An Explication of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism

by Thomas Boston

in ePub, .mobi & .pdf

Commentary is up through Question #38. Another more complete version can be found here.

Thomas Boston was born in Duns, Berwickshire, the youngest of seven children. His parents sent Boston from age nine to thirteen to the grammar school in Duns, where he loved reading the Bible and began studying Latin and New Testament Greek.

John Boston, Thomas’s father, was a cooper by trade and a strict Presbyterian. He was imprisoned for a time for refusing to conform to the changes in worship and government that the Stuart kings imposed on the Church of Scotland. One of Thomas’s earliest memories was visiting his father in prison. After the Act of Toleration in 1687 permitted non-conforming Presbyterians to hold services in private houses, John Boston began traveling with his family to Whitsome to hear the preaching of Henry Erskine, the father of Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine. Thomas Boston was spiritually awakened at age eleven while listening to Erskine’s messages on John 1:29 and Matthew 3:7.

Erskine’s ministry continued to influence the Boston family. Regardless of the weather, Thomas Boston would walk four or five miles each Sabbath to obtain food for his soul. He later wrote, “In the winter sometimes it was my lot to go alone, without so much as a horse to carry me through Blackadder water, the wading whereof in sharp frosty weather I very well remember. But such things were then easy, for the benefit of the Word, which came with power” (Memoirs, p. 10).

 

Table of Contents

What is the chief end of man?
What rule hath God given to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him?
What do the Scriptures principally teach?
What is God?
Are there more Gods than one?
How many persons are there in the Godhead?
What are the decrees of God?
How doth God execute his decrees?
What is the work of creation?
How did God create man?
What are God's works of providence?
What special act of providence did God exercise toward man in the estate wherein he was created?
Did our first parents continue in the estate wherein they were created?
What is sin?
What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
Did all mankind fall in Adam's first transgression?
Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?
Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate whereinto man fell?
What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?
Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
Who is the Redeemer of God's elect?
How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?
What offices doth Christ execute as our Redeemer?
How doth Christ execute the office of a prophet?
How doth Christ execute the office of a priest?
How doth Christ execute the office of a king?
Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist?
Wherein consisteth Christ's exaltation?
How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ?
How doth the Spirit apply to us the redemption purchased by Christ?
What is effectual calling?
What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in this life?
What is justification?
What is adoption?
What is sanctification?
What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?
What benefits do believers receive from Christ at death?
What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection?

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