  for  him 
to  be  overtaken  with  darkness,  or  shrouded  in  mist, 
or  arrested  by  a  mountain  stream  which  violent  rains 
had  rapidly  swollen  into  the  dimensions  of  a  river 
and  made  for  the  time  impassable.  On  some  occa- 
sions, when  he  had  become  bewildered  and  lost  his 
way,  he  would  throw  the  bridle  upon  the  neck  of  his 
sure-footed  steed,  and  wait  until  its  sagacious  in- 
stincts brought  him  once  more  upon  known  ground. 
Then  would  the  gratitude  of  the  saintly  pastor,  re- 
cognizing in  all  the  hand  of  Him  without  whom  a 
sparrow  cannot  fall  to  the  ground,  find  utterance  in 
the  suitable  words  of  a  psalm,  and  awaken,  as  he 
sang,  the  echoes  of  some  lonely  glen, — 

"  Lord,  thou  preservest  man  and  beast. 
How  precious  is  thy  grace  ! 


CHRISTIAN    ELDERS.  105 

Therefore  in  shadow  of  thy  wings 
Men's  sons  their  trust  shall  place." 

And  so  he  persevered  in  this  part  of  his  sacred 
work,  notwithstanding  all  its  toil  and  peril,  as  mak- 
ing him  better  acquainted  with  the  character  of  his 
people,  with  their  modes  of  thinking,  their  spiritual 
wants,  and  their  family  history  in  its  joys  and  sorrows; 
and  thus  giving  him,  as  in  the  often  remembered 
Simprin,  a  warmer  place  in  their  hearts,  suggesting 
to  him  many  a  seasonable  text  for  his  sermons, 
doubling  his  moral  influence,  and  making  his  "  pulpit 
the  preacher's  throne." 

Nor  was  he  slow  in  surrounding  himself  at  an 
early  period  with  a  body  of  Christian  elders,  who 
strengthened  him  much  with  their  experience  and 
friendly  counsel,  and  aided  him  in  many  ways  in 
the  spiritual  oversight  of  his  flock,  forming  a  living 
link  between  him  and  his  people ;  helping  him, 
moreover,  in  guarding  the  entrance  of  unsuitable 
members  into  the  sacred  fellowship  of  the  church, 
and,  by  faithful  discipline,  in  purifying  the  church 
from  members  who  had  proved  themselves,  by  their 
ungodly  and  immoral  lives,  to  be  the  servants  of 
another  master  than  Christ.  The  eldership  is  the 
strong  point  in  the  Presbyterian  system,  and  the 
minister  of  Ettrick  was  not  slow  to  recognize  and 
appreciate  the  fact.     In  one  page  of  his  diary  we 


106  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

find  him  giving  relief  to  his  affection  for  some  of 
those  elders  who  had  "  obtained  a  good  report,"  by 
embalming  their  names  in  glowing  and  grateful 
testimonies,  as  Paul  writes  of  Gaius,  and  Aquila 
and  Priscilla,  and  a  whole  constellation  of  workers 
who  had  "helped  him  much  in  the  Lord."  He 
speaks  of  one  as  "  a  most  kindly,  pious,  good  man, 
and  most  useful  in  his  office."  And  he  prays  for 
another  who,  "  with  his  family,  had  been  the  most 
comfortable  to  him  in  his  ministry.  So  it  was  all 
along,  and  so  it  continues  to  this  day.  May  the 
blessing  of  God,  whose  I  am,  and  whom  I  serve, 
rest  on  them  from  generation  to  generation.  May 
the  glorious  gospel  of  his  Son  catch  them  early, 
and  continue  with  them  to  the  end,  of  the  which 
I  have  seen  some  comfortable  instances  already." 

And  he  writes  of  yet  another  elder  in  the  follow- 
ing words,  in  which  the  pen-portrait  is  traced  with 
admirable  discrimination  :  "He  was  always  a  friend 
to  ministers.  Though  he  was  a  poor  man,  yet  he 
had  always  a  brow  for  a  good  cause,  and  was  a 
faithful,  useful  elder ;  and  as  he  was  very  ready  to 
reprove  sin,  so  he  had  a  singular  dexterity  in  the 
matter  of  admonition  and  reproof,  to  speak  "a  word 
upon  the  wheels "  so  as  to  convince  with  a  certain 
sweetness,  that  it  was  hard  to  take  his  reproofs  ill." 

It  was  not  till   more  than   three  years  after  his 


REINSTITUTING   THE   LORD'S   SUPPER.         107 

settlement  in  Ettrick  that  Mr.  Boston,  with  the  advice 
of  his  elders,  ventured  to  celebrate  the  Lord's  Supper 
in  his  parish.  It  had  long  been  a  neglected  ordinance, 
and  like  the  Passover  at  one  dark  period  in  the  history 
of  the  Israelites,  had  become  "  as  a  thing  out  of  mind." 
But  the  faithful  pastor  knew  that  it  was  only  those 
who  were  true  disciples  and  could  make  a  credible 
profession  of  their  faith  in  Christ  that  had  right  and 
welcome  to  the  sacramental  feast,  with  all  its  thrice 
holy  memories,  and  he  concluded  that  his  wisest  course 
would  be  to  reconstruct  the  congregation  from  the 
beginning.  Acting  on  this  conviction,  he  conversed, 
personally  and  alone,  with  every  "  intending  com- 
municant." And  these  interviews  were  designed,  not 
only  to  act  as  a  winnowing  fan  for  separating  the 
chaff  from  the  wheat  and  so  keeping  the  church  pure, 
but  for  conveying  instruction  to  the  young  inquirer, 
strengthening  holy  resolution,  correcting  mistakes, 
and  suggesting  rules  and  maxims  for  cheering  the 
timid  and  guiding  the  inexperienced.  Lessons  and 
counsels  given  in  such  circumstances  are  likely  to 
be  remembered  ever  afterwards  by  the  sincere  dis- 
ciple. The  earnest  Christian  pastor,  on  such  occa- 
sions intensely  feeling  the  burden  of  the  care  of 
souls,  may  assure  himself  that  he  is  not  labouring  in 
vain. 

For  weeks  before,  this  man  of  God  looked  forward 


108  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

to  the  divine  festival  with  anxious  fears  ;  but  the 
nearer  it  came,  he  was  the  more  carried  above  dis- 
couragement. He  notes  the  fact  that  the  sermons 
preached  on  the  Lord's  day  that  preceded  the  com- 
munion seemed  to  have  weight,  and  that  he  found 
his  soul  particularly  pressed  to  follow  that  day's 
work  with  prayer.  "  As  for  the  work  itself,  it  was 
•more  comfortable  than  I  expected,  and  there  seemed 
to  be  some  blowings  of  the  Spirit  with  it.  I  never 
saw  a  congregation,"  he  adds,  "  more  remarkably 
fixed  and  grave  than  they  were.  In  all,  there  were 
about  fifty-seven  persons  of  our  own  parish  com- 
municants ;  few  indeed,  yet  more  than  I  expected 
amongst  them." 

From  that  time  onward,  the  Lord's  Supper  contin- 
ued to  be  observed  annually  in  the  parish  of  Ettrick, 
and  its  recurrence  became  a  sort  of  vantage-ground 
from  which  its  minister  could  stand  and  look  back, 
and  measure  the  religious  progress  of  his  people 
from  year  to  year.  The  heart  of  the  anxious  pastor 
watched  for  signs  of  the  presence  and  working  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  among  his  parishioners  as  the  hus- 
bandman watches  for  the  rain-clouds  to  refresh  his 
parched  fields,  or  as  the  mariner  looks  up  to  the 
stars  to  guide  his  course  ;  and  year  after  year,  he  was 
cheered  by  tokens  which  sent  him  to  his  knees  in 
thanksgiving.     For  though  there  was  nothing  as  yet 


SIGNS   OF   REVIVING   LIFE.  IO9 

like  a  pentecostal  effusion  in  which  his  whole  parish, 
with  its  thousands,  received  a  new  life  and  impulse, 
and  every  individual  was  devoutly  conscious  of  a  bap- 
tism of  fire,  yet  interest  in  divine  things  was  deepen- 
ing, the  circle  was  widening,  and  there  were  convic- 
tion and  anxious  inquiry  in  many  hearts.  Men  who 
had  not  observed  the  Lord's  Supper  for  twenty  years 
came  seeking  to  handle  and  taste  the  sacred  symbols 
of  Christ's  redeeming  love,  and  those  who  had  long 
been  deserters  of  Christian  ordinances  in  every  form 
hastened  to  renew  the  times  when  it  was  better  with 
them  than  now.  Writing  of  the  fifth  of  the  annual 
communions,  Mr.  Boston  records,  in  his  own  homely 
style  of  narrative,  that  "there  were  150  communi- 
cants who  sat  down  at  the  sacred  feast.  At  this  time 
there  were  ten  tables,  though  we  used  to  have  about 
seven,  and  the  tables  were  longer  than  ordinary,  and 
people  came  from  a  far  distance." 

The  gratification  which  the  true-hearted  pastor 
derived  from  these  signs  of  reviving  life  in  his  parish 
was  disturbed  by  the  action  of  Queen  Anne's  Parlia- 
ment in  framing  an  oath  termed  the  "  Oath  of  Ab- 
juration," which  was  required  to  be  taken  by  every 
minister  of  the  church,  on  pain  of  his  incurring  a 
heavy  and  almost  ruinous  pecuniary  penalty  in  the 
event  of  his  refusal,  and  in  case  of  his  persistence  in 
this  refusal,  his  being  compelled  to  vacate  his  pas- 


IIO  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

toral  charge.  This  startling  and  arbitrary  decree 
naturally  produced  suspicion  and  alarm  over  the 
whole  church.  It  was  felt  to  be  unnecessary  as  a 
pledge  for  the  loyalty  of  men  who,  on  their  entrance 
on  the  ministry,  had  taken  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  crown  ;  and  then  its  terms  were  so  vague 
and  ambiguous  as  to  be  perplexing  to  men  of  tender 
consciences,  who  could  not  be  sure  to  what  extent 
its  language  would  commit  them,  and  shut  their 
mouths  against  faithful  testimony-bearing,  when  the 
liberty  or  purity  of  the  church  might  be  tampered 
with  by  the  civil  power.  The  more  ambiguous  its 
terms,  the  more  likely  were  they  to  conceal  a  snare. 
The  oath  was  accordingly  refused  to  be  taken  at  all 
hazards  by  many  of  the  best  ministers,  and  not  a  few 
of  those  who  bore  the  infliction  with  painful  scruples 
deeply  felt  that  "  an  enemy  had  done  this."  When  the 
day  of  decision  came,  the  fear  of  consequences  held 
back  the  hands  of  the  rulers  from  inflicting  what 
would  have  been  a  most  cruel  and  crushing  penalty, 
and  the  pastor  of  Ettrick  remained  in  possession  of 
his  manse  and  glebe. 

And  when,  at  a  later  period,  it  was  attempted  to 
make  the  oath  more  palatable  by  gilding  it  with  some 
modifying  clauses,  Mr.  Boston  stood  before  his  people 
prepared  to  suffer  the  loss  of  all  things  rather  than* 
sin,  openly  declaring  in  characteristic  words  that  "  the 


"PLAYING   THE    MAN    IN    THE   FIRES.  Ill 

oath  could  not  be  cleansed,  and  that,  like  the  leper's 
house,  it  needed  to  be  taken  down." 

It  remains,  however,  to  be  noticed  that  there  were 
many  among  Mr.  Boston's  parishioners  who  had  all 
along  refused  to  believe  that  he  would  stand  firm 
in  the  hour  of  decision,  who  even  prophesied  that  at 
the  end  when  he  stood  face  to  face  with  conse- 
quences he  would  swallow  the  obnoxious  oath,  and 
who  watched  and  waited  jealously  for  his  fall.  The 
heart  of  the  anxious  minister  was  pained  by  the 
knowledge  of  this.  But  they  did  not  know  the  man, 
and  judged  of  his  conscience  by  their  own  pliancy 
when  conscience  and  duty  gave  way  before  self- 
interest.  But  when  the  news  came  and  spread  over 
the  parish  that  their  minister  had  "  played  the  man 
in  the  fires,"  and  had  hazarded  every  worldly  inter- 
est at  the  call  of  conscience,  it  was  impossible  any 
longer  to  withhold  an  involuntary  approbation,  and 
his  moral  power  over  the  disaffected  among  his  pa- 
rishioners was  increased  from  that  day.  It  was  one 
of  God's  movements  for  preparing  the  way  for  the 
wider  triumphs  of  his  servant's  ministry  in  Ettrick. 

Beyond  the  circle  of  his  own  mountain  parish,  Mr. 
Boston  found  encouragement  and  sympathy  in  some 
of  the  ministers  in  neighbouring  parishes  who,  in  the 
matter  of  Christian  belief  and  religious  experience, 
were  like-minded  with  himself.     It  was  the  conscious 


112  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

unity  of  Christian  brotherhood  which,  like  a  silent 
magnetic  influence,  drew  them  together,  so  that  each 
was  made  stronger  by  the  other.  He  had  found  this 
in  his  recent  perplexities  and  troubles  connected 
with  the  attempt  to  enforce  upon  ministers  the  Ab- 
juration Oath.  Among  these  "brethren  beloved" 
he  names  Mr.  Henry  Davidson  of  Galashiels  and 
Mr.  John  Simson  of  Morebattle,  whom  he  praises 
for  "  his  heavenly  oratory,"  and  Gabriel  Wilson 
of  Maxton,  the  last  named  of  whom  stood  in  the 
innermost  circle  of  his  affection.  In  his  diary,  he 
expatiates  on  his  character  with  manifest  delight, 
saying,  with  his  keen  perception  and  pleasing  felicity 
of  phrase :  "  Whatever  odds  there  was  in  some  re- 
spects between  him  and  me,  there  was  still  a  certain 
cast  of  temper  by  which  I  found  him  to  be  my  other 

self He  was  extremely  modest ;  but  once  touched 

with  the  weight  of  a  matter,  very  forward  and  keen, 
fearing  the  face  of  no  man.  In  the  which  mixture, 
whereby  he  served  as  a  spur  to  me  and  I  as  a  bridle 
to  him,  I  have  often  admired  the  wise  conduct 
of  Providence  that  matched  us  together."  It  is 
worthy  of  remark  that,  ages  after  those  excellent 
ones  of  the  earth  had  ascended  to  their  heavenly 
reward,  their  names  continued  to  live  in  hallowed 
traditions  in  the  parishes  in  which  they  had  dis- 
charged a  faithful   ministry,  and  shed  a  halo  upon 


"THE   'FIFTEEN."  H3 

their  graves.     "  The  righteous  shall  be  held  in  ever- 
lasting remembrance." 

The  sky  of  Providence  seldom  continues  long  with- 
out its  clouds.  After  a  brief  and  welcome  interval, 
in  which  the  heart  of  Mr.  Boston  was  lifted  up  with 
joy  by  the  signs  of  extending  and  deepening  reli- 
gious life  in  his  parish,  a  new  trouble  suddenly  arose 
to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  in  which  Ettrick 
and  its  pastor  were  called  to  share.  I  refer  to  the 
outbreak  of  the  rebellion  in  the  latter  end  of  August 
17 1 5,  the  design  of  which  was  to  upset  the  present 
dynasty,  and  to  place  upon  the  throne  of  Britain  a 
descendant  of  the  exiled  house  of  Stuart.  A  few 
sentences  will  be  sufficient  to  explain  how  the  good 
pastor  and  his  people,  dwelling  among  those  remote 
hills  and  glens,  were  brought  into  unwelcome  contact 
with  this  most  unwise  and  reckless  movement.  The 
outbreak  began  with  the  Earl  of  Mar,  who,  at  Brae- 
mar,  in  the  north  of  Scotland,  raised  the  standard  of 
rebellion,  and  proclaimed  the  Pretender  to  be  the 
rightful  heir  to  the  British  throne.  Immediately  fol- 
lowed by  other  Highland  chiefs  and  their  clans,  he 
began  his  march  southward,  obtaining  numerous  ac- 
cessions on  the  way,  until  he  reached  Perth.  Here  it 
was  determined  by  the  rebel  leaders  that  their  army 
should  be  divided  into  several  contingents,  which 
should  march  into  England  by  different  routes,  and 


TT4  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

that  one  of  the  companies  should  proceed  through 
the  district  in  which  Ettrick  lay.  It  is  at  this  point 
that  Mr.  Boston  comes  upon  the  scene.  When  the 
news  became  known,  the  effect  was  to  produce  an 
extensive  panic  over  the  whole  region.  Every  new 
day  brought  with  it  its  alarm.  Companies  of  kilted 
Highlanders  had  been  seen  on  the  neighbouring  hills. 
Others  had  been  discovered  skulking  near  quiet 
Ettrick  homes  after  sunset,  as  if  bent  on  mischief  or 
violence  of  some  kind.  The  alarmed  people  waited 
to  hear  of  houses  set  on  fire,  or  flocks  scattered  and 
slaughtered,  or  lonely  dwellings  entered  and  robbed, 
or  human  blood  shed. 

From  week  to  week  this  panic  continued,  to  the 
great  distress  of  the  anxious  pastor.  Then  the 
trouble  took  a  different  form  which  vexed  him  with 
new  anxieties.  The  local  authorities  sent  forth  a  sum- 
mons to  every  man  in  Ettrick  from  sixteen  to  sixty 
years  of  age,  requiring  him  to  appear  in  Selkirk  on  a 
certain  day,  in  order  to  his  being  enrolled  in  a  tem- 
porary militia  for  the  defence  of  the  parish  ;  and  Mr. 
Boston  was  required  to  read  this  summons  from  the 
pulpit,  to  produce  and  supply  to  the  magistrates  a 
roll  of  all  the  capable  men  in  the  parish,  and  to  urge 
upon  his  parishioners  universal  obedience  to  the  call. 
But  there  was  a  universal  refusal.  Many  of  the 
people  had  come  to  believe  that  the  alarm  was  ex- 


NEW   TROUBLES   AND   ANXIETIES.  115 

cessive,  or  that  the  dangers  might  be  met  by  the 
forces  which  were  already  in  the  hands  of  their  rulers, 
and  probably  also,  unlike  their  ancestors  in  earlier 
generations,  they  held  back.  The  men  of  Ettrick  had 
learned  to  prefer  the  shepherd's  crook  to  the  sword. 
The  popular  resistance  became  all  the  more  resolute 
when  a  tax  was  levied  for  the  purpose  of  meeting 
the  expenses  that  might  be  incurred  in  the  antici- 
pated conflict  with  the  rebel  invaders.  It  was  a 
bitter  cup  which  was  thus  given  to  Mr.  Boston  to 
drink;  and  one  of  the  bitterest  ingredients  in  it  was 
that  he  was  compelled  to  make  the  obnoxious  com- 
munication to  his  parishioners,  in  whose  affections  he 
desired  to  live,  the  anger  of  the  people  falling  far 
more  upon  him  than  upon  its  authors.  The  unreason- 
able estrangement,  sometimes  expressed  in  bitter 
words,  was  no  doubt  temporary,  but  while  it  lasted 
it  was  hard  to  bear. 

At  length  the  unwelcome  insurgents,  having  been 
joined  by  the  English  rebels  at  Kelso,  disappeared, 
and  marched  southward  to  Preston,  of  which  they 
took  immediate  possession,  and  began  to  fortify  it. 
Rut  in  a  few  days  the  place  was  invested  by  General 
Willis,  the  leader  of  the  royal  troops,  who  soon  com- 
pelled the  rebels  unconditionally  to  lay  down  their 
arms.  Many  of  them  were  imprisoned,  many  persons 
of  rank  were  subjected  to  a  galling  and  ignominious 


Il6  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

treatment,  and   some  who  were   Scottish  noblemen 
were  executed  with  a  cruel  severity. 

We  must  look  back  to  Scotland  to  behold  the  last 
scene  in  the  drama.  The  Earl  of  Mar  had  meantime 
pressed  forward  to  Dunblane,  and  there,  on  the 
neighbouring  Sheriffmuir,  he  received  a  serious  check 
from  the  Duke  of  Argyle,  who  had  moved  northward 
to  resist  his  progress.  When  his  affairs  had  become 
irretrievable  and  desperate,  and  when  it  was  therefore 
too  late  to  be  of  any  service,  the  Pretender  sailed  for 
Scotland  from  Dunkirk  in  France,  and,  dressed  in 
disguise,  and  with  only  six  gentlemen  in  his  train, 
landed  not  far  from  Aberdeen.  Soon  after,  he  was 
joined  by  the  Earl  of  Mar  and  a  little  band  of  nobles 
and  gentlemen  at  Fetteresso.  For  some  weeks  he 
spent  his  time  in  enacting  the  king,  and  received 
homage  from  his  dispirited  but  devoted  followers, 
without  one  shred  of  power  to  give  the  semblance 
of  reality  to  the  ceremonial.  And  then,  weary  of 
the  ragged  pageant,  and  declaring  to  those  who  had 
clung  to  him  to  the  end  with  a  wondrous  chivalry 
his  sense  of  the  utter  hopelessness  of  his  enterprise, 
he  set  sail  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Montrose 
in  a  small  ship,  accompanied  by  a  few  faithful 
adherents,  arriving  within  five  days  at  Grave- 
lines  in  France,  and  returning  to  the  obscurity 
from    which   he   had    so   recently   emerged.      How 


WALKING   WITH   GOD.  117 

rapidly  had  tragedy  been  turned  into  comedy  and 
farce ! 

It  is  time  that  we  should  now  see  something  of  Mr. 
Boston's  inner  life.  During  all  those  years  of  varied 
incident  and  experience  which  have  passed  under 
our  notice  in  this  chapter,  he  continued  to  maintain 
a  close  walk  with  God.  His  closet  was  his  refuge 
and  his  sanctuary.  Every  event  in  his  individual 
and  family  life  was  turned  into  food  for  devotion. 
Self-examination,  sometimes  accompanied  with  fast- 
ing, was  his  frequent  practice,  in  which,  as  he  tells 
us,  he  "  thought  it  safe  and  wise  to  antedate  the 
judgment."  The  records  of  some  of  these  exercises 
which  he  has  left  behind  in  his  diary  are  of 
singular  value,  and  may  be  of  use  to  some  in  our 
own  days  who  perchance  are  seeking  to  know  the 
truth  and  the  worst  about  themselves.  The  following 
are  some  of  his  notes  drawn  from  his  own  experience, 
on  what  he  terms  "  evidences  for  heaven  " : — 

"  My  soul  is  content  with  Christ  for  my  king  ;  and 
though  I  cannot  be  free  of  sin,  God  knows  that  he 
would  be  welcome  to  make  havoc  of  my  lusts  and  to 
make  me  holy.  I  know  no  lust  that  I  would  not  be 
content  to  part  with.  My  will  bound  hand  and  feet 
I  desire  to  lay  at  His  feet;  and  though  it  will  strive 
whether  I  will  or  not,  I  believe  that  whatever  God 
does  to  me  is  well  done." 


Il8  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

"  When  may  we  be  sure  that  afflictions  are  the 
evidences  of  God's  love  to  us,  and  of  our  love  to 
him  ?  Though  afflictions  of  themselves  can  be  no 
evidence  of  the  Lord's  love,  yet  forasmuch  as  the 
native  product  of  afflictions  and  strokes  from  the 
Lord  is  to  drive  the  guilty  from  the  Lord,  when  I 
find  it  not  so  with  me,  but  that  I  am  drawn  to  God 
by  them,  made  to  bless  the  Lord  and  accept  the 
punishment  of  my  iniquity,  to  love  God  more  and  to 
have  more  confidence  in  him  and  kindly  thoughts 
in  his  way,  and  find  my  heart  more  closely  cleaving 
to  him,  I  cannot  but  think  such  an  affliction  an  evi- 
dence of  his  love." 

I  shall  quote  another  passage  descriptive  of  Mr. 
Boston's  experience  which  belongs  to  the  period  of 
which  I  am  now  writing ;  not  so  much  as  a  help  to 
self-examination  as  for  the  purpose  of "  comforting 
sorrowing  hearts  by  the  same  comforts  by  which  he 
was  comforted  of  God."  It  expresses  a  hope  full  of 
immortality,  which  made  the  cloud  luminous  and  his 
heart  submissive.  His  youngest  child,  Catherine, 
had  died,  and  a  thought  was  given  to  the  tender- 
hearted father  which  had  not  been  so  present  to  his 
mind  under  any  similar  bereavement.  He  says:  "  1 
never  had  such  a  clear  and  comfortable  view  of  the 
Lord's  having  other  uses  for  our  children,  for  which 
he  removes  them   in   infancy,  so  that  they  are  not 


WORDS   OF   CONSOLATION.  I  19 

brought  into  the  world  in  vain.  1  saw  reason  to 
bless  the  Lord  that  I  had  been  the  father  of  six 
children  now  in  the  grave,  and  that  were  with  me  but 
a  short  time ;  but  none  of  them  is  lost.  I  will  see 
them  all  at  the  resurrection.  That  clause  in  the  cove- 
nant, '  I  am  the  God  of  thy  seed,'  was  sweet  and  full 
of  sap." 

By  suggesting  a  similar  thought  a  hundred  years 
earlier,  and  in  his  own  manse  of  Anwoth,  Samuel 
Rutherford  had  helped  others  to  drink  at  the  same 
well  of  comfort.  He  thus  writes  to  a  bereaved 
mother  weeping  for  her  lost  child  :  "  Do  you  think 
her  lost  who  is  sleeping  in  the  bosom  of  Almighty 
love  ?  Think  not  her  absent  when  she  is  in  such  a 
Father's  house.  Is  she  lost  to  you  who  is  found  to 
Christ  ?  Oh  now,  is  she  not  with  a  dear  Friend,  and 
gone  higher  upon  a  certain  hope  that  you  shall  in 
the  resurrection  see  her  again  ?  Let  our  Lord  pluck 
his  own  fruit  at  any  season  he  pleaseth.  They  are 
not  lost  to  you  ;  they  are  laid  up  so  well  as  they  are 
coffered  in  heaven,  where  our  Lord's  best  jewels  lie." 

Reverting  now  to  Mr.  Boston's  practice  of  self- 
scrutiny,  and  to  the  invaluable  benefit  which  he 
derived  from  this,  we  think  it  necessary  to  introduce 
the  qualifying  statement  that  probably  this  habit  of 
mental  introversion  was  sometimes  carried  by  him  to 
excess,  and  that  he  "  wrote  bitter  things  against  him- 


120  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

self  without  cause."  There  were  moods  of  spiritual 
depression  which  he  ascribed  to  divine  desertion,  "  the 
hidings  of  his  Father's  countenance,"  when  perhaps, 
in  some  instances,  the  real  cause  of  his  mental  gloom 
and  sadness  was  to  be  found  in  a  disordered  body,  or 
a  shattered  nervous  system  which  needed  to  be  re- 
stored by  rest  from  excessive  mental  labour,  or  by 
change  of  scene,  or  by  a  bracing  walk  among  his  own 
Ettrick  hills.  When,  as  sometimes  happened,  the 
changes  in  his  moods  from  cheerfulness  to  depression, 
or  the  reverse,  took  place  more  than  once  on  the  same 
day,  fitful  as  the  notes  of  the  yEolian  harp,  might  not 
the  state  of  the  body  have  had  more  to  do  with  this 
than  any  spiritual  cause,  and  might  not  the  presence 
of  the  physician  have  been  more  needed  than  that  of 
any  spiritual  counsellor  ?  "  The  silver  bells  were  all 
out  of  tune."  There  was  something  suggestive  in 
the  acknowledgment  of  an  eminently  good  man  that 
"he  had  least  enjoyment  in  his  religion  when  the 
wind  was  in  the  east."  There  are  times  when  the  in- 
nocent sufferer  sees — 

"  Too  clearly,  feels  too  vividly,  and  longs 
To  realize  the  vision  with  intense 
And  over-constant  yearning — there,  there  iics 
The  excess  by  which  the  balance  is  destroyed." 

Of  course,  where  the  man's  conscience  accuses  him 
of  recently  contracted  sin,  or  the  voluntary  exposure 


SPIRITUAL   DEPRESSION.  121 

of  his  heart  to  blighting  spiritual  influences,  or  the 
partial  neglect  of  the  means  of  grace,  the  explana- 
tion is  to  be  sought  in  the  sense  of  divine  displeasure, 
when  the  daughters  of  music  in  the  soul  are  brought 
low.  The  same  depression  of  spirit  having  its  root 
in  the  same  physical  cause,  and  leading  our  good 
pastor  to  form  mistaken  and  unfavourable  conclu- 
sions about  himself,  occasionally  showed  itself  in 
his  imagining  that  the  divine  blessing  was  being 
withheld  from  his  ministry,  and  that  like  the  moun- 
tains of  Gilboa  on  which  the  curse  of  barrenness 
fell,  the  dew  of  heavenly  grace  had  ceased  to  fall 
upon  his  heaven-sent  message.  He  has  himself 
left  behind  him  in  his  diary  the  record  that,  in  one 
instance,  after  the  interval  of  a  few  days,  the  bruised 
reed  was  revived,  and  the  gentle  rebuke  from  heaven 
for  his  dark  thoughts  came  in  the  news  of  multitudes 
of  his  people  consciously  quickened  and  gladdened 
as  with  a  fresh  soul-baptism  by  those  very  sermons 
which  had  seemed  to  him  as  "  water  spilt  upon  the 
ground."  But  those  moods  of  depression  were  com- 
paratively rare  experiences.  We  find  him  more  fre- 
quently recording  happy  weeks  of  a  heavenly  life. 

We  now  pause  for  a  moment  to  cull  from  this 
period  of  Mr.  Boston's  biography  some  of  those 
semi-proverbial  sayings  which  grew  out  of  his  Chris- 
tian experience  during  his  first  decade  in  Ettrick. 


122  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Some  of  these,  as  we  have  found  in  earlier  quota- 
tions, are  medicinal  plants,  others  are  sweet-scented 
flowers  : — 

"  Unto  the  trials  which  God  brings  in  men's  way, 
they  often  add  much  of  their  own  which  makes  them 
far  more  weighty  and  bulky  than  otherwise  they  are 
in  very  deed." 

"  Satan  watches  to  prevent  the  good  of  our  afflic- 
tions :  how  much  need  is  there  to  watch  against 
Satan." 

'*  I  saw  it  was  vain  to  empty  the  heart  of  what 
was  its  carnal  choice,  unless  it  was  filled  with  some- 
thing better  than  what  was  taken  from  it." 

"  I  have  often  found  it  good  to  follow  duty  over 
the  neck  of  inclination.'' 

"  I  endeavoured  to  antedate  my  reckoning  with 
my  Judge." 

"  It  is  the  usual  way  of  Providence  with  me  that 
blessings  come  through  several  iron  gates." 

"  They  have  great  need  to  take  heed  to  their  feet 
who  are  let  within  the  veil,  for  our  God  is  a  jealous 
God." 

"  I  have  found  the  Lord  easy  to  be  entreated,  and 
recovery  to  be  got  without  long  onwaiting." 

"  Melancholy  is  an  enemy  to  gifts  and  graces,  and 
a  great  friend  to  unbelief." 

