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“I see that I believe the gospel, with application to myself; and find, that my expectations from it do ultimately resolve themselves on the faithfulness of God in the word of the promise of the gospel.”

The groaning part of my life

            Boston called these final years of his life, “the groaning part of my life.” He was forty-eight years old, and he and Katharine were often shut in at home due to illness. He suffered from scurvy – a lack of vitamin C in his diet. As a result, his teeth fell out, and those that did remain in place “become blackish.” He kept his lost teeth in a box. Having no teeth made it hard for him to eat, and to speak as a preacher, as it “marred my pronunciation in some measure.”

He tried what remedies he thought would help, but to no avail: “Having read Dr. Cheyne’s book on health, I had set myself to regulate my manner of living accordingly for the cure of scurvy, so I ate very sparingly at dinner, and took no supper. This course I used, I think, more than a year about this time—going to bed withal about nine, and rising early, about four or five, making the time of dinner late in the afternoon, and thereafter doing nothing until I went to bed again. Thus, my work indeed went on, but my body was brought to that low pass.” His strength was running out.

Despite his own ill health, Boston’s greatest grief seems to have been Katharine who was also suffering greatly. She was often confined to a small room in the house, which Boston called “the inner prison.”

The Crook in the Lot

One of Boston’s best-known books is The Crook in the Lot. It was first published in 1737 in Edinburgh, five years after his death. It began as seven sermons, the first three of which were founded on Ecclesiastes 7:13, “Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?”

As a pastor, Boston understood that he was not merely to react to people’s problems, but to prepare them to face difficulties in life. Sound theology and faith lay the foundation for facing life’s crookedness. In the opening sentence of the book, Boston says: “A just view of afflicting incidents is altogether necessary to a Christian deportment under them: and that view is to be obtained only by faith, not by sense.”

A crook for Boston is a divinely made bend in one’s life whose nature can be as broad as the troubles of our lives. Some of the crooks in our lives are the result of our sin, but some are “pure and sinless crooks.” God in His sovereignty and goodness mars the smoothness of our condition. Such sinless crooks of life are not accidental, but made by God’s wise providence. Trusting in the goodness of God, Boston nonetheless observes: “A crooked thing is wayward… Crooked things are unpleasant to the eye: and no crook in the lot seems to be joyous, but grievous, making an unsightly appearance (Heb. 12:11).”

The scar of sin upon our lives and our world means that we all will have a crook in our life, though the crook will not be the same for all people. Whilst we may seek to improve our lot, under God’s humbling we ought to see that “What God sees meet to mar, we shall not be able to mend in our lot.”

Importantly, for a Christian, the crook is not automatically sanctifying. Affliction of itself has no gracious efficacy. Boston said that it is not “sufficient of itself, and as it stands alone, to produce that effect.” In fact, many are made worse by the very thing by which others are made better. The crook may harden some, but soften others, depending on the heart. To some it proves a means of good; to others an occasion of sin.

Submission to God under trial is the key that opens the door to sanctification. In this way, our response to God in the face of troubles is what makes them healthy or harmful to our spiritual growth. Whoever is brought to a humble submission under the crook will find it medicinal; but he who stands upon his own will find it but a plague to him.

How should a Christian respond to the crook in the lot? Boston says that a Christian having been brought low will:

First, submit to it as just.

“I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me.” (Micah 7:9)

“There are no hardships in our condition, but we have procured them to ourselves; and it is therefore just we kiss the rod, and be silent under it, and so lower our spirits to our lot. ”

Second, quietly bear under it as tolerable.

“It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.” (Lamentations 3:26)

“While the unsubdued spirit rageth under the yoke as a bullock unaccustomed to it, the spirit brought to the lot goes softly under it … They take up the naked cross, as God lays it down, without those over-weights upon it that turbulent passions add thereunto; and so it becomes really more easy than they thought it could have been, like a burden fitted to the back.”

Third, draw comfort from the Lord.

“Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines…yet I will rejoice in the Lord.” (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

“Thus did David in the day of his distress, ‘he encouraged himself in the Lord his God.’” (1 Sam. 30:6)

Fourth, understand that it is fit and good by seeing it as necessary spiritual medicine.

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

“These lowly souls consider their afflicted lot as a spiritual medicine, necessary, fit, and good for them; yea, best for them for the time, since it is ministered by their heavenly Father.”

Fifth, willingly wait until the Lord removes it.

“Then the king said to Zadok, “Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favour in the eyes of the Lord, he will bring me back and let me see both it and his dwelling place. ²⁶ But if he says, ‘I have no pleasure in you,’ behold, here I am, let him do to me what seems good to him.” (2 Samuel 14:25-26)

“A humble soul will be afraid of being taken out of its afflicted lot too soon. It will not be for moving for a change, till the moving of the heavens bring it about; so this hinders not prayer, and the use of appointed means, with dependence on the Lord; but requires faith, hope, patience, and resignation (2 Sam. 15:25, 26).”

In his own life, Boston knew the crook in the lot well, including his father’s financial difficulties when he was young, his mother’s death when he was fifteen years old, the loss of six of his ten children and Katharine and his own health problems. Looking back, he came to see that these griefs and sorrows were held together in the sovereign and good hands of God. They became part of the refining work that God did upon Boston. A less theologically able man, or less experienced man, may not have been able to write such a helpful book

Katharine’s confession

It was during this period of life that Boston recorded Katharine’s confession of faith in God. Please remember that she had suffered the awful loss of six children as infants. How this impacted her we will never know, but God knows.

Her health too was declining, and by March 1726 she was constantly confined to bed. Boston hoped and prayed for her deliverance, yet one Friday evening in early March 1728, he “lay that night in the folding-bed in the room where she lay,” thinking that she was close to death. He ordered an express message to be sent to his eldest son in Edinburgh, calling him home. Yet, “by the good hand of God” Katharine recovered, and later that month she gave her husband “an account” of “a sweet calm” that went through her soul. This confession is the only recorded words of Katharine, and they declare her faith in, and communion with, Christ Jesus. She said:

I have often aimed at embracing the everlasting covenant held forth in the gospel, and saw my welcome thereto; and willing also to betake myself to it, with my whole heart, and often essayed it. My defect still lay in the want of confidence of faith, that the covenant should be made forthcoming to me, according to my needs, for time and eternity; fear still prevailing, and keeping me as it were standing on loose ground. But on 21^st March betwixt two and four o’clock in the morning, on my bed of affliction, it pleased the Lord to stir me up and help me to essay it again, and to get that gap in some measure filled up. Being deeply convinced of the sin of my nature, and judging it to be the source of my unfixedness, I did, in the first place, make confession of the sin of my nature, life, and practice, being as particular therein as I could reach; especially confessing my predominant sin, and laying my heart open to the omniscient God, to search and try it, in the most retired corners thereof; that if there was any lust or idol that I knew not of, I might be made sensible of the same; and I judged and condemned myself, as deserving nothing but the utmost of God’s indignation. Then I looked to the way of salvation held forth in the word of the gospel; beheld Jesus Christ, a Saviour every way suited to my needs, my lost and undone condition. I saw an absolute need of him, in all his offices; and a glorious fitness in them, and each of them, for my case. So I did, with the whole bent of my soul, embrace the everlasting covenant held forth to me in the word of the gospel of grace; cast myself over on the Lord Jesus Christ, and receive him in all his offices; take God for my God in him; and, with my whole heart give up myself, soul and body, to be the Lord’s for ever…

            Katharine continued by asking the Lord for pity and help under her spiritual load. Yet, if it was to continue, then she asked that He “would keep me near himself in it; that his grace may be sufficient for me, and I may be kept from sinking into despondency, still believing in the worst of times, that God is my God in Jesus Christ the Mediator, and will with the temptation give an outgate, or strength to bear it.” 

