Boston On LS Frequency
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JP Wallace
Puritan Board Sophomore
It would have been the Church of Scotland, Ken and his criticism would have been that they took the sacrament too infrequently, perhaps twice a year (though in attending neighbouring parish communion seasons the individual believer could have taken it more frequently.
Was this for reasons of precept or practicality? Was there something contained in their Book of Church Order?
This is from the copy of the Genevan Book of Order that I found at the Free Church of Scotland website:
JP Wallace
Puritan Board Sophomore
Kevin
I'm no expert but there was (like most things) probably many reasons why it was this way.
a) they probably were strongly opposed to anything remotely like episcopalian, or high church practice, probably assuming weekly communion for instance would lead to on one hand superstition or on the other hand casualness. (there is some merit in both concerns, but I don't believe the solutions accepted helped!)
b) there was frequently a great shortage of ordained ministers (although I said 2x a year I think 4x a year was more common in urban areas, where there was a greater population of ministers close by.
c) It should be noted however that each communion 'season' may have lasted between 3 days to a week! So for instance there would be meetings on the Friday, Saturday, Sabbath and Monday, in preparation for and appropriate conclusion to the sacrament. (BTW this shows that these were serious-minded and spiritual folks.)
The downside of all this was that many feared to publicly confess Christ by coming to the LS, such great importance and solemenity was given to these seasons that people were literally afraid!
The upside was that not infrequently revivals small and large broke out in and around communion seasons, e.g. the Cambuslang Revival in S.E. Glasgow.
I'm no expert but there was (like most things) probably many reasons why it was this way.
a) they probably were strongly opposed to anything remotely like episcopalian, or high church practice, probably assuming weekly communion for instance would lead to on one hand superstition or on the other hand casualness. (there is some merit in both concerns, but I don't believe the solutions accepted helped!)
b) there was frequently a great shortage of ordained ministers (although I said 2x a year I think 4x a year was more common in urban areas, where there was a greater population of ministers close by.
c) It should be noted however that each communion 'season' may have lasted between 3 days to a week! So for instance there would be meetings on the Friday, Saturday, Sabbath and Monday, in preparation for and appropriate conclusion to the sacrament. (BTW this shows that these were serious-minded and spiritual folks.)
The downside of all this was that many feared to publicly confess Christ by coming to the LS, such great importance and solemenity was given to these seasons that people were literally afraid!
The upside was that not infrequently revivals small and large broke out in and around communion seasons, e.g. the Cambuslang Revival in S.E. Glasgow.
Shawn Mathis
Puritan Board Sophomore
Here you go:
"Mr Boston's first impressions of the people of Ettrick as he found them were not encouraging but the reverse. Nothing indeed but the sense of his divine call to this new sphere and his faith in Him who could make his strength equal to his day could have kept him from fearing and even fainting at the prospect which opened before him. The discouraging causes came from more than one quarter. First the parish had been without a minister or the regular observance of the public ordinances of religion of any kind for the previous four years. It was impossible that a people numbering many hundreds and left for so long a time to wander as sheep without a shepherd should not in such circumstances have greatly degenerated..."
"It was not till more than three years after his settlement in Ettrick that Mr Boston with the advice of his elders ventured to celebrate the Lord's Supper in his parish. It had long been a neglected ordinance and like the Passover at one dark period in the history of the Israelites had become as a thing out of mind...From that time onward the Lord's Supper continued to be observed annually in the parish of Ettrick and its recurrence became a sort of vantage ground from which its minister could stand and look back and measure the religious progress of his people from year to year. The heart of the anxious pastor watched for signs of the presence and working of the Holy Spirit among his parishioners as the husbandman watches for the rain clouds to refresh his parched fields or as the mariner looks up to the stars to guide his course and year after year he was cheered by tokens which sent him to his knees in thanksgiving. For though there was nothing as yet like a pentecostal effusion in which his whole parish with its thousands received a new life and impulse and every individual was devoutly conscious of a baptism of fire yet interest in divine things was deepening the circle was widening and there were conviction and anxious inquiry in many hearts. Men who had not observed the Lord's Supper for twenty years came seeking to handle and taste the sacred symbols of Christ's redeeming love and those who had long been deserters of Christian ordinances in every form hastened to renew the times when it was better with them than now. Writing of the fifth of the annual communions Mr Boston records in his own homely style of narrative that 'there were 150 communicants who sat down at the sacred feast. At this time there were ten tables though we used to have about seven and the tables were longer than ordinary and people came from a far distance.' "
Thomas Boston of Ettrick: his life and times, By Andrew Thomson, p.98, 107ff.
"Mr Boston's first impressions of the people of Ettrick as he found them were not encouraging but the reverse. Nothing indeed but the sense of his divine call to this new sphere and his faith in Him who could make his strength equal to his day could have kept him from fearing and even fainting at the prospect which opened before him. The discouraging causes came from more than one quarter. First the parish had been without a minister or the regular observance of the public ordinances of religion of any kind for the previous four years. It was impossible that a people numbering many hundreds and left for so long a time to wander as sheep without a shepherd should not in such circumstances have greatly degenerated..."
"It was not till more than three years after his settlement in Ettrick that Mr Boston with the advice of his elders ventured to celebrate the Lord's Supper in his parish. It had long been a neglected ordinance and like the Passover at one dark period in the history of the Israelites had become as a thing out of mind...From that time onward the Lord's Supper continued to be observed annually in the parish of Ettrick and its recurrence became a sort of vantage ground from which its minister could stand and look back and measure the religious progress of his people from year to year. The heart of the anxious pastor watched for signs of the presence and working of the Holy Spirit among his parishioners as the husbandman watches for the rain clouds to refresh his parched fields or as the mariner looks up to the stars to guide his course and year after year he was cheered by tokens which sent him to his knees in thanksgiving. For though there was nothing as yet like a pentecostal effusion in which his whole parish with its thousands received a new life and impulse and every individual was devoutly conscious of a baptism of fire yet interest in divine things was deepening the circle was widening and there were conviction and anxious inquiry in many hearts. Men who had not observed the Lord's Supper for twenty years came seeking to handle and taste the sacred symbols of Christ's redeeming love and those who had long been deserters of Christian ordinances in every form hastened to renew the times when it was better with them than now. Writing of the fifth of the annual communions Mr Boston records in his own homely style of narrative that 'there were 150 communicants who sat down at the sacred feast. At this time there were ten tables though we used to have about seven and the tables were longer than ordinary and people came from a far distance.' "
Thomas Boston of Ettrick: his life and times, By Andrew Thomson, p.98, 107ff.
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