In  171 5,  Mr.  Boston  found  time,  at  the  urgent  request 


THE   "EVERLASTING    ESPOUSALS."  1 23 

of  many  of  his  ministerial  friends,  to  publish  a  little 
book  under  the  title  of  the  '  Everlasting  Espousals," 
the  flower  of  his  people,  who  had  probably  heard  the 
substance  of  the  book  in  the  form  of  a  sermon  or  ser- 
mons, heartily  seconding  the  request.  It  was  founded 
on  Hosea  ii.  19,  and  was  the  heavenly  Bridegroom's 
address  to  his  bride  the  church.  "  I  will  betroth  thee 
unto  me  in  righteousness,  and  in  judgment,  and  in 
loving-kindness,  and  in  mercies.  I  will  even  betroth 
thee  unto  me  in  faithfulness  :  and  thou  shalt  know 
the  Lord."  It  was  his  maiden  publication  since  he 
became  a  minister,  the  first  sheaf  in  a  long  and  con- 
tinuous harvest  of  religious  books  which  he  was  to 
give  to  the  church,  and  in  which  were  already  to  be 
seen  more  than  one  of  the  characteristic  excellences 
of  his  later  and  riper  works.  Among  other  things, 
its  publication  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  testing  his 
acceptance  as  an  author  with  the  Christian  public. 
And  the  result  was  encouraging.  Within  compara- 
tively short  intervals,  the  little  volume  passed  through 
three  editions,  finding  many  readers  far  beyond  the 
glens  of  Ettrick,  especially  in  Edinburgh,  who  were 
not  slow  to  express  their  desire  for  a  greater  number 
of  refreshing  draughts  from  the  same  newly-opened 
fountain.  And  who  can  tell  but  that  such  com- 
munications as  these  may  have  given  hint  and  im- 
pulse to  the  preparation  of  that  opus  magnum  which 


124  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

was,  in  a  large  measure,  to  engross  the  thoughts 
and  anxieties  of  his  life.  He  felt  that  his  mission 
was  not  to  build  a  house  for  himself  but  a  temple 
for  God. 

It  falls  to  be  noticed  here  that  a  few  years  before 
the  time  of  which  we  are  now  writing,  a  Hebrew 
Bible  had  come  into  Mr.  Boston's  hands,  upon  the 
study  of  which,  assisted  by  Cross's  "  Tagmical  Art," 
he  entered  with  an  enthusiasm  and  zest  which  con- 
tinued with  him  to  the  end  of  his  life.  There 
was  no  dryness  to  him  in  those  Hebrew  roots  of 
which  the  author  of  "  Hudibras  "  complained  in  his 
day.  Even  the  mystery  which  hung  about  the 
"  accents  "  charmed  him.  At  the  period  of  which  we 
are  now  writing,  he  met  with  another  learned  work,  by 
Wasmuth,  on  Hebrew  accentuation,  which  quickened 
his  curiosity,  and  made  that  a  delight  to  him  of 
which  many  would  soon  have  wearied.  He  seemed 
to  himself  always  to  be  on  the  verge  of  some  new 
discovery.  Unquestionably  these  inquiries,  into 
which  he  threw  his  whole  heart,  served  as  a  useful 
mental  alterative  in  connection  with  his  weekly 
preparations  for  the  pulpit.  And  he  never  hesitated 
to  affirm  that  they  shed  much  new  light  to  him  on 
many  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  scriptures.  He 
even  hoped  that  he  would,  by  persevering  research 
and   thought,  be  able   to  help  in   solving  some  of 


ANOTHER   "CALL."  125 

those  problems  in  that  branch  of  sacred  literature 
which  were  perplexing  scholars  both  on  the  con- 
tinent of  Europe  and  in  the  English  universities. 
We  shall  meet  with  the  Hebrew  "  accents  "  again. 

We  have  now  to  notice  an  event  of  no  little 
moment,  both  in  itself  and  in  its  consequences,  in 
the  history  of  Mr.  Boston  and  his  parish.  In  the 
month  of  September  1716,  a  call  was  addressed  to 
the  pastor  of  Ettrick  by  the  church  and  parish  of 
Closeburn  in  Dumfriesshire,  inviting  him  to  become 
their  minister.  This  was  soon  after  followed  by 
the  appearance  of  commissioners  from  Closeburn 
and  the  presbytery  to  which  it  belonged,  urging 
upon  him  the  claims  of  the  church  in  Nithsdale, 
especially  on  account  of  the  largeness  of  the  con- 
gregation and  its  distracting  divisions,  which,  it 
was  believed,  the  ministry  and  oversight  of  Mr. 
Boston  would  be  sufficient  to  heal  ;  while  it  was 
more  than  hinted  that  the  stipend  would  exceed 
that  of  his  present  charge.  The  same  unwelcome 
strangers  were  also  seen  by  the  quick  -  sighted 
parishioners,  once  and  again  visiting  the  manse 
at  Ettrick  ;  and  their  errand  was  readily  guessed. 

All  this  filled  the  mind  of  Mr.  Boston  with  anxiety 
and  alarm,  and  drove  him  to  his  wonted  and  un- 
failing resource  of  prayer.  But  from  the  first,  he 
was   strongly   averse  to   his    removal    from    Ettrick. 


126  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

His  heart  and  his  conscience  alike  rose  against  the 
thought  of  his  leaving  that  people  "  as  sheep  with- 
out a  shepherd,"  notwithstanding  much  that  had 
happened  to  chill  his  affection  and  loosen  the  bonds 
that  had  bound  him  to  them.  He  thought  of  the 
spiritual  desolation  which  he  had  found  among  them 
nine  years  before  when  he  had  come  to  be  their  min- 
ister; of  the  little  flock  which  he  had  gathered  around 
him  in  the  first  years  of  his  anxious  labours  ;  and 
how,  in  the  nearer  interval,  and  in  the  face  of  much 
and  varied  discouragement  and  opposition,  it  had 
increased  by  hundreds.  But  he  thought  also  of 
their  inexperience  and  imperfection,  with  scarcely 
any  man  among  them  qualified  to  lead  them  at 
such  a  crisis  as  his  removal  would  be  certain  to 
produce;  and  he  was  convinced  that  the  certain  effect 
of  his  leaving  them  at  such  a  time  would  be  to 
undo  much  of  his  work  in  all  the  past,  while  it 
would  be  the  signal  to  those  who  were  watching 
for  their  halting  and  discord,  and  ready  to  enter 
in  like  ravening  wolves  to  bite  and  devour. 

Moreover,  the  good  pastor,  with  his  keen  observa- 
tion and  moral  sensibility,  could  not  overlook  the 
likelihood  that,  in  the  event  of  his  accepting  the  in- 
vitation which  held  out  to  him  the  promise  of  larger 
emolument  and  higher  social  position,  his  Ettrick 
people  would   ascribe  his  action  to  mercenary  mo- 


A   TOUCHING   INCIDENT.  \2J 

tives  ;  the  moral  power  of  his  past  life  among  them 
would  thus  be  withered  in  a  night,  and  the  character 
of  the  Christian  ministry  would  suffer  at  his  hands. 
He  therefore  determined  that  nothing  would  tear 
him  from  Ettrick,  already  sacred  to  his  heart  by 
many  hallowed  associations  and  tender  memories, 
but  the  distinct  indications  of  Providence  that  this 
mountain  home  was  no  longer  to  be  his  rest. 

And  the  state  of  mind  and  action  of  his  people 
did  much  to  confirm  him  in  this  conviction  and 
resolution.  The  value  with  which  they  saw  their 
pastor  regarded  by  others  did  much  to  heighten 
their  own  estimate  of  his  excellence  ;  and  blessings 
are  likely  to  acquire  a  higher  price  in  our  estimate 
when  they  seem  about  to  be  lost.  Even  little  and 
undesigned  incidents  sometimes  revealed  much  to  the 
observant  minister,  who  was  a  thoughtful  student  of 
the  book  of  Providence, — as  when  he  was  walking  one 
day  along  the  public  road  with  one  of  the  elders  from 
the  competing  congregation  in  Nithsdale,  some  poor 
women  meeting  them  on  the  way,  and  fearing  how 
all  these  visits  and  interviews  might  end,  stood  still 
and  wept  aloud.  One  of  the  wealthiest  heritors  in 
his  parish,  who  had  up  to  that  time  remained  dis- 
affected and  never  entered  his  church,  now  began 
to  attend  with  regularity  on  the  public  ordinances 
of  religion,  and  continued  the  practice  to  the  end  of 


128  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

his  life.  And  many  whom  he  had  comforted  in 
times  of  sickness  or  sorrow,  or  helped  in  their 
struggles  with  poverty,  or  won  back  to  Christ  from 
a  life  of  ungodliness  or  vice,  came  to  plead  with 
him,  even  with  tears  from  eyes  unwont  to  weep,  to 
remain  among  them.  At  length  a  fast  was  pro- 
claimed, to  which  multitudes  not  only  of  com- 
municants but  of  parishioners  came,  swelling  the 
stream  of  worshippers  from  every  quarter  in  Ettrick, 
that  they  might  avert,  by  confession  of  sin  and 
prayer,  the  threatened  deprivation.  It  was  impos- 
sible that  the  love  to  Ettrick  and  its  people  of 
this  man  of  simplicity  and  godly  sincerity  should 
not  have  been  greatly  strengthened  and  riveted  by 
these  natural  and  unforced  utterances  of  their  ven- 
eration and  attachment. 

We  shall  not  minutely  trace  the  history  of  this 
"  call,"  in  which  Closeburn,  "  coveting  earnestly  the 
best  gifts,"  sought  to  unsettle  Mr.  Boston's  connec- 
tion with  Ettrick  and  to  obtain  him  as  its  pastor, 
and  Ettrick,  with  awakened  enthusiasm,  did  its  ut- 
most to  retain  him  whom  the  very  effort  had  not 
unnaturally  led  it  to  value  more  than  ever.  It  would 
be  a  dreary  and  tangled  narrative  were  we  to  describe 
the  call  in  its  various  stages  in  sessions,  and  presby- 
teries, and  synods,  "  dragging  its  slow  length  along  " 
through   a   period    of  nearly   twelve    months.     We 


BEFORE   THE   COMMISSION.  1 29 

shall  come  at  once  to  its  final  issue  before  the 
Commission  of  the  General  Assembly  in  17 17,  to 
which  its  settlement  was  committed.  Learned  ad- 
vocates, according  to  the  custom  in  such  cases, 
had  already  spoken  on  either  side,  and  when  their 
dialectics  were  ended,  the  minister  of  Ettrick,  who 
was  the  most  deeply  interested,  and,  so  far  at  least 
as  Ettrick  was  concerned,  knew  the  facts  and  merits 
of  the  case  best,  rose  and  asked  permission  to  speak. 
Naturally  bashful  and  timid,  yet  when  he  was  moved 
by  a  sense  of  duty,  he  rose  above  the  fear  of  man ; 
while  his  yearning  love  for  his  people,  from  whom  he 
dreaded  the  very  thought  of  being  severed,  made 
him  speak  with  a  holy  fervour  and  a  tender  per- 
suasiveness as  if  his  lips  had  been  touched  with 
celestial  fire.  We  have  only  space  for  a  few  closing 
paragraphs  : — ■ 

"  Moderator,  will  the  justice  of  the  Reverend 
Commission  allow  them  to  lay  a  congregation  deso- 
late which  was  planted  with  so  much  difficulty,  has 
been  managed  with  so  much  uneasiness,  and  upon 
the  event  of  this  transportation  must  become  the 
very  seat  of  separation  in  the  country,  and  which 
there  is  so  little  hope  of  the  comfortable  supply  of, 
they  in  the  meantime  so  vigorously  reclaiming,  and 
all  this  in  a  time  wherein  there  is  so  very  little  need 
of  transportations,  but  the  parish  pursuing   may  be 

9 


I30  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

otherwise  settled  to  far  greater  advantage  ?  Will  their 
respect  to  the  peace  of  this  church  suffer  them  to 
give  such  ground  of  irritation  to  a  congregation 
in  the  circumstances  I  have  narrated  ?  Will  their 
compassion  allow  them  to  take  one  whose  spirit  is 
already  shattered  with  the  effects  of  this  divisive 
temper,  and  cast  him  into  another  place  where  it 
must  be  far  more  so?  or  to  lead  out  one  and  set 
him  upon  the  ice  where  he  knows  no  way  how  to 
keep  his  feet,  and  when  he  falls  must  fall  for  nought, 
— I  mean,  no  advantage  to  the  church  gained  thereby. 
Nay,  Moderator,  I  cannot  believe  these  things. 

"  I  have  been  twice  settled  already,  and  I  bless 
the  Lord  who  was  pleased  in  both  convincingly  to 
show  me  his  own  call  coming  along  with  the  call 
of  his  church.  And  I  have  felt  so  much  need 
of  the  former,  its  accompanying  the  latter,  that 
it  would  be  most  inexcusable  to  venture  on 
removing  to  another  parish  without  it.  I  was 
persuaded  in  my  conscience  of  the  Lord's  calling 
me  to  Ettrick,  and  my  clearness  as  to  my  call  to 
that  place  was  never  overclouded,  no,  not  in  my 
darkest  hours  ;  and  had  I  not  had  that  to  support 
me  there,  I  had  sunk  under  my  burden.  Now,  I 
have  endeavoured,  according  to  the  measure  of  the 
grace  bestowed  on  me,  to  set  aside  my  own  inclina- 
tions and   the  consideration  of  the  ease  and  satis- 


FERVENT   AND    PERSUASIVE   APPEAL.  131 

faction  of  my  own  heart,  and  to  lay  this  matter 
before  the  Lord  for  light,  to  discover  his  mind 
about  it,  labouring  to  wait  upon  him  in  the  way  cf 
his  word  and  works.  But  I  sincerely  declare  after 
all,  that  I  have  no  clearness  to  accept  the  call  to 
Closeburn,  nor  a  foundation  for  my  conscience  in  this 
transportation,  which  ought  not  to  rest  on  human 
authority.  I  have  ail  deference  for  the  authority 
of  this  church,  and  my  ministry  is  very  dear  to 
me ;  so  I  cast  myself  at  your  feet,  begging  that 
you  will  not  grant  this  transportation,  which  has 
been  refused  by  the  presbytery  and  synod  whereof 
I  am  a  member,  and  who  are  best  acquainted  with 
the  state  of  the  parish  of  Ettrick  and  what  concerns 
me,  whereas  both  that  parish  and  I  are  known  but 
to  very  few  of  our  now  reverend  judges.  But  if  it 
shall  please  the  holy  wise  God  to  surfer  me,  for  my 
trial  and  correction,  to  fall  under  your  sentence 
transporting  me  from  the  parish  of  Ettrick  to  the 
parish  of  Closeburn,  since  it  is  a  charge  I  have  no 
clearness  to  undertake,  I  resolve,  through  grace, 
rather  to  suffer  than  to  enter  on  it  blindfolded. 
Though,  in  the  meantime,  I  cannot  help  thinking 
it  will  be  hard  measure  to  punish  me  because  I 
cannot  see  with  other  men's  eyes." 

When  Mr.  Boston  began  his  speech,  the  impression 
among   the   members  of  the  Commission  itself,  as 


T32  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

well  as  among  onlookers,  was  that  by  far  the  pre- 
ponderating majority  of  votes  would  be  in  favour 
of  his  translation  to  Closeburn.  But  as  he  pro- 
ceeded in  his  arguments  and  appeals,  it  was  not 
difficult  to  read  in  the  countenances  of  many  of 
the  reverend  fathers  that  they  were  becoming  un- 
settled in  their  preferences,  and  that  the  vote  would 
finally  fall  on  the  side  of  Ettrick.  And  so  it  turned 
out  to  be.  "  By  a  vast  majority,"  the  grateful  man 
himself  reports,  "  the  sentence  passed  in  our  favour  ; 
and  others  as  well  as  I  were  convinced  that  the 
speech    I   delivered  was  that  which  influenced  the 

Commission  and  moved  their  compassion I  must 

say  that  the  Lord  was  with  me  in  the  management, 
giving  me  in  that  hour  both  what  to  speak  and 
courage  to  speak  it ;  and  even  when  I  ran,  he  left 
me  not  to  stumble." 

The  good  tidings  carried  joy  into  every  farm- 
house and  shepherd's  shieling  and  poor  man's  cot- 
tage in  Ettrick.  We  can  imagine  bonfires  to  have 
been  kindled  on  every  mountain  throughout  the 
wide  parish,  such  as  the  men  of  a  few  generations 
back  were  wont  to  kindle  when  the  people  had 
heard  of  an  invasion  from  the  other  side  of  the 
Border.  On  the  following  Sabbath  the  church 
could  not  contain  more  than  a  fraction  of  the 
multitudes    that   came   from    every   quarter   of  the 


BLESSED    RESULTS.  133 

parish  to  thank  God  for  the  happy  termination  of 
their  months  of  anxiety.  The  event  marked  an 
epoch,  not  only  in  Mr.  Boston's  life  and  ministry, 
but  in  the  religious  history  of  the  parish.  Cold- 
ness and  distrust  seemed  to  have  vanished.  By 
that  disinterested  act,  in  which  he  had  so  earnestly 
pleaded  for  his  retention  in  Ettrick,  he  had  placed 
his  noble  unselfishness  beyond  doubt,  and  revealed 
a  love  to  his  people  which  many  waters  could  not 
quench.  He  had  won  the  hearts  of  all.  The  people 
now  understood  their  minister.  The  personality  of 
the  man  would  henceforth  more  than  ever  enhance 
the  power  of  his  message.  He  had  the  conscious- 
ness that  he  was  now  to  preach  to  a  united  people, 
and  it  was  not  long  ere  his  increased  influence  and 
usefulness  began  to  show  themselves  in  many  forms. 
He  did  not  flatter  himself  that  he  would  never  again 
meet  with  inconsistencies  among  his  people,  and 
even  discouraging  falls.  But  it  was  now,  in  com- 
parison with  much  of  his  past  experience,  as  if  the 
ship  had  passed  outside  the  region  of  frequent 
storms,  and  were  sailing  calmly  before  the  trade- 
winds  to  the  destined  haven. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

The  "Fourfold  State" — Incidents  —  Vast  circulation- 
Communion  festivals — Strangers  from  afar — "Laying 
ly  in  store" — a  great  sorrow. 

WITH  the  affection  and  confidence  of  his 
parishioners  now  gathered  around  him,  and 
delivered  from  the  distracting  and  depressing  cares 
produced  by  division  and  alienation,  Mr.  Boston 
now  proceeded  to  the  composition  of  his  "  Fourfold 
State,"  with  which  his  own  name  and  that  of  Ettrick 
were  to  be  permanently  and  indissolubly  associated. 
It  is  probable  that  the  writing  of  the  book  did  not 
occupy  more  than  two  years  in  the  earlier  part  of 
the  second  decade  of  his  Ettrick  ministry,  but  from 
various  causes  long  intervals  of  years  intervened 
more  than  once  to  hinder  further  progress,  and 
almost  indefinitely  to  arrest  publication.  Moods 
of  self-diffidence  again  and  again  held  him  back 
from  this  decided  step  ;  and  a  desire  to  bring  the 
book   nearer  to  his   ideal   of  what   it  ought   to  be, 


THE   "FOURFOLD   STATE.'  1 35 

when  treating  of  themes  of  such  transcendent  im- 
portance and  interest,  had  greatly  increased  delay. 
In  addition  to  this,  his  modest  estimate  of  the  probable 
success  of  his  book,  along  with  his  knowledge  of 
his  scanty  income,  made  him  dread  pecuniary  diffi- 
culties in  case  of  failure.  But  this  impediment,  as 
it  became  known,  was  promptly  met  by  the  promise 
of  all  necessary  help  from  those  brethren  in  the  minis- 
try whom  we  have  already  named,  and  whose  appre- 
ciation of  the  author  and  his  book  was  very  much 
higher  than  his  own.  As  for  Dr.  Trotter,  his  "be- 
loved physician"  and  "inner  friend"  both  at  Simprin 
and  Ettrick,  who  had  thrown  out  the  first  hint  of 
writing  such  a  book  as  the  "  Fourfold  State,"  and 
who  loved  him  with  all  the  chivalrous  affection  of 
Jonathan  to  David,  he  would  have  been  ready,  out 
of  his  own  resources  alone,  to  meet  all  difficulties; 
but  he  had  died  during  those  irritating  and  irk- 
some delays.  And  so  a  publisher  in  Edinburgh  was 
at  length  sought  for  and  secured,  and  the  printing  of 
the  "  Fourfold  State  "  proceeded  with. 

At  the  very  beginning,  however,  an  incident  oc- 
curred, not  without  its  ludicrous  features,  but  which 
must  have  sorely  tried  the  temper  and  strained 
the  patience  of  the  much -enduring  pastor.  It 
appears  that  one  of  the  civic  dignitaries  of  Edin- 
burgh had,  in  some  way  or  other,  assisted  in  business 


I36  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

negotiations  connected  with  the  procuring  of  a  suit- 
able printer  and  publisher  of  the  "  Fourfold  State." 
But  not  satisfied  with  this  act  of  kindness,  which 
would  have  been  of  some  use  to  the  author,  he 
had  spontaneously  offered  the  further  and  un- 
sought service  of  revising  the  proof-sheets  of  the 
book  as  it  passed  through  the  press,  making  his 
amendments  and  suggestions  immediately  after  they 
had  passed  from  the  printer's  hands,  and  before  they 
had  been  sent  out  to  Ettrick.  And  in  his  overween- 
ing self-conceit,  this  gratuitous  censor  had  imagined 
that  his  revision  was  to  extend,  not  only  to  the 
accuracy  of  the  printer,  but  to  the  style  and  even 
to  the  thought  of  the  author,  so  as  to  introduce 
foreign  sentences,  or  portions  of  sentences,  into  the 
composition.  What,  then,  must  have  been  the  as- 
tonishment and  mortification  of  Mr.  Boston  when 
he  found  the  first  proof-sheet,  as  revised  by  the 
city  Treasurer,  blotted  and  blurred  all  over  with 
corrections,  and  changes  introduced  which  extended 
not  only  to  printers'  blunders  but  at  times  to  senti- 
ment and  style,  toning  down  pithy  sayings  into 
vapid  inanities,  or  substituting  magniloquent  com- 
monplace for  strong  words  of  fearless  earnestness, 
which  were  meant  and  fitted  to  arouse  and  alarm 
the  conscience.  It  was  like  advising  a  racer  to  mend 
his  pace  by  mounting  upon  stilts,  or  putting  into 


THE   "FOURFOLD   STATE."  1 37 

a  warrior's  hand  a  sword  that  was  wrapped  in  ivy. 
This  presumption  was  too  much  even  for  the  en- 
durance of  the  Ettrick  pastor.  Sending  to  the 
printer  for  a  clean  "  proof,"  he  intimated  at  the  same 
time  to  his  too  officious  patron  that  he  would 
dispense  with  his  further  aid. 

This  practice  of  using  unjustifiable  liberties  with 
authors  and  their  writings  did  not  die  out  with 
Boston's  age.  The  poet  Montgomery,  who  did  so 
much  to  enrich  by  his  hymns  the  hymnology  of 
the  churches,  complained  that,  in  many  instances, 
the  compilers  of  hymn-books,  not  content  with  re- 
ceiving from  him  liberty  to  appropriate  his  hymns 
without  any  remuneration,  altered  them  at  their 
pleasure,  and  almost  always  for  the  worse,  destroy- 
ing the  rhythm  and  cadence  of  the  lines,  substitut- 
ing some  prosaic  word  for  an  expression  that  had 
a  picture  in  it,  and  sometimes  not  only  changing 
the  thought  but  making  the  author  say  what  he 
did  not  believe. 

The  comprehensive  and  felicitous  title  of  the  book 
was  in  these  words,  "  Human  Nature  in  its  Four- 
fold State  of  Primitive  Integrity,  Entire  Depravity, 
Begun  Recovery,  and  Consummate  Happiness  or 
Misery."  This  sufficiently  indicated  that  the  author 
was  to  present  his  readers  with  a  complete  system  of 
Christian  theology,  intended  to  describe  the  divine 


138  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

method  of  human  redemption,  to  be  a  compact 
statement  of  "  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed 
God,"  to  show  the  way  back  from  "Paradise  lost" 
to  "  Paradise  regained." 

There  was  one  important  and  outstanding  feature 
of  the  book  in  which  the  author's  manner  of  treat- 
ment distinguished  it  from  the  greater  number  of 
those  systems  of  theology  which  had  been  given  to 
the  world  both  in  his  own  and  in  earlier  times.  Those 
systems  were  usually  too  scientific  in  their  structure 
and  style  for  common  readers,  being  overlaid  with 
learning,  deficient  in  the  practical  clement,  and  too 
often  also  rendered  repulsive  by  distracting  and  un- 
profitable controversy  about  comparative  trifles.  The 
aim  of  the  pastor  of  Ettrick,  who  was  brought  into 
daily  contact  with  the  common  people  and  knew 
their  modes  of  thinking  and  feeling,  was,  while 
presenting  Christian  truths  in  systematic  form,  and 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  show  their  mutual  rela- 
tion and  dependence,  to  adapt  his  language  to 
the  general  capacity  of  his  readers,  and  to  bring 
the  whole  to  bear  upon  men's  greatest  wants  and 
their  eternal  well-being.  As  has  been  happily 
said,  "  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 


THE   "FOURFOLD   STATE."  1 39 

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  inquirer,  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  beseech- 
ing tenderness  and  practical  appeal "  (the  late  Dr. 
Young  of  Perth). 

Once  and  again,  while  reading  the  "  Fourfold 
State,"  we  have  been  struck  with  the  author's  felic- 
itous application  of  Scripture  sentences,  so  fitting 
them  to  surrounding  circumstances  as  if  they  had 
been  placed  in  the  Bible  for  that  very  occasion. 
In  like  manner,  we  have  been  charmed  with  his 
skilful  adaptation  of  Scripture  incidents  to  passing 
events,  and  also  with  the  ingenuity  with  which  he 
struck  new  thoughts  out  of  familiar  texts,  having 
all  the  effect  of  a  new  discovery,  or  of  a  pearl 
found  upon  the  trodden  highway ;  and  all  this 
expressed  in  happily  chosen  words  like  "  apples  oi 


[40  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

gold  in  baskets  of  silver,"  reminding  us  of  Philip 
Henry  in  his  more  genial  and  happy  moods.  While, 
at  other  times,  we  have  been  astonished  when  he 
has  seemed  to  read  our  very  heart,  and  to  give  a 
wondrous  reality  to  the  things  which  are  unseen 
and  eternal,  and  we  have  felt  as  if  he  had  inherited 
the  rare  power  of  Richard  Baxter  as  seen  in  his 
"  Now  or  Never  "  and  his  "  Saints'  Everlasting  Rest." 

We  have  Mr.  Boston's  own  testimony,  more  than 
once  repeated  in  his  diary,  that  his  "Fourfold  State" 
was  written  throughout  in  connection  with  much 
prayer.  And  there  is  a  tradition  which  can  be 
traced  up  to  his  own  times,  that  the  last  chapter 
of  his  book,  on  the  congenial  subject  of  Heaven, 
was  literally  written  by  him  on  his  knees.  And 
when  we  read  that  part  of  the  book,  the  tradition 
becomes  the  more  credible.  There  is  a  singular 
elevation  in  his  thoughts  and  grandeur  in  his 
words  which  transcends  all  that  had  been  previ- 
ously written.  It  then  seems  as  if,  like  Bunyan's 
Pilgrim,  he  had  been  walking  in  the  land  of  Beulah, 
had  seen  the  angels,  and  heard  the  sound  of  the 
heavenly  minstrelsy.  The  following  are  his  words 
on  Mutual  Recognition  in  Heaven  :— 

"There  we  shall  see  Adam  and  Eve  in  the  heavenly 
paradise,  freely  eating  of  the  tree  of  life  ;  Abraham, 
Isaac,  and  Jacob,  and   all   the  holy  patriarchs,  no 


ON    MUTUAL   RECOGNITION    IN    HEAVEN.       141 

more  wandering  from  land  to  land,  but  come  to 
their  everlasting  rest ;  all  the  prophets  feasting  their 
eyes  on  the  glory  of  Him  of  whose  coming  they 
prophesied  ;  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb  sitting 
on  their  twelve  thrones  ;  all  the  holy  martyrs  in 
their  long  white  robes,  with  their  crowns  on  their 
heads ;  the  godly  kings  advanced  to  a  kingdom 
which  cannot  be  moved  ;  and  them  that  turn  many 
to  righteousness  shining  as  the  stars  for  ever  and 
ever.  There  shall  we  see  our  godly  friends,  relations, 
and  acquaintances,  pillars  in  the  temple  of  God,  to 
go  no  more  out  from  us. 

"  And  it  is  more  than  probable  that  the  saints 
will  know  one  another  in  heaven — that,  at  least, 
they  will  know  their  friends,  relatives,  and  those 
they  were  acquainted  with  when  on  earth,  and  such 
as  have  been  most  eminent  in  the  church.  This 
seems  to  be  included  in  that  perfection  of  happi- 
ness to  which  the  saints  shall  be  advanced  there. 
If  Adam  knew  who  and  what  Eve  was  at  first 
sight,  when  the  Lord  God  brought  her  to  him, 
why  should  one  question  that  husbands  and  wives, 
parents  and  children,  will  know  each  other  in  glory  ? 
If  the  Thessalonians,  converted  by  Paul's  ministry, 
shall  be  his  'crown  of  rejoicing  in  the  presence  of 
our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  his  coming,'  why  may 
not  one  conclude   that   ministers   shall    know  their 


142  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

people,  and  people  their  ministers  in  heaven?  And 
if  the  disciples  on  the  Mount  of  Transfiguration 
knew  Moses  and  Elias,  whom  they  had  never  seen 
before,  we  have  ground  to  think  that  we  shall 
know  them  too  when  we  come  to  heaven.  The 
communion  of  saints  shall  be  most  intimate  there  : 
'  they  shall  sit  down  with  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob 
in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  Lazarus  was  '  carried  by 
the  angels  into  Abraham's  bosom,'  which  denotes 
most  intimate  and  familiar  society." 

On  November  6,  1720,  Mr.  Boston  received  from 
his  publisher  in  Edinburgh  the  first  bound  copy 
of  his  "  Fourfold  State."  The  next  morning,  he 
remained  for  many  hours  in  his  study  engaged  in 
continuous  thanksgiving  and  in  prolonged  prayer. 
Not  long  before,  he  had  written  this  record  in  his 
diary :  "  I  had  much  to  stand  the  thought  of 
publishing  that  book,  being  tossed  betwixt  two, 
namely,  venturing  such  a  mean  piece  into  the  world, 
while  many,  whose  books  I  was  not  worthy  to 
carry,  are  silent  ;  and  the  fear  of  sitting  the  call 
of  Providence."  But  in  a  few  months,  the  heart 
01  the  too  diffident  author  was  cheered  by  the 
news  from  Edinburgh  of  the  rapid  sale  of  a  second 
and  even  a  third  edition.  And  years  before  his 
death,  he  was  able  to  record,  with  mingled  humility 
and  thanksgiving  which  rose  to  adoring  wonder,  that 


A   WONDERFUL   COOK.  1 43 

the  treatise  had  won  the  hearts  of  all  classes  and 
conditions  of  men.  We  have  already  noted,  in  our 
introductory  remarks,  that  by  means  of  his  "  Fourfold 
State,"  which  he  had  hesitated  for  years  to  launch 
on  the  uncertain  sea  of  public  opinion,  Mr.  Boston 
was  virtually  preaching  the  gospel  of  heaven's  great 
love,  not  only  to  his  people  in  Ettrick,  but  to  the 
south  and  south-eastern  provinces  of  Scotland.  In 
all  the  counties  watered  by  the  Tweed,  the  Nith, 
the  Annan,  the  Dee,  and  the  upper  districts  of  the 
Clyde,  it  was  literally  read  by  all,  and  converts 
were  made  by  thousands. 