She concludes by saying: “I begged, that his Spirit… might all along direct, guide, and assist me in my addresses to him for the supply of my wants, and to aim at and seek my fruit, by sticking to the root Jesus Christ, and not from my sincerity, nor any thing else in myself; looking on the Lord Jesus… from whence I was led into a sweet view of my union and communion with him.”

Psalm 71

All of Scripture is breathed-out by God, yet as part of His work within us, many Christians will have beloved verses. Psalm 71 is the testimony of an aging saint, renewing their trust in the Lord, and several times in his memoirs, Boston mentions this Psalm. At one point he said that its words “used to come slipping in, as it were, into my mind.” Indeed, John M’Neilage in the 1899 edition of Boston’s memoirs, claims that Psalm 71:20-21 was Boston’s favourite text. In the Scottish Metrical Psalter of 1650, which was used daily by Boston for family worship, it says:

²⁰ Thou, Lord, who great adversities,

and sore, to me didst show,

Shalt quicken, and bring me again from depths of earth below.

²¹ My greatness and my pow’r thou wilt increase, and far extend:

On ev’ry side against all grief thou wilt me comfort send.

Tests of assurance

In general terms, the Gospel of John tells us how we become a Christian (see John 3:16; 14:6; 20:31), and the letter of 1 John tells us how we can know that we are a Christian. Often this is summarized into three tests of assurance;

• Doctrine: we must believe that Jesus is the Christ who came in the flesh (1 John 1:1-4; 2:18-27; 4:1-6; 5:4-12).
• Obedience: we must obey God and walk in His light (1 John 1:5-2:6; 2:15-17; 28-29; 3:3-10; 5:16-17).
• Love: we must love the brothers (1 John 2:7-11; 3:11-20; 4:7-5:3).

These tests of assurance are combined in 1 John 3:21-23, “Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” 

As Boston neared the end of his earthly life, he applied these tests of assurance to himself in order to see the proof that he truly did belong to God, and that God had truly worked His grace within his life.

After singing Psalm 16:5 – “The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot” – he set about to “gather some evidences” for heaven in his soul. He listed six such evidences:

1. I see that I believe the gospel… and find, that my expectations from it do ultimately resolve themselves on the faithfulness of God in the word of the promise of the gospel…

2. I find my soul acquiesceth in, being well pleased with, the covenant of grace, as God’s plan of salvation in Christ; and that I have come into it with heart and good-will; taking my offered place in it in Christ the second Adam…

3. I find my heart so far at odds with sin … And is not this the work of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ in me? …

4. I have a hope of heaven, through Jesus Christ; and the Lord knows, it moves me to desire, long, and seek after being made meet for it, in purification from sin …

5. I love the purity of the divine image expressed in the holy law, and every line of it, so far as I discern it; and even there where it strikes against the sin that most easily besets me …

6. I have a measure of confidence, that I will get complete life and salvation; but that confidence is not in the flesh; for, God knows I am heartily out with myself, with respect to all the periods of my life, any one of which, I see, would undoubtedly ruin me, and that most justly.

Nobody, being changed by God, is the same person that they used to be. As Paul told the believers in Thessalonica, “our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction (1 Thess. 1:5).” Sincerely, and with sober humility, we ought to examine ourselves with an eye to seeing the same evidence of salvation and sanctification within us too.

Unresolved dispute

            Not every pastoral situation resolved itself well. In 1729, “Adam Linton in Brodgerhill” was “in great distress” with his wife and son. Despite being followers of John MacMillian, Boston was concerned for them, and so he sent word to them, asking if he could visit them. They refused to allow him to visit them, and soon after, Adam died.

Such a rejection could have caused bitterness or an arrogant self-righteousness within Boston. His pride hurt, he may have sunk into uncharitable thoughts about them. But instead, it grieved him that they had so separated themselves – in living and dying – from him. All that he could do was say, “O my soul come not thou into their secret in the matter of church communion! unto their assembly, mine honour be not thou united in point of separation!”

