Thomas Boston as Preacher of the Fourfold State

Thomas Boston as Preacher of the Fourfold State
Author: Philip Graham Ryken
Publisher: Paternoster Publishing
Total Pages: 386
Release: 1999
Genre: Religion
ISBN:

Thomas Boston, the Presbyterian pastor-theologian, was the most widely published Scottish author of the eighteenth century. This book is a historical, practical and theological study of his preaching ministry, understood against the background of patristic, medieval, Reformation and Puritan theology.

Memoirs of Thomas Boston

Memoirs of Thomas Boston
Author: Thomas Boston
Publisher: Banner of Truth
Total Pages: 520
Release: 1899
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780851515281

Boston's Memoirs record the joys and sorrows, the burdens and victories, of his life. Out of his deep Christian experience, Boston gave the church one of its most enduring spiritual autobiographies.

The Marrow of Certainty

The Marrow of Certainty
Author: Chun Tse
Publisher: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
Total Pages: 303
Release: 2023-06-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 3647560901

Assurance was a central issue for the eminent Scottish theologian-pastor Thomas Boston long before it emerged as a focal point of the theological debate in the Marrow Controversy. In The Marrow of Certainty, Chun Tse presents the first full-length study of Boston's theology of assurance in six dimensions: trinitarian, covenantal, Christological, soteriological, ecclesiastical, and sacramental. This work not only furnishes the first-ever intellectual biography of Boston in his Scottish context and controversies, but it also cross-studies the theology of the Marrow of Modern Divinity with Boston's notes. This research argues that Boston's doctrine of assurance centres on union and communion with Christ, the architectonic principle of his theology. The book challenges the common conception that Boston's theology merely follows Calvin, the Scots Confession, the Marrow, the Westminster Standards, and Scottish federalism. Boston, most strikingly, holds in tension assurance as intrinsic to faith—itself a gift from God's sovereignty in election—while insisting on self-examination as a human responsibility. This salient mark of his doctrine of assurance originates from his assertion that Christ died for the elect alone but all—elect or not—have the warrant to receive Christ. As such, assurance is, theologically, a divine gift and, pastorally, a human endeavour. Certainty is thus both extra nos and intra nos. Boston, this study reveals, has a potent and enduring power to speak on the perennial issue of assurance, rooted in the person of Christ, whom he considers as being the covenant itself.

Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment

Protestant Scholasticism: Essays in Reassessment
Author: Carl R. Trueman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2007-10-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1597527882

Traditionally, Protestant theology between Luther's early reforming career and the dawn of the Enlightenment has been seen in terms of decline and fall into the wastelands of rationalism and scholastic speculation. In this volume a number of scholars question such an interpretation. The editors argue that the development of Post-Reformation Protestantism can only be understood when a proper historical model of doctrinal change is adopted. This historical concern underlies the subsequent studies of theologians such as Calvin, Beza, Olevian, Baxter and the two Turrentini. The result is a significantly different reading of the development of Protestant Orthodoxy, one which both challenges the older scholarly interpretations and clichŽs about the relationship of Protestantism to, among other things, scholasticism and rationalism, and which demonstrates the fruitfulness of the new, historical approach. Contributors: D. V. N. Bagchi, David C. Steinmetz, Richard A. Muller, Frank A. James III, John L. Farthing, Lyle D. Bierma, R. Scott Clark, Donald Sinnema, Paul R. Schaefer, W. Robert Godfrey, Carl R. Trueman, Philip G. Ryken, John E. Platt, Joel R. Beeke, James T. Dennison Jr., Martin I. Klauber, Lowell C. Green, and David P. Scaer.

The Doctrines of Grace

The Doctrines of Grace
Author: James Montgomery Boice
Publisher: Crossway
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2009-04-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1433517353

There is no question that we live in an age of weak theology and casual Christianity. We have substituted intuition for truth, feeling for belief and immediate gratification for enduring hope. Evangelicalism desperately needs to return to the doctrines that once before reformed the world: radical depravity, unconditional election, particular redemption, efficacious grace and persevering grace. James Boice and Philip Ryken not only provide a compelling exposition on these doctrines of grace, but also look briefly at their historical impact. The authors leave no doubt that the church suffers when these foundational truths are neglected and that she must return to a Christianity that is practical-minded, kind-hearted, and most importantly, biblically based.