We  find  him  mentioning  in  the  last  chapter  of 
his  diary  that,  far  beyond  the  sphere  in  which  the 
"Fourfold  State"  had  borne  its  earliest  harvests, 
he  had  received  a  "  comfortable  account "  of  its  ac- 
ceptableness  and  usefulness  in  remote  places,  par- 
ticularly in  the  Scottish  Highlands.  And  not  only 
in  the  cottages  of  the  poor  and  in  the  homes  of 
the  middle  classes,  but  equally  in  the  mansions  of 
the  wealthy  and  in  the  castles  of  the  noble,  it  was 
welcomed,  and  came  with  healing  on  its  wings. 
On  the  little  book-shelf  in  the  lonely  cottage  in 
remote  glens  it  lay  a  cherished  thing  side  by  side 
with  Bunyan's  immortal  allegory.  And  this  con- 
tinued through  more  than  one  or  two  generations. 
It    was    one    of    those     books    which     God     had 


144  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

chosen  by  which  to  work  his  miracles  of  grace. 
Even  the  everyday  conversation  of  the  common 
people  came  at  length  to  be  enriched  by  many  of 
those  proverbial  and  pithy  sayings  with  hooks  upon 
them,  in  which  the  "Fourfold  State "  abounds.  Its 
frequent  and  delighted  perusal  made  many  of  them 
not  only  enlightened  Christians,  but  able  theo- 
logians ;  and  even  ministers  of  religion  of  a  certain 
class,  who  were  more  familiar  with  current  litera- 
ture than  with  the  epistles  of  Paul,  have  been 
known,  in  disputing  on  religious  questions  with 
those  Border  wrestlers,  to  receive  an  ugly  fall.  It 
would  be  impossible  for  any  man  fitly  to  write  the 
religious  history  of  Scotland  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century  and  the  earlier  part 
of  the  nineteenth,  without  acknowledging  that,  dur- 
ing all  that  long  period,  this  book  had  been  one 
of  the  mightiest  factors  in  leading  men  into  the 
kingdom  of  God.  It  is  not  even  at  this  day  an 
exhausted  power. 

There  was  another  new  experience  which  began 
to  yield  much  holy  enjoyment  to  the  heart  of  Mr. 
Boston,  and  which  probably  continued  to  gladden 
his  spirit  to  the  end  of  his  life.  I  refer  to  the  multi- 
tude of  people  who  came  in  streams  from  other 
parishes,  and  even  travelled  from  distant  parts  of 
Scotland,  to   be   present   at   the  annual   observance 


COMMUNION    FESTIVALS.  145 

of  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  to  join  with  the  Ettrick 
worshippers  in  the  week  of  holy  festivities  that  were 
associated  with  it.  This  practice  found  its  explana- 
tion, not  only  in  the  attraction  of  Mr.  Boston's 
eminent  gifts  as  a  preacher,  as  well  as  of  other 
ministers  of  kindred  spirit  whom  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  associate  with  him  in  those  annual  gather- 
ings, but  also,  and  even  yet  more,  in  the  fact  that, 
in  too  many  of  the  parishes  of  Scotland,  ministers 
had  begun  to  preach  "  another  gospel  which  was 
not  another,"  and  to  substitute  the  husks  of  a 
shallow  and  sapless  philosophy,  or  of  dry  moralities, 
for  that  divine  message  which  they  had  been  com- 
missioned to  preach,  and  by  which  God  saves  souls  ; 
and  that  their  dissatisfied  hearers  came  crowding 
annually  to  those  communion  festivals  like  thirsty 
pilgrims  in  a  desert  to  a  fountain  of  living  waters, 
often  beguiling  the  tediousness  of  the  journey  and 
making  the  glens  and  mountain-sides  vocal  by  the 
singing  of  psalms. 

"  They  chant  their  artless  notes  in  simple  guise  ; 
They  tune  their  hearts — by  far  the  noblest  aim  : 
Perhaps  'Dundee's'  wild  warbling  measures  rise, 
Or  plaintive  '  Martyrs,'  worthy  of  the  name  ; 
Or  noble  '  Elgin  '  beets  the  heavenward  flame — 
The  sweetest  far  of  Scotia's  holy  lays." 

It  often  reminded  them  of  the  Jewish  pilgrims  in 

10 


I46  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Old  Testament  times  ascending  in  companies  to 
Jerusalem  to  keep  their  Passover. 

Mr.  Boston  welcomed  those  annual  visitants  as 
if  he  had  heard  the  words  of  an  apostle,  "  Be  not 
forgetful  to  entertain  strangers,  for  thereby  some 
have  entertained  angels  unawares."  He  led  the 
van  in  the  ever-enlarging  hospitality  which  extended 
over  many  days  ;  at  length  adding,  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, two  new  and  spacious  rooms  to  his  manse, 
for  the  increased  accommodation  of  strangers,  many 
of  whom  he  knew  to  be  true  brethren  in  Christ, 
and  others  earnest  inquirers  after  the  way  of  life, 
and  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

And  the  happy  Ettrick  people  were  in  full  sym- 
pathy with  their  minister,  with  enlarged  hearts  more 
and  more  devising  liberal  things.  There  was  more 
than  one  Phebe,  or  Gaius,  or  Priscilla  in  those  lonely 
glens  and  beside  those  mountain  streams,  waiting 
and  longing  to  give  full  scope  to  their  hospitality 
and  love.  Mr.  Boston  writes  of  one  Isabel  Biggar. 
"  a  singular  Christian,"  as  on  one  occasion  "  entertain- 
ing a  great  weight  of  strangers."  And,  writing  of 
another  week  of  sacred  festival,  he  places  it  on  pleas- 
ant record  that  "  in  the  one  district  of  Midgehope 
alone  there  were  about  ninescore  strangers,  four- 
score of  whom  were  entertained  by  William  Blaik, 
husband  of  Isabel  Biggar  aforesaid;"  adding,  with 


SYSTEMATIC   GIVING.  1 47 

homely  detail,  "  having  before  baken  for  them  half 
a  boll  of  meal  for  bread,  bought  four  shillings  and 
tenpence  sterling  of  wheat  bread,  and  killed  three 
lambs,  and  made  thirty  beds.  And  I  believe  their 
neighbour,  Robert  Biggar,  Isabel's  brother,  would 
be  much  the  same.  This  I  record,  once  for  all, 
for  a  swatch  of  the  hospitality  of  the  parish  ;  for 
God  hath  given  this  people  a  largeness  of  heart 
to  communicate  of  their  substance  on  these  and 
other  occasions  also.  And  my  heart  has  long  been 
on  that  occasion  particularly  concerned  for  a  bless- 
ing on  their  substance,  with  such  a  natural  emotion 
as  if  they  had  been  born  of  my  body.  Those  within 
a  mile  of  the  church  still  had  the  far  greater  weight 
on  solemn  occasions." 

There  are  reasons  for  thinking  that  it  v/as  at 
this  period  that  Mr.  Boston  began  the  practice  of 
setting  apart  a  fixed  proportion  of  his  annual  in- 
come for  religious  and  benevolent  objects,  acting 
in  the  spirit  of  Paul's  direction  to  the  members  of 
the  church  at  Corinth :  "  On  the  first  day  of  the 
week,  let  every  one  of  you  lay  by  him  in  store 
as  God  hath  prospered  him."  Dr.  Paley,  and 
others  in  his  times,  have  been  credited  with 
being  the  first  to  hold  up  this  apostolic  sugges- 
tion to  the  notice  and  imitation  of  the  churches  ; 
but  the  practice  had  long  before  been  anticipated,  at 


148  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

least  in  its  principle  and  spirit,  by  the  good  pastor  of 
Ettrick.  The  words  in  which  he  records  this,  in 
writing  to  his  family,  are  characteristic  in  their 
minuteness  of  detail,  and  they  mark  the  beginning 
of  a  practice  which  was  cheerfully  continued  to  the 
end  of  his  life  : — 

"  A  part  of  my  stipend  coming  in  about  that 
time,  I  did,  on  the  30th  March  17 18,  lay  by  fifty 
merks  thereof  for  pious  uses.  And  all  along  since 
that  time  I  have  kept  a  private  box,  making  up  into 
yearly  portions  the  said  sum  of  fifty  merks  ;  laying 
it  in  mostly  by  parcels,  and  giving  out  of  it  as 
occasion  requires,  and  I  always  keep  of  it  in  my 
left  side  pocket.  The  dealing  to  the  poor  at  the 
house  for  their  food  continues  as  formerly  without 
respect  to  this  ;  only  what  wool  is  given  them  in  the 
summer,  since  I  have  none  of  my  own,  is  bought 
out  of  this  fund  ;  out  of  which  also  our  Sabbath's 
contributions  are  taken.  This  course  1  have  found 
to  be  profitable  to  the  poor,  and  affording  much 
ease  to  myself;  for  I  have  thereby  been  in  case 
to  give  considerably  on  special  occasions,  and  that 
with  more  ease  to  myself  than  otherwise  I  could 
have  had,  always  looking  on  that  part  of  my  yearly 
income  as  not  mine,  but  the  Lord's." 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  those  words  the  good 
pastor  not  only  states  the  commencement  of  this 


A   LIFE-LONG   SORROW.  149 

practice,  but  his  satisfaction  in  it  after  some  ex- 
perience. It  secured  deliberation  and  system  in 
his  giving,  and  rendered  it  more  likely  that  his 
income  would  both  be  laid  aside  and  distributed 
under  religious  influence  and  motive.  It  guarded 
him  alike  against  improvident  excess  and  grudging 
restraint,  when  conscience  and  charity  were  joined 
hand  in  hand  in  the  stewardship  of  his  worldly 
means.  And  it  even  helped  to  foster  a  healthful 
religious  spirit  when  looking  at  his  annual  deposits, 
in  thinking  of  them  as  consecrated  things,  which 
were  no  more  his  than  the  gift  of  the  worshipper 
in  the  temple  after  he  had  laid  it  on  the  altar  of 
God. 

In  the  midst  of  these  notices  of  events  and  ex- 
periences, which  must  have  opened  many  a  spring 
of  gratitude  and  joy  in  the  heart  of  this  devoted 
minister  of  Christ,  we  are  now  called  to  mention 
one  event  which  became  to  him  a  life-long  source  of 
anxiety  and  sorrow.  In  the  summer  of  1720,  his  be- 
loved wife,  whose  character  we  found  him  depicting, 
at  an  early  period  of  his  married  life,  with  so  much 
glowing  appreciation  and  beauty,  began  to  show  un- 
mistakable symptoms  of  insanity.  To  quote  his  own 
words,  "  Her  imagination  was  vitiated  in  a  partic- 
ular point,  to  her  great  disquietment,  accompanied 
with  bodily  infirmities  and  maladies  exceeding  great 


150  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  numerous."  And  this  dark  eclipse  of  the  spirit, 
though  sometimes  diminished,  seldom  wholly  passed 
away;  while  in  later  years  the  gloom  became  darker 
still.  The  once  sweetly  -  sounding  lute  sent  forth 
only  discords.  It  touched  Mr.  Boston  on  his  tenderest 
point.  Certainly,  if  he  had  been  allowed,  like  David, 
to  choose  between  various  forms  of  suffering,  this  was 
the  last  which  he  would  have  chosen.  At  length  the 
dear  sufferer  was  confined  entirely  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  Mr.  Boston's  diary, 
and  as  we  read  them  we  seem  to  hear  his  groans 
and  sighs.  Was  this  the  Refiner's  fire  into  which  he 
had  once  more  cast  his  gold  for  its  seventh  refining  ? 
His  ministry  and  work,  along  with  his  unfailing  re- 
source of  prayer,  brought  the  sufferer  his  best  relief. 
The  affliction  was  one  of  those  mysteries  of  Pro- 
vidence to  which  many  of  God's  saints  are  no 
strangers,  and  which  wait  for  the  explanations  of 
that  glorious  world  where  "  in  God's  light  we  shall 
see  light." 


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OF      THE  FOURFOLD      STATE." 


CHAPTER   VII. 

HOME   LIFE,   STUDY,   PULPIT,   AND   PASTORATE. 

IN  the  extraordinary  popularity  and  rapidly-widen- 
ing influence  of  his  "  Fourfold  State,"  as  well 
as  in  the  attractive  power  and  abounding  fruits  of 
his  ministry,  Mr.  Boston  had  now  reached  the  central 
landmark  in  his  life  ;  and  before  proceeding  further 
in  narrating  his  biography,  this  seems  to  be  the 
natural  point  at  which  to  pause  and  introduce  some 
more  detailed  statements  in  reference  both  to  his 
home  life  and  to  the  varied  work  which  belonged 
to  his  sacred  office. 

In  regard  to  his  family,  Mr.  Boston  showed  an 
engrossing  earnestness  for  the  early  conversion  of 
his  children.  No  doubt  this  zeal  was  intensified, 
and  the  burden  of  his  responsibility  became  heavier, 
from  the  time  that  the  mind  of  his  beloved  wife  was 
shadowed  by  that  mysterious  cloud  which  was  never 
removed  but  rather  darkened,  and  she  could  no 
longer  be  his  willing  and  happy  helpmeet.     It  was 


152  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

his  custom  to  pray  regularly  for  his  little  ones,  and 
also,  in  due  time,  to  pray  with  them,  as  we  find  him 
recording :  "  I  had  a  particular  concern  this  morn- 
ing in  my  heart  for  grace  to  the  young  ones.  I 
spake  affectionately  to  my  little  child  Thomas  about 
the  state  of  his  soul,  and  prayed  with  him."  He 
sought  to  have  religious  truths  and  Scripture  stories 
interwoven  with  their  earliest  thoughts,  all  the  more 
because  he  knew  that  these  first  memories  and  im- 
pressions seldom  die  out  of  the  mind.  He  not  only 
longed,  but  looked  out,  for  the  early  dawn  of  the  new 
life,  assured  that  "  the  flower  when  offered  in  the 
bud  "  was  peculiarly  welcome  to  Him  who  had  said, 
"  Suffer  little  children  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid 
them  not."  And  he  showed  a  similar  concern  for 
the  supreme  good  of  "  the  man-servant  and  the 
maid-servant  within  his  gates,"  recognizing  the  fact 
that  they,  too,  were  a  part  of  his  family  for  whose 
souls  he  was  bound  to  watch.  He  wished  to  see 
in  his  manse  at  Ettrick  "  a  little  spot  enclosed  by 
grace,"  and  to  have  "  a  church  in  his  house." 

In  this  respect,  as  in  so  many  others,  the  pastor 
of  Ettrick  stood  side  by  side  in  spirit  and  practice 
with  the  pastor  of  Broad  Oak  and  the  other  Puritan 
fathers  of  an  earlier  age.  Particularly  on  the  even- 
ings of  the  Lord's  day,  it  was  the  unfailing  practice 
of  Philip  Henry  to  gather  his  children  around  him, 


SECRET   DEVOTIONS.  153 

to  pray  with  them,  and  to  address  questions  to  them, 
in  their  answers  to  which  they  declared  their  self- 
dedication  to  the  three-one  God.  And  then  the 
saintly  patriarch  was  accustomed  to  respond  with 
loving  solemnity,  "  So  say,  and  so  do,  and  you  are 
made  for  ever."  This  beautiful  story  is  told  by  Mr. 
Henry's  own  son,  Matthew  Henry,  the  great  com- 
mentator, who  had,  no  doubt,  been  one  of  the  little 
band  around  the  father's  knees  on  whom  the  weekly 
benediction  fell. 

The  transition  is  not  difficult  from  Mr.  Boston  in 
his  family  to  Mr.  Boston  in  his  closet.  From  the 
time  of  his  youth,  when  we  saw  him  kneeling  be- 
neath the  branches  of  the  apple-tree  in  the  garden 
at  Kennet,  he  found  in  secret  prayer  the  congenial 
element  in  which  his  spirit  lived,  and  moved,  and 
had  its  being.  And  the  morning  and  evening 
prayers  were  not  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  cravings 
of  his  heart  for  prolonged  intercourse  with  God, 
"  the  living  God."  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  dread- 
ing the  thought  of  divine  desertion,  "  wrestling  for 


154  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

the  blessing  until  the  dawning  of  the  day."  Like 
the  young  female  convert  in  one  of  the  South  Sea 
Islands,  whose  chosen  place  of  prayer  was  revealed 
by  the  beaten  path  that  led  to  it,  so  might  it  have 
been  said  of  this  saintly  man  in  connection  with 
his  solitary  devotions.  He  was  a  man  and  a 
minister  of  the  true  Luther  type,  whom  God  makes 
"  strong  to  do  exploits,"  and  uses  to  revolutionize 
provinces  and  kingdoms.  How  much  did  Mr. 
Boston  owe,  for  the  wondrous  success  of  his  min- 
istry and  authorship  in  the  highest  forms  of  bless- 
ing, to  this  one  holy  habit,  in  which  he  laid  hold 
of  omnipotence  !  The  same  outward  action  would 
have  been  powerless  and  fruitless  without  this  wrest- 
ling devotion,  which  said,  "  I  will  not  let  Thee  go, 
except  Thou  bless  me." 

I  wish  to  refer  here  more  particularly  to  one 
practice  which  Mr.  Boston,  occasionally  and  at  not 
very  long  intervals,  joined  with  his  secret  devotions, 
and  this  was  personal  fasting,  a  conjunction  of  the 
two  exercises  familiar  to  us  in  the  practice  of  the 
primitive  church,  and  also  in  our  Lord's  teaching 
and  references  in  his  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and  else- 
where, and  in  the  Book  of  Acts  and  the  Epistles. 
We  meet  with  allusions  to  it  in  various  places 
in  Mr.  Boston's  diary ;  and  he  even  published  in 
his  later  days  an  interesting  little  treatise  in  com- 


PERSONAL  FASTING.  155 

mendation  of  it,  and  for  the  guidance  of  those  who 
had  found  it  profitable  for  the  soul  at  times  to  fast 
as  well  as  to  pray.  We  should,  however,  be  seriously 
mistaken  did  we  imagine  that  on  such  occasions 
when  he  mingled  fasting  with  his  devotions,  there 
was  anything  of  the  nature  of  penance  or  afflicting 
of  the  body.  To  suppose  this  would  be  to  lose  the 
spirit  in  the  body.  He  was  no  anchorite.  There 
was  a  partial,  prolonged,  or  entire  abstinence  from 
food,  and  from  bodily  indulgences  of  every  kind  for 
a  portion  of  the  day. 

But  the  supreme  idea  and  aim  of  such  fasting  as 
our  Ettrick  pastor  practised  at  times  in  conjunction 
with  prayer,  was  the  securing  of  absolute  seclusion, 
the  shutting  out  of  all  thoughts  about  the  world 
and  worldly  occupations  ;  and  this  for  the  purpose 
of  self-examination,  concentrating  the  mind  upon 
the  things  which  were  unseen  and  eternal,  and 
giving  full  opportunity  for  prayer  to  spread  its 
wings  and  soar  upward  to  heaven's  gate.  It  was 
the  soul  "panting  after  God,"  and  guarding  itself, 
as  far  as  might  be,  against  interruption  or  disturb- 
ance in  its  intercourse  with  the  Father  of  spirits. 
It  was  the  heart  answering  to  the  call  of  Jesus, 
"  Come  ye  yourselves  apart  into  a  desert  place,  and 
rest  a  while."  And  sometimes,  also,  such  holy  se- 
clusion was  chosen  by  this  servant  of  God  when  he 


156  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

had  been  smitten  with  some  great  affliction,  or  when 
he  was  called  to  the  discharge  of  some  peculiarly 
arduous  and  momentous  duty.  The  fact  that  he 
continued  this  practice  to  the  end  of  his  life  proves 
that  he  had  derived  conscious  benefit  from  its 
observance.  But  one  is  apt  to  put  the  anxious 
question,  How  is  it  that  this  custom  of  godly  men 
in  an  earlier  age,  or  something  kindred  to  it,  is 
scarcely  known  among  professing  Christians  in  the 
present  day?  Has  it  not  become  as  one  of  the 
lost  arts  ?  And  therefore  how  many  with  a  Christian 
name  have  become  strangers  to  themselves !  They 
have  fallen  into  the  perilous  mistake  of  thinking 
that  constant  occupation  with  the  business  of  the 
church,  in  its  committees  and  week-day  meetings, 
is,  as  a  matter  of  course,  an  evidence  of  thriving 
religion  ;  and  in  this  way  communion  with  their  own 
hearts  and  with  God  is  in  danger  of  being  jostled 
out.  In  the  midst  of  over-engrossment  and  ex- 
aggerated activity  they  have  ceased  to  hear  "  the 
still  small  voice." 

We  must  now  imagine  ourselves  to  pass  by  a  few 
steps  from  his  closet  into  our  pastor's  study,  where  we 
see  him  seated  at  his  desk  with  his  open  English  Bible 
before  him,  and  a  Hebrew  Bible  and  a  Greek  New 
Testament  within  easy  reach,  and  his  library,  now 
of  considerable  size,  surrounding  him  on  every  side. 


IN    HIS   STUDY.  157 

It  has  increased  so  slowly  that  he  knows  every 
volume,  not  only  by  its  title-page,  but  by  its  con- 
tents. It  would,  however,  be  a  mistake  to  imagine 
that  the  whole  of  his  work  in  this  apartment  con- 
sisted in  the  preparation  of  discourses  for  preaching 
in  that  somewhat  ancient  church  hard  by,  on  the 
coming  Sabbath.  On  the  table  there  is  a  large 
manuscript  volume,  entitled  "Miscellanea,"  which 
bears  the  mark  of  much  handling,  in  which  he  has 
written  from  time  to  time  questions  on  difficult 
points  in  theology,  some  of  which  he  has  already 
succeeded  in  solving,  while  others  are  held  in  re- 
serve ;  and  on  the  other  side  there  are  several 
volumes  of  Hebrew  learning,  by  the  help  of  which 
he  is  elaborating  theories  regarding  the  accentuation 
of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  for  he  leans  to  the  opinion 
that  the  accents  as  well  as  the  letters  are  inspired. 
But  his  principal  work  consists  in  the  study  of  the 
Word  of  God,  and  especially  in  preparing  the  weekly 
"  tale  of  bread  "  for  his  beloved  flock.  This  was  not 
only  a  discharge  of  duty  but  a  labour  of  love.  He 
was  in  his  element  when  he  was  in  his  pulpit,  or 
when  he  was  preparing  for  it.  He  so  delighted  in 
his  message  and  in  his  Master,  that  he  could  have 
appropriated  the  language  of  holy  Herbert,  who  was 
wont  to  speak  of  his  pulpit  as  "  the  preacher's  joy 
and  throne." 


I58  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

We  have  seen  that,  in  the  earlier  years  of  his 
ministry,  Mr.  Boston  had  frequent  difficulty  in  fix- 
ing on  a  text  for  his  sermons.  Whole  days  were 
sometimes  spent  in  an  anxious  and  often  an  un- 
successful search  ;  every  part  of  Scripture  seemed 
to  him  like  a  cabinet  that  was  locked  against  him. 
And  he  felt  this  to  be  discouraging,  even  from  a 
religious  point  of  view.  But,  by  degrees,  these  diffi- 
culties diminished  and  disappeared.  Partly  for  this 
end,  he  began  to  deliver,  at  intervals,  a  series  of  ex- 
pository and  practical  discourses  on  one  verse  or 
paragraph  of  Scripture.  These  sometimes  occupied 
him  for  a  long  succession  of  Sabbaths;  and  it  hap- 
pened, not  unfrequently,  that  when  the  passage  had 
seemed  at  length  to  have  become  an  exhausted 
mine,  golden  nuggets  of  saving  truth  continued  to 
be  brought  to  the  surface  by  the  pastor's  holy 
ingenuity,  to  the  wondering  delight  of  his  people. 
In  addition  to  this,  suitable  texts  and  topics  came 
to  be  suggested  to  him  in  his  growing  experience, 
sometimes  by  predominant  sins  in  his  parish,  or  by 
neglected  duties  such  as  family  worship,  or  by  events 
in  providence  such  as  a  scanty  or  an  abundant 
harvest,  and,  not  least  in  value  or  acceptableness,  by 
conversations  with  his  people  in  his  pastoral  visits, 
or  by  his  daily  private  and  family  readings  of  the 
Word  of  God.     These  at  length  became  a  corps  de 


EXPOSITORY   PREACHING.  1 59 

resej've,  to  which  he  could  turn  at  any  time  in  an 
emergency. 

Like  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Chrysostom — the  latter 
of  whom  often  drew  down  by  his  expositions  of 
Scripture  in  the  old  cathedral  at  Antioch,  the  ir- 
repressible plaudits  of  his  delighted  hearers — Mr. 
Boston  had  a  strong  liking  for  expository  preach- 
ing ;  and  his  gift  went  hand  in  hand  with  his  pre- 
ference. And  often,  when  the  whole  discourse  was 
not  meant  to  be  expository,  he  began  with  an  ex- 
position of  the  verse,  in  order  to  supply  a  solid 
basis  for  the  doctrinal  statements  or  practical  ad- 
monitions that  were  to  follow,  according  to  Nehe- 
miah's  language,  which  admirably  described  so  long 
ago  what  the  exposition  of  Scripture  should  be — 
"reading  in  the  book  of  God  distinctly,  and  giving 
the  sense,  and  causing  the  people  to  understand  the 
reading."  It  was  one  of  the  maxims  of  our  great 
Ettrick  preacher,  that  "all  good  preaching  must  be 
founded  on  good  exposition  ; "  that  the  function  of 
the  expositor  is  not  to  put  his  thoughts  into  the 
text,  but  to  bring  God's  thoughts  out  of  it. 

And  the  instances  were  not  few  in  which  his  intro- 
ductory explanation  of  a  verse  which  had  seemed 
to  his  hearers,  when  announced  by  the  preacher, 
obscure  in  its  meaning  and  involved  in  its  con- 
struction, became,  in  a  little  time,  like  the  touching 


l60  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

of  a  spring  which  let  in  heaven's  light,  or  like  the 
opening  by  the  penitent  woman  of  her  "  box  of  oint- 
ment very  precious,"  by  which  in  a  little  time  the 
whole  apartment  was  filled  with  sweetest  odours. 
I  wonder  what  such  a  man  as  Boston  must  have 
thought  of  a  preacher  who,  reading  out  as  his  theme 
for  the  hour  some  verse  of  Scripture  which  was  full 
of  Christ's  love,  or  beamed  with  some  "exceeding 
great  and  precious  promise,"  or  was  filled  to  the  brim 
with  consolatory  words  which  were  "  sweeter  than 
honey,  yea,  than  the  honeycomb,"  immediately  left 
it  unheeded,  or  turned  it  into  a  peg  on  which  to 
hang  a  disquisition  on  some  secular  subject,  or  by 
which  to  insinuate  a  half-veiled  unbelief?  Would 
he  not  have  denounced  the  presumptuous  trifler  as 
guilty  of  profanity  against  Christ  and  of  treachery 
and  insult  to  his  people  who  had  come  to  him 
asking  for  bread  and  he  had  given  them  a  stone 
or  a  serpent  ? 

It  may  be  affirmed  with  confidence  that  there  was 
no  minister  in  Scotland  at  that  period  of  whom  it 
could  have  been  said  with  greater  truth  and  fulness 
of  meaning  than  of  Mr.  Boston,  that  he  faithfully 
"  preached  Christ."  I  mean  by  this  that  he  earnestly 
endeavoured  to  give  to  Christ  in  his  preaching  the 
same  supreme  and  central  place  that  he  occupies  in 
the  Word  of  God.     There  we  behold  all  the  lines 


PREACHING   CHRIST.  l6l 

of  inspired  truth  meeting  in  him,  all  the  blessings 
of  redemption  provided  by  him  and  emanating  from 
him.  And  it  was  the  constant  and  commanding 
aim  of  this  devoted  and  divinely-taught  minister,  to 
have  his  pulpit  teaching  conformed  to  this,  alike  in 
matter  and  spirit.  We  have  only  to  look  into  his 
sermons  in  order  to  see  to  what  a  blessed  extent 
his  practice  realized  his  aim.  His  whole  teaching 
is  fragrant  as  a  garden  of  sweets  with  that  "  name 
which  is  above  every  name."  We  find  him  dilating 
with  holy  delight  on  the  various  parts  of  Christ's 
redemption  work  on  which  the  salvation  of  the 
human  race  depended,  and  tracing  it  in  its  various 
stages  from  the  one  eternity  to  the  other :  Christ, 
who  "  was  in  the  beginning  with  God,  and  was 
God,"  coming  forth,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  from  the 
bosom  of  the  Father,  and  becoming  incarnated  in 
our  humanity,  in  order  that  he  might  be  qualified 
for  working  out  our  salvation  in  all  its  glorious  and 
benignant  issues  ; — Christ  in  his  perfect  obedience  to 
the  divine  law,  and  in  his  atoning  sufferings  and 
death  as  the  substitute  of  sinners,  enduring  in  their 
behalf  the  penalty  of  sin,  and  "bringing  in  an  ever- 
lasting righteousness  ;  "• — Christ  in  his  triumphant 
resurrection  from  the  dead,  receiving  the  Father's 
public  testimony  to  his  approval  and  acceptance  of 
his  atoning  work,  and  "  powerfully  demonstrated  to 

u 


l62  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

be  the  Son  of  God  ;  " — Christ  ascending  to  heaven, 
taking  possession  of  its  many  mansions  in  his  people's 
behalf,  there  making  continual  intercession  for  them, 
and  receiving  from  his  Father's  hand  the  sovereignty 
of  the  universe,  "all  power  being  given  to  him  in 
heaven  and  on  earth,"  in  order  that  by  the  dispensa- 
tion of  the  Holy  Spirit  and  the  administration  of 
his  providence,  he  might  in  due  time  bring  his  in- 
numerable redeemed  to  glory. 

With  kindred  gladness  do  we  behold  him,  as  an 
ambassador  of  Christ,  making  free  offer  to  the  whole 
fallen  race  of  man  of  all  the  blessings  which  have 
been  provided  by  Christ's  redemption  work,  free  as 
the  air  we  breathe  or  as  the  light  of  day,  and  the 
actual  bestowal  of  these,  in  all  their  divine  and  im- 
measurable riches,  "  without  money  and  without 
price,"  upon  every  child  of  man  who  should  take  him 
at  his  word  and  believe  in  his  name.  And  how  often 
do  we  find  the  preacher's  language  tasked  and  strained 
to  the  utmost,  to  admeasure  and  to  understand,  when 
he  proceeds  to  speak  of  those  redemption  blessings 
which  meet  all  men's  necessities  as  sinners  and  all 
their  capacities  as  creatures, — the  full  and  irrevocable 
forgiveness  of  sins;  reinstatement  in  the  divine  favour 
and  friendship;  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  his 
enlightening,  purifying,  and  peace-giving  influences, 
turning  men  into  living  temples  of  the  living  God  ; 


MARVELLOUS   EFFECTS.  163 

victory  in  death  and  over  death ;  the  reception  of  the 
ransomed  soul  at  death  into  the  Father's  house,  into 
the  fellowship  of  the  angels  and  the  beatific  vision 
of  God ;  the  resurrection  of  the  body  at  the  end  of  the 
world,  made  like  unto  the  glorified  body  of  Christ, 
and  united  for  ever  to  the  glorified  spirit;  triumphant 
acquittal  at  the  last  judgment,  and  ascension  with 
Christ  and  all  his  redeemed  to  the  heaven  of  heavens, 
where  "  they  shall  for  ever  be  with  the  Lord." 

These  were  the  themes  of  transcendent  interest 
which  enriched  and  glorified  the  preaching  of  Mr. 
Boston,  and  which  made  it  so  mighty  a  power  for 
the  highest  good,  so  that,  at  the  period  of  which  we 
are  now  writing,  there  was  scarcely  a  cottage  home 
in  all  Ettrick  that  did  not  contain  some  of  his  con- 
verts, to  whom  he  could  have  said,  "  What  is  our 
hope,  or  joy,  or  crown  of  rejoicing  ?  Are  not  even  ye 
in  the  presence  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  his  com- 
ing?" To  a  large  extent  Ettrick,  in  this  second 
decade  of  his  ministry,  had  been  transformed  into  a 
garden  of  God. 

