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REV. ANDREW-THOMSON.D.D.
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PRINCETON, N. J.
BX 9225 .B6 T50
Thomson, Andrew, 1814-1901.
Thomas Boston of Ettrick
Shelf
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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