In this issue of our Magazine we publish a sermon by Thomas Boston. Most of our readers will require no introduction to the writer of the “Four Fold State,” but a few facts concerning this highly-honoured servant of the Lord will be of interest. Boston was born in the town of Duns in Berwickshire, in the year 1676. Both the time and the district recall events which never fail to stir the hearts of all those to whom Christ’s “Crown and Covenant” are dear—especially those with Scottish blood in their veins. Charles II was on the Throne and Claverhouse was in the field, and they were both earning for themselves, with implacable cruelty, the reputations which have made their very name to stink in the nostrils of all to whom liberty of conscience is a sacred and God-given heritage. Boston was four years old when Richard Cameron nailed the “Sanquhar Declaration” to the town cross and thereby publicly disowned the right of Charles Stuart to the Crown of Scotland. One month later, July, 1680, Cameron was slain at Ayrsmoss. In September of the same year Donald Cargyll was sent to heaven by way of the scaffold in the Grassmarket of Edinburgh. These were his parting words, “Farewell all relatives and friends in Christ, farewell acquaintances and earthly enjoyments, farewell reading and preaching, praying and believing, wanderings, reproach and sufferings. Welcome Father, Son and Holy Spirit; into Thy hands I commit my spirit.” Eight years after that, when Boston was 12 years of age, deliverance came; the House of Stuart was overthrown, William III was crowned King, and Presbyterianism, as a form of Church Government, was secured to Scotland by law.
Thomas Boston was the last of 7 children born to his parents. Both father and mother showed evidence of piety and suffered for their refusal to bow to the yoke of prelacy. His father was imprisoned for a time for non-conformity, and young Thomas had the painful joy of visiting his father and thereby helping to relieve the loneliness of his confinement. These visits left a deep impression on the sensitive spirit of the young boy which he never lost; and in more mature years he rejoiced that it had been his honour and privilege to share in his father’s sufferings for the Redeemer’s Cause.
Judged by present day standards education in Boston’s youth was exceedingly backward. Thomas, however, was no ordinary boy and what he lacked in advantage was more than made up by a keen desire for improvement, an unusual ability, and a devotion to study. At eight years of age he passed from under his school mistress to the Grammar School of his native town, and it was during the later years of his attendance there that he passed through the experience which, of all others in the lifetime of any sinner, is the most important and precious—he gave his heart to Christ. In effecting the great change upon young Boston’s heart the Lord blessed the preaching of the Rev. Henry Erskine, the father of Ralph and Ebenezer. The piety and character of Henry Erskine may be judged by his reply when, on trial for preaching, he was pressed to give a bond to desist, “My Lord,” he said, “I have my commission from Christ, and though I were within an hour of my death I durst not lay it down at any mortal man’s feet.” Like many of the most pious ministers of his time, Erskine was but too well acquainted with the perils and the prisons, the weariness and the painfulness, the watchings, the hunger and thirst, the cold and nakedness to which the Apostle Paul makes reference in 2 Cor. 11 and 26. In the year 1687, however, some relief came and Henry Erskine eagerly took advantage of the opportunity. He settled for a time in Whitsome, a village about 5 miles distant from Duns. Many of the people from the latter village, wearied to exhaustion of the Christless sermons of the local ministry, gladly availed themselves of this opportunity to hear the gospel in its purity and power. Among these young Thomas and his father were regularly to be seen. In the effectual calling of this boy, then about 12 years of age, two sermons—one speaking of guilt and the other of grace—were specially blessed of God to his soul. These were upon the texts, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come,” and the other, “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.” “By these,” he says himself, “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 then on for some time the five miles’ walk to Whitsome each Sabbath morning was made easy with the anticipation of heavenly desire and longing; and the walk back to Duns each Sabbath evening was sweet and pleasant with profitable meditation and foretaste of heaven. Even in winter time when, owing to cold and frost, the journey was anything but a pleasant walk, and the crossing of the Blackadder stream, often swollen with winter rains and without boat or bridge, added greatly to the discomfort, he never turned back. “Such things,” he comments, “were then easy, for the benefit of the Word which came with power.” “I joyed when to the house of God, go up they said to me,” “How lovely is Thy dwelling-place, O Lord of Hosts, to me”: such Psalms would find a cordial and harmonious response in the heart of the young convert, thirsting for the Living God.
Having passed through the Grammar School and shown evidence of marked ability, as well as piety, we are not surprised to learn that the mind of Boston began to turn towards the Christian ministry. In this design he had the fervent sympathy of both his parents. Owing to their poor circumstances, however, it was many days before the design could be realised. These were testing, trying and proving days for the young student, the benefit of which became apparent in after years to the comfort of many a weary pilgrim. For further information on Boston, see articles which appeared in Magazines for November, December and January, 1950-1951.