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Believers
neither libertines nor legalists
From “A View of the Covenant of Grace”
by Thomas Boston.
Thomas
Boston
(1676-1732) was a pastor of
God's flock in
Ettrick,
Scotland, whose
preaching God abundantly blessed in the saving of many souls. The son of a
Presbyterian who knew the Lord and was imprisoned for non-conformity, Boston
was
raised in times of murderous persecution. Nevertheless, he lived to see
God’s people flourish and multiply, as “the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved” (Acts
2:47).
He is perhaps best known for his part in the reprinting of “The Marrow of
Modern Divinity”, a book which distinguishes the Covenant of Works from the
Covenant of Grace.
As ye will not be libertines in your life and
practice, being dead to sin and the world with Christ; so ye will not be
legalists in your life and practice neither, being also dead with him to the
law as a covenant of works. Your obedience will run in another channel than it
did before your union with Christ, even in the channel of the gospel. Ye will
serve in newness of spirit, in faith and love. The frowns of a merciful Father
will be a terror to you to frighten you from sin; love and gratitude will
prompt you to obedience. The grieving of the Spirit of a Saviour will be a
spring of sorrow to you; and his atoning blood and perfect righteousness will
be the spring-head of all your comfort before the Lord; your good works but
streams thereof, as they evidence your saving interest in these, are accepted
through them, and glorify God your Saviour. Ye will not continue to serve in
the oldness of the letter, as before; at what time the law was the spring of
all the obedience ye performed; fear of the punishment of hell for your sins,
and hope of the reward of heaven's happiness for your duties, being the
weights that made you go, though for all them you often stopped; your sorrows
springing from your ill works, under the influence of the law allenarly
[only]; and
your comforts from your good works, under the same influence; ye being alive
to the law and dead to Christ. Rom. vii. 6, "But now we are delivered
from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in
newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." If by faith you
wholly rely on Christ's righteousness, the holiness of his nature, the
righteousness of his life, and his satisfaction for sin, how is it possible
but ye must be dead to the law? for the law is not of faith, Gal. iii. 12. But
if you perform your obedience for life and salvation, looking for acceptance
with God on the account of your works, you go in a way directly opposite to
the way of faith, and either altogether reject Christ's satisfying of the law,
or else impute imperfection unto his payment of the bond. And "Christ is
become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye
are fallen from grace," Gal. v. 4.
From
Mr Boston's article on Inferences
from the conditionary part of the Covenant
Reference
“A View of the Covenant of Grace” by Thomas
Boston. Focus Christian Ministries Trust, 1990. p 87.
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