Introduction

THE “Memoirs” now published are occupied, as the reader will see, mainly with matters of Boston’s spiritual history, though the salient facts of his outward life are also noted as they occur. In order, however, to clear the reader’s way, we here re-state, in brief detail, the main incidents of the author’s career. He was born in 1676, a year of trouble and persecution in Scotland. His father, a God-fearing Presbyterian, was a sufferer for conscience sake, and one of the boy’s early recollections is that of keeping him company while he was a prisoner, for non-conformity, in Dunse jail. In 1687 King James proclaimed his Toleration, and the silenced Presbyterian ministers recovered the liberty of speech. The Rev. Henry Erskine, father of the noted Ralph and Ebenezer Erskine, held a meeting in Whitsome, four miles from Dunse. John Boston took his son Thomas to hear the good man, and there the boy, then only twelve years of age, received impressions which never left him. He heard sermons on John i. 29, “Behold the lamb of God,” and Matt, iii. 7, “O generation of vipers,” &c. “By these,” says he, “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. My lost state by nature, and my absolute need of Christ being thus discovered to me, I was set to pray in earnest.” Though we have no definite information, it seems it was not long before the seeker became a finder, and his pathway thenceforth was as the light that shines brighter and brighter to the perfect day. His feet being thus early turned to the path of God’s commandments he had no lapse into the ways of youthful sin and folly to deplore. Being of a quick intelligence and diligent at his book, he passed at the age of thirteen to the College in Edinburgh. Finishing his Arts Course with honour, he entered, in 1695, to the study of DiNanity. The first year he studied under Professor Campbell, “Great ‘Mv. Campbell,” as he calls him. The next two he studied under various Presbyteries, the while he taught pupils for a livelihood. He was first in Glencairn in Dumfriesshire, teaching the parish school there, then in Clackmannanshire as a private tutor to a son of Colonel Bruce of Kennet. On 15th June, 1697, when he was twenty-one years old, he was, by the Presbytery of Churnside, licensed to preach the Gospel. Several parishes had their eye on him as a desirable pastor, but the self-interest of patrons and other causes prolonged his probationership for over two years. He was settled in 1699 in Simprin, a small charge in Berwickshire, but, as it turned out, a happy and a successful one. “With joy,” says he, “I saw myself in Simprin as in my nest, under the covert of Christ’s wings.”

On 7th July, 1700, he was married, to Catherine Brown, an amiable and beautiful woman whose portrait he draws glowingly at page 149 of these “Memoirs.” In the seventh year of his settlement in Simprin he received a call to be Pastor of Ettrick. Believing he had the call of God to labour there, he went, though his inclination would have kept him still at Simprin. His painful and useful ministry at Ettrick extended over 25 years, from 1st May, 1707, to 20th May, 1732, the day of his death. Dying thus in his fifty-sixth year, Boston’s was a comparatively brief life, but it was a busy and fruitful one. It was filled with strenuous efibrts for the advancement of Christ’s kingdom in this world, and no less strenuous prayers and endeavours for the advancement of the same kingdom in his own soul. Much of his time and strength were spent in journeying and preaching to sacramental gatherings. In those times the one thing of common and commanding interest to all classes in Presbyterian Scotland was the public worship of God. The Kirk with the churchyard round it was the centre of the district, and on the sacramental occasion there was a flowing together of all the neighbouring parishes. A south country communion season, presided over by a great preacher like Boston might fitly recall the words of the prophet, “In those days the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all people shall flow unto it.” These sacramental gatherings, numbering many hundreds of people, no doubt gave occasion to some evils, of which the ribald pen of Robert Burns was not slow to write, but presided over by a grave and godly man like Boston, the

good doubtless much outweighed the evil. The reader of the twenty-first century, whose eye will find these lines is requested to note that at this date (10th May, 1899) such flocking of the Scottish people to the solemnities of Christian worship is wholly ceased, save in the Highlands and Islands where it still lingers. But instead thereof there is a tremendous flocking to all kinds of folly and dissipation. On 4th April, 1896, 60,000 people assembled at Glasgow to see a silly football match. This may serve for a sample of the temper of these times. Of the concourse of people to the Communion at Ettrick, and the hospitality and liberality of Boston’s congregation to the strangers on this occasion there is an interesting example on page 454 of this work.

Another department in which Boston laboured strenuously was the writing of books. That he should publish anything of his, much less that he should pen books that would pass through a hundred editions, never at first entered his thoughts. He was put upon publishing by his friends, who judged his merits better than he did himself. His “Fourfold State” was published first in 1720, and by the year 1776 had passed through between twenty and thirty editions. Another noted publication was the “Marrow of Modern Divinity with Notes by Boston.” The controversy underlying the publication of this book was a loud and long one. There were good men on both sides of the question, but it may suffice to say that it was mainly a debate between the real and the nominal professors of religion, between those who understood the Gospel and those who did not. The investigation of the subject of the Hebrew accents, which fascinated him and cost him many prayers and labours, seems, upon the whole, to have been in vain, as scholars are agreed that these accents are of human invention.

Boston’s religious life was, for the most part, evenly and happy. He had his dark hours, and knew the need of crying, “Restore to me the joy of thy salvation,” but his nights of weeping were not very prolonged. His latter years were spent under the weight of a trying sorrow. His beloved wife was stricken with a mental disorder which refused, to be cured. This circuuistance occasioned the writing of the well-known book, “The Crook in the Lot.” Of Bethel-like experiences he had not a few, see the passage related page 25 “under the tree in Kennet Orchard,” and that in Mr. Stark’s garret in Stenton, page 69. The

Vlll INTRODUCTION.

reader will observe everywhere in these “Memoirs” proof of au extreme tenderness of conscience and a scrupulosity which is almost unintelligible to the ordinary man. It was not enough for Boston that a thing was right in the abstract, he must also be satisfied that it was right as to measure, manner, and time. The reason is, doubtless, that he heard the voice which says, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” For Boston to forfeit this guidance was as bitter as death; therefore he was extremely careful to avoid wilful walking. His friendliness and chivalry to a rival pulpit candidate shine out in the incident on page 54, and his charitableness in a case where charity might seem misplaced is notable in the matter of the anonymous person mentioned on page 299. It is also remarkable to observe his brave and patriotic bearing through the crisis of 1715, when the rebel array was passing perilously near Ettrick. To pen a formal appreciation of Boston is not the writer’s intention. By putting hand to a work like this he thinks he has linked his name with that which will endure (Ps. cxii. 6). On that far-ofif day, 28th October, 1730, when the author finished his writing of these “Memoirs,” he committed them to the God of Heaven for preservation and a blessing on them. It is a pleasurable thought that the virtue of the blessing then invoked is not yet spent, but that in this closing year of the nineteenth century it is taking efiect in the issuing of a new edition of the “Memoirs” of this good man.

To the same Divine blessing let this work be commended.

J. M’K
lOth May, 1899.