Eis o conteúdo desta Coletânea:
Sumário:
1 — A Especial Origem da Instituição da Igreja Evangélica, por John Owen
2 — Por Que e Como Devemos Orar & A Necessidade da Oração Secreta, por Thomas Boston
3 — Agonia de Cristo, por Jonathan Edwards
4 — A Doutrina do Batismo, e a Distinção das Alianças, por Thomas Patient
Carta ao Leitor Cristão
A Obra Extraordinária dos Apóstolos
A Ordenança do Batismo Explicada
Os Quatro Princípios do Batismo
O Ministro
A Verdadeira Forma Do Batismo
Batismo Em Nome Da Santa Trindade
Quem Pode Ser Batizado
O Fundamento do Batismo Infantil
A Escritura Estabelece Duas Alianças
A Nova Aliança É Incondicional
A Nova Aliança Não É Determinada Pelos Homens
A Circuncisão Não É Aliança de Vida Eterna
Primeiro Argumento
Segundo Argumento
Terceiro Argumento
Quarto Argumento
Quinto Argumento
Sexto Argumento
Sétimo Argumento
A Lei, A Fé E A Eleição
Defender Uma Aliança De Vida Vinculada À Carne É Negar Que Cristo Veio Em Carne
Atos 2:39 e o Batismo Infantil
1 Coríntios 7:14 e o Batismo Infantil
Romanos 11:16-18 e o Batismo Infantil
1 Coríntios 10:1-4 e o Batismo Infantil
O Batismo E A Santa Ceia
São Símbolos Das Coisas Espirituais
Mateus 19:13-14
Uma Aliança Com Duas Administrações?
Uma Exposição de Gálatas 4:21-26 & Gálatas 5:1-3
Não Há Fundamentos Para O Batismo Infantil
O Batismo De Crentes Por Imersão
O Batismo Do Espírito Santo Substitui O Batismo Nas Águas?
A Nova Aliança Torna Os Crentes Capazes
De Andar Nos Mandamentos De Cristo
Os Crentes Batizados Devem Andar Rigorosamente Em Cristo
A Igreja Visível
Perguntas & Respostas
Por Que Os Que Não Foram Corretamente Batizados Não Devem Ser Admitidos à Comunhão Da Igreja?
Conclusão
Apêndices
5 — Cristo é Tudo em Todos Por Jeremiah Burroughs
Apêndice — Orações Puritanas
Em Oração
Dedicação Matinal
Necessidades Matinais
Manhã
Sinceridade
Anseios por Deus
Encontro com Deus
Devoção
Auxílio Divino
Confissão e Petição
Consagração e Adoração
O Vale da Visão
Contentamento
As Profundezas
Graça Ativa
Corrupções do Coração
Purificação
Refúgio
Auxílio Espiritual
Descansando em Deus
Louvor Noturno
Oração da Noite
Noite de Renovação
Thomas Boston was a Scottish church leader. He was educated at Edinburgh, and licensed in 1697 by the presbytery of Chirnside. In 1699 he became minister of the small parish of Simprin, where there were only 90 examinable persons.
His autobiography is a record of Scottish life, with humorous touches, intentional and otherwise. His books, The Fourfold State, The Crook in the Lot, and his Body of Divinity and Miscellanies, had a powerful influence over the Scottish peasantry. His Memoirs were published in 1776 (ed. GD Low, 1908). An edition of his works in 12 volumes appeared in 1849.
Born in 1676, in the town of Duns, in the Border country of Scotland, Thomas Boston learned through his childhood experiences to sympathise with the Presbyterian cause. His father, John Boston, was a strong opponent of Prelacy; and for this Nonconformity, he suffered a period of imprisonment. Thomas spent at least one night in Duns jail with him "to keep him company." When James II, in 1687, gave liberty of worship to dissenters from the Established Church - which he did out of regard for his RC subjects, John Boston was not slow to avail himself of his new-found liberty. He used to wait on the ministry of Henry Erskine, the father of Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, with whom Thomas Boston was to be so closely associated in after years in making a stand for the free offer of the Gospel. It was while attending one of these services that Thomas, then a boy of 11, was converted. He refers to the event in his Soliloquy on the Art of Man-fishing, which he published while still a young licentiate.
After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, he was licensed as a preacher of the gospel in 1697. But he was not ordained until 1699, when he became minister of the parish of Simprin. It was there that he first preached the sermons which were later published under the title of Human Nature in its Fourfold State. Simprin was a discouraging field of service, but under his zealous ministry it became, to quote his own description, "a field which the Lord has blessed."
In 1707, Boston was transferred to the parish of Ettrick, where he found the people sadly divided by separatism. The Cameronians, who repudiated the Revolution Settlement of 1688, stood aloof from his ministry, and, while among the parishioners generally there was much zeal for the church, there was but little vital godliness. Not until 1710, three years after his induction to Ettrick, did Boston dispense the sacrament of the Lord's Supper there; and, indeed, even after laboring for a further five years there, he concluded that all had been in vain. But when, in 1716, he received a call to Closeburn, his people at Ettrick showed the utmost anxiety at the prospect of losing their minister. But the transferral never took place. Boston stayed at Ettrick and witnessed a great work of grace in what had been a spiritual wilderness. It is noteworthy that whereas at his first dispensation of the Lord's Supper there, only some 60 persons communicated, at his last communion, in 1731, the number of participants was 777.
It was during his Ettrick ministry that his Fourfold State was first published, and by it his ministry was extended far and wide. But the doctrinal content of those discourses had been greatly influenced by his discovery, in a humble home in Simprin, of Edward Fisher's treatise The Marrow of Modern Divinity. This little book had the effect of giving Boston a fuller insight into the grace of God as the sole cause of salvation; and it immediately "gave a tincture," as he put it, to his preaching.
Boston was a man of scholarly attainments, a first-class Hebraist, and a theologian of such eminence that Jonathan Edwards judged him to have been "a truly great divine." Never a robust man, he had a full share of tribulation, as his Autobiography so touchingly shows. He left behind him 12 volumes of collected writings. The two books which did most to extend his ministry throughout Scotland, and even England and America, were The Crook in the lot and Human Nature in its Fourfold State.
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