And  beyond  all  this,  Mr.  Boston  felt  that  if  he  was 
to  preach  Christ  faithfully  and  fully,  it  was  indispens- 
able that  he  should  present  and  explain  the  moral 
law  to  his  hearers,  not  only  in  its  outward  letter,  but 
in  its  spirituality  and  comprehensiveness,  and  also 
in  its  evanq-elical  sanctions  and  motives.     Was  not 


1 64  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Christ  Prophet  and  King  in  his  church;  and  must  not 
those  who  claimed  to  be  his  followers  be  instructed 
in  the  knowledge  of  the  King's  laws  ?  To  do  this 
was  included  in  Mr.  Boston's  commission  as  a 
Christian  minister,  and,  in  its  own  time  and  place, 
was  to  preach  Christ. 

And  beyond  the  matter  of  his  sermons,  there  were 
characteristic  qualities  in  the  style  and  imagery  in 
which  they  were  clothed,  which  were  fitted  both  to 
arrest  and  to  retain  the  attention  of  his  hearers.  It 
was  not  often  that  he  was  chargeable  with  unnecessary 
divisions  and  subdivisions  which  were  apt  to  perplex 
the  understanding  and  to  overtask  the  memory  of  his 
hearers.  In  general,  his  thoughts  were  arranged  in 
a  succession  of  paragraphs  which  presented  a  con- 
nected and  continuous  train  of  instruction.  And  these 
were  expressed  with  simplicity  and  beauty,  and  with 
an  unfailing  freshness  which  did  not  remind  you  of 
the  lamp,  but  rather  of  the  newly-plucked  flower  from 
the  garden,  with  the  morning  dew  upon  it.  These 
paragraphs  again  were  often  wound  up  with  a  com- 
pact sentence  which  was  proverbial  in  its  point  and 
brevity,  and  seemed  to  gather  into  itself  the  whole 
essence  of  the  passage.  So  that  even  now,  when 
the  whole  sermon  is  read  in  its  unity,  it  is  apt  to  re- 
mind us  of  one  of  the  Ettrick  hills,  smooth  and 
green  to  the  summit,  with  here  and  there  a  daisy  or 


NATURAL   ILLUSTRATIONS.  165 

a  wild  violet   refreshing   the  eye   with   its    modest 
beauty. 

Another  prominent  and  engaging  feature  in  much 
of  Mr.  Boston's  preaching  consisted  in  the  frequency 
and  felicity  with  which  he  drew  his  illustrative 
imagery  from  the  natural  scenery  of  Ettrick  and  the 
social  customs  of  its  people.  This,  when  skilfully 
done,  was  eminently  fitted  both  to  win  the  attention 
and  to  assist  the  understanding  and  the  memories  of 
his  hearers  ;  and  the  practice  has  been  adopted  in 
every  age  by  some  of  the  greatest  and  most  success- 
ful preachers.  It  is  one  way  of  bringing  home  the 
truth  to  the  business  and  bosoms  of  men.  How  often 
did  the  divine  Teacher  himself  use  the  scenery  and 
customs  of  Palestine  to  be  the  garment  and  vehicle 
of  his  matchless  and  priceless  lessons,  and  emphati- 
cally in  his  parables,  which  have  made  the  world 
richer  for  all  time.  The  sower  going  forth  to 
sow,  the  tares  mingled  with  the  wheat,  the  shepherd 
going  out  to  search  for  his  lost  sheep,  the  woman 
searching  for  her  lost  piece  of  silver,  the  fishermen 
drawing  their  net  and  separating  the  precious  from 
the  worthless, — these  and  many  more  of  his  every- 
day surroundings  were  employed  by  the  heaven- 
sent Teacher  to  make  the  entrance  of  his  lessons 
into  the  hearts  of  men  the  more  easy,  and  to  secure 
that,    once    there,   they    could    never    be    forgotten, 


1 66  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  so  to  make  the  earthly  do  service  to  the 
heavenly. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  after  the  Civil  War, 
in  one  of  whose  regiments  Jeremy  Taylor  served 
for  a  time  as  chaplain,  his  sermons  drew  much 
of  their  colouring  and  imagery  from  the  camp  and 
the  battlefield. — It  was  similar  with  the  minister  of 
Ettrick.  There  were  few  of  his  sermons  that  did  not,  in 
some  form  or  other,  reflect  and  reveal  his  outward  sur- 
roundings, and  turn  them  to  holy  uses.  The  changes 
in  the  seasons,  the  aspects  of  the  sky,  the  sudden 
thunder  awakening  the  echoes  of  the  everlasting  hills, 
the  sheep  knowing  the  shepherd's  voice,  the  bemisted 
traveller  unable  to  find  his  way,  the  sheep  buried  in 
the  snow,  the  shelter  of  the  sheepfold,  the  market 
and  the  fair  with  their  bargainings  and  contentions, 
— these  and  many  other  outward  things  were  used 
by  him  as  garments  to  enrobe  spiritual  truth  or  to 
point  a  moral  lesson,  and,  as  it  were,  made  "  to  pay 
tithes  to  the  ministry." 

We  are  led  to  conclude  from  some  incidental  hints, 
that  in  the  earlier  periods  of  his  ministry  Mr.  Boston 
had  fastidiously  abstained,  even  after  long  intervals, 
from  preaching  sermons  to  his  people  which  he  had 
formerly  addressed  to  them.  Whether  his  reason 
for  this  was  the  groundless  fear  that  he  might  be 
suspected  of  indolence  by  such  an  indulgence,  or  an 


REPETITION    OF   SERMONS.  167 

unwillingness  to  act  thus  in  the  face  of  an  unreason- 
able prejudice  on  the  part  of  some  of  his  hearers,  it 
would  not  be  easy  to  determine.  But  as  he  advanced 
in  years,  he  became  less  scrupulous,  especially  when 
his  health  was  impaired  and  study  had  become  for 
the  time  a  weariness,  and  he  allowed  his  people  to 
taste  some  of  "  the  old  wine."  And  he  was  encour- 
aged in  this  somewhat  rare  indulgence  when,  on 
a  certain  sacramental  occasion,  he  first  preached 
a  newly-written  sermon,  and  at  a  later  hour  of 
the  same  day  an  old  sermon  selected  from  his  large 
bundle  of  manuscripts,  and  he  found  that  the  latter 
was  the  more  appreciated  of  the  two  by  his  hearers. 
"  That,"  says  he,  "  was  it  which  the  Lord  made  the 
most  sweet  to  the  people  and  to  me."  It  did  not 
occur  to  the  tenderly  scrupulous  minister  that  in 
preaching  the  same  sermon  from  his  Ettrick  pulpit, 
after  a  considerable  interval  of  years,  he  was  really 
not  preaching  to  his  old  congregation,  and  that  by 
a  large  proportion  of  his  listeners  it  was  heard  for 
the  first  time.  Besides,  he  had  sanction  for  such 
judicious  repetition  in  the  words  of  an  apostle,  when 
he  well  knew  that  the  cause  was  not  indolence  or 
self-indulgence,  but  the  need  of  relief  from  an  excess 
of  mental  toil  and  strain,  lest  the  bow  being  too  long 
bent  should  break  ;  for  "  to  write  the  same  things 
unto  you,  to  me  indeed  is  not  grievous,  but  for  you 


168  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

it  is  safe."  Moreover,  a  sermon  when  so  repeated 
after  a  considerable  lapse  of  years,  is  likely  to  gather 
into  it  new  thoughts  derived  from  new  experiences. 
The  language  of  Mr.  Fuller  on  this  subject  is  marked 
by  his  wonted  wit  and  wisdom,  and  was  probably 
meant,  not  only  as  a  suggestion  to  others,  but  as 
a  vindication  of  his  own  practice.  These  are  his 
words : — 

"  As  for  our  minister,  he  preferreth  rather  to  enter- 
tain his  people  with  wholesome  cold  meat  which  was 
on  the  table  before,  than  with  that  which  is  hot  from 
the  spit,  raw  and  half-roasted.  Yet  in  repetition  of 
the  same  sermon,  every  edition  hath  a  new  addition, 
if  not  of  new  matter,  of  new  affections.  '  Of  whom,' 
saith  St.  Paul,  '  we  have  told  you  ofte7i,  and  now  we 
tell  you  weeping.' " 

We  have  yet  to  look  at  Mr.  Boston  in  the  pulpit. 
It  was  often  noticed  by  his  family  and  others  that  he 
always  lingered  long  in  his  study  on  the  morning  of 
the  Lord's  day ;  and  they  well  knew  the  reason. 
He  was  preaching  his  sermon  to  his  own  heart 
before  he  went  forth  to  preach  it  to  his  people  ;  and 
he  was  wrestling  hard  in  earnest  and  continuous  sup- 
plication for  that  almighty  help  without  which  even 
the  preaching  of  the  true  evangel  was  impotent. 

We  know  of  only  two  ministers  in  Scotland  at  that 
period  whose  preaching  was  equally  owned  and  hon- 


NATURAL   GIFTS.  169 

oured  of  God  with  Mr.  Boston's,  and  these  were 
Ralph  and  Ebenezer  Erskine,  whose  names  occupy 
an  honoured  place  in  Scottish  Church  history  ;  and 
whose  sermons  are  still  to  be  seen  in  stately  folios  in 
the  libraries  of  our  older  ministers,  and,  dressed  in 
the  garb  of  the  Dutch  language,  in  many  of  the 
rustic  homes  and  congregational  libraries  of  Hol- 
land. 

His  natural  gifts  as  a  preacher  must  not  be  left 
by  us  unnoticed.  In  his  countenance  there  was  the 
mingled  expression  of  majesty  and  benignity  ;  and 
this,  when  lighted  up  by  the  kindling  emotions  pro- 
duced by  the  sacred  themes  on  which  he  spoke, 
attracted  and  retained  the  attention  of  his  hearers. 
And  his  fine  musical  voice,  which  had  been  trained 
in  his  youth,  increased  the  effect  of  his  speaking, 
and  made  it  pleasant  for  the  crowding  multitudes  to 
listen  ;  while  the  rare  and  beautiful  figures  in  which 
he  often  clothed  his  thoughts  and  emotions  added 
another  charm  to  his  oratory. 

But  all  these  qualities  and  gifts,  so  valuable  in 
their  own  place,  would  have  failed  in  the  great  and 
paramount  end  of  the  Christian  ministry  had  they 
been  alone.  The  message  of  the  gospel  in  some  of 
its  many  grand  aspects  must  be  the  theme  of  the 
preacher,  and  his  own  heart  must  be  in  sympathy 
with   it,  if  he   is   to   be    the  instrument  of  winning 


I70  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

souls  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  eloquent 
preacher  without  the  gospel  may  attract  multitudes, 
but  his  eloquence  alone  will  never  save  a  soul.  But 
in  the  union  of  these  two  qualities  in  his  weekly 
ministry,  we  have  the  secret  of  Mr.  Boston's  great 
success.  In  those  happy  days  of  which  we  are 
writing,  there  was  scarcely  a  Sabbath  in  which 
he  did  not  receive  the  welcome  tidings  of  some 
instance  of  the  highest  form  of  blessing  in  the  con- 
version of  hearers.  Scarcely  did  the  gospel  net 
ever  come  up  empty.  The  people  hung  upon  the 
preacher's  lips.  So  rapt  was  the  attention  that  every 
sound  was  hushed  into  silence  but  that  one  pleading 
voice.  There  was  not  only  influence  but  fascination. 
Flow  different  was  all  this  from  Mr.  Boston's  experi- 
ence at  the  beginning  of  his  ministry  in  Ettrick, 
when  he  was  often  hindered  in  his  preaching  by 
many  of  his  people  walking  out,  without  reason  or 
excuse  while  he  was  speaking ;  giving  utterance  to 
all  manner  of  uncouth  sounds,  and  to  loud  conver- 
sation and  laughter  afterwards  around  the  church 
door.  But  in  these  later  times  a  change  had  come 
which  was  not  of  earth.  And  all  Ettrick  owned 
its  benignant  power.  Had  one  followed  the  people 
to  their  homes,  after  those  holy  services  which  we 
have  been  describing,  he  would  have  found  them,  ere 
long,  breaking  up  into  little  companies  for  conversa- 


REMARKABLE    INCIDENT.  171 

tion  on  the  sermons  to  which  they  had  listened  and 
of  which  their  hearts  were  full,  and  helping '  each 
other's  memories  for  the  better  storing  up  of  the 
lessons  of  the  day.  And  then  they  would  find  that 
the  "  heads  "  and  "  particulars  "  into  which  the  earnest 
preacher  had  arranged  his  instructions  had  not  been 
without  their  uses,  but  had  been  as  hooks  by  which 
the  better  to  recover  and  retain  what  they  had  heard. 
There  was  one  remarkable  incident  which  re- 
peatedly occurred  in  connection  with  Mr.  Boston's 
preaching,  and  which  revealed  much  in  regard  to 
his  pulpit  influence  and  power.  At  the  sacramental 
services  in  those  times,  which,  as  we  have  seen, 
drew  many  thousands  together  and  extended  over 
the  greater  part  of  the  sacred  day,  it  was  common 
and  even  necessary  to  have  many  ministers  engaged, 
who  should  preach  in  rotation,  the  one  after  the 
other.  Of  course,  Mr.  Boston  had  his  full  share 
assigned  to  him  in  these  services.  But,  again  and 
again,  after  he  had  preached,  the  minister  whose 
turn  it  was  to  succeed  him  in  the  pulpit  refused  to 
ascend  and  occupy  his  empty  place.  And  when  he 
was  asked  to  state  his  reason  for  this  unwonted 
course,  his  answer  was  that  the  impression  made 
by  Mr.  Boston's  sermon  had  been  so  great,  that 
he  was  afraid  and  unwilling  to  follow  him,  lest  he 
should  unwittingly  undo  the  blessing. 


172  THOMAS    BOSTON. 

I  must  refer  in  this  connection  to  the  extent  to 
which  Mr.  Boston's  incessant  labours  as  a  pastor 
contributed  to  the  power  and  influence  of  his  preach- 
ing. Those  words  of  Paul  to  the  elders  of  Ephesus, 
so  full  of  holy  wisdom  and  melting  tenderness,  every 
sentence  touching  a  chord  in  their  bosoms,  might 
have  been  spoken  by  the  minister  of  Ettrick  to  his 
parishioners,  though  his  reference  embraced  in  it  a 
much  longer  ministry :  "  I  have  shewed  you,  and 
have  taught  you  publicly,  and  from  house  to  house. 
I  ceased  not  to  warn  you  night  and  day  with  tears." 
It  is  when  we  see  these  two  parts  of  his  ministry  com- 
bined and  co-operating,  preaching  and  pastoral  visita- 
tion, 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.  Those  tears  of  sympathy  watered  the  good  seed 
of  the  word  which  he  had  sown.  Those  home  visits, 
winning  their  affections  and  their  confidence,  invested 
his  preaching  with  a  double  power,  and  opened  the 
way  for  the  entrance  of  the  word.  "  The  sheep  knew 
their  shepherd's  voice,"  and  followed  him.  As  we 
have  seen,  it  had  been  the  same  "in  measure"  at 
Simprin.  They  could  not  doubt  the  reality  and 
strength  of  his  love.  And  with  what  grief  and  even 
anguish  did  he  receive  the  unwelcome  intelligence 
of  flagrant  sin  in  the  case  of  any  in  the  flock.     Such 


PASTORAL   WORK.  1 73 

wounds  struck  very  deep.  With  what  sympathy  also 
did  he  hear  of  the  sickness,  or  bereavement,  or 
crushing  disappointment  of  any  of  his  members,  and, 
making  their  trials  his  own,  hasten  to  their  homes, 
however  far  off.  "  Who  was  weak,  and  he  was  not 
weak  ?  Who  was  offended,  and  he  burned  not  ? " 
That  pastor's  heart  was  the  chosen  depository 
of  his  people's  sorrows,  and  cares,  and  joys.  And 
he  knew  the  special  value  of  personal  interviews 
with  individuals  in  his  parish  who  had  come 
into  circumstances  of  peculiar  moral  danger  or  diffi- 
culty, calling  for  counsel,  or  stimulus,  or  warning. 
The  youth  who  was  rising  to  manhood  undecided 
and  without  experience,  was  always  an  object  of  his 
special  interest,  whom  he  would  invite  to  his  manse, 
and  warning  him  against  surrounding  temptations 
and  perils,  urge  him  to  immediate  decision  for 
Christ.  Nor  was  the  backslider  left  unwarned  by  him, 
but  entreated  not  to  lose  his  first  love  ;  and  the  in- 
stances were  not  few  in  which  those  of  his  flock  who 
had  begun  to  wander  from  the  fold  were  brought  back 
with  thanksgivings  and  prayers  and  tears. 

When  his  congregation  saw  him  enter  his  pulpit 
on  the  morning  of  the  Lord's  day,  they  knew  that 
they  were  looking  into  the  countenance  of  one 
who  had  just  come  forth  from  intimate  communion 
with  God,  and  who  was  at  once  God's  ambassador 


174  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  their  friend.  Along  with  his  devout  and  holy 
living,  he  united  in  himself  two  great  influences — 
his  preaching  and  his  pastoral  oversight,  in  which 
he  "  watched  for  souls  as  one  that  must  give  an 
account."  But  the  minister  who  holds  himself  back 
from  the  latter  of  these  functions,  when  it  is  within  his 
power  to  use  it,  is  like  a  man  that  is  content  to  work 
with  only  one  arm.  So  long  as  his  health  continued 
unbroken,  Mr.  Boston  delighted  in  this  part  of  his 
sacred  office,  ready  to  face  storm  and  rain  and  cold 
in  visiting  the  dying  and  the  disconsolate,  even  to  the 
remotest  parts  of  his  parish  ;  and  it  was  only  when 
advancing  years  came,  bringing  with  them  decaying 
health  and  growing  infirmities,  that  he  reluctantly 
obeyed  their  unwelcome  interdict  to  hold  back. 

"  Wide  was  his  parish,  not  contracted 

In  streets,  but  here  and  there  a  straggling  house  ; 
Yet  still  he  was  at  hand  without  regret 
To  serve  the  sick,  or  succour  the  distrest, 
Tempting  on  foot  alone,  without  affright, 
The  danger  of  a  dark  tempestuous  night." 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

HEBREW    STUDIES    AND    FOREIGN    CORRE- 
SPONDENCE. 

IT  has  already  been  mentioned  that,  in  addition  to 
his  regular  studies  in  his  weekly  preparations  for 
his  pulpit,  there  were  two  special  subjects  of  study  to 
which  Mr.  Boston  was  accustomed  frequently  to  turn 
aside,  not  only  as  a  pleasant  diversity  for  study,  but 
for  self-improvement  and  the  enrichment  of  his 
ministry.  The  origin  of  one  of  these  is  easily  ac- 
counted for.  It  happened  not  unfrequently,  especially 
in  his  early  years  at  Simprin,  that  in  the  course  of  his 
usual  studies  for  his  Sabbath  teachings,  questions 
would  arise  which  perplexed  as  well  as  interested  him 
at  the  moment — theological  problems  which  were 
new  to  him,  but  which  required  more  of  thought  and 
reading  and  prayer  satisfactorily  to  answer,  than  he 
could  give  to  them  at  the  moment.  These  he  did 
not  cast  aside,  but  took  careful  note  of  them,  that  he 
might  turn  to  them  with  avidity  and  concentrated 


176  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

mental  energy  when  an  opportunity  for  prolonged 
meditation  offered  itself.  In  a  large  volume,  which 
he  called  his  "  Miscellanea,"  he  stated  the  subject 
in  the  form  of  queries,  leaving  an  ample  num- 
ber of  blank  pages  for  recording  the  answer  when 
the  knot  of  difficulty  had  been  untied,  and  for 
stating  the  reasonings  by  which  his  conclusions  had 
been  reached. 

We  give  the  following  examples  of  his  queries  : — 
"  Where  hath  sin  its  lodging-place  in  the  regenerate  ? 
Why  the  Lord  suffereth  sin  to  remain  in  the  regene- 
rate?" It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  how  questions 
like  these  must  have  multiplied  in  the  hands  of  the 
earnest  student  in  those  earlier  years  of  his  ministry, 
and  how  the  "Miscellanea"  did  not  long  remain  a 
blank  book,  especially  when  we  remember  that,  in  his 
young  ministry,  he  did  not  possess  a  single  com- 
mentary on  the  Bible,  and  his  other  books,  which  lay 
on  his  few  half-furnished  shelves,  might  have  been 
counted  and  catalogued  in  a  few  minutes.  This, 
however,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  all  disadvantage, 
for  the  lack  of  books  threw  him  back  the  more  upon 
his  personal  resources,  and  accustomed  him  to  inde- 
pendent thinking  ;  and  the  prize  of  knowledge,  when 
it  was  won  by  him  after  this  fashion,  was  doubly 
precious.  We  may  imagine  him,  many  years  after- 
wards in  Ettrick,  turning  over  those  difficulties  in 


A   THEOLOGICAL   PROBLEM.  1 77 

earnest  devout  thought  in  his  long  walks  in  its  glens 
or  upon  its  hillsides,  and  also  in  his  meditations  during 
the  night  watches.  The  queries,  with  the  answers, 
were  not  published  in  Mr.  Boston's  lifetime;  but  they 
were  edited,  at  some  interval  after  his  death,  by  his 
son,  when  he  had  become  a  minister  in  Jedburgh. 

The  answers  to  the  two  queries  which  we  have 
named  cover  together  thirty  closely-printed  pages. 
The  reasoning  is  masterly,  ingenious,  and  fresh  as 
newly-plucked  flowers.  And  it  is  pleasant,  while  we 
read,  to  trace  his  footsteps  into  light,  and  to  feel  that 
one  theological  problem  more  had  been  set  to  rest. 
We  quote  the  closing  paragraph  in  his  elaborate  an- 
swer to  the  question,  "  Why  the  Lord  suffers  sin  to 
remain  in  the  regenerate  ?  "  "  Finally,  to  shut  up  all,  it 
is  plain  that  the  more  difficulties  the  work  of  man's  sal- 
vation is  carried  through,  the  free  grace  of  God  is  the 
more  exalted — our  Lord  Jesus,  the  author  of  eternal 
salvation,  hath  the  greater  glory.  But  in  this  way  it 
is  carried  on  over  the  belly  of  more  difficulties  than  it 
would  have  been  if,  by  the  first  grace,  the  Christian 
had  been  made  perfect.  And  seeing  none  can  prize 
rest  so  much  as  they  who  have  sore  toiled,  and  have 
come  out  of  the  greatest  tribulations,  I  think  I  may 
be  allowed  to  say  that  a  child  of  God,  having  come 
to  his  journey's  end,  after  so  many  ups  and  downs, 
falls  and  risings,  having  won  through  the  trouble- 

12 


178  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

some  sea  of  this  world,  and  being  set  safe  ashore  after 
so  many  dangers  of  shipwreck  in  a  longsome  voyage, 
will  have  the  praises  of  free  grace  in  his  mouth 
sounding  more  loudly,  and  will  sing  the  song  of 
Moses  and  the  Lamb  in  a  more  elevated  strain  and 
higher  notes,  than  if  he  had  never  been  in  danger 
through  the  whole  of  his  course.  From  all  which  it 
appears  that  this  dispensation  is  most  suitable  to  the 
grand  design  of  the  gospel,  exalting  the  riches  of 
true  free  grace  in  Christ.  And  what  lover  of  Christ 
will  not  say,  Amen  ?  " 

Another  subject  of  study  which  eagerly  engaged 
Mr.  Boston's  thoughts  alongside  of  his  weekly  pre- 
parations for  his  pulpit,  was  the  Hebrew  Bible,  with 
the  grammar  and  structure  of  the  Hebrew  language. 
It  has  already  been  mentioned  that  a  copy  of  the 
Old  Testament  in  its  original  tongue  came  early  into 
his  hands,  in  his  young  and  happy  days  at  Simprin ; 
and  almost  from  the  beginning  he  became  deeply 
interested  in  it ;  and  all  through  his  ministerial  life 
it  continued  to  be  the  almost  daily  pasture-ground  of 
his  intellect  and  heart.  It  was  like  a  fountain  which 
had  been  suddenly  opened  at  his  feet,  and  which 
flowed  on  alongside  of  his  daily  path.  The  fact  that 
the  Hebrew  Bible  was  written  in  the  very  language 
in  which  God  had  communicated  with  men  through 
patriarchs,  and   kings,  and  prophets  in   the  earlier 


HEBREW   STUDIES.  1 79 

revelation,  and  in  which  the  moral  law  had  been  con- 
veyed by  the  hands  of  Moses  from  the  summits  of 
the  thunder-riven  Sinai,  gave  to  it,  in  his  estimate, 
a  peculiar  and  sacred  fascination.  We  find  him,  in 
his  diary  and  letters,  calling  the  Hebrew  the  "  holy 
tongue,"  and  speaking  of  it  as  his  "  darling  study." 

It  was  natural  that  he  should  begin  his  systematic 
reading  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  with  the  Book  of 
Genesis,  and  he  was  not  slow  to  acknowledge  that 
he  was  amply  rewarded  from  the  first  by  the  new 
light  which  it  flashed  upon  many  a  sentence  in  the 
English  version,  the  Hebrew  vocables  being  in  many 
instances  "  word  pictures."  These  discoveries  made 
him  happier  for  the  day,  and  were  laid  up  by  him  in 
store  for  future  use.  In  his  riper  ministry  he  seldom 
preached  from  a  text  in  the  Old  Testament,  without 
previously  examining  the  Hebrew  original,  making 
it  contribute  to  the  freshness  and  fulness  of  his 
instructions. 

It  was  not  many  years  after  he  had  begun  the 
systematic  study  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  that 
Cross's  "Tagmical  Art"  came  into  his  hands;  and  the 
book  with  its  novelty  of  thought  introduced  a  new 
subject  of  inquiry  and  element  of  interest  into  this 
branch  of  sacred  learning.  One  prominent  topic 
was  the  accents  in  the  Hebrew  text,  which  had 
usually  been  regarded  as  helps  to  the  pronunciation 


l8o  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

of  the  words  and  nothing  more,  and  as  fitted  to 
produce  a  pleasant  uniformity  in  this  respect.  But 
the  author  of  the  "  Tagmical  Art "  contended  for 
the  divine  original  and  authority  of  those  accents — 
that  they  were  as  old  as  the  words  of  the  Bible, 
given  also  by  divine  inspiration,  and  had  to  do 
not  only  with  the  sound  but  with  the  sense  of  the 
Scriptures. 

Mr.  Boston  was  greatly  interested  by  this  theory, 
and,  from  the  beginning,  regarded  it  with  favour ; 
not  only  because  of  the  ingenuity  and  plausibility 
of  some  of  its  arguments,  but  also  because  he  per- 
suaded himself  that  if  it  could  be  satisfactorily 
established,  it  would  both  add  to  the  contents  and 
value  of  the  Bible,  and  shed  welcome  light  upon  not 
a  few  passages  whose  meaning  was  now  dark  or 
doubtful.  We  find  him  writing  to  Sir  Richard  Ellys, 
an  accomplished  English  scholar,  and  a  devout  man, 
in  such  glowing  and  sanguine  terms  as  the  following: 
"  Through  the  divine  favour  falling  on  the  scent,  I 
was  carried  into  the  belief  of  the  divine  original  and 
authority  of  that  accentuation  as  stigmatological, 
seeing  glaring  evidence  of  the  same  in  my  reading 
of  the  sacred  Hebrew  text,  shining  by  means  thereof 
in  its  own  intrinsic  light."  Again:  "  A  happy  expli- 
cation or  genuine  representation  of  the  nature  of  the 
accentuation  of  the  Hebrew  Bible,  in  its  natural  and 


CONTINENTAL   CORRESPONDENCE.  l8l 

artless  contrivance,  is  the  only  thing  wanting  to  pro- 
cure it  the  same  awful  regard  with  the  other  parts  of 
the  sacred  text." 

His  enthusiasm  on  this  subject  brought  him  into 
correspondence  with  some  of  the  most  distinguished 
Biblical  scholars  on  the  European  continent,  many  of 
whom  regarded  the  discussion  not  only  with  interest 
but  with  favour,  sincerely  hoping  that  the  evidence 
might  be  so  convincing  as  to  warrant  their  taking 
their  place  on  the  side  of  the  Scottish  divine.  Among 
those  friendly  onlookers  and  inquirers  were  such 
eminent  Dutch  scholars  as  Schultens  and  Gronovius 
at  Leyden,  and  Loftus  at  Rotterdam.  The  better 
to  facilitate  intellectual  intercourse  and  a  comparison 
of  views,  Mr.  Boston  not  only  wrote  an  essay  of 
considerable  length  on  the  divine  origin  and  au- 
thority of  the  accents,  but  translated  it  into  Latin, 
which  in  those  days  was  the  common  language  of 
learned  divines ;  in  this  way  the  better  securing 
against  his  being  misunderstood,  and  widening  the 
interest  by  largely  increasing  the  number  of  readers. 
The  solid  learning  of  the  Scottish  minister,  writing 
from  amid  the  obscurity  of  his  Scottish  mountains, 
and  the  ingenuity  of  his  reasonings,  along  with  his 
modesty  and  outshining  piety,  charmed  his  readers 
and  prepossessed  them  in  favour  of  his  views  ;  while 
the  great  issues  in  connection  with  the  interpretation 


1 82  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

of  Scripture  which  they  anticipated,  if  he  should 
succeed  in  justifying  his  convictions  on  the  divine 
inspiration  of  the  accents,  made  them  wish  for  his 
success.  There  were  many  friendly  onlookers  candid 
in  their  doubts,  but  pausing  for  the  weight  that 
would  turn  the  scale. 

One  of  his  most  attached  and  scholarly  friends 
writes  to  him  in  these  encouraging  words  :  "  If  your 
essay  on  the  Hebrew  accentuation  succeeds,  it  is  a 
glorious  work.  Has  Providence  directed  you  to 
rules  for  ascertaining  the  sense  of  Scripture,  or  at 
least  for  reducing  it  in  some  good  measure  to  a 
greater  certainty  than  heretofore  ?  For  my  own  part, 
I  had  rather  be  the  author  of  such  a  book  than  mas- 
ter of  the  Indies.  The  very  failing  in  an  attempt  of 
this  nature  has  its  merit. 

