AP

After Boston had first preached in Simprin, in July 1699, his impressions of the people were disheartening. Some fell asleep, others went outside – and that was before taking into account that there were few people in attendance to begin with. However, eight years later, he preached his “farewell sermon” from a barn door to a great gathering of people. The passage was John 7:37, “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”

Boston said of this sermon: “… as the Lord was with me in that place during my ministry there, so He left me not then, but was with me at that close of it, and much of God’s power appeared in it.” He was tightly bonded to the people. Their hearts were “knit to me, and mine to them.” The following is an extract of that sermon:

If any man be under soul thirst, Christ bids him welcome to come to him and drink. Or needy sinners are welcome to Christ, to get supply of all their wants … There is a bodily and a soul thirst. It is the spiritual thirst that is here meant. In all thirst there are two things:

1. Sense of want. The thirsty soul wants something, and knows that it wants. Every man is sensible that he is not self-sufficient, that he labours under some defects, and must be supplied from some quarter or another; but it is not every one that knows to what quarter to go for supply.

2. Desire of supply. The thirsty soul craves what may supply its needs, as the hungry infant seeks for the breast. The soul of man is ever desiring, until it meet with that which does fully satisfy its desires …

We are invited to come to him and drink. “Let him come to me,” says Jesus, “and drink.” Our thirsty souls are desired to drink here. This spiritual drinking is also an act of faith, and denotes the soul’s really and actually making use of Christ, for the supply of its wants. This points at three things in Christ.

1. The fullness that is in him for needy sinners. He is the well of living water, that is ever full and overflows; who is able to fill up all the wants of all that will come to him. “For it has pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.” “Yes, in him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” There is in him a fullness of merit. His blood cleanses from all sin. There is a fullness of guilt on all of us. Our hearts, lips, and lives are all full of sin. Tears, prayers and rivers of oil, cannot wipe it away; but in Christ there is a fullness of merit, to take it off completely. What will not the blood of God do? “Here is a fountain open for sin and for impurity.” The rock is struck, behold the water gushes out … From him all the saints on earth, and all in Heaven, have derived their graces: And yet there is bread enough …

2. It hath respect to the suitableness of Christ to the case of sinners; as drink is suited to the case of a thirsty man. There is in him a suitable remedy for every disorder. Here the dead soul may have life; the blind, light; the naked, a garment; the poor, riches; the scorched soul, refreshment; the pained, ease; the weak, strength. Whatever be their case in life, death, time, eternity, prosperity or adversity, there is everything suitable in him.

3. It points at his satisfactoriness. “Whoever,” says Christ, “drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life.” The hungry infant set upon the breast, rests there, and desires no more … Christ himself is able to satisfy the soul: “Whom have in I Heaven but you, and there is none on earth that I desire besides you.” Now this is spiritual drinking, or actual use-making of Christ for supply of our wants, implies these three things …

As I came to this place under a sense of a call from God, and dared not do otherwise; so I go from it under a sense of God’s call, which for my soul I dared not disobey, whatever difficulties I may meet with, though I should die at the end of it. Pray for a minister from the Lord. Pray in secret. Meet together, and pray for one. And, in the meantime, make conscience of family duties; watch over one another, and live in peace together …

Above all, I exhort you to go to Christ, and be daily making use of him, for the supply of all your wants. I dare not say I have been useless here. I hope you and I will not forget the many sweet days we have had in this place. Christ has been with us at sermons, both on sabbath days and week days. We have had much of his presence at communions, and I bless God that ever put it in my heart to celebrate the sacrament in the winter. I hope you will particularly remember, and never forget the sabbath after our last communion.

I have come so far short of my duty to you as a minister, that if God should enter into judgment with me on that account, I should undoubtedly be damned. But for pardon, I flee to the same blood of Jesus Christ, which I have preached to you. And I advise you to take the same course with respect to your shortcomings. Now, I beseech you, pray for me; and God forbid that I should cease to pray for you, that Simprin may always be as a field that the Lord has blessed. Now I will say no more, but conclude with the words of the apostle, Acts 20:32, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among them that are sanctified.” Amen.

– Graham Barnes