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“In partaking I was helped to the exercise of faith, took God for my God in Christ, claimed Him as my God…”

The body and blood of Christ

It was during this period that Thomas and Katharine’s ninth child, and youngest surviving child, was born, also named Thomas. He was born on 3^rd April 1713, and would go on to succeed his father as the minister at Ettrick before helping to form the Relief Presbytery in 1761, which opposed patronage in the Church of Scotland.

            It is here too, that Boston gives us an insight into his sermon preparation. On 27^th May 1715, he was preparing to preach on Christ’s words in 1 Corinthians 11:25, “This cup is the new testament in my blood,” desiring to “dip into the sweetness of it.” However, he made little progress. He felt that God would not lead him forward in it, nor release him from it. Then, “about eight o’clock at night another text was given me” – Hebrews 10:22, “Let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith.” Boston said, “I was well guided to this.”

Two days later, 29^th May 1715, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated despite heavy rain, and it was “a great day of the Gospel.” Boston had learned from experience that preparation for administering the Supper is necessary, and two lessons stood out for him:

• Firstly, the need for self-examination – on the Saturday evening Boston said that he “got a humbling view of sin and a satisfying view of the grace of God in me.”

• Secondly, the need to guard against mixing an unhallowed spirit with the pure things of God – on this occasion, the Lord heard Boston’s prayer and gave him a “solid, serious feeling” in preaching and administering the Lord’s Supper.

In all, God blessed that day and Boston said, “In partaking I was helped to the exercise of faith, took God for my God in Christ, claimed Him as my God, and laboured to improve the claimed interest by believing the promises of the covenant, which was the scope of the action sermon.”

Lessons from death

Boston mentions meeting several people in the final stages of life, and this tested him. In February 1712, he visited a young man thought to be dying who had requested to see him. The man was still able to speak, and in fact spoke so much that Boston could “scarcely get a sentence spoken.” He seemed confident of his eternal state before God, but Boston had some doubts, saying: “I judge there was something of vapours in the case.” Some time later, the man made a full recovery, but the situation and another like it, caused Boston to say that whilst he did not want to insist on immediate obedience, a minister ought not to be “too credulous” either. There is a need to “try” each person to discover the foundation of his or her hopes.  

Another situation occurred on 8^th July 1715, when a godly, pregnant woman, Mrs. Martin, lay dying. She had only recently arrived in Ettrick with her husband, and Boston says that “her case lay very near my heart, and I was full of hopes that the Lord had not sent the good woman to die here.” However, she miscarried, and ten days later she too died. Her death challenged Boston’s trust in the sovereignty of God, especially as Katharine herself was about to give birth. Boston asked God “to provide for the worst,” but was assured “that God will do the best.”

Loyal to the local church

Boston was loyal to those whom God had called him to pastor. He was a servant of Christ to them – and they came, in time, to respect him for it.

This was made clear when another church, in Closeburn, desired to call Boston as their pastor, but Boston felt that he still had work to do for the Lord at Ettrick. They were still “a broken parish” and it wasn’t right to leave them in that state. He wrote a letter to a commission of the presbytery, which is recorded in his memoirs. In it he says:

I was persuaded in my conscience of the Lord’s calling me to Etterick; 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… I have endeavoured… to lay this matter before the Lord, for light, to discover His mind about it, labouring to wait upon Him in the way of His word and works. But I sincerely declare, after all, I have no clearness to accept the call of Closeburn… my ministry [in Etterick] is very dear to me…

            The same love for God’s people is seen in the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the believers at Thessalonica: “we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us.” (1 Thess. 2:7-8)

Temper: Ongoing battles against sin

A Christian is no longer under the dominion of sin, but is a slave to God (see Rom. 6:22). Despite this, we will not be freed from the ongoing battle against sin until heaven.

One time, during a church service some people starting singing Psalms outside the building. This irritated Boston as some of those inside the building left the “solemn work” of listening to God’s Word in order to join the singers. To Boston, this was a “disorder.” Therefore, Boston says:

I went and put a stop to it, with a sharpness, which no doubt irritated the brother who was the cause of it. So we became snares to one another. And so quickly did my spirit go without bounds. I knew God was not the author of this confusion; but the way of my spirit in removing it was, and is, humbling upon reflection. It hung about me most heavily, till, the whole day’s work being over, I had occasion to shew him the sorrow of my heart, that Satan would soon have got advantage of us, and to intreat him to join with me in withstanding the progress of this flame that the tempter had kindled: and hereunto the good man shewed all readiness.

What should we say about this? Boston was frustrated with another Christian brother and lost his cool. Then, realizing his sin, he sought the brother out and apologized. Thank God that the other man willingly received it. Every believer knows acutely such failures. In Ephesians 4:31-32, Paul writes to those who are sealed by the Holy Spirit for the day of redemption and says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Thank God that what He commands He also gives the power to obey. 

Hebrews 6 and a man who walked away

There is a warning in the book of Hebrews about people with a seemingly genuine faith, who fall away. After issuing a call to maturity in Christ, it says,

For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt. (Hebrews 6:4-6)

Boston recounts the story of a man – his name is left blank in his memoirs – who “had been educated under my ministry, profited from my knowledge, and gave hopeful signs of his seriousness; so that he was admitted to the Lord’s table.” However, Boston’s hopes for him were dashed when he fell into sexual sin and refused to repent.

Sin works exponentially, such that sin unrepented of, leads to more sin unrepented of. So it was with this man, as he “fell into one mire of filthiness after another… so that I had almost a continual fight with him for many years after. And to this day he continues an adversary; only he never deserted the ordinances.”

As in Hebrews 6, this man had tasted of the goodness of God, but fell away into unrepentant sin. He abandoned Christ for his lusts, with his hardness of heart now blocking the way to Christ for him. William Gurnall (1616–1679) rightly said: “A sheep may fall into a ditch, but it is the swine that wallows in it.” The sheep repents of the hurt that he or she has caused Christ; the swine does not.

In the end, Boston continued to hold out some hope for the man, saying: “I still think he hath some good thing about him, that may at length prevail against this profaneness, pride, and vanity.” He knew as well as anyone, that some people may come close to the Kingdom, but never enter it. Only eternity will tell what happened to this man.

– Graham Barnes