'  Magnis  tamen  excidit  ausis,' 

you  know  is  given  as  no  mean  character." 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that,  at  some  time  during 
Mr.  Boston's  correspondence  with  those  foreign  theo- 
logians, his  "Fourfold  State,"  which  had  already  borne 
a  new  life  into  myriads  of  homes  in  the  southern 
and  eastern  counties  of  Scotland,  had  found  its  way 
among  the  divines  and  pastors  of  Germany  and 
Holland,  and  through  them  among  the  people.  It 
is  not  improbable  that  copies  may  have  been  sent, 
in  the  first  instance,  by  the  author  himself.     At  all 


THE  "FOURFOLD  STATE"  ABROAD.     1 83 

events,  we  have  the  testimony  of  letters  written  to 
him  that  it  was  read  by  many  with  lively  interest 
and  permanent  benefit.  The  free  and  full-orbed 
gospel  which  it  presented  as  the  message  of  heaven's 
love  to  every  human  being,  and  the  warmth  and 
pleading  earnestness  with  which  it  was  conveyed, 
unlike  the  cold  and  philosophic  stateliness  which 
was  too  much  the  characteristic  of  modern  books  of 
divinity  in  those  days,  made  readers  feel  that  they 
were  brought  into  contact  with  matters,  not  of  mere 
speculation  or  dialectic  discussion,  but  of  supreme 
personal  interest  to  themselves.  Holy  earnestness 
pulsed  in  every  sentence,  and  those  who  read  could 
not  remain  indifferent.  It  was  acknowledged  by 
many,  with  glowing  gratitude,  that  Mr.  Boston's 
"  Fourfold  State "  had  introduced  them  to  clearer 
views  of  the  great  central  doctrines  of  saving  truth, 
and  made  plainer  to  them  the  way  of  life.  His  pre- 
cious life-book  met  a  great  and  clamant  necessity. 
God  loved  them,  and  so  loved  them  as  to  give  his 
only  begotten  Son  for  their  redemption.  It  did  for 
multitudes  in  those  foreign  lands  in  theological 
schools  and  in  the  homes  of  the  common  people, 
what  his  own  reading  of  the  "  Marrow"  had  done  so 
long  ago  in  the  soldier's  cottage  at  Simprin  for  himself. 
In  the  course  of  time,  as  was  natural,  the  corre- 
spondence between  the  good  Ettrick  pastor  and  those 


1 84  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Continental  scholars  slackened  and  ultimately  ceased, 
partly  because  of  his  impaired  health,  and  his  occupa- 
tion with  engrossing  controversies  and  ecclesiastical 
troubles,  which  had  begun  to  show  themselves  at  home. 
Meanwhile,  in  passing  from  this  subject,  it  may 
be  remarked  that  had  Mr.  Boston  been  acquainted 
with  facts  which  came  into  notice  at  a  somewhat 
later  period,  he  would  not  have  committed  himself 
with  so  much  confidence  and  enthusiasm  to  the 
opinion  that  the  accents  formed  part  of  the  Old 
Testament  revelation  from  the  beginning,  were 
given  by  divine  inspiration  along  with  the  other 
parts  of  the  Hebrew  text,  possessed  equal  authority, 
and  formed  part  of  the  Old  Testament  canon  when 
it  was  completed.  But  scholars  by-and-by  arose 
who  hesitated,  and  at  length  found  themselves  shut 
up  by  increasing  knowledge  to  the  denial  of  the 
inspiration  of  the  Hebrew  accents.  They  argued, 
that  if  those  accents  formed  an  essential  part  of 
the  text  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  from  the  begin- 
ning, how  was  it  that  in  looking  into  the  writ- 
ings of  the  early  Christian  fathers,  such  as  Jerome, 
Origen,  and  others,  in  many  of  which  they  quote 
profusely  from  the  Hebrew  Bible,  those  accents  are 
uniformly  absent  and  unknown  ?  There  seemed 
only  one  answer  to  this  question — namely,  that  they 
did  not  then  exist.     Another  fact  is  equally  signifi- 


THE   HEBREW   ACCENTS.  1 85 

cant  and  conclusive,  that  the  copies  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  which  are  read  in  the  Jewish  synagogues 
are  the  oldest  in  the  world,  and  their  completeness 
and  purity  have  all  along  been  guarded  with  the  ut- 
most veneration  and  jealousy,  even  to  the  minutest 
jot  or  tittle  ;  and  in  these  again  we  look  in  vain  for 
the  accents. 

The  most  probable  account  of  their  origin  and 
uses  has  been  given  by  the  Jews  themselves,  who, 
speaking  by  the  Rabbi  Elias  Sevita,  ascribe  the  in- 
vention of  the  accents  to  the  doctors  of  Tiberias 
in  the  fifth  century  of  the  Christian  era  ;  and  this 
judgment  has  been  confirmed  by  the  most  learned 
Rabbins.  They  further  inform  us  that  these  ac- 
cents were  never  meant  to  take  their  place  as  a 
part  of  the  Hebrew  text,  but  to  give  direction  and 
uniformity  in  the  pronunciation  of  the  words.  They 
were  mere  human  aids  introduced  for  convenience, 
which  meddled  in  no  degree  with  the  sense  but  with 
the  sound  of  the  words  which  had  been  given  by 
inspiration  of  God.  We  may  be  certain  that  more 
than  one  of  these  facts  were  unknown  to  this  saintly 
man  ;  and  that,  if  he  had  known  them,  he  would  not 
have  spoken  and  written  in  assertion  of  the  antiquity 
and  inspiration  of  the  accents,  with  the  confidence 
and  persistent  zeal  which  marked  his  conversation 
and  correspondence  on  the  subject.      The  thought 


1 86  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

of  an  addition  being  virtually  made  to  the  text 
of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures,  and  new  facili- 
ties being  discovered  for  interpreting  their  meaning, 
dazzled  his  imagination,  and  almost  made  him  wish 
to  live  longer  that  he  might  help  in  bringing  the  un- 
told treasures  to  light.  He  and  those  of  his  learned 
contemporaries  who  thought  along  with  him  were 
like  men  working  in  a  mine  of  gold,  who  imagined 
that  they  had  come  upon  a  new  vein  which  would 
immeasurably  add  to  their  riches.  It  was  a  fond 
imagination  which  appealed  to  some  of  their  most 
sacred  instincts,  and  it  died  hard.  But  the  consensus 
of  later  generations  has  gone  against  it,  and  at  length 
it  has  passed  away,  "  like  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
vision." 


CHAPTER    IX. 

GATHERING   CLOUDS — ERROR   BEGINS   TO   LIFT  ITS 
HEAD — THE   GOSPEL   MUTILATED. 

IN  Mr.  Boston's  own  parish  of  Ettrick,  peace  and 
religious  prosperity  had  long  reigned.  It  was 
like  a  carefully  watched  and  well  cultivated  garden, 
and  the  affection  and  reverence  of  the  people  had 
increased  with  their  pastor's  years.  But  when  he 
looked  forth  beyond  the  circuit  of  those  green  hills, 
there  were  not  wanting  signs  and  incidents  to  awaken 
his  anxiety  and  alarm. 

Defection  in  doctrine,  creeping  like  a  leprous 
taint,  was  becoming  in  various  forms  more  aggra- 
vated and  pronounced  in  the  teaching  of  positive 
and  perilous  error.  In  17 17,  Professor  Simson,  the 
lecturer  in  theology  in  the  university  of  Glasgow, 
was  charged  at  the  bar  of  the  General  Assembly 
with  the  teaching  of  several  unscriptural  tenets  which 
savoured  of  Pelagianism  ;  and  although  the  charge 
was  proved,  the  censure  of  the  Assembly  amounted 


1 88  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

only  to  a  gentle  hint  "  to  be  careful  of  his  language." 
About  the  same  time,  Professor  Campbell,  of  the 
sister  university  of  St.  Andrews,  when  it  was  shown 
that  he  had  vented  errors  of  an  even  darker  hue,  was 
treated  with  a  similar  unfaithful  daintiness. 

Mr.  Boston  was  not  slow  to  predict,  at  the  time,  that 
such  inadequate  discipline  on  the  part  of  those  who 
were  the  appointed  guardians  of  the  church's  faith  and 
purity,  instead  of  deterring,  was  likely  to  encourage 
to  bolder  heresies.  And  his  words  were  prophecies. 
For,  after  the  lapse  of  several  years,  it  was  found 
that  by  that  time  Professor  Simson  had  so  far  di- 
verged from  "the  faith  once  delivered  unto  the  saints" 
as  even  to  have  called  in  question,  in  his  lectures  to 
his  students,  the  supreme  divinity  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ,  the  foundation  truth  of  Christianity  as  well  as 
of  Christian  hope  ;  and  instead  of  dismissing  the  be- 
trayer of  his  sacred  trust  from  his  office  and  deposing 
him  from  his  ministry,  as  the  majority  of  presbyteries 
in  the  church  had  recommended  to  be  done,  the 
General  Assembly  satisfied  itself  with  suspending 
him,  in  the  meantime,  from  the  discharge  of  his 
ecclesiastical  functions,  which  left  him  to  enjoy  all  the 
emoluments  of  his  office.  The  supreme  gravity  of 
these  dealings  consisted  in  the  fact  that  the  men  who 
were  treated  with  such  guilty  leniency  were  the  per- 
sons to  whom  had  been  entrusted  the  training  of  the 


SOLEMN    PROTEST.  1 89 

future  ministers  of  the  church  ;  and  that  a  censure  so 
utterly  inadequate  on  the  part  of  the  rulers  revealed 
a  widespread  indifference  to  Christian  truths  even 
the  most  vital,  or  a  secret  sympathy  with  what  had 
been  so  timidly  condemned.  The  wound  was  filmed 
over  with  plaster  when  the  surgeon's  amputating 
knife  was  needed.  Let  us  at  once  follow  this  part  of 
the  story  to  its  end. 

On  this  momentous  occasion,  which  tried  men's 
hearts,  there  was  only  one  man  who  had  courage 
enough  to  stand  up  and  utter  his  solemn  and  indig- 
nant protest  against  this  action  of  the  Assembly ;  and 
this  solitary  man,  reminding  us  of  Athanasius  of  old 
in  the  Council  of  Nice,  was  Thomas  Boston  of  Et- 
trick.  Rising  with  a  solemn  majesty  that  became 
him,  and  inspired  with  that  fear  of  God  which  de- 
livers from  every  other  fear,  he  entered  his  dissent  in 
the  following  words  which  made  many  around  him 
quail :  "  I  cannot  help  thinking,  Moderator,  that  the 
cause  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  to  the  great  and  essential 
point  of  his  supreme  deity,  is  at  the  bar  of  the  As- 
sembly requiring  justice  ;  and  as  I  am  shortly  to 
answer  at  His  bar  for  all  that  I  say  or  do,  I  cannot 
give  my  assent  to  the  decision  of  this  act.  On  the 
contrary,  I  find  myself  obliged  to  offer  a  protest 
against  it.  And  therefore,  in  my  own  name,  and  in 
the  name  of  all  that  shall  adhere  to  me,  and,  if  none 


190  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

here  will,  for  myself  alone,  I  crave  leave  to  enter  my 
dissent  against  the  decision  of  this  act." 

Timidity  rather  than  treachery  or  indifference,  a 
desire  to  maintain  an  outward  semblance  of  peace, 
and  perhaps  also  a  fear  to  incur  the  displeasure  of 
those  ecclesiastical  rulers  who  sat  there  in  their 
"  pride  of  place,"  must  be  held  as  explaining  the  un- 
worthy silence  of  many  of  Mr.  Boston's  brethren  on 
this  occasion,  who  held  themselves  aloof  from  him 
when  they  should  have  been  found  standing  at  his 
side,  sharing  the  responsibility  of  his  protest,  and 
ready,  at  all  hazards,  to  put  honour  upon  Him  whose 
"  name  was  above  every  name."  They  lost  a  grand 
opportunity  of  testifying  their  fidelity  to  Him  who 
had  promised  to  those  who  confessed  him  before 
men,  that  "  He  would  confess  them  before  his  Father 
and  his  angels."  And,  no  doubt,  their  conscience  was 
not  long  in  telling  them  this,  when  it  arose  in  their 
bosoms  like  an  armed  man.  It  is  recorded  that  their 
recollection  of  this  scene,  and  of  their  failure  in  duty 
in  the  testing  hour,  haunted  the  death-beds  of  many 
of  those  brethren,  and  though  it  did  not  extinguish 
their  hope,  it  disturbed  their  peace.  In  an  epitaph 
on  Mr.  Boston,  written  by  Ralph  Erskine,  his  faith- 
ful friend  and  fellow-witness  for  the  truth,  reference 
is  made  to  this  heroic  act,  when  he  seemed  to  stand 
alone,  "  faithful  found  among  the  faithless  :  " — 


ANXIOUS   FOREBODINGS.  I91 

f<  The  great,  the  grave,  judicious  Boston's  gone, 
Who  once,  like  Athanasius  bold,  stood  firm  alone  ; 
Whose  golden  pen  to  future  times  will  bear 
His  name,  till  in  the  clouds  his  Lord  appear." 

Years  before  this  event,  the  heart  of  Mr.  Boston 
had  also  begun  to  be  grieved  and  filled  with 
anxious  forebodings,  because  of  the  negative  style 
of  preaching  which  was  becoming  fashionable  in 
many  of  the  pulpits  of  the  Scottish  Church,  especi- 
ally among  its  younger  ministers.  I  mean  by  this, 
that  while  none  of  the  great  truths  of  our  religion 
were  directly  denied  or  even  questioned  by  those 
ministers,  they  were  held  back,  and  something  else 
was  substituted  in  their  place  which  did  not  con- 
tain that  vitalizing  power  by  which  God  converts 
men  and  brings  them  within  the  kingdom  of  the 
saved.  They  preferred  to  linger  in  the  outer  court 
of  the  temple,  and  seldom  turned  their  gaze  to  the 
inner  shrine  in  which  the  glory  dwelt.  They  did 
not  regard  the  divine  injunction,  "  first  to  make  the 
tree  good,  and  then  the  fruit  would  be  good."  They 
were  strangers  to  the  divine  method  of  creating  men 
anew,  which  was  to  begin  with  the  heart,  and  then 
to  work  out  from  it  upon  the  whole  circumference  of 
the  outward  life.  Moral  precepts  were  coldly  stated, 
not  unfrequently  in  elegant  sentences  ;  but  nothing 
was  said  of  those  evangelical  motives  which  win  and 


192  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

bind  the  heart  to  Christ,  and  which,  constraining  to 
a  loving  service,  make  his  yoke  "  easy  and  his  burden 
light."  They  seemed  to  be  more  concerned  about 
the  beauty  of  the  vessel  than  about  the  nutritious 
qualities  of  the  food  contained  in  it.  That  secret 
power  which,  under  the  preaching  of  such  earnest 
men  as  Knox,  and  Henderson,  and  Rutherford,  had 
roused  multitudes  to  repentance  and  kindled  within 
them  a  new  life,  was  not  there ;  their  "  drowsy  tink- 
lings  lulled  their  flocks  to  sleep,"  and  the  people 
went  home  empty  and  unblest,  to  indulge  their 
former  worldliness,  perhaps  to  hug  their  old  sins. 

There  was  another  mode  of  preaching  not  un- 
known in  those  days,  which,  though  it  did  not  aim 
to  destroy  the  gospel,  tended  to  mutilate  it,  to  mar 
its  power,  and  to  dim  its  glory,  the  thought  of  which 
had  many  a  time  made  the  heart  of  our  earnest 
pastor  sad,  as  he  sat  and  mused  in  his  mountain 
home.  I  refer  to  those  who  denied  the  free,  unlimited 
offer  of  Christ  in  the  gospel  to  mankind  sinners  as 
such,  and  asserted  that  this  "  deed  of  gift  and  grant " 
was  made  to  the  elect  alone,  or  to  such  as  had  pre- 
vious qualifications  commending  them  above  others. 
What  a  barrier  of  discouragement  and  repulsion  did 
this  place  around  the  fountain  of  life!  The  gospel  in 
the  teaching  of  such  men  was  like  the  glorious  sun 
under  dark  eclipse.     Who  among  the  fallen  sons  of 


DIFFERENT   GOSPELS.  I93 

men  could  know  by  this  means  whether  he  was  invited 
to  the  feast  of  heaven's  love  or  not  ?  How  different 
from  that  gospel, "  in  its  full  round  of  rays  complete," 
which  Mr.  Boston  and  those  who  were  like-minded 
with  him  rejoiced  to  proclaim,  that  "Jesus  Christ 
was  God  the  Father's  deed  of  gift  and  grant  to  the 
whole  human  race."  There  was  no  exception  in  its 
message ;  and  in  sending  it  to  the  world,  it  proved  and 
proclaimed  that  God  loved  the  world.  It  invited 
every  human  being  to  its  warm  embrace.  If  I  were 
travelling  alone  in  an  African  desert,  and  met  one  poor 
naked  savage,  I  would  have  warrant  to  assure  him, 
on  the  authority  of  God's  own  word,  that  there  was 
a  gospel  for  him.  At  the  very  period  of  his  life  of 
which  we  are  now  writing,  and  after  seventeen  years' 
experience  in  holding  forth  this  word  of  life  to  his 
fellow-men,  we  find  Mr.  Boston  writing  thus  :  "  The 
warrant  to  receive  Christ  is  common  to  all.  Though 
I  had  a  voice  like  a  trumpet  that  would  reach  to  the 
corners  of  the  earth,  I  think  I  would  be  bound  by  my 
commission  to  lift  up  my  voice  and  say,  '  Unto  you 
O  men,  I  call,  and  my  voice  is  to  the  sons  of  men.' 
None  are  excluded  but  those  who  exclude  them- 
selves. But  the  convert  of  yesterday  is  the  young 
heir  of  glory." 

And  another  kind  of  teaching,  in  some  respects 
kindred  to  this,  and  with  which  the  gospel  message 

10 
O 


IQ4  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

was  grievously  hampered,  was  connected  with  the 
name  of  Principal  Haddow  of  St.  Andrews,  who 
was  soon  to  come  into  unenviable  prominence 
in  connection  with  approaching  ecclesiastical  con- 
flicts. He  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  a  certain 
amount  of  moral  preparation  on  the  part  of  the 
sinner,  for  receiving  the  gospel  and  entering  on  the 
possession  of  its  priceless  benefits.  The  gospel,  as 
he  taught  it,  did  not  all  at  once  say,  "  Come,"  but, 
"  Wait "  until  you  are  more  deeply  humbled,  and 
have  undergone  a  certain  amount  of  outward  pre- 
paration. This  was  rightly  described  by  Mr.  Boston 
as  a  "  gilded  deceit,"  and  a  "  trick  of  the  enemy  of 
souls  "  to  keep  the  man  back  until  those  temporary 
impressions  had  faded  away  ;  while,  in  the  case  of 
others,  it  tended  to  generate  a  self-righteous  spirit, 
as  if  the  man  were  coming  with  a  price  in  his  hand 
and  trying  to  do  for  himself  what  Christ  was  wait- 
ing to  do  for  him.  To  quote  the  pointed  words  of 
Riccaltoun,  "  Such  preachers  would  have  persons 
whole  before  they  come  to  the  physician,  and  clean 
before  they  come  to  the  fountain." 

At  that  same  period,  the  efficiency  of  the  pulpit 
for  its  supreme  ends  was  greatly  marred,  in  the 
case  of  not  a  few  ministers,  by  their  inadequate 
and  misleading  views  of  what  has  been  fitly  termed 
"the  gospel  method  of  sanctificaticn"     Their  strain 


GOSPEL   METHOD   OF   SANCTIFICATION.       I95 

of  preaching  produced  the  impression  that  the 
attainment  of  a  certain  measure  of  outward  morality 
might  realize  at  length  what  was  meant  by  sancti- 
fication,  and  lift  men  up  to  that  state  of  heart 
and  character  which  this  great  word  in  our  Bible 
theology  describes.  But  the  clear  and  uniform 
teaching  of  Scripture  is  that,  in  every  instance,  the 
first  indispensable  step  towards  sanctification  con- 
sists in  the  man's  being  brought  into  friendly  rela- 
tions with  God — in  other  words,  in  his  "justification 
through  faith  in  the  righteousness  of  Christ  imputed 
to  him."  The  moment  that  this  blessed  change  takes 
place  in  him,  he  becomes  united  to  Christ,  and  is 
made  a  partaker  of  the  renewing  influences  of  his 
Holy  Spirit ;  and  this  justifying  faith  produces  and 
sustains  in  him  that  love  to  God  in  Christ  which  is  the 
root  and  germ  of  all  true  holiness  in  the  heart  and 
life.  And  this  evangelical  holiness  cannot  be  produced 
in  any  other  way.  There  may  be  outward  morality 
and  seemly  acts  of  kindness  without  it,  but  holy  love 
reigning  in  the  heart,  and  working  out  in  holy  serv- 
ice on  the  whole  circumference  of  the  outward  man, 
so  as  to  make  it  evident  that  he  has  been  created 
anew,  and  that  the  image  of  Christ  is  reflected  in 
him,  must  be  preceded  by,  and  can  only  come 
through,  justification.  "As  the  branch  cannot  bear 
fruit  of  itself,  except  it  abide  in  the  vine;  no  more  can 


I96  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

ye,  except  ye  abide  in  me."  It  was  a  favourite  and 
characteristic  saying  of  Boston,  "  Let  them  that  will, 
repent,  that  Christ  may  do  for  them.  I  believe  what 
Christ  hath  done  for  me,  that  I  may  repent."  There 
cannot  be  any  acceptable  obedience  where  there  is 
no  love,  and  there  cannot  be  love  where  there  is  no 
faith.  The  same  thought  was  beautifully  expressed 
in  a  later  age  by  one  who,  like  Mr.  Boston  himself, 
was  a  native  of  Duns  :  "  The  tear  of  repentance  is 
shed  by  the  eye  of  faith ;  and  faith,  as  it  weeps,  stands 
beneath  the  cross." 

"  Talk  they  of  morals, 
O  thou  bleeding  Lamb,  thou  teacher  of  new  morals  to  mankind  ; 
The  grand  morality  is  love  of  thee." 

It  is  indeed  the  judgment  of  many,  that  in  describ- 
ing the  gospel  method  of  sanctification,  even  more 
than  that  of  justification,  Mr.  Boston  and  the  two 
Erskines  and  the  other  Marrowmen  did  the  greatest 
service  to  sound  theology  in  their  days  ;  and  perhaps 
some  modern  preachers  who  are,  in  the  main,  evan- 
gelical, but  do  not  yet  fully  comprehend  "  the  perfect 
law  of  liberty,"  would  do  well  to  clear  their  mental 
vision  with  eye-salve  gathered  from  the  discourses  of 
those  "  masters  in  Israel." 

The  Neonomian  doctrine  imported  from  England, 
which,  though  not  asserting,  like  Antinomianism,  that, 
under  Christianity,  the  believer  was  not  subject    to 


A   BRIGHTER   SIDE.  I97 

the  divine  law  as  a  rule  of  life,  yet  taught  that  the 
standard  of  the  law  was  lowered  in  order  to  accom- 
modate itself  and  make  it  more  attractive  to  human 
frailty,  began  to  be  whispered  at  times  from  certain 
Scottish  pulpits,  and  in  some  of  Mr.  Boston's  later 
sermons  we  can  see  this  faithful  watchman's  hand 
lifted  up  in  protest  and  warning  against  its  insidious 
and  plausible  teachings. 

But  there  was,  no  doubt,  a  bright  side  to  this  pic- 
ture, and  this  consisted,  not  least,  in  the  body  of 
divinely  enlightened  and  earnest  ministers  of  Christ 
to  which  Mr.  Boston  belonged,  and  in  the  eager 
multitudes  who  flocked  to  their  ministry.  And  be- 
yond the  Boston  circle,  the  number  of  ministers  and 
congregations  was  still  not  few  who  held  fast  in 
all  its  purity  and  fulness  "  the  faith  once  delivered 
unto  the  saints,"  and  adorned  their  Christian  profes- 
sion by  their  holy  lives.  But  those  many-coloured 
signs  of  divergence  from  "  the  form  of  sound  words," 
and  those  numerous  instances  in  which,  while  error 
was  not  taught  from  the  pulpits,  saving  truth  was 
withheld  and  there  was  a  corresponding  decay  of 
spiritual  life  among  the  people,  were  such  as  to  alarm 
and  sadden  the  hearts  of  those  men  of  God  who 
placed  the  cause  and  kingdom  of  Christ  upon  the 
earth  supreme  in  importance  above  all  other  interests. 
Had  the  question  been    put    at  this   period   to   our 


193  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Ettrick  pastor,  "  Watchman,  what  of  the  night  ?  "  he 
would  probably  have  answered  in  such  terms  as  the 
following,  which  we  gather  from  his  diary  and 
letters  :  "  The  stream  of  gospel  doctrine,  which  some- 
time was  clear,  is  now  disturbed."  "  Truth  is  fallen 
in  the  streets."  "  Zion's  wounds  are  multiplied  in  the 
house  of  her  friends."  "  The  song  of  the  watchman 
is  marred."  We  might  imagine  him,  as  he  wandered 
in  such  moods  of  mind,  far  from  the  haunts  of  men, 
in  one  of  the  glens  of  his  own  Ettrick,  to  have 
sung  in  plaintive  notes  these  words  of  the  psalm — ■ 

' '  By  Babel's  streams  we  sat  and  wept, 
When  Sion  we  thought  on. 
In  midst  thereof  we  hanged  our  harps 
The  willow-trees  upon." 

A  state  of  things  had  now  been  reached  in  the 
condition  of  the  Scottish  Church  which  brought  men 
together  who  remained  true  to  the  old  gospel  of  the 
Reformation  and  whose  bodies  were  the  temples  of 
the  Holy  Ghost,  that  they  might  confer  and  pray 
together  as  to  what  should  be  done  in  such  a  grave 
emergency.  Boston's  own  "  Fourfold  State "  was 
passing  into  the  hands  of  ministers  and  people, 
and  was  soon  to  work  like  a  heavenly  leaven 
and  with  unabated  power  and  ever-widening  sphere 
in  many  parts  of  the  land.  But  in  addition  to 
this,    it    was    now    resolved    by    those    assembled 


A   GOD-GIVEN    PURPOSE.  I99 

fathers  and  brethren  to  secure  the  republication  and 
extensive  circulation  of  the  "  Marrow  of  Modern 
Divinity  ; "  a  book  which,  as  we  have  already  seen, 
mainly  consisted  of  the  best  thoughts  of  the  best  men 
on  the  great  truths  of  evangelical  theology — great 
reformers,  renowned  authors,  eminent  preachers,  pro- 
fessors in  universities,  in  many  lands  and  through 
many  generations — the  primary  stars  of  their  age. 
We  have  found  that  this  remarkable  book  had  been 
greatly  blessed  to  Mr.  Boston  in  his  early  ministry, 
and  to  others  among  those  fathers  and  brethren 
who  were  now  sitting  with  him  in  devout  and  anx- 
ious consultation,  having  given  to  them,  as  it  were, 
a  second  spiritual  birth.  It  seemed  to  these  vener- 
able men  that  such  a  measure  as  had  been  proposed 
was  eminently  fitted  to  counteract  those  evil  tenden- 
cies which  were  showing  themselves  in  so  many 
forms  in  many  parts  of  Scotland.  It  was  a  God- 
given  thought  and  purpose,  as  the  issue  abundantly 
proved  ;  though,  as  we  are  now  to  see,  the  carrying 
of  it  into  effect  was  for  a  time  most  bitterly  and  un- 
scrupulously opposed.  We  are  now  briefly  to  relate 
the  story  of  the  publication  of  the  "  Marrow  "  in  Scot- 
land. 


CHAPTER    X. 

THE   "MARROW"   CONTROVERSY — PRINCIPAL   HAD- 
DOW — THE   MARROWMEN — WHITFIELD. 

EARLY  in  17 19,  the  Rev.  James  Hog,  minister 
of  Carnock,  a  man  of  singular  intellectual 
gifts,  and  described  by  his  contemporaries  as  one  of 
the  holiest  ministers  in  the  kingdom,  republished  the 
first  part  of  the  "  Marrow  of  Modern  Divinity,"  with 
a  preface  strongly  recommending  it,  in  which  he 
dwelt  on  its  seasonableness  as  meeting  contemporary 
errors  in  reference  to  the  all-embracing  nature  of  the 
gospel  message  and  the  true  way  of  obtaining  gospel 
holiness.  In  the  beginning  of  April,  in  the  same 
year,  Principal  Haddow  of  St.  Andrews  University 
preached  a  sermon  before  the  Synod  of  Fife,  in  which 
he  especially  attacked  the  "Marrow."  This  sermon 
was  immediately  printed  and  published  at  the  desire 
of  the  synod.  Soon  after,  he  published  another  ser- 
mon, which  bore  the  reckless  and  misleading  title  of 
"The  Antinomianism  of  the  'Marrow'  detected." 
In    both    of  these    the   "Marrow"   is    charged    with 


EARLY   CONTENDINGS.  201 

containing  and  vindicating  such  revolting  positions 
as  these :  "  Holiness  not  necessary  to  salvation  ; " 
"  The  believer  not  under  the  law  as  a  rule  of  life  ; " 
"  Rewards  and  punishments  no  motives  to  obedi- 
ence." And  all  this  is  written  and  charged  against 
a  book,  the  second  part  of  which  is  devoted  to  a 
masterly  exposition  of  the  ten  commandments  ! 

Both  these  productions  were  promptly  answered, 
and  the  unblushing  ignorance  revealed  in  many 
places  exposed,  by  the  dauntless  friends  of  a  full- 
orbed  gospel.  In  all  these  early  contendings,  an 
onlooker  might  have  seen  the  gathering  clouds  which 
portend  the  storm. 

The  men  who  were  sitting  in  the  high  places  of 
power  in  the  church,  and  not  a  few  of  whom  were 
unfriendly  to  evangelical  truth,  were  indignant  at  and 
hostile  to  this  action  of  the  friends  of  the  "  Marrow." 
And  they  were  not  slow  in  giving  form  to  their  hos- 
tility. The  General  Assembly  of  1720,  founding  on 
the  report  of  a  committee  which  had  been  appointed 
to  "  inquire  into  the  publishing  and  spreading  of 
books  and  pamphlets,"  not  only  condemned  the 
"  Marrow,"  but  prohibited  its  ministers  from  either 
preaching,  writing,  printing,  or  circulating  anything 
in  its  favour  ;  further  enjoining  them  to  warn  their 
congregations  against  its  perusal.  Here  was  the 
Index  Expurgatorius  in  the   supreme  court  of  the 


202  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Scottish  Church.  "It  is  understood,"  said  Mr.  Bos- 
ton, "  that  Principal  Haddow  was  the  spring  of  that 
black  Act  of  Assembly."  Could  a  book  abounding 
in  blasphemy,  or  proclaiming  infidelity,  or  apologiz- 
ing for  licentiousness,  have  been  more  severely  con- 
demned ?  And  yet  there  were  thousands  in  the 
parishes  of  Scotland  at  that  very  time  who  had  been 
sitting  under  a  sapless  ministry,  and  who  had  found 
this  very  "  Marrow,"  when  it  came  into  their  hands, 
to  be  like  heavenly  dew  or  hidden  manna  to  their 
fainting  and  famished  spirits.  "  I  would  not,"  said 
one,  "  for  ten  thousand  worlds,  have  been  a  Yea  to 
the  passing  of  that  Act."  Many  of  the  best  ministers 
and  private  members  of  the  church  were  astounded 
and  grieved.  And  at  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
following  year,  Ebenezer  Erskine  and  eleven  other 
ministers,  among  whom  was  Mr.  Boston,  laid  upon  its 
table  a  document,  afterwards  known  in  Church  His- 
tory as  "  The  Representation,"  remonstrating  against 
the  condemnation  and  interdict,  as  an  unwarranted 
restraint  upon  their  liberty  ;  a  rejection,  in  some 
instances,  of  doctrines  which  were  precious  in  them- 
selves, and  which  they  believed  to  have  full  warranty 
of  Scripture;  and  a  wounding  of  Christ  in  the  house 
of  his  friends.  It  was  written  with  fearless  candour, 
but  in  a  respectful  and  conciliatory  spirit;  while  there 
was  a  ready  admission  of  the  existence  of  defects  in  the 


THE   REPRESENTATION. 


203 


l:  Marrow,"  with  all  its  excellence,  making  it  evident  in 
every  page  that  the  aim  of  its  compilers  was  not  the 
gaining  of  a  controversial  victory,  but  the  conserving 
of  truths  which  were  more  precious  to  them  than  life. 
But  there  was  no  returning  to  wiser  courses.  On 
the  contrary,  "  The  Representation "  was  not  only 
condemned,  but  its  twelve  supporters,  who  had  come 
by  this  time  to  be  known  as  the  Marrowmen,  were 
ordered  to  be  rebuked  at  the  bar  of  the  Assembly. 
They  have  been  justly  spoken  of  as  "  the  truest 
ecclesiastical  patriots  of  their  times."  The  names 
of  several  of  them  stand  honourably  prominent  in 
church  history,  and  in  the  theological  literature  of 
their  age.  And  the  names  of  all  of  them  are  sur- 
rounded to  this  day  by  a  sweet  fragrance  in  the 
parishes  in  which  they  laboured,  through  the  double 
ministry  of  their  preaching  and  their  lives.  They 
are  as  follows  :— 


James  Hog, 
Thomas  Boston, 
John  Bonar, 
John  Williamson, 
James  Kid, 
Gabriel  Wilson, 

EliENEZER    ERSKINE, 

Ralph  Erskine, 
James  Wardlaw, 
Henry  Davidson, 
James  Bathgate, 
William  Hunter, 


Carnock. 