My preparation for death

            On Tuesday 2^nd December 1729, less than three years before his death, Boston said: “I kept a secret fast, in order to my preparation for death.” Rising early in the morning – “long before day” – he drew up a third personal covenant before the Lord. In it he said: “I … 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 concerns, unto the Lord Jesus Christ.” He pledged himself to “take and receive Christ” in all His offices: Prophet, Priest and King.

            Boston carefully reviewed what he had written, examining his heart at each point. Then, he went “and kneeling at my bedside, did, in prayer, then and there, solemnly, and in express words, according to what I had written with my hand, take hold of God’s covenant of grace, for life and salvation to me, with my whole heart.”

            After laying before God His covenant promises, and rising from prayer, he lifted his eyes to the Lord and silently read the covenant before Him. Then, Boston signed with his own hand the covenant he confessed.

A watch run out

            We have come to the end of Boston’s memoirs. By the summer of 1730, Boston’s health was so low that he said: “I ran out like a watch after six o’clock at night.” He struggled to make it to family worship in the evenings. His health was failing, and yet with the strength that he had, he continued on in the Lord’s work.

            As he recalled his life and his service of the Lord in Ettrick – knowing that the end of near – these were the final words that he recorded in his memoirs;

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 discipline of the church, was so unacceptable to me, that I had no heart to dip in the public church management. 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.”

As to the parish, there are few now alive that subscribed my call; nor are there, that I know, above two of the congregation of my hearers, paying rent this day, that were so doing, when I came among them, twenty-three years ago, [viz. from May 1, 1707, to Oct 24, 1730]. They are by far more polished in their manners, than at that time; and much more tractable, and easy to me; and fewer scandals fall out among them. The old dissenters continue immoveable; but their increasing is ceased. There is still a handful of serious Christians among them, as there hath been all along; and I have often observed, that as some such, from time to time, have been one way or other carried away, there came others in their stead; and whatever the Lord laid to my hand to preach on unto them, I used not to be straitened on their account; judging I would be understood, on any subject I was led to treat of. The late sickness is now, by the mercy of God, abated.

And thus have I given some account of the days of my vanity, being this 24th of October, 1730, 54 years, 7 months, and one week old. Upon the whole, I bless my God in Jesus Christ, that ever he made me a Christian, and took an early dealing with my soul; that ever he made me a minister of the gospel, and gave me some insight into the doctrine of his grace; and that ever he gave me the blessed Bible, and brought me acquainted with the originals, and especially with the Hebrew text. The world hath all along been a stepdame to me; and wheresoever I would have attempted to nestle in it, there was a thorn of uneasiness laid for me. Man is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed from that quarter. “All is vanity and vexation of spirit.—I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord.”

T. BOSTON

Conclusion

Death

Boston died on 20^th May 1732, at the age of fifty-six years old, and nineteen months after he had completed his memoirs. He continued to preach during this time, and when he was physically unable to go to the church building, he preached from a window in the house, with those listening standing outside. His trust in the sovereignty and goodness of God remained firm to the end of his earthly life.

            Six weeks before Boston’s death, his friend Gabriel Wilson was unable to see him, but he wrote to him, encouraging him by saying that the Lord had, in fact, prepared him for this time by earlier giving him His truth. Furthermore,

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… 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.

            From Boston’s part, his last recorded words were a letter written to William Hog, whom he had corresponded with for twelve years. He finished the letter by saying:

The eternal God be your refuge, and underneath the everlasting arms, and plentifully reward your twelve years’ most substantial friendship.- I am, my very dear Sir, Yours most affectionately, etc.

Burial

Boston was buried in Ettrick churchyard, with his memorial saying,

As a testimony of esteem for the Revd. THOMAS BOSTON, Senior whose private character was highly respectable, whose public labours were blessed to many and whose valuable writings have contributed much to promote the advancement of vital Christianity. This monument by permission of his relatives is erected by a religious and grateful public AD 1806. He was born in Dunse March 17th. 1676, ordained to the Pastoral Charge of Simprim Sept 21st. 1699, removed from thence to Ettrick May 1st. 1707 and died May 20th. 1732 aged 56 years leaving a widow and four children.

– Graham Barnes