Ettrick. 

Torphichen. 

Inveresk  and  Musselburgh. 

Queensferry. 

Maxton. 

Portmoak. 

Dunfermline. 

Dunfermline. 

Galashiels. 

Orwell. 

Lilliesleaf. 


204  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

With  calm  dignity  and  holy  gravity,  those  faithful 
confessors  stood  forward  and  endured  the  censure, 
"  rejoicing  that  they  were  counted  worthy  to  suffer 
shame  for  the  name  of  Christ."  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."  "  It  is  better,"  said  another  of  those 
faithful  witnesses,  "  to  be  under  the  reproach  of  men 
for  following  Christ,  than  to  be  under  the  curse  of 
God  for  forsaking  him."  It  must,  however,  be  re- 
membered that,  while  only  twelve  ministers  appeared 
at  the  bar  of  the  Assembly  in  this  supremely  im- 
portant cause,  they  were  only  the  leaders  in  the  con- 
flict, and  there  remained  many  others  who  preached 
the  same  doctrines  of  the  Reformation,  and  were  the 
hearty  friends  of  the  Marrowmen. 

Their  action  and  endurance  on  that  eventful  day 
were  not  yet  completed.  For  immediately  after 
"  givmg  m  "  their  united  and  solemn  protest  against 
the  Act  which  had  condemned  the  "  Marrow,"  they 
declared  that  it  should  be  lawful  for  them  to  preach 
and  bear  testimony  to  the  truths  contained  in  it. 
But  in  high-handed  violation  of  the  constitutional 
rule  for  protecting  the  consciences  of  minorities,  the 
protest  was  refused  to  be  recorded,  and  the  further 
indignity  was  added  of  not  allowing  it  to  be  read 
in  the  Assembly.     Rights  were  in  this  way  wrested 


WHAT   THE   "MARROW"   WAS.  205 

from  their  hands,  which  had  been  bought  and  sealed 
by  the  blood  of  martyrs. 

One  is  apt  to  wonder  that  while  those  ecclesiastics 
were  sending  forth  their  condemnation  of  the  "  Mar- 
row," and  fulminating  their  interdicts  against  those 
ministers  who  had  promoted  its  republication  and 
circulation,  it  had  never  occurred  to  them  that  if  the 
"  Marrow  "  was  a  book  of  such  dangerous  tendencies 
as  they  had  never  wearied  in  pronouncing  it  to  be 
— a  thing  not  safe  to  be  "  touched,  or  tasted,  or 
handled  " — then  the  authors  of  the  book  were  surely 
more  severely  to  be  blamed  than  those  who  had 
taken  part  in  its  circulation.  But  mark  now  where 
the  stroke  of  the  anathema  falls.  The  "  Marrow,"  as 
we  have  already  seen,  was  not  the  production  of  one 
mind,  but  mainly  consisted  of  brief  extracts,  some- 
times individual  sentences,  from  the  writings  of 
eminent  authors  who  were  the  friends  of  evangelical 
truths,  from  the  Reformation  downwards.  The 
book  was  a  miscellany  of  choice  sayings  and  select 
passages  from  the  works  of  the  greatest  authors  of 
their  times,  stretching  back  through  many  ages. 
Great  reformers  and  eminent  scholars  and  theo- 
logians, such  as  Luther  and  Calvin,  and  Knox  and 
Beza,  and  others  who,  in  their  day,  had  formed  "  the 
flower  and  chivalry "  of  the  Puritans,  are  made  to 
unite  their   mental   stores  in   illustrating  "the  faith 


206  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

once  delivered  to  the  saints."  And  one  great  fact 
stands  out  with  peculiar  interest,  that  the  "  Marrow  " 
was  one  of  the  books  specially  recommended  by 
the  famous  Westminster  Assembly  of  Divines  in 
1643.  How  shall  we  account  for  the  fact  that  the 
same  book  which  was  specially  commended  by  that 
august  assembly,  the  compilers  of  the  "  Confession 
of  Faith  "  and  the  "  Catechisms  Larger  and  Shorter," 
the  greatest  thinkers  and  most  profound  theologians 
of  their  age,  should  have  been  branded  with  inter- 
dict and  anathema  by  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Scottish  Church  in  1720? 

But  all  these  keenly  persistent  efforts  against  the 
"  Marrow "  and  the  Marrowmen  were  unavailing. 
The  people  who  were  forbidden,  at  their  peril,  even 
to  read  the  "  Marrow,"  would  not  consent  to  walk 
blindfold,  or  to  be  led  whithersoever  their  ecclesias- 
tical rulers  listed.  They  were  determined  to  judge 
for  themselves,  "  proving  all  things,  and  holding  fast 
that  which  was  good.".  The  "  Marrow  "  was  accord- 
ingly purchased  and  eagerly  read,  during  those  years 
of  controversy,  by  thousands  over  the  land,  with  the 
effect  of  conversion  in  the  case  of  multitudes,  and  of 
increased  knowledge,  holiness,  and  joy  in  the  case  of 
others  who  had  already  believed.  It  was  to  many 
of  them  like  passing  from  dim  twilight  into  gladden- 
ing sunshine.    They  now,  for  the  first  time,  saw  "  the 


EFFECTS   OF   THE   CONTROVERSY.  207 

glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God"  in  its  "height  and 
depth,  and  breadth  and  length."  Mr.  Boston  himself 
tells  us  that  it  turned  to  the  great  advantage  of 
many,  both  among  ministers  and  people,  being 
obliged  both  to  think  of  these  things,  and  "  to  inquire 
into  them  more  closely  and  nicely  than  they  had 
done  before."  And  referring  in  another  place  to  the 
"  Marrow "  controversy,  this  is  his  record  :  "  That 
struggle,  through  the  mercy  of  God,  turned  to  the 
advantage  of  truth  in  our  church  both  among  the 
ministers  and  the  people  ;  insomuch,  as  it  has  been 
owned,  that  few  public  differences  have  had  such  good 
effects,  and  saving  truths  have,  in  our  day,  been  set 
in  an  uncommon  light."  He  seemed  to  himself  to 
witness,  in  the  case  of  many,  the  repetition  of  his 
own  experience  in  "  sweet  Simprin "  so  long  ago, 
when  he  saw  the  gospel  illuminated  and  enlarged 
with  a  new  splendour,  and  it  appeared  to  him,  to 
quote  his  own  words,  "  like  a  chariot  paved  with 
love."  The  sight  of  happy  converts  rejoicing  in  their 
new  life  was  immeasurably  more  than  a  compensa- 
tion to  him  for  all  the  humiliation  and  the  evil  treat- 
ment of  the  last  three  years. 

And  the  blessed  influence  of  this  remarkable  book 
was  found,  within  the  next  quarter  of  a  century,  to 
have  spread  beyond  Scotland,  and  to  have  proved  a 
benefit  to  preachers  and  authors  whose  reputation, 


208  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

in  those  years,  rilled  the  mouths  of  men.  George 
Whitfield,  whom  we  might  almost  style  the  evan- 
gelist of  two  hemispheres,  acknowledged  with  enthu- 
siasm the  good  he  had  derived  in  his  ministry,  both 
in  England  and  America,  from  the  study  of  the 
"  Marrow." 

And  Mr.  Hervey,  the  distinguished  author  of 
"  Theron  and  Aspasio,"  a  book  which  in  those  days 
might  have  been  seen  in  almost  every  Christian 
home  in  England,  wrote  thus  in  the  year  1755:  "I 
never  read  the  '  Marrow '  with  Mr.  Boston's  notes 
till  this  present  time.  I  find  that  by  not  having  read 
it  I  have  sustained  a  considerable  loss.  It  is  a  most 
valuable  book.  The  doctrines  it  contains  are  the  life 
of  my  soul  and  the  joy  of  my  heart.  Might  my 
tongue  and  my  pen  be  made  instrumental  to  recom- 
mend and  illustrate,  to  support  and  propagate,  such 
precious  truths,  I  should  bless  the  day  wherein  I  was 
born.  Mr.  Boston's  notes  on  the  '  Marrow '  are,  in  my 
opinion,  some  of  the  most  judicious  and  valuable  that 
ever  were  penned."  Of  two  outstanding  doctrines 
of  the  "  Marrow," — the  free  grant  of  Christ  to  sinners 
as  such,  and  the  special  application  of  the  faith  of 
the  gospel,- — Mr.  Hervey  also  says  :  "  These  two  doc- 
trines seem  to  me  the  very  quintessence  of  grace  and 
the  riches  of  the  gospel.  They  are,  I  am  certain,  the 
sovereign  consolation  of  my  soul;  at  least  they  are 


PRESENT   INFLUENCE.  20O. 

the  channel   and  conveyance  of  all  comfort  to  my 
heart." 

It  would  not  be  difficult  to  trace  the  influence  of 
this  remarkable  book  upon  creeds  and  testimonies,  as 
well  as  upon  religious  thought  and  Christian  experi- 
ence, in  days  much  nearer  to  our  own.  It  tinctures 
the  phraseology  of  our  religious  literature  and  conver- 
sation, and  shapes  our  thoughts,  without  our  knowing 
from  whence  the  influence  comes  ;  just  as  it  is  pos- 
sible for  us  to  drink  from  a  stream,  and  be  refreshed 
by  its  waters,  without  our  being  aware  of  the  foun- 
tain from  which  it  has  flowed  far  up  among  the  ever- 
lasting- hills. 


H 


CHAPTER   XI. 

THE    LAST    DECADE. 

a  lucid  interval — decaying  strength — busy  authorship — 
"The  Crook  in  the  Lot" — Flowers  from  Mr.  Boston's 

GARDEN. 

E  are  now  some  years,  in  our  narrative,  within 
the  last  decade  of  Mr.  Boston's  life.  It  is 
eight  years  since  his  beloved  wife  was  smitten  with 
that  insanity  which  brought  her  mind  under  dark 
eclipse,  and  shadowed  the  formerly  bright  and  happy 
home  at  Ettrick.  That  fine  spirit,  so  full  of  love  and 
tenderness,  and  lighted  up  with  wisdom,  had  become 
like  a  defaced  and  ruined  temple.  Her  husband 
touchingly  speaks  of  her  as,  during  those  past  years, 
having  been  as  "  the  slain  that  lie  in  the  grave,  and 
are  remembered  no  more."  And  he  goes  on  to  say 
that,  "  being  overwhelmed  with  bodily  maladies,  her 
spirit  dried  up  with  terror  by  means  of  her  imagina- 
tion in  a  particular  point,  and  harassed  with  Satan's 
temptations  plied  against  her  at  that  disadvantage." 
We  learn,  however,  that  there  came  at  times  lucid 
intervals,  in  which  "  the  Lord  had  given  her  remark- 
able visits  in  her  prison,  and  manifested  his  love  to 


BLIGHTED   HOPES.  211 

her  soul."  And  it  seemed  as  if  the  soul-music  had 
come  back  again  to  the  old  Ettrick  home,  "  proving 
that  the  reality  of  grace  was  in  her,  and  could  not 
be  quenched."  She  even  said,  "  Who  knoweth  but 
that  the  Lord  will  bring  us  again  to  the  land  of  the 
living?"  And  her  husband  had  welcomed  the  gleam 
of  hope,  as  the  weary  traveller  through  the  long  mid- 
night welcomes  the  dawn.  "  Now,"  says  he, "  we  were 
with  our  broken  ship  within  sight  of  the  shore,  and  I 
was  like  one  stretching  out  his  hand  and  crying,  Help 
forward,  help  forward.  But,  behold,  a  little  time 
after,  the  storm  rose  anew,  and  the  ship  was  beaten 
back  into  the  main  ocean,  out  of  sight  of  land  again." 
But,  continuing  "  to  hope  against  hope,"  we  find  the 
meek  and  enduring  sufferer  writing  thus,  at  a  later 
period,  of  his  wife  and  himself:  "I  was  helped  to 
believe  that  we  would  both  stand  on  the  shore  yet 
and  sing,  notwithstanding  our  swelling  seas."  The 
hope  was  to  be  exceeded  a  hundredfold  in  a  heavenly 
sense  ere  many  years  had  run  their  course. 

So  early  as  17 19,  Mr.  Boston's  strength  had  begun 
to  show  symptoms  of  decay.  The  afternoon  of  his 
life  had  begun,  with  its  lengthening  shadows.  But  he 
would  not  allow  this  to  hinder,  or  even  to  slacken  his 
activity  as  a  preacher  or  an  author.  The  effect  was 
rather,  in  the  meanwhile,  to  quicken  it,  for  he  knew 
that  his  time  was  short.     About  the  close  of  the 


212  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

"  Marrow "  controversy,  he  had  sent  forth,  at  the 
request  of  his  brethren,  a  volume  of  "  Notes  on  the 
Marrow."  This  he  soon  after  joined  in  one  volume 
with  the  "  Marrow  "  itself,  which  greatly  added  to  the 
interest  and  usefulness  of  both.  We  have  seen  in 
what  glowing  terms  eminent  authors  standing  in  the 
front  ranks  of  theologians  and  writers  on  Christian 
experience,  like  Mr.  Hervey,  the  author  of  "  Theron 
and  Aspasio,"  spoke  of  the  benefit,  both  in  knowledge 
and  in  spiritual  impulse,  they  had  derived  from  the 
Notes  of  the  Ettrick  pastor. 

In  1 72 1  and  1722,  he  delivered  an  elaborate  series 
of  discourses  to  his  Ettrick  flock  on  the  two  Cove- 
nants— the  Covenant  of  Works  and  the  Covenant  of 
Grace.  They  show  much  of  the  learning  and  man- 
ner of  Witsius,  while  they  excel  him  in  freshness  and 
fervour.  The  people  must  have  been  fond  of  strong 
meat  who  relished  and  hungered  after  such  sermons. 
But  if  they  demanded  thought,  they  richly  rewarded 
it.  The  two  courses  formed  an  elaborate  system  of 
evangelical  theology,  and  were  admirably  adapted  to 
meet  and  expose  the  rising  errors  of  the  times,  such 
as  Antinomianism  with  its  license  to  sin,  while  giving 
many  a  "  root-stroke  "  to  crude  thoughts  which  were 
the  growth  of  half  knowledge.  The  motto  of  the 
book,  as  sounding  the  keynote  of  the  whole  treatise, 
might  have  been  given  in  the  words  of  Paul :  "  As  in 


ON   CHRISTIAN    MORALS.  213 

Adam  all  die,  even  so  in  Christ  shall  all  be  made 
alive."  It  was  not  published  until  after  Mr.  Bos- 
ton's death. 

Following  the  preaching  of  those  elaborate  and 
exhaustive  discourses  on  the  two  covenants,  Mr. 
Boston  soon  after  delivered  a  series  of  sermons  on 
Christian  morals,  their  general  designation  being 
"  Sermons  on  the  distinguishing  characters  of  true 
believers;"  and  associated  with  these  and  with  kin- 
dred aims  was  a  little  group  of  sermons  on  Phil, 
ii.  7 — "  Christ's  taking  upon  him  the  form  of  a  serv- 
ant." These  were  characterized  by  his  brethren  at 
the  time  as  "masterly."  Our  Ettrick  pastor  seems 
to  have  been  followed  in  this  action  by  his  brethren 
of  the  "  Marrow  "  generally.  And,  no  doubt,  this 
was  done  primarily  for  the  purpose  of  instructing 
their  people  in  practical  religion,  both  by  showing 
the  meaning  and  comprehensiveness  of  the  moral 
law,  and  stating  the  Christian  motives  by  which 
obedience  to  it  was  prompted  and  sustained  in  the 
believer  in  Christ.  But  another  reason  was,  by  ex- 
pounding and  enforcing  in  their  teaching  the  moral 
law,  to  deliver  the  minds  of  multitudes  from  the  im- 
pression which  had  been  produced  by  the  Act  of 
Assembly,  which  charged  the  "  Marrow "  and  the 
Marrowmen  with  the  loathsome  Antinomian  error 
that  the  believer  in  Christ  was  not  under  the  law  as 


214  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

a  rule  of  life — an  Act  which  had  never,  up  to  that 
hour,  been  repealed.  Mr.  Boston  justified  the  course 
that  had  been  taken  by  himself  and  his  brethren  by 
remarking  that  the  gospel  doctrine  had  got  a  wound 
by  that  Act  which  condemned  the  "  Marrow,"  and 
which  charged  it  with  containing  doctrines  which  every 
Marrowman  not  only  rejected  and  condemned,  but 
loathed  from  the  very  depths  of  his  heart.  Why 
should  it  have  "lien  among  the  pots"  so  long?  Bring 
it  forth  to  the  light,  that  men  may  see  that  its  "  wings 
were  of  silver  and  its  feathers  as  yellow  gold." 

Somewhat  later  in  the  decade,  Mr.  Boston 
preached  to  his  people  a  series  of  sermons  on  Afflic- 
tion. These  were  subsequently  published  under  the 
memorable  title  of  "  The  Crook  in  the  Lot,"  being 
mainly  founded  on  the  text  in  Eccles.  vii.  13 — "Con- 
sider the  work  of  the  Lord  :  for  who  can  make  that 
straight,  which  he  hath  made  crooked  ?  "  The  sub- 
title is  given  in  a  more  expanded  form,  and  is  like 
the  bud  opening  into  the  blooming  flower:  "The 
sovereignty  and  wisdom  of  God  in  the  afflictions  of 
men,  together  with  a  Christian  deportment  under 
them."  The  foundation  truths  in  the  passage  are 
stated  by  himself  to  be  the  following  : — I.  That  what- 
ever crook  there  is  in  any  one'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.     3.  That  the 


"THE   CROOK   IN    THE   LOT."  21 5 

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.  These, 
with  the  truths  and  lessons  which  grow  out  of  them,  are 
stated  and  illustrated  with  a  vigour  and  a  pathos,  and 
enriched  with  a  fulness  and  variety  of  Scripture  fact 
and  incident,  not  to  speak  of  that  proverbial  point  in 
many  of  his  sentences  which  we  have  seen  to  be  char- 
acteristic of  all  his  best  writings,  as  to  have  made  it, 
next  to  the  "  Fourfold  State,"  the  most  popular  of  all 
Mr.  Boston's  works.  While  written  by  him  in  de- 
caying health,  the  book  proves  that  his  intellectual 
strength  was  undiminished.  There  is  a  freshness  in 
almost  every  page  which  reminds  one  of  the  dew- 
laden  grass  upon  the  green  hills  of  Ettrick.  How 
many  a  sorrowing  heart,  from  those  days  onwards 
down  through  the  ages,  has  drunk  consolation  from 
"  The  Crook  in  the  Lot,"  and  found  the  bitter  waters 
of  Marah  turned  into  sweetness.  To  how  many  has 
it  proved  in  God's  hand  a  sanctifying  power,  drawing 
from  them  the  wondering  and  adoring  acknowledg- 
ment,— 

"Among  the  choicest  of  my  mercies  here 
Stand  this  the  foremost,  that  my  heart  has  bled : 
For  all  I  bless  Thee  ;  most  for  the  severe." 

The  proverbial  maxims  are  specially  valuable,  as 
they  are  also  specially  memorable.     Let  us  gather 


2l6  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and    bind    together   a   few   flowers   and   fruits   from 
this  part  of  Mr.  Boston's  garden  : — ■ 

i.  "God  makes  none  of  his  people  to  excel  in  a 
gift,  but,  some  one  time  or  other,  he  will  afford  them 
use  for  the  whole  compass  of  it." 

2.  "  When  God  wills  one  thing  and  the  creature  the 
contrary,  it  is  easy  to  see  which  will  must  be  done. 
When  the  omnipotent  arm  holds,  in  vain  does  the 
creature  draw." 

3.  "There  are  many  prayers  not  to  be  answered  till 
we  come  to  the  other  world,  and  there  all  will  be 
answered  at  once." 

4.  "  There  is  never  a  crook  God  makes  in  our  lot 
but  it  is  in  effect  heaven's  offer  of  a  blessed  exchange 
to  us.  Sell  whatsoever  thou  hast,  and  thou  shalt 
have  treasure  in  heaven." 

5.  "  Impatience  under  the  crook  lays  an  over- 
weight on  the  burden,  and  makes  us  less  able  to 
bear  it." 

6.  "A  proud  heart  will  make  a  cross  to  itself,  where 
a  lowly  one  would  find  none." 

7.  "  It  is  far  more  needful  to  have  our  spirits 
humbled  and  brought  down  than  to  have  the  cross 
removed." 

8.  "  It  is  a  shame  for  us  not  to  be  humbled  by  such 
wants  as  attend  us;  it  is  like  a  beggar  strutting  in 
his  rags." 


PROVERBIAL   MAXIMS.  21 J 

9.  "All  men  must  certainly  bow  or  break  under  the 
mighty  hand." 

10.  "  Lay  your  account  with  it,  that  if  ye  would  get 
where  the  Forerunner  is,  ye  must  go  thither  as  he 
went." 

11.  "Who  would  not  be  pleased  to  walk  through 
the  dark  valley,  treading  in  Christ's  steps  ?  " 

12.  "Standing  on  the  shore,  and  looking  back  on 
what  you  have  passed  through,  you  will  be  made  to 
say,  '  He  hath  done  all  things  well.'  Those  things 
which  are  bitter  to  Christians  in  passing  through 
them,  are  very  sweet  in  the  reflection  on  them.  So 
is  Samson's  riddle  verified  in  their  experience." 

13.  "  Let  patience  have  her  perfect  work.  The 
husbandman  waits  for  the  return  of  his  seed,  the  sea- 
merchant  for  the  return  of  his  ships,  the  storemaster 
for  what  he  calls  ear-time,  when  he  draws  in  the  pro- 
duce of  his  flocks.  All  these  have  long  patience. 
And  why  should  not  the  Christian  too  have  patience, 
and  patiently  wait  for  the  time  appointed  for  his 
lifting  up?" 


CHAPTER   XII. 

HOME     IX     SIGHT. 

IN  the  beginning  of  the  last  year  of  his  life, 
which  we  have  now  reached  in  our  narrative, 
Mr.  Boston  published  a  treatise  of  no  great  bulk,  but 
which  came  up  to  his  wonted  mark  of  excellence, 
and  proved  that,  however  much  his  bodily  strength 
might  have  been  impaired,  it  would,  in  the  freshness 
of  its  style  and  the  vigour  of  its  thought,  as  in  the 
case  of  "  The  Crook  in  the  Lot,"  have  been  worthy  of 
his  middle  life.  The  book  was  entitled  "  A  Memo- 
rial concerning  Personal  and  Family  Fasting  and 
Humiliation." 

These  personal  fasts,  as  we  have  seen,  had  been 
practised  by  him  during  the  whole  period  of  his  long 
ministry,  and  he  believed  that  they  were  clearly  war- 
ranted in  many  places  both  in  the  gospels  and  the 
epistles  ;  nor  is  he  slow  to  testify  in  his  booklet  that 
he  had  derived  invaluable  religious  benefit  from 
them  during  his  long  Simprin  and  Ettrick  life.  We 
shall  here  introduce  a  few  of  his  valuable  thoughts 


ON    FASTING  AND   HUMILIATION.  219 

which  have  not  been  anticipated  in  our  former  re- 
ferences to  the  subject.  He  takes  good  care  to 
indicate  that  there  was  nothing  of  penance  or  will- 
worship  in  the  fasting  which  he  commended  and 
practised.  He  explains  that  religious  fasts  thus 
kept  in  secret  "  by  a  person  apart  by  himself,  are 
not  the  stated  and  ordinary  duties  of  all  times  to 
be  performed  daily,  or  at  set  times  recurring,  such 
as  prayer  and  praise  and  reading  of  the  Word  are  ; 
but  that  they  are  extraordinary  duties  of  some  times 
to  be  performed  occasionally,  as  depending  entirely, 
in  respect  of  the  exercise  of  them,  on  the  call  of 
Providence,  which  is  variable." 

We  must  imagine  the  individual  fencing  off  a 
day,  or  part  of  a  day,  in  which  he  shall  have  with- 
drawn from  intercourse  with  others  and  from  the 
common  avocations  of  life ;  and  in  some  private 
apartment  where  he  has  secured  himself  against 
interruption,  and  sought  to  be  alone  with  God,  he 
shall  give  himself  up  entirely  to  spiritual  exercises. 
It  may  be  that,  during  this  period,  there  shall  be 
entire  fasting  or  abstinence  from  food,  or  that  the 
taking  of  food  shall  be  only  diminished  in  degree. 
In  this  and  kindred  matters  every  one  must  be  a 
law  to  himself.  What  is  best  to  be  done  in  these 
circumstantial  matters  must  be  regulated  by  Chris- 
tian   prudence,    and    determined    by  the   individual 


220  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

for  himself.  It  must  be  remembered  that  things 
like  these  are  only  as  the  shell  to  the  nutriment 
contained  in  it. 

In  stating  the  various  parts  of  religious  exercise 
which  are  comprehended  under  the  head  of  personal, 
and  equally  of  family  fasting,  Mr.  Boston  mentions 
the  following ;  it  being  understood  that  prayer  is 
an  element  which  shall  pervade  and  animate  the 
whole  like  the  sunlight,  in  which  the  solitary  wor- 
shipper shall  live  and  move  and  have  his  being, 
while  it  shall  come  into  special  prominence  in  some 
parts  of  the  exercise  : — 

i.  There  must  be  self-examination,  or  "considera- 
tion of  his  ways,"  on  the  part  of  the  Christian  seek- 
ing to  discover  what  is  wrong  or  wanting  in  his 
manner  of  life,  in  order  that  he  may  humble  him- 
self before  God  because  of  it. 

2.  Free  and  full  confession  before  God  of  his 
sins,  especially  of  those  which  have  been  discovered 
and  brought  out  to  light  from  their  hiding-place, 
in  order  to  his  seeking  deliverance  at  once  from  their 
guilt  and  their  power.  "  See  if  there  be  any  wicked 
way  in  me,  and  lead  me  in  the  way  everlasting." 

3.  Exercises  of  repentance  towards  God  with 
special  reference  to  those  sins,  in  order  to  his  re- 
turning from  them  to  God  in  heart  and  life.  And 
it  may  be  well  that  the  penitent  in  his  solitariness 


ON   FASTING  AND   HUMILIATION.  221 

name  those  particular  sins,  and  dwell  upon  them 
in  their  humbling  aggravations.  "If  we  are  indeed 
true  penitents,  we  will  turn  from  sin,  not  only  because 
it  is  dangerous  and  destructive  to  us,  but  because 
it  is  offensive  to  God,  dishonours  his  Son,  grieves 
his  Spirit,  transgresseth  his  law,  and  defaceth  his 
image  ;  and  we  shall  cast  away  all  our  transgres- 
sions, not  only  as  one  would  cast  away  a  live  coal 
out  of  his  bosom  for  that  it  burns  him,  but  as  one 
would  cast  away  a  loathsome  and  filthy  thing  for 
that  it  defiles  him." 

4.  Extraordinary  and  prolonged  prayer  as  the 
humble  and  self-accusing  utterance  of  this  repent- 
ance, and  also  with  special  reference  to  that  which 
had  been  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  fast. 

5.  Entering  anew  into  covenant  with  God  by 
taking  hold  anew  of  his  covenant  of  grace  through 
believing  in  the  name  of  Christ,  whereby  we  take 
hold  of  the  covenant  and  are  instated  in  it  unto 
salvation ;  in  mentioning  which  Mr.  Boston  remarks, 
with  well  -  timed  tenderness  that  "  one  may  take 
hold  of  God's  covenant  of  grace,  even  though  it 
be  with  a  trembling  hand." 

We  close  our  reference  to  Mr.  Boston's  treatise 
on  fasting,  by  quoting  two  sentences  which  are 
worthy  of  being  treasured  in  the  memory  of  those 
who  are  willing  to  be  his  disciples  : — 


222  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

''-  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." 

"  The  laying  over  of  a  matter  on  the  Lord,  believ- 
ingly  in  prayer,  gives  great  ease  to  a  burdened  heart ; 
it  turns  a  fast  sometimes  into  a  spiritual  feast." 

Mr.  Boston  was  made  conscious  by  increasing 
signs  that  "  the  sands  of  time  were  sinking."  In 
addition  to  the  feeling  of  diminishing  strength,  there 
were  frequent  attacks  of  "  gravel,"  producing  acute 
pain  and  accompanied  by  "  paralytical  shakings  of 
the  head."  In  all  this,  Nature  was  holding  out 
signals  of  distress,  the  meaning  of  which  could  not 
be  misunderstood.  It  led  him,  among  other  things, 
to  make  arrangements  with  a  view  to  the  disposal 
of  his  worldly  goods  after  his  death,  especially  in 
making  provision  for  his  children  and  assigning 
them  equal  portions.  This  was  promptly  done,  not 
only  to  prevent  those  embittering  family  feuds  which 
are  the  frequent  result  when  this  part  of  parental 
duty  is  neglected,  but,  as  he  himself  expressed  it, 
with  the  design  "  to  have  no  remembrance  about 
worldly  affairs  when  the  Lord  should  be  pleased  to 
call  him  home."  And  with  what  sad  and  thought- 
ful tenderness  did  he  also  make  adequate  provision 
for  that  loved  one  sitting  in  the  gloom  of  her  "  inner 


A  JOYFUL   EVENT.  223 

prison,"  in  the  event  of  her  being  left  behind  him, 
cherishing  the  while  the  assured  hope  that  ere  long 
they  would  meet  again  in  that  world  where 

"  The  quenched  lamps  of  hope  are  all  relighted, 
And  the  golden  links  of  love  are  reunited." 

And  there  was  another  matter  which,  at  this  time, 
pressed  itself  on  the  anxious  thoughts  of  the  good 
Ettrick  pastor,  attention  to  which  came  within  the 
scope  of  the  divine  command  to  "set  his  house  in 
order."  He  had  good  grounds  for  believing  that 
three  out  of  his  four  children  were  already  true 
disciples  of  Christ.  But  there  was  still  one,  the 
youngest,  just  budding  into  manhood,  about  whose 
religious  condition  he  was  uncertain  and  anxious. 
"  Oh  that  Ishmael  might  live  before  Thee."  The 
youth  was  sent  for  at  once  by  his  saintly  father, 
and  the  object  of  his  errand  affectionately  declared. 
A  few  prayerful  and  loving  interviews  assured  Mr. 
Boston  that  his  youngest  son  was  "  not  only  almost, 
but  altogether  persuaded  to  be  a  Christian."  To 
use  the  father's  own  favourite  language,  he  believed 
that  "Jesus  Christ  was  God's  deed  of  gift  and  grant 
to  mankind  sinners,  and  therefore  to  him."  This 
was  Christ's  gospel.  He  accepted  it,  and  the  gift 
became  his.  The  words  of  the  hymn  written  in  a 
later  century  reflected   the   thoughts   of  the  happy 


224  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

parent  as  he  grasped  the  hand  of  the  young  com- 
municant, his  youngest  son  : — 

"  When  soon  or  late  we  reach  that  shore, 
O'er  life's  rough  ocean  driven, 
We  shall  rejoice  no  wanderer  lost, 
A  family  in  heaven." 

A  few  weeks  after,  Mr.  Boston,  when  administering 
his  last  communion,  with  grateful  and  gladdened 
heart  that  brought  tears  of  joy  to  his  eyes,  saw 
this  son  of  his  many  prayers  and  vows  sitting  at 
the  Lord's  Table  amid  the  numerous  band  of  young 
confessors  of  Christ. 

At  an  advanced  period  in  those  waning  months, 
Mr.  Boston  "  renewed  his  covenant  with  God,"  in 
order,  as  he  expresses  it,  to  his  preparation  for  death. 
On  repeated  occasions,  at  earlier  periods,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  had,  after  the  review  of  his  life  and  confes- 
sion of  sin,  declared  his  renewed  acceptance  of  God's 
covenant  of  grace.  And  with  some  changes  in  the 
language,  indicating  his  more  enlarged  views  of 
"  the  glorious  gospel  of  the  blessed  God,"  the  solemn 
transaction  was  now  repeated,  as  if  in  sight  of  the 
eternal  world.  He  describes  himself,  as  on  those 
earlier  occasions,  "  after  a  period  of  prolonged  prayer, 
rising  from  his  knees,  and  while  he  stood  alone  in 
his  chamber,  lifting  up  his  eyes  to  the  Lord,  reading 


LAST   RENEWAL   OF   COVENANT.  225 

before  him  the  acceptance  he  had  written,  and  sub- 
scribing it  with  his  hand."  We  shall  quote  his  own 
detailed  account  of  this  last  renewal  of  his  covenant 
with  God  : — 

"  Rising  early  in  the  morning,  after  my  ordinary 
devotions,  I  spread  the  subscribed  acceptance  of 
the  covenant  before  the  Lord,  and  I  solemnly 
adhered  to  it  and  renewed  it.  Then  proceeding 
towards  the  covenant,  I  stated  God's  offer  and 
exhibition  of  it  to  me  in  his  own  express  words  ; — 
such  as  Isa.  lv.  3  :  '  I  will  make  an  everlasting  cov- 
enant with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David.' 
This  is  the  covenant,  Heb.  viii.  10 :  'I  will  put 
my  laws  into  their  mind,  and  write  them  in  their 
hearts :  and  I  will  be  to  them  a  God,  and  they 
shall  be  to  me  a  people.  For  I  will  be  merciful 
to  their  unrighteousness,  and  their  sins  and  their 
iniquities  will  I  remember  no  more.'  Hos.  ii.  19: 
'  I  will  betroth  thee  unto  me  for  ever.'  John  iii. 
16:  'God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his 
only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever  believeth  in 
him  should  not  perish,  but  have  everlasting  life.' 
Rev.  xxii.  17:  'Whosoever  will,  let  him  take  the 
water  of  life  freely.'  These,"  continues  the  devout 
man,  coming  out  from  the  presence  chamber  of 
his  covenant  God — "  these  I  pleaded  were  his  own 
words,    he    could    not    deny    it  ;    and    thereupon    I 

15 


226  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

adhered  and  solemnly  took  hold  of  the  same  as 
before.  And  then  I  saw  so  clearly  the  matter 
concluded  between  God  and  my  soul,  that  I  could 
plead  and  see  that,  upon  the  separation  of  my 
soul  from  my  body,  my  soul  should  be  carried 
up  by  angels  into  Abraham's  bosom,  by  virtue  of 
the  covenant ;  and  my  dead  body  be  carried  down 
to  the  grave  in  it,  and  lie  there  in  it,  and,  by  virtue 
of  it,  raised  up  at  the  last  day  reunited  to  my 
soul.  And  tongue  and  heart  jointly  consented  that 
this  my  vile  body,  bearing  the  image  of  the  first 
Adam,  should  be  left  lifeless,  carried  to  the  grave, 
and  become  more  loathsome  there,  till  it  be  re- 
duced to  dust  again  ;  but  so  that,  in  virtue  of  the 
covenant,  it  be  out  of  the  same  dust  new  framed 
and  fashioned  after  the  image  of  the  second  Adam, 
like  unto  his  own  glorious  body.  Rising  up  from 
prayer  with  joy  in  believing,  I  sang  with  an  exulting 
heart  Ps.  xvi.  5  to  the  end, — 

"  'God  is  of  mine  inheritance 
And  cup  the  portion  ; 
The  lot  that  fallen  is  to  me 
Thou  dost  maintain  alone. 

"  '  Unto  me  happily  the  lines 

In  pleasant  places  fell ; 

Yea,  the  inheritance  I  got 

In  beauty  doth  excel.'  " 


WELCOME   INTELLIGENCE.  227 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Mr.  Boston  received 
welcome  intelligence  regarding  the  acceptance  and 
usefulness  of  his  "  Fourfold  State  "  in  remote  places, 
and  particularly  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland.  And 
not  long  after,  his  heart  was  cheered  by  his  receiv- 
ing kindly  notice  of  the  publication  of  a  new  edition 
of  his  precious  treatise,  a  copy  of  which  was  not 
long  in  finding  its  way  to  Ettrick.  The  manner 
of  his  reference  to  this  in  his  diary  is  truly  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  of  God.  "  I  took  it,"  he  says, 
"  and  spread  it  before  the  Lord,  praying  for  a  bless- 
ing to  be  entailed  on  it,  for  the  correction  and  con- 
version of  sinners  and  the  edifying  of  saints,  for 
the  time  I  am  in  life,  and  after  I  shall  be  in  the 
dust."  Little  did  the  modest  author  venture  to 
indulge  the  fond  imagination  that,  within  little 
more  than  thirty  years,  the  book  would  have 
passed  through  more  than  thirty  editions,  some  of 
them  very  large.  It  would  have  seemed  to  him 
like  a  presumptuous  dream  ;  but  it  was  exceeded 
by  the  fact.  Who  can  compute  the  spiritual  results 
within  the  same  period  ? 

There  was  another  event  in  this  closing  period 
of  his  life  which  was  surrounded  with  a  peculiar 
and  sacred  interest,  in  connection  with  the  observ- 
ance of  the  Lord's  Supper  by  Mr.  Boston  and  his 
people    in    the    midsummer    of    1 73 1.      For    it   was 


228  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

anticipated  by  the  beloved  pastor,  with  his  grow- 
ing infirmities,  that  this  would  be  the  last  time  in 
which  he  would  dispense  among  them  this  "heart- 
strengthening  ordinance;"  and  the  same  thought, 
though  yet  unspoken,  was  in  the  minds  of  his 
people.  What  hallowed  memories  and  melting 
associations  stood  connected  with  the  thought  of 
former  communions,  in  which  the  language  of  their 
hearts  had  often  been,  "  Surely  it  is  good  for  us 
to  be  here."  But  this  approaching  sacrament  was 
to  bring  with  it  associations  and  impressions  pe- 
culiarly its  own.  The  good  pastor,  as  he  gazed 
forth  upon  those  deeply-impressed  multitudes  with 
his  look  of  mingled  majesty  and  benignity,  could 
have  said  to  them,  in  the  language  of  the  Master, 
"  I  shall  not  drink  henceforth  of  this  fruit  of  the 
vine,  until  that  day  when  I  drink  it  new  with  you 
in  my  Father's  kingdom."  All  Ettrick  was  moved 
by  the  anticipation.  The  parishioners  came  forth 
on  that  occasion  in  numbers  that  had  never  before 
been  equalled.  Even  the  lame,  and  the  halt,  and  the 
blind  would  not  consent  to  be  absent.  From  "  lone 
St.  Mary's  Loch"  to  the  gates  of  Selkirk,  from 
the  picturesque  glens  of  Yarrow,  and  places  far 
beyond,  they  hastened,  streaming  from  the  early 
morning  dawn  ;  throwing  themselves  with  confi- 
dence    upon     the     unfailing     hospitality     of    their 


A   MEMORABLE   COMMUNION.  229 

Ettrick  brethren,  some  of  whom  provided  lodging 
for  fifty  strangers,  while  others  were  equally  lavish 
in  providing  meat  and  drink.  This,  as  we  have 
already  stated,  was  one  of  the  last  things  which  Mr. 
Boston  noticed  in  his  diary.  And  he  did  it  with 
holy  gladness  and  gratitude.  "  God,"  says  he,  "  hath 
given  this  people  a  largeness  of  heart  to  communi- 
cate of  their  substance  on  these  and  other  occasions 
also.  And  my  heart  has  long  been  on  that  occasion 
particularly  concerned  for  a  blessing  on  their  sub- 
stance, with  such  a  natural  emotion  as  if  they  had 
been  begotten  of  my  body." 

The  communicants  were  strangely  moved  as  they 
heard  their  pastor's  solemn  and  tender  voice  repeat- 
ing the  "  words  of  institution,"  and  received  from 
his  pale  and  trembling  hands  the  sacred  emblems 
of  a  Redeemer's  dying  love,  and  thought  that  this 
was  the  last  time  in  which  he  would  preside  at 
the  holy  festival.  Still,  the  joy  on  that  occasion 
swallowed  up  the  sorrow.  The  records  left  behind 
regarding  it  lead  us  to  think  of  it  as  a  day  ever 
to  be  remembered,  a  little  Pentecost,  an  antepast  of 
the  time  when  all  the  emblems  shall  have  vanished 
away,  and  Christ  shall  be  seen  by  his  people  face 
to  face. 

We  here  introduce  two  letters  which  were  written 
to  Mr.  Boston  at  this  period  by  two  of  his  brethren 


230  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

in  the  ministry,  whose  names  are  already  familiar 
to  us,  as  belonging  to  the  innermost  circle  of 
his  friends — Gabriel  Wilson  of  Maxton,  and  Henry 
Davidson  of  Galashiels.  Their  ointment  and  per- 
fume, no  doubt,  "  rejoiced  his  heart,"  on  the  way 
to  his  heavenly  home. 

Letter  from  Mr.  Wilson. 

"Rev.  dearest  Brother, — It  has  been  a  most 
real  pain  to  me,  after  I  was  fully  purposed  to  be 
with  you  some  time  this  day,  to  think  of  sending 
any  letter.  But  the  ordering  seems  to  be  of  the 
Lord.  I  design  to  essay  it  again  without  delay, 
according  as  I  hear  from  you.  I  hear  the  trial 
has  become  still  more  fiery ;  but  hope  you  will 
be  kept  from  thinking  it  strange,  as  though  some 
strange  thing  had  happened  unto  you.  Oh,  it  is 
difficult  ;  but  you  are  allowed,  and  even  called  to 
rejoice,  inasmuch  as  you  are  thus  made  (a  partaker 
of  Christ's  sufferings.' 

"  The  Lord  has  in  great  favour  led  you  forth  into 
his  truth,  and  is  now  in  his  fatherly  wisdom  giving 
you  use  for  it  all — calling  you  to  show  forth  the  sup- 
porting and  comforting  power  of  it.  Our  season,  if 
need  be,  of  being  in  heaviness  through  manifold 
temptations  is  made  up  of  hours  and  minutes,  and 
will  soon  run  out  (2  Cor.  iv.  17,  18). 


LETTER   FROM   MR.   WILSON.  23 1 

"  The  Son  of  God,  your  Lord  and  Master,  is  with 
you  in  the  furnace,  though  not  always  visible,  and 
will  never  leave  you  nor  forsake  you.  May  the  God 
of  hope,  of  patience,  and  consolation,  '  the  God  and 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,'  '  the  Father  of 
mercies,'  and  '  the  God  of  all  comfort,'  comfort  you 
in  all  your  tribulation  with  the  comforts  of  his  cove- 
nant, and  with  the  same  comforts  with  which  he  has 
enabled  you  to  comfort  others  in  any  trouble.  You 
mind  (Ps.  xxxi.  ult.)  that  it  is  in  the  way  of  our 
labouring  to  be  of  good  courage  that  he  promises 
to  strengthen  our  hearts.  I  will  still  hope  and  seek 
that  he  may  turn  the  shadow  of  death  into  the 
morning,  and  spare  you  to  recover  strength. 

"  Our  Session  being  met  this  day,  in  token  of  their 
love  and  sympathy  have  sent  the  bearer,  one  of  their 
number,  to  visit  you  and  bring  them  word.  Dearest 
brother,  I  desire  to  remember  your  bonds,  as  bound 
with  you.  Great  grace  be  upon  you. — I  am,  with 
love  to  all  yours,  dearest  Sir,  yours, 

"  Gab.  Wilson. 

"  Maxton,  April  8,  /7J2.'' 

From  Mr.  Davidson. 

"  Very  DEAR  Sir, — Your  several  letters  came  safe 
to  hand,  and  were  very  acceptable.  This  comes  to 
inform  you  that  the  good  old  woman,  my  mother, 


232  Thomas  boston. 

went  home  to  her  own,  the  better  country,  this 
morning,  betwixt  three  and  four  o'clock.  She  took 
her  bed  upon  the  Lord's-day  evening ;  had  a  fever 
pretty  high,  but  retained  all  her  senses  to  her  dying 
hour.  How  cruel  is  our  love !  How  blind  and  in- 
considerate is  our  affection  !  We  would  prefer  the 
small  advantages  or  greater  gains  we  reap  from  their 
abode  with  us,  to  entire  satisfaction  and  complete 
happiness — a  very  great  but  common  solecism  in  true 
friendship  we  are  often  guilty  of.  However  frightful 
and  ill-favoured  death  may  appear  to  the  eye  of 
sense,  it  is  viewed  by  faith  as  the  messenger  of  our 
heavenly  Father  ;  and  when  the  Christian  opens  its 
hard  cold  hands  and  looks  into  them,  there  are  to  be 
found  gracious  letters  full  of  love,  bearing  an  invita- 
tion to  come  home,  a  call  from  the  new  Jerusalem  to 
come  up  and  see.  When  death  with  the  one  hand 
covers  our  eyes,  and  deprives  us  of  the  light  of  the 
stars  with  the  other,  it  rends  in  pieces  the  veil,  and 
so  makes  way  for  our  being  set  immediately  under 
the  refreshing  beams  of  the  Sun  of  Righteousness, 
without  the  least  appearance  of  a  cloud  through  the 
long  ages  of  eternity.  Now  that  '  his  way  is  in  the 
sea,  and  his  path  in  the  deep  waters,  and  his  foot- 
steps are  not  known,'  we  believe  loving-kindness  in 
all  the  mysterious  passages  of  Providence  ;  we  shall 
in  due  time  see  '  a  wheel  in  the  wheel,'  and  be  taught 


LETTER   FROM   MR.   DAVIDSON.  233 

how  to  decipher  the  dark  characters  ;  we  shall,  with 
an  agreeable  surprise,  perceive  an  all-wise  Providence, 
in  all  its  intricate,  oblique,  and  seemingly  contrary 
motions,  to  have  been  a  faithful  servant  to  the  divine 
promise,  so  that  we  may  say  Amen  to  heaven's  dis- 
posals, and  cry  out  in  the  dark  and  gloomy  night, 
Hallelujah.  I  should  certainly  make  an  apology  for 
giving  you  so  much  trouble,  but  allow  it  to  be 
written  to  the  Lord's  prisoner  of  hope  with  you,  as  I 
design  it,  though  the  direction  bears  your  name. 
The  fault  of  its  length  will,  I  hope,  appear  less  when 
taken  in  that  view.  My  affectionate  respects  to 
Mrs.  Boston  with  yourself,  are  offered  by  him  who 
is,  very  dear  Sir,  yours  very  affectionately  in  the 
straitest  bonds,  H.  DAVIDSON. 

"  Galashiels,  February  2j,  1732." 

Meanwhile  Mr.  Boston's  strength  was  gradually 
diminishing;  and  this  was  aggravated,  as  well  as  his 
pain  greatly  increased,  by  a  scorbutic  disease  which 
had  fastened  upon  him  as  a  permanent  malady. 
This  made  it  necessary,  however  reluctantly,  that  he 
should  begin  to  lessen  his  pastoral  labours,  though 
he  could  have  said  of  the  unwelcome  change,  with 
another  devoted  servant  of  Christ  and  lover  of  souls 
who  had  become  old  in  the  ministry,  "  Oh,  it  is  hard 
for  me  to  give  up  working  in  the  cause  of  such  a 


234  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Master."  For  instance,  up  to  this  advanced  period, 
it  had  been  his  unvarying  practice,  as  will  be  re- 
membered, to  hold  "  catechizings "  in  the  homes  of 
his  people,  once  in  the  year,  over  the  whole  of  his 
parish.  Neither  inclement  weather,  nor  swollen 
stream,  nor  steep  and  rugged  mountain  path  could 
hold  him  back  from  this  part  of  his  pastorate,  which 
he  had  valued  and  enjoyed  as  bringing  him  into 
close  contact  with  the  minds  and  hearts  of  his 
people,  keeping  up  his  acquaintance  with  their  family 
history,  and,  not  least,  enabling  him  to  gauge  the 
measure  and  accuracy  of  their  knowledge  in  the 
verities  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  But  this  must  now 
be  abandoned  as  having  not  only  become  a  difficult 
but  an  impossible  service. 

And  yet  the  loved  work  of  catechetical  teaching 
was  not,  wholly  and  at  once,  given  up.  There  was 
a  sort  of  compromise  with  difficulty.  The  devoted 
minister  clung  with  enthusiasm  to  his  favourite  serv- 
ice. When  he  was  no  longer  able  to  meet  with 
parents  and  other  adults  in  their  homes  and  remote 
districts,  it  was  arranged  that  the  younger  people 
should  come  from  all  parts  of  the  parish,  at  stated 
times  in  the  week,  to  meet  with  Mr.  Boston  in  the 
kirk  ;  and  a  portable  iron  grate  was  provided  by  the 
kind  people,  in  which  a  peat  fire  was  kindled  on  the 
appointed  day,  beside  which  the  earnest  minister  of 


DIMINISHING  STRENGTH.  235 

Christ,  with  sixty  or  seventy  young  men  and  women 
gathered  around  him,  could  address  them  during  an 
hour  that  never  was  wearisome  while  he  conversed 
with  them  of  the  great  things  of  God. 

But  the  interval  was  probably  not  very  long 
until  another  change  was  needed.  For  the  frail  and 
palsied  state  of  his  limbs  made  it  irksome  and  even 
impossible  for  him  to  stand  in  his  pulpit  while 
preaching  ;  and  his  sympathizing  people,  knowing  of 
what  all  these  signs  were  the  prophecy,  were  glad  to 
prolong  his  ministry  among  them,  were  it  even  for 
a  little  time,  by  placing  a  large  arm-chair  in  the 
Ettrick  pulpit,  in  which  he  could  sit  and  discourse. 
The  voice  to  which  so  many  of  them  had  listened 
from  their  infancy  no  longer  possessed  its  earlier 
strength  and  power,  but  its  wonted  tenderness  and 
pathos  were  still  there ;  and  every  Sabbath  they 
listened  with  the  saddened  feeling,  which  made  every 
sentence  the  more  precious,  that  these  might  be  his 
last  words.  They  knew  that  they  were  now  gather- 
ing the  gleanings  of  the  vintage.  Ere  long  the  cry 
of  their  hearts  would  be, 

"Oh  for  the  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still !  " 

Even  this  thoughtful  arrangement  served  only  for 
a  time  ;  for  at  length,  because  of  his  growing  frailty, 


236  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

Mr.  Boston  could  no  longer  venture  outside  of  his 
manse  to  preach,  and  his  last  expedient  was  to 
preach  from  one  of  the  open  windows  of  the  manse 
to  large  and  loving  congregations  stretching  away 
before  him,  with  the  sublime  background  of  the  ever- 
lasting hills.  Two  excellent  sermons  on  the  neces- 
sity of  self-examination  (2  Cor.  xiii.  5)  were  written 
by  him  for  these  occasions,  and  preached  from  this 
extemporized  pulpit. 

Two  things  may  be  gathered  from  Mr.  Boston's 
sayings  during  those  later  months  of  his  life.  One 
of  these  was  that  those  grand  evangelical  truths, 
which  it  had  been  the  special  work  of  his  ministry  to 
preach  and  to  defend,  were  the  support  of  his  mind 
at  the  last,  when  he  knew,  by  many  symptoms,  that 
the  end  was  near.  Referring  to  that  favourite  sen- 
tence, more  "  precious  than  gold,  yea,  than  much  fine 
gold"  (1  John  v.  11),  "This  is  the  record,  that  God 
hath  given  to  us  eternal  life,  and  this  life  is  in  his 
Son,"  which  contained  the  condensed  spirit  of  the 
Marrow  divinity,  we  have  found  him  saying,  when 
looking  back  upon  a  period  of  dangerous  illness, 
"  This  was  the  sweet  and  comfortable  prop  of  my 
soul."  And  on  another  occasion,  when  stricken  down 
with  a  sudden  illness,  and  in  the  immediate  prospect 
of  death,  he  leaves  this  testimony  of  his  experience : 
"  The  grant  of  Christ  to  sinners,  as  such,  was  the 


NEARING   THE   END.  237 

ground  of  my  comfort ;  and  since  Saturday  last,  I 
have  had  experience  of  the  solid  peace  and  joy  of 
believing  God  to  be  my  God." 

And  the  other  noticeable  circumstance  was,  that  he 
had  no  desire  to  outlive  his  activity  and  usefulness. 
His  desire  rather  was,  that  when  he  ceased  to  work 
he  might  cease  to  live.  This  feeling  shines  out  in  such 
sayings  as  the  following:  "  I  have  some  comfortable 
prospect  of  the  weary 's  getting  to  rest ; "  "I  had 
some  special  concern  on  my  spirit  this  day,  for  being 
helped  to  die  to  the  glory  of  God,  that  when  death 
comes  I  might  be  ripe  and  content  to  go  away."  If 
he  had  been  asked,  during  his  closing  weeks,  to  say 
whether  he  had  any  unsatisfied  wish,  the  spirit  of 
his  answer  would  have  been  in  the  words  of  the  dying 
Melancthon,  "  Nihil  aliud  nisi  ccelum  "  (Nothing  else 
but  heaven).  And  the  end,  when  it  came,  was  in 
welcome  harmony  with  his  desire. 

Mr.  Boston's  mental  attitude  was  now  one  of  wait- 
ing expectancy  for  his  summons  to  his  heavenly 
home,  like  Elijah  looking  up  for  the  descending 
chariot  of  fire.  So  much  was  this  the  case,  that  he 
promptly  discouraged  every  form  of  interruption 
that  threatened  to  disturb  his  equanimity,  and  to 
draw  his  thoughts  back  to  "  the  things  which  were 
seen  and  temporal,"  which  he  had  left  behind  him 
for  ever.     This  appears  from  his  answer  to  a  corre- 


238  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

spondent  in  Edinburgh,  who,  unaware  of  his  condi- 
tion, had  written  to  him  on  some  matter  of  secular 
business.  The  letter  is  interesting,  not  only  because 
of  the  state  of  mind  which  it  reveals  in  the  affec- 
tionate courtesy  of  his  refusal,  but  because  it  is  be- 
lieved to  have  been  the  last  letter  that  Mr.  Boston 
wrote  : — 

"  MY  VERY  DEAR  SIR, — I  am  obliged  downright 
to  acquaint  you  that  I  have  been  of  a  considerable 
time,  and  am  still,  in  an  apparently  dying  condition. 
All  business  is  quite  over ;  and  I  can  no  more,  as 
matters  stand,  correspond  with  any  about  MSS.  or 
anything  else,  but  must  leave  them  to  the  Lord, 
and  the  management  of  my  friends  as  he  shall  direct 
them.  I  do  not  doubt  but  your  God,  who  has  seen 
meet  to  row  you  into  deep  waters,  will,  in  due  time, 
bring  you  out  again  ;  but  there  is  need  of  patience. 
I  cannot  insist.  The  eternal  God  be  your  refuge,  and 
underneath  the  everlasting  arms,  and  plentifully 
reward  your  twelve  years  of  most  substantial  friend- 
ship.— I  am,  my  dear  Sir,  yours  most  affectionately," 
etc. 

On  the  20th  day  of  May  1732,  and  in  the  fifty- 
sixth  year  of  his  age,  within  the  brief  period  of  a 
fortnight  after  he  had  preached,  from  the  window 
of  his  manse,  his  second  sermon   on   the  necessity 


HOME   AT   LAST.  239 

of  self-examination,  Thomas  Boston  died,  as  has 
been  happily  said,  scarcely  old  in  years,  but  weary 
with  labour  and  meet  for  heaven.  There  was  no 
lingering  on  the  brink  of  the  great  river.  It  hap- 
pened according  to  his  wish  and  his  prayer,  that  he 
might  end  his  work  and  his  life  together.  It  is  a 
comforting  fact  to  the  children  of  God  that  in  every 
instance  our  heavenly  Father  not  only  appoints  the 
fact,  but  also  the  time  and  the  manner,  of  their  death. 
When  Jesus  foretold  to  Peter  his  death  in  old  age, 
and  by  crucifixion,  we  arc  informed,  in  the  inspired 
narrative,  that  he  did  this,  "  signifying  by  what  death 
he  should  glorify  God."  We  are  thereby  assured 
that  "  all  our  times  are  in  his  hand  ; "  and  that  while 
the  manner  in  which  his  redeemed  ones  are  removed 
from  the  world  may  be  very  various — some  dying 
under  great  and  prolonged  suffering,  with  "  pains 
and  groans  and  dying  strife,"  others  with  peace  and 
even  triumph,  as  if  they  felt  themselves  already  in 
the  everlasting  arms — there  is  a  Father's  wisdom  and 
love  in  them  all,  even  in  the  most  unlikely  and  mys- 
terious. Ralph  Erskine  died  with  the  cry  of  "  Vic- 
tory, victory "  upon  his  lips.  The  dying  words  of 
Andrew  Fuller  were,  "  I  have  no  raptures,  and  I  have 
no  fears,  but  I  have  such  a  faith  as  I  can  plunge  with 
into  eternity."  Mr.  Scott,  the  learned  and  pious  com- 
mentator, was  vexed  for  a  time  by  Satanic  tempta- 


24O  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

tions  and  assaults,  though,  in  the  end,  he  could  thank 
God  for  victory  and  unclouded  hope.  The  great 
missionary  Schwartz  turned  his  death-bed  into  a 
pulpit,  and,  surrounded  by  native  Indian  princes, 
charged  them,  as  if  with  his  last  dying  words,  "  See 
that  none  of  you  be  wanting  from  the  right  hand  of 
Christ  at  the  day  of  judgment."  Henry  Martyn,  one 
of  the  most  devoted  and  self-denying  missionaries  of 
his  times,  died  alone  in  the  sandy  desert,  with  not  so 
much  as  one  friend  to  hold  up  to  his  parched  lips  a 
cup  of  cold  water,  or  to  close  his  eyes.  And  now 
this  saintly  pastor  of  Ettrick  has  his  prayer  an- 
swered, that  he  might  end  his  life  and  his  work  to- 
gether, and  that  death  might  be  to  him  almost  as  if 
it  were  without  dying. 

"  Oh  that  without  a  lingering  groan 
I  might  the  welcome  word  receive, 
My  body  with  my  charge  lay  down, 
And  cease  at  once  to  work  and  live  ! 

"  No  guilty  doubt,  no  anxious  gloom, 

Shall  damp  whom  Jesus'  presence  cheers  ; 
My  light,  my  life,  my  God  is  come, 
And  glory  in  his  face  appears." 

Thomas  Boston  of  Ettrick  was  a  great  man  ;  great 
in  the  sense  in  which  John  the  Baptist  was  great,  by 
his  consecrated  life,  in  which  he  glorified  God  and 
did  good  to  men — "  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord." 


A   GREAT   MAN.  24 1 

We  have  only  to  look  back  upon  the  narrative  we 
have  given  of  his  life  in  order  to  attest  our  judgment. 
We  think  of  him  in  his  young  ministry  at  Simprin, 
where,  by  means  of  it,  in  the  course  of  seven  years, 
the  universal  ungodliness  and  indifference  among  its 
people  were  supplanted  by  a  living  faith  and  holy 
conduct,  so  that  "  the  wilderness  became  a  fruitful 
field."  We  next  behold  him  in  Ettrick,  with  its 
much  larger  sphere,  in  which,  when  he  entered  on  it 
as  its  minister,  he  found  profane  swearing,  neglect  of 
public  worship,  and  impurity  in  some  of  its  worst 
forms  among  the  prevailing  habits  of  its  parishioners ; 
and  these,  after  many  years  of  earnest  toil  and  "  prayer 
ardent  which  opens  heaven,"  yielding  at  length  to 
the  might  of  the  gospel  which  he  preached,  and 
Ettrick  becoming  "  a  fruitful  garden  of  the  Lord." 

There  next  rises  before  us  Mr.  Boston's  writing 
and  publishing  his  "  Fourfold  State,"  which,  during 
several  generations,  was  more  used  of  God  for  the 
conversion  of  men  than  any  other  book  of  human 
composition,  not  only  influencing  an  individual  here 
and  there,  but  bringing  whole  counties  in  Scotland, 
containing  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  under 
its  divinely  transforming  influence.  It  was  like  "a 
lamp  from  off  the  everlasting  throne  which  mercy 
brought  down."  Next  came  the  "  Marrow  "  contro- 
versy, in  which  Mr.  Boston  and  the  other  Marrow- 

16 


242  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

men  did  battle  with  various  forms  of  error,  especially 
seeking  to  deliver  the  gospel  in  all  its  divine  fulness 
and  freeness  from  the  restraints  and  barriers  which 
human  ignorance  and  self-righteousness  had  placed 
around  it,  even  suffering  rebuke  and  shame  for  their 
fidelity  to  Christ  in  seeking  to  remove  every  obstruc- 
tion from  the  fountain  of  life.  Through  all  those 
years  of  grievous  wrong  and  persecution,  Mr.  Boston 
stood  firm,  even  when,  as  once  happened,  he  stood 
alone.  The  truth  is,  that  there  was  the  spirit  of 
martyrs  in  this  true  minister  of  Christ ;  and  if  he 
had  lived  a  hundred  years  earlier,  in  the  days  of  the 
Covenanting  struggle  which  at  length  won  for  Scot- 
land her  civil  and  religious  liberty,  we  feel  sure  he 
would  have  been  ready,  if  need  be,  to  walk  with  firm 
step  to  the  martyr's  stake. 

Then  came  the  closing  years  of  Mr.  Boston's  life, 
which,  as  far  as  his  failing  strength  permitted,  were 
much  employed  in  the  preparing  and  publishing  of 
books  which  seemed  to  have  been  called  for  by  the 
doctrinal  necessities  of  the  times,  such  as  his  treatises 
on  the  Covenant  of  Works  and  the  Covenant  of 
Grace,  and  his  Notes  on  the  Marrow.  Shall  any 
one  say  that  the  man  whom  God  had  so  eminently 
gifted  and  used  as  his  willing  instrument  in  bringing 
myriads  into  his  kingdom,  and  defending  the  faith 
once  delivered  unto  the  saints,  was  not  in  the  highest 


PASTOR   AND   PEOPLE.  243 

sense  a  great  man — "  great  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord  "? 
We  shall  not  shrink  from  affirming,  that  in  some 
attainments  he  stood  supreme  among  the  great  men 
of  his  time  ;  and  one  who  was  well  qualified  to  judge, 
not  long  since  gave  it  as  his  opinion  that  Thomas 
Boston  was  "  the  best  Hebrew  scholar  in  Scotland 
in  his  day,  and  that  he  was  also  the  freshest  and 
most  powerful  of  Scottish  living  theologians."* 

How  interesting  it  has  been  to  witness  the  deep 
and  tender  affection  shown  by  the  people  of  Ettrick 
for  their  afflicted  minister  in  the  closing  months  of 
his  life,  as  disclosed  in  the  scenes  which  have  been 
described  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  chapter.  It  was 
no  superficial  sentiment  or  shallow  sympathy  which 
produced  such  tokens  of  regard.  No  doubt  these  had 
their  root,  in  part,  in  the  case  of  many,  in  their  grati- 
tude to  him  through  whose  faithful  guidance  they 
had  been  led  to  the  feet  of  Jesus  and  into  the  way 
of  life.  Nor  could  they  forget  his  unfailing  sympathy 
with  them  in  all  their  times  alike  of  sorrow  and  of 
joy.  And  their  love  had  also  sprung,  in  no  slight 
degree,  from  that  saintly  life  which  he  had  lived  be- 
fore them,  and  which  testified  to  the  divine  reality 
of  his  faith.  The  daily  witnessing  of  such  a  life  as 
his  was  like  reading  a  bright  page  in  Evidences  of 
Christianity.  There  was  therefore  a  veneration  to- 
wards this  man  of  God  which  had  something  in  it 

*  Dr.  James  Walker,  author  of  "  Theology  and  Theologians  of  Scotland." 


244  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

more  than  love.  Long,  indeed,  before  he  died,  the 
name  of  Boston  had  become  a  cherished  household 
word  in  every  home  in  Ettrick.  It  was  a  kind  of 
synonym  for  sanctity.  And  the  children  in  those 
simple  homes  had  been  taught  to  love  him  and  to 
pronounce  his  name  with  reverence.  And  anecdotes 
regarding  him,  and  many  of  his  remarkable  sayings 
and  pointed  proverbs,  were  repeated  and  treasured 
in  those  homes,  and  had  even  come  to  be  circulated 
in  regions  far  beyond  Ettrick,  and  in  due  time  trans- 
mitted from  generation  to  generation.  An  eminent 
bishop  of  the  Church  of  England  was  accustomed  to 
speak  of  Philip  Henry  as  "  the  sweet  saint  of  Non- 
conformity." Why  may  we  not  speak  of  Thomas 
Boston  as  the  sweet  saint  of  Scottish  Presbyterian- 
ism  ?  In  our  thoughts  we  would  place  his  name  on 
the  same  roll  of  Scottish  saints  and  worthies  as  that 
of  Samuel  Rutherford  a  hundred  years  before — the 
pastor  of  Ettrick  and  the  pastor  of  Anwoth. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  ere  the  summons  came 
which  called  Mr.  Boston  hence ;  and  it  was  only 
then  that  his  stricken  people  knew  how  much  they 
had  loved  him.  What  a  Bochim  must  all  Ettrick 
have  become  on  that  saddest  of  days  when  the 
messengers  bore  to  every  home  the  tidings  of  their 
beloved  pastor's  death  !  "  Know  ye  not  that  there  is 
a  prince  and  a  great  man  fallen  this  day  in  Israel  ?  " 


BOSTON'S      TOMB. 


THE   ETTRICK   MOURNERS.  245 

And  what  a  funeral,  composed  of  multitudes  with 
deep  unfeigned  grief,  stretching  far  beyond  the 
churchyard  wall,  who  had  come  to  lay  in  the  grave 
the  precious  dust !  Heaven  had  already  opened  its 
golden  gate  to  receive  his  immortal  spirit ;  and  his 
many  converts  who  had  ascended  to  glory  before 
him  had  hastened  to  welcome  him  in.  And  as  the 
mourners  approached  to  look  for  once  into  the 
narrow  house,  would  they  not  seem  to  hear  a  tender 
voice  calling  to  them  from  above,  "  What  is  our 
hope,  or  joy,  or  crown  of  rejoicing  ?  Are  not  even 
ye  in  the  presence  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  at  his 
coming  ?     For  ye  are  our  glory  and  joy  "  ? 

"  I  heard  a  voice  from  heaven  saying  unto  me, 
Write,  Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die  in  the  Lord 
from  henceforth :  Yea,  saith  the  Spirit,  that  they 
may  rest  from  their  labours ;  and  their  works  do 
follow  them." 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

SUPPLEMENTAR  Y. 

Pen-Portrait  of  Mr.  Boston — Self-Estimate — 
Posthumous  Works. 

IT  is  pleasant  to  be  able  to  add  to  our  narrative  a 
pen-portrait  of  Mr.  Boston,  evidently  written 
not  long  after  his  death,  by  his  three  most  intimate 
friends  and  fellow-workers  in  the  ministry  of  the 
gospel  —  Messrs.  Coldcn,  Davidson,  and  Wilson. 
They  have  thus  twined  together  a  beautiful  wreath, 
and  laid  it  on  his  grave : — 

"  Mr.  Boston  was  of  a  stature  above  the  middle 
size  ;  of  a  venerable,  amiable  aspect ;  of  a  strong 
and  fruitful  genius  ;  of  a  lively  imagination,  such  as 
affords  what  is  called  a  ready  wit,  which,  instead 
of  cultivating,  he  laid  under  a  severe  restraint ;  of 
tender  affections  ;  a  clear  and  solid  judgment  ;  his 
temper  candid,  modest,  cautious,  benevolent,  oblig- 
ing, and  courteous  ;  had  a  natural  aversion  to  any- 
thing rude  or  uncivil  in  words  or  behaviour,  and  a 
delicate  feeling  in  meeting  with  aught  of  that  sort ; 


PEN-PORTRAIT.  2tf 

could  be  heavy  and  severe  in  his  words,  where  there 
was  just  occasion,  or  he  judged  the  same  necessary. 

"  He  was  early  called  by  divine  grace  ;  all  along 
afterwards  exercised  unto  godliness  ;  walked  indeed 
with  God,  in  all  his  ways  daily  acknowledging  him  ; 
frequent  in  solemn,  extraordinary  applications  to 
Heaven  (namely,  upon  every  new  emergent  of  duty, 
difficulty,  or  trial),  followed  with  evident,  comfort- 
able, and  confirming  testimonies  of  divine  accept- 
ance and  audience  ;  a  judicious  observer,  recorder, 
and  improver  of  the  dispensations  of  divine  provi- 
dence, in  connection  with  the  Word,  his  own  frame 
and  walk,  and  consequently  of  great  experience  in 
religion. 

"  He  was  accurately  and  extensively  regardful  of 
the  divine  law  in  all  manner  of  life  and  conversation, 
even  in  things  that  escape  the  notice  of  the  most 
part  of  Christians  ;  of  a  tender  conscience,  carefully 
watching  against  and  avoiding  the  appearance  of 
evil  ;  compassionate  and  sympathizing  with  the  dis- 
tressed, charitable  to  the  needy  ;  a  dutiful  husband, 
an  indulgent  father,  a  faithful  and  an  affectionate 
friend,  to  which  he  had  a  particular  cast  in  his 
temper,  which  proved  a  rich  blessing  to  those  who 
were  favoured  with  his  friendship. 

"  He  was  a  considerable  scholar  in  all  the  parts  of 
theological  learning,  and  excelled  in  some  of  them. 


248  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

What  he  was  for  a  humanist,  even  toward  the  latter 
end  of  his  days,  his  translation  of  his  own  work  on 
the  Hebrew  accentuation  into  good  Roman  Latin 
will  abundantly  testify ;  was  well  seen  in  Greek ; 
and  for  the  skill  he  attained  in  the  Hebrew,  he 
will,  we  are  satisfied,  in  ages  to  come,  be  admired 
and  had  in  honour  by  the  learned  world,  especially 
when  it  is  understood  under  what  disadvantages,  in 
what  obscurity  and  seclusion  from  learned  assist- 
ance, the  work  was  composed;  and  when  it  is  con- 
sidered how  far,  notwithstanding,  he  has  outstripped 
all  that  went  before  him  in  that  study,  namely, 
of  the  Hebrew  accentuation.  He  understood  the 
French ;  and,  for  the  sake  of  comparing  translations, 
could  read  the  Dutch  Bible.  There  were  few  pieces 
of  learning  that  he  had  not  some  good  taste  of.  But 
all  his  knowledge  behoved  to  be  otherwise  discovered 
than  by  professing  it. 

"  He  was  a  hard  student,  of  indefatigable  applica- 
tion, so  that  whatever  he  was  once  heartily  engaged 
in,  he  knew  not  how  to  quit,  till,  by  help  from  heaven 
and  incessant  labour,  he  got  through  it.  He  had  a 
great  knowledge  and  understanding  of  human  nature, 
of  the  most  proper  methods  of  addressing  it,  and  the 
most  likely  handles  for  catching  and  holding  of  it. 
He  had  an  admirable  talent  for  drawing  a  paper;  was 
an  admirer  of  other  men's  gifts  and  parts,  liberally 


PEN-PORTRAIT.  249 

giving  them  their  due  praise,  even  though  in  some 
things  they  differed  from  him  ;  far  from  censorious, 
assuming,  or  detracting.  As  a  minister,  he  had  on 
his  spirit  a  deep  and  high  sense  of  divine  things  ;  was 
mighty  in  the  Scriptures,  in  his  acquaintance  with 
the  letter,  with  the  spirit  and  sense  of  them,  in 
happily  applying  and  accommodating  them  for  ex- 
plaining and  illustrating  the  subject.  His  knowledge 
and  insight  in  the  mystery  of  Christ  was  great ; 
though  a  humbling  sense  of  his  want  of  it  was  like 
to  have  quite  sunk  and  laid  him  by,  after  he  began 
to  preach.  He  had  a  peculiar  talent  for  going  deep 
into  the  mysteries  of  the  gospel,  and  at  the  same 
time  for  making  them  plain,  making  intelligible 
their  connection  with  and  influence  upon  gospel 
holiness,  notable  instances  of  which  ma)'  be  seen  in 
his  most  valuable  '  Treatise  on  the  Covenants,'  and 
in  his  '  Sermons  on  Christ  in  the  form  of  a  Servant' 
"  His  invention  was  rich,  but  judiciously  bounded. 
His  thoughts  were  always  just,  and  often  new  ;  his 
expressions  proper  and  pure  ;  his  illustrations  and 
similes  often  surprising ;  his  method  natural  and 
clear,  his  delivery  grave  and  graceful,  with  an  air 
of  earnestness,  meekness,  assurance,  and  authority 
tempered  together.  No  wonder  his  ministrations  in 
holy  things  were  all  of  them  dear  and  precious  to 
the  saints.     He  was  fixed  and  established  upon  solid 


250  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

and  rational  grounds  in  the  Reformation  principles, 
in  opposition  to  Popery,  Prelacy,  superstition,  and 
persecution  ;  was  pleasant  and  lively  in  conversa- 
tion, but  always  with  a  decorum  to  his  character, 
quite  free  from  that  sourness  of  temper  or  ascetic 
rigidity  that  generally  possesses  men  of  a  retired 
life.  He  fed  and  watched  with  diligence  the  flock 
over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  had  made  him  overseer  ; 
and  notwithstanding  his  eager  pursuit  of  that  study 
which  was  his  delight,  he  abated  nothing  of  his 
preparation  for  the  Sabbath,  nor  his  work  abroad 
in  the  parish  ;  nor  did  he  so  much  as  use  the  short- 
hand whereof  he  was  a  master,  but  always  wrote 
out  his  sermons  fair,  and  generally  as  full  as  he 
preached  them.  Far  from  serving  the  Lord  with 
that  which  cost  him  nothing,  it  was  his  delight  to 
spend  and  be  spent  in  the  service  of  the  gospel ; 
was  a  faithful  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  prudent 
reprover  of  sin  ;  was  imbued  with  a  rich  measure 
of  Christian  wisdom  and  prudence,  without  craft 
or  guile,  whereby  he  was  exceedingly  serviceable 
in  judicatories,  and  excellently  fitted  for  counsel  in 
intricate  cases.  Zeal  and  knowledge  were  in  him 
united  in  a  pitch  rarely  to  be  met  with. 

"  He  had  a  joint  concern  for  purity  and  peace  in 
the  church ;  no  man  more  zealous  for  the  former,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  more  studious  of  the  latter,  having 


ESTIMATE   OF    HIMSELF.  25  I 

observed  and  felt  so  much  of  the  mischief  of  divi- 
sion and  separation  ;  was  exceeding  cautious  and 
scrupulous  of  anything  new  or  unpresented,  until 
he  was  thoroughly  satisfied  of  its  necessity  and 
ground.  It  was  his  settled  mind  that  solidly  and 
strongly  to  establish  the  truth  was,  in  many  cases, 
the  best,  the  shortest,  and  most  effectual  way  to 
confute  error,  without  irritating  and  inflaming  the 
passions  of  men,  to  their  own  and  to  the  truth's 
prejudice  :  on  all  which  accounts  he  was  much  re- 
spected and  regarded  by  not  only  his  brethren  that 
differed  from  him,  but  generally  by  all  sorts  of  men. 
To  conclude,  he  was  a  scribe  singularly  instructed 
unto  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  happy  in  finding  out 
acceptable  words — a  workman  that  needed  not  to 
be  ashamed,  rightly  dividing  the  word  of  truth  ;  a 
burning  and  a  shining  light.  The  righteous  shall 
be  had  in  everlasting  remembrance." 

Along  with  this  skilfully  discriminating  and  affec- 
tionate estimate  of  Mr.  Boston,  prepared  by  his  three 
lifelong  and  most  endeared  friends,  it  will  not  be 
unwelcome  to  our  readers  that  we  here  introduce 
his  graceful  and  modest  estimate  of  himself : — 

"  That  cast  of  temper  whereby  I  was  naturally 
slow,  timorous,  and  diffident,  but  eager  in  pursuit 
when  once  engaged,  as  it  early  discovered  itself,  so 


252  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

I  think  it  hath  spread  itself  all  along  through  the 
whole  of  my  course.  It  hath  been  a  spring  of  much 
uneasiness  to  me  in  the  course  of  my  life,  in  that  I 
was  thereby  naturally  fond  where  I  loved.  Yet  I 
cannot  but  observe  that  my  God  hath  made  a  valu- 
able use  of  it,  especially  in  my  studies,  combating 
natural  difficulties  therein,  till  surmounted  by  his 
favour.  Agreeable  unto  it,  I  was  not  of  a  quick 
apprehension,  but  had  a  gift  of  application  ;  and 
things  being  once  discovered,  I  was  no  more  waver- 
ing in  them.  I  was  addicted  to  silence,  rather  than 
to  talking.  I  was  no  good  spokesman,  but  very 
unready,  even  in  common  conversation  ;  and  in  dis- 
putes, especially  at  a  loss  when  engaged  with  per- 
sons of  great  assurance  ;  the  disadvantage  of  which 
last  I  often  found  in  Ettrick,  where  an  uncommon 
assurance  reigned. 

"  The  touching  of  my  spirit  so  as  to  be  above  fear, 
the  moving  of  my  affections  and  being  once  well 
dipped  into  the  matter,  were  necessary  to  give  me 
an  easy  exercise  of  my  faculties  in  these  and  other 
extempore  performances.  My  talent  lay  in  doing 
things  by  a  close  application,  with  pains  and  labour. 
I  had  a  tolerable  faculty  at  drawing  of  papers ;  yet 
no  faculty  at  dictating,  but  behoved  to  have  the  pen 
in  my  own  hand,  and  even  in  that  it  would  often 
have  been  a  while  ere  I  could  enter  on.     Accord- 


ESTIMATE   OF   HIMSELF.  253 

ingly,  as  for  my  sermons,  it  was  often  hard  for  me 
to  fix  on  a  text ;  the  which  hath  often  been  more 
wasting  and  weakening  to  me  than  the  study  of  a 
sermon  thereon.  I  studied  my  sermons  with  the 
pen  in  my  hand,  my  matter  coming  to  me  as  I 
wrote,  and  the  bread  increasing  in  the  breaking  of 
it.  If,  at  any  time,  I  walked,  it  was  occasioned  by 
my  sticking.  Meanwhile,  it  would  frequently  have 
been  long  ere  I  got  the  vein  of  my  subject  struck  ; 
but  then  I  could  not  be  easy  unless  I  thought  I  had 
hit  it.  Hence  it  was  not  my  manner  to  shift  from 
text  to  text,  but  to  insist  long  on  an  ordinary,  the 
closing  of  which  at  length  I  readily  found  to  relish 
as  much  with  myself  and  the  serious  godly  as  the 
other  parts  preceding. 

u  Thus,  also,  I  was  much  addicted  to  peace  and 
averse  to  controversy  ;  though  once  engaged  there- 
in, I  was  set  to  go  through  with  it.  I  had  no  great 
difficulty  to  retain  a  due  honour  and  charity  for  my 
brethren  differing  from  me  in  opinion  and  practice  ; 
but  then  I  was  in  no  great  hazard  neither  of  being 
swayed  by  them  to  depart  from  what  I  judged  to  be 
truth  or  duty.  Withal  it  was  easy  to  me  to  yield 
to  them  in  things  wherein  I  found  not  myself  in 
conscience  bound  up.  Whatever  precipitant  steps 
I  have  made  in  the  course  of  my  life,  which  I  desire 
to  be  humbled  for,  rashness  in  conduct  was  not  my 


254  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

weak  side.  But  since  the  Lord  by  his  grace  brought 
me  to  consider  things,  it  was  much  my  exercise  to 
discern  sin  and  duty  in  particular  cases,  being  afraid 
to  venture  on  things  until  I  should  see  myself  called 
thereto.  But  when  the  matter  was  cleared  to  me,  I 
generally  stuck  fast  by  it,  being  as  much  afraid  to 
desert  the  way  which  I  took  to  be  pointed  out  to 
me.  And  this  I  sincerely  judge  to  have  been  the 
spring  of  that  course  of  conduct  upon  which  Mr. 
James  Ramsay  did,  before  the  Commission  anno 
1 7 17,  in  my  hearing,  give  me  the  following  character, 
namely,  that  if  I  thought  myself  right,  there  would 
be  no  diverting  of  me  by  any  means. 

"  I  never  had  the  art  of  making  rich ;  nor  could  I 
ever  heartily  apply  myself  to  the  managing  of  secular 
affairs.  Even  the  secular  way  of  managing  the  disci- 
pline of  the  church  was  so  unacceptable  to  me  that 
I  had  no  heart  to  dip  in  the  public  church  manage- 
ment. What  appearances  I  made  at  any  time  in 
these  matters  were  not  readily  in  that  way.  I  had 
a  certain  averseness  to  the  being  laid  under  any 
notable  obligation  to  others,  and  so  was  not  fond  of 
gifts,  especially  in  the  case  of  any  whom  I  had  to 
deal  with  as  a  minister.  And  Providence  so  ordered 
that  I  had  little  trial  of  that  kind.  I  easily  perceived 
that  in  that  case  '  the  borrower  is  servant  to  the 
lender.'  " 


POSTHUMOUS   WORKS  255 


Posthumous  Works. 


In  the  course  of  our  biography  of  Mr.  Boston,  we 
have  taken  notice,  with  more  or  less  fulness,  of  the 
greater  number  of  those  books  which  were  written 
and  published  by  him  during  his  lifetime ;  of  course 
giving  to  his  "  Fourfold  State "  its  rightful  and  un- 
questioned prominence.  Our  work,  however,  would 
not  be  fitly  ended,  if  we  did  not  devote  a  supple- 
mentary section  to  some  statements  regarding  his 
posthumous  works,  which  were  very  considerable 
alike  in  number  and  in  value,  so  that  when  any  new 
volume  appeared  it  was  sure  to  be  welcomed  by 
thirsty  readers  even  far  beyond  the  hills  and  glens 
of  Ettrick. 

His  earliest  posthumous  work  which  came  to  break 
the  silence,  was  his  Exposition  of  the  well-known 
Shorter  Catechism  of  the  Westminster  Assembly  of 
Divines,  which  for  so  many  years  was  to  hold  an 
honoured  place  in  the  Christian  homes  and  parish 
schools  of  Scotland.  It  has  been  usual  to  speak  of 
the  Catechism  as  "milk  for  babes;"  but  parts  of  it 
have  been  found  to  be  strong  meat  for  full-grown 
men,  and  hence  the  greater  need  for  such  a  com- 
mentary as  the  good  Ettrick  minister  supplied.  It 
was  edited  by  Mr.  Boston's  eldest  son,  who  was 
minister  of  Oxnam,  and  afterwards  of  Jedburgh ;  and 


256  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

the  editorial  work  was  done  with  rare  delight  and 
filial  devotedness  and  reverence.  It  was  a  large  and 
solid  book  of  two  volumes.  It  consisted  of  a  series 
of  sermons,  in  which  usually  a  separate  exposition 
was  given  to  each  question  and  answer,  thus  ranging 
over  the  whole  field  of  popular  theology. 

Two  parts  of  it  are  especially  elaborate  and  valu- 
able, and  they  occupy  a  considerable  portion  of  the 
whole  work.  We  refer  to  the  exposition  of  the  Ten 
Commandments,  with  the  questions  about  "  what  is 
required  "  and  "  what  is  forbidden,"  and  the  "  reasons 
annexed  ; "  and  to  the  exposition  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  in  which  is  laid  open  that  rich  and  inex- 
haustible mine  of  devotional  thought  and  feeling, 
whose  words  are  more  frequently  on  the  lips  of 
men  than  any  other  part  of  the  inspired  Word.  It 
is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  thoughtful  reading 
of  Mr.  Boston's  Exposition  would  be  sufficient  of 
itself  to  make  a  man  a  good  theologian.  And  if 
the  reader  complains  that  there  are  some  things  in 
it  hard  to  be  understood,  even  after  reading  Mr. 
Boston's  notes,  let  him  be  reminded  that  it  is  good 
mental  discipline  when,  in  the  reading  of  a  book, 
he  is  sometimes  obliged  to  pause  and  think. 

There  was  also  a  class  of  Scripture  passages 
which  drew  forth  Mr.  Boston's  exegetical  gifts,  and 
wrought  upon  his  mind  with  a  powerful  fascination. 


CONGENIAL   TEXTS.  257 

We  have  found  at  times,  when  travelling  through 
a  country,  objects  and  scenes  which  arrested  our 
attention,  and  made  us  stand  still  for  a  time  and 
look — the  placid  stream  holding  up  its  mirror  to 
the  firmament  ;  the  garden  by  the  roadside  which 
opened  suddenly  upon  our  gaze  with  its  fragrance 
and  its  flowers  ;  the  foaming  cataract ;  the  mountain, 
green  to  the  summit,  and  almost  seeming  to  touch 
the  sky.  And  there  is  something  similar  to  this  in 
the  Holy  Scriptures.  Every  part  of  the  Bible  has 
indeed  its  value  ;  but  there  are  some  portions  which 
have  a  peculiar  attractiveness,  just  as  one  star  differ- 
eth  from  another  star  in  glory — such  as  those  which 
are  the  glowing  utterance  of  divine  compassion,  or 
reflect  the  heavenly  beauty  of  Christian  morality  ; 
the  incidents  in  the  life  of  Jesus  ;  his  parables,  which 
at  once  instruct  the  understanding  and  touch  the 
heart,  and  enrich  the  memory  with  heavenly  treas- 
ures ;  and  the  gleaming  outbursts  of  a  joy  that  is 
unspeakable  and  full  of  glory.  It  was  in  such  pas- 
sages of  Scripture  that  our  preacher  often  found  his 
congenial  texts  ;  and  when  he  found  them,  he 
lingered  over  them,  returning  to  them  from  week  to 
week,  and  discovering  in  them  new  thoughts  and 
spiritual  meanings  ;  loath  to  leave  them, — 

"  Ever  in  their  melodious  store, 
Finding  a  spell  unfelt  before." 
17 


258  THOMAS   BOSTON 

We  shall  mention  some  of  those  passages  of  Scripture 
which  supplied  to  Mr.  Boston  the  theme  of  many 
sermons,  and  which  at  length  found  their  way,  in  a 
succession  of  posthumous  volumes,  to  the  public. 
Among  others,  there  was  the  great  and  all-embrac- 
ing gospel  call  which  had  been  a  favourite  from  his 
youth,  and,  along  with  1  John  v.  II,  became  the 
motto  and  keynote  of  his  ministry — "  Come  unto 
me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I 
will  give  you  rest."  It  took  many  sermons  to  ex- 
haust this  mine,  with  its  riches  more  precious  than 
gold.  He  lingered  long  in  it,  like  the  bee  in  the 
flower  laden  with  honey. 

Luke  xviii.  18-28,  which  was  entitled,  "  The  rich 
youth  falling  short  of  heaven,"  was  the  theme  of 
many  spirit-stirring  sermons  more  numerous  than 
its  verses.  It  did  not  so  much  sound  the  gospel 
trumpet  as  the  trumpet  of  alarm  ;  but  there  was 
mercy  hidden  under  those  expostulations  and  warn- 
ings, which  have  been  happily  described  as  "  the 
loud  rhetoric  of  God's  love." 

Isaiah  ix.  6,  7,  which  is,  perhaps,  the  most  sublime 
prophecy  of  the  Messiah  spoken  and  written  by 
that  greatest  of  the  prophets,  "  Unto  us  a  child  is 
born,  unto  us  a  son  is  given  :  and  the  government 
shall  be  upon  his  shoulder ;  and  his  name  shall 
be  called  Wonderful,  Counsellor,  The  mighty  God, 


SACRAMENTAL  SERMONS.  259 

The  everlasting  Father,  The  Prince  of  Peace." 
Almost  every  word  in  this  grand  prophecy  supplied 
the  text  for  a  sermon,  beginning  with  the  humble 
birth  of  the  wondrous  child,  and  ending  with  his 
ascent  to  his  mediatorial  dominion  and  glory. 
There  was  a  mighty  attraction  to  Mr.  Boston  in 
such  a  paragraph.  As  he  studied  it,  he  must  have 
felt  like  one  ascending  from  the  earth  on  the  steps 
of  a  golden  ladder  until  he  reached  the  summit,  and, 
looking  in,  beheld,  seated  on  heaven's  loftiest  throne, 
the  Prince  of  Peace. 

There  was  yet  a  third  class  of  Mr.  Boston's  post- 
humous sermons  which  were  published  at  a  con- 
siderably later  period,  near  to  the  close  of  the 
century,  and  which  were  received  by  Christian 
readers  with  grateful  welcome.  These  consisted 
mainly  of  sermons  preached  on  great  sacramental 
occasions,  both  in  immediate  connection  with  the 
observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  and  on  subsidiary 
occasions  both  before  and  after  the  holy  communion, 
such  as  Fast  Days  and  Thanksgiving  Days.  Those 
were  occasions  in  Mr.  Boston's  life  as  a  minis- 
ter of  Christ  in  which  he  was  lifted  above  himself. 
The  sacrament  itself,  with  its  sacred  emblems  ;  the 
grand  evangelical  texts  on  which,  with  studied  variety, 
he  and  his  brethren  were  wont  to  preach  ;  the  pres- 
ence of  the  people  in  great  and  sympathizing  multi- 


260  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

tudes,  stimulated  at  once  his  gifts  and  his  graces, 
so  that  he  often  acknowledged  with  adoring  grati- 
tude that  these  had  been  to  him  as  days  of  heaven 
upon  earth.  There  were  also  sermons  to  the  sick, 
the  bereaved,  and  the  sorrowful  ;  and  it  is  easy  to 
understand  how,  when,  many  years  afterwards,  they 
were  read  by  his  people  who  had  heard  them 
preached,  they  were  delighted  to  have  their  old 
impressions  revived,  and  once  more  seemed  to  hear 
the  sound  of  those  lips  into  which  grace  was  poured. 

And  we  feel  it  to  be  a  duty  and  a  delight  to  place 
on  the  list  of  Mr.  Boston's  posthumous  writings  his 
Memoir  of  himself,  which  was  not  so  much  written 
by  him  as  the  fruit  of  recollection,  but  as  the  record 
of  experiences  just  as  he  had  beheld  or  lived  them. 
It  was  designed,  primarily  at  least,  for  the  benefit 
of  his  children,  and  was  dedicated  to  them  in  an 
address  of  much  tenderness,  holy  wisdom,  and  fe- 
licity of  expression,  which  concluded  with  these 
words  : — 

"  Labour  for  the  experience  of  religion  in  your 
own  souls,  that  you  may  have  an  argument  for  the 
reality  of  it  from  your  spiritual  sense  and  feeling  ; 
and  cleave  to  the  Lord  in  his  way  of  holiness  (with- 
out which  ye  shall  not  see  the  Lord),  his  work  also, 
his  interests,  and  people  in  all  hazards,  being  assured 
that  such  also  shall  be  found  wise  in  the  end. 


MEMOIR   OF    HIMSELF.  26 1 

"  If  your  mother  (undoubtedly  a  daughter  of 
Abraham)  shall  survive  me,  let  your  loss  of  a  father 
move  you  to  carry  the  more  kindly  and  affectionately 
to  her  in  your  desolate  condition.  Let  the  same  also 
engage  you  the  more  to  be  peaceful,  loving,  and 
helpful  among  yourselves.  The  Lord  bless  each  one 
of  you  and  save  you,  cause  his  gracious  face  to  shine 
upon  you,  and  give  you  peace,  so  as  we  may  have  a 
comfortable  meeting  in  the  other  world.     Amen." 

What  a  variety  of  excellences  in  the  character  of 
Mr.  Boston  is  unconsciously  revealed  in  this  Memoir 
of  himself!  What  a  life  of  prayer  did  he  lead,  going 
with  his  sins  and  sorrows,  his  temptations  and  cares, 
to  the  throne  of  heavenly  grace !  His  way  to  the 
place  of  prayer  must  have  been  indeed  a  beaten 
path.  How  earnestly  did  he  endeavour  to  walk 
according  to  the  rule  which  he  had  laid  down  for 
the  guidance  of  others  —  that  of  endeavouring  to 
keep  himself  in  a  state  of  constant  readiness  for 
dying.  And  how  intensely  did  he  identify  himself 
with  the  spiritual  good  of  his  people.  He  could  have 
said  to  them,  with  an  apostle,  "  Now  we  live,  if  ye 
stand  fast  in  the  Lord."  He  had  no  greater  joy 
than  to  see  his  children  walking  in  the  truth. 
How  charitable  he  was  in  his  judgment  of  others  ; 
how  severely  did  he  judge  himself,  sometimes  even 
treating  mere  infirmities  as  if  they  had  been  faults ! 


262  THOMAS   BOSTON. 

How  gently  did  he  write  in  his  diary  of  those  who 
had  wronged  him,  though  he  knew  that  its  contents 
were  sacred  to  himself! 

We  have  sometimes  imagined  that  had  this  man 
of  God  lived  in  a  later  century,  when  the  cause  of 
missions  to  the  heathen  had  begun  to  interest  the 
churches  at  home,  how  it  would  have  brightened 
his  home  and  his  heart  with  a  sacred  joy.  He 
would  have  rejoiced  if  he  had  been  privileged  to 
help  in  gathering  in  the  first-fruits  of  the  millennial 
glory.  The  tidings  of  islands  and  large  portions  of 
continents  having  been  won  to  the  standard  of  Christ 
would  have  given  to  him  a  longer  and  happier  life, 
and  brightened  his  Ettrick  home,  and  made  his  face 
at  times  shine  like  the  face  of  an  angel.  But  he 
had  a  work  to  do  which  stood  in  close  relation  to  the 
missionaries  of  the  gospel  of  Christ.  His  mission 
had  been,  more  perhaps  than  that  of  any  other  man 
of  his  age,  to  save  the  gospel  which  the  missionary 
was  to  preach,  from  perversion  and  corruption. 
Especially  in  the  conflicts  connected  with  the  "  Mar- 
row "  controversy,  he  had  proclaimed  a  gospel  which 
had  a  voice  of  mercy  for  every  human  being  on  the 
earth.  He  had  set  his  face  as  a  flint  against  those 
who  sought  to  narrow  its  invitations  to  a  favoured 
portion  of  the  human  race,  and  against  others  who 
burdened  it  with  so  many  conditions  as  to  surround 


LIFE-WORK.  263 

the  fountain  of  life  with  barriers,  or  substituted  in 
its  place  its  counterfeit,  or  so  explained  the  glorious 
gospel  as  in  the  end  to  explain  it  away.  In  this 
way  he  had  helped  to  preserve  the  gospel,  and  to  get 
myriads  to  inscribe  on  their  standard  the  motto  of 
the  "Marrow"  and  of  the  Marrowmen — nay,  the 
motto  of  Paul  and  all  the  other  apostles — that  the 
gospel  was  "  God's  deed  of  gift  and  grant  to  man- 
kind sinners  of  the  whole  human  race."  To  have 
done  this  was  not  to  have  lived  in  vain. 


THE   END 


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