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Thomas Boston, The Crook in th

25 Friday Feb 2022

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  1. The pain of the Crook produces conviction of sin.

God often uses difficulty in life to alert us to the presence or persistence of unrepentant sin. The relationship between the advent of the pain and the recognition of sin may vary from circumstance to circumstance. For instance, in Psalm 32, the crook of physical and emotional pain seems to be a pang of conscience:

Psalm 32:1–5 (ESV)
1 Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
whose sin is covered.
2 Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity,
and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3 For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
5 I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not cover my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

In other instances, the consequences which naturally flow from sin, such as illness from excessive abuse of drugs. In Deuteronomy, the Lord promises that living in accord with the law will protect against particular diseases, “And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.” Deuteronomy 7:15 (ESV)

We can think of other examples. When one neglects his family, he will likely suffer the consequence:

Proverbs 27:8 (ESV)
8 Like a bird that strays from its nest
is a man who strays from his home.

bird’s nest in a forest author: Jan Helebrant location: Czech Republic http://www.juhele.blogspot.com license CC0 Public Domain Dedication

A bird without a nest will certainly suffer for it.

A third relationship may be that pain itself causes us to search for the cause of the pain and to examine our life more fully:

Thirdly, Conviction of sin. As when one, walking heedlessly, is suddenly taken ill of a lameness; his going halting the rest of his way convinceth him of having made a wrong step; and every new painful step brings it afresh to his mind: so God makes a crook in one’s lot, to convince him of some false step he hath made, or course he hath taken. What the sinner would otherwise be apt to overlook, forget, or think light of, is by this means, recalled to mind, set before him as an evil and bitter thing, and kept in remembrance, that his heart may every now and then bleed for it afresh.

There can also be the pain of shame resulting from being found out:

Thus, by the crook, men’s sin finds them out to their conviction, as the thief is ashamed when he is found, Numb. 32:23. Jer. 2:26.

And as an example, he points to Joseph’s brothers,

The which Joseph’s brethren do feelingly express, under the crook made in their lot in Egypt, Gen. 42:21. “We are verily guilty concerning our brother,” chap. 44:16. “God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants.”

Typically, there is some relationship between the crook (which comes to bring repentance) and the sin which occasioned it, so that the pain causes one to remember the sin:

The crook in the lot doth usually, in its nature or circumstances, so natively refer to the false step or course, that it serves for a providential memorial of it, bringing the sin, though of an old date, fresh to remembrance, and for a badge of the sinner’s folly, in word or deed, to keep it ever before him.

He then gives examples from the life of Jacob, where God brought sorrow matched to Jacob’s sin:

When Jacob found Leah, through Laban’s unfair dealing, palmed upon him for Rachel, how could he miss of a stinging remembrance of the cheat he had seven years at least before put on his own father, pretending himself to be Esau? Gen. 27:19. How could it miss of galling him occasionally afterwards during the course of the marriage? He had imposed on his father the younger brother for the elder: and Laban imposed on him the elder sister for the younger. The dimness of Isaac’s eyes favoured the former cheat: and the darkness of the evening did as much favour the latter. So he behoved to say, as Adonibezek in another case, Judg. 1:7. “As I have done, so God hath requited me.”

In like manner, Rachel dying in child-birth, could hardly evite a melancholy reflection on her rash and passionate expression, mentioned Gen. 30:1. “Give me children, or else I die.”

And Job says, in his pain he remembers his sin:

Even holy Job read, in the crook of his lot, some false steps he had made in his youth many years before, Job. 13:26. “Thou writest bitter things against me, and makest me to possess the iniquities of my youth.”

The application of this point is clear. When in trouble, we would be wise to seek to see whether the trouble has come to cause repentance. This by no means should be taken as saying that all trouble is a result of sin. Job’s friends seemed to believe such a thing. Often there is no clear connection. But when we see ourselves plunged into depression, anxiety, fear, financial troubles, personal troubles, it would be wise to look around and ask, is there a sin of which I refuse to repent?

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.8

23 Wednesday Feb 2022

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The previous post may be found here.

C. Why God Makes the Crook

The argument that a good God cannot permit an evil circumstance depends upon a presupposition that God’s actions must be to maximize my immediate happiness and ease. If God permits an evil (and if such an evil cannot be permitted, then seemingly even trivial inconveniences would be inconsistent with a good God), then such a God cannot be good.

Now without question evils exist as does God. This raises the question, Why would God permit these evils? Why is there a crook in the lot:

THIRDLY, remains to enquire, why God makes a crook in one’s lot. And this is to be cleared by discovering the design of that dispensation: a matter which it concerns every one to know, and carefully to notice, in order to a Christian improvement of the crook in their lot. The design thereof seems to be, chiefly, seven-fold.

  1. Do I really have faith?

In 2 Corinthians 13, Paul tells the Corinthians, “Examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.” Faith can be a slippery concept, because we use it to refer to an intellectual position, and sometimes it can mean only that I have a general opinion. Being, in part, an intellectual state it cannot be seen like physical sacrifice or an external ritual. Thus, it is possible for one to claim to have faith and yet not have true faith.

First, The trial of one’s state, Whether one is in the state of grace, or not? Whether a sincere Christian, or a hypocrite?

True faith will necessary disclose itself under pressure. And a crook which persists is a powerful test of the truth of faith simply because it persists:

Though every affliction is trying, yet here, I conceive, lies the main providential trial a man is brought upon with reference to his state: forasmuch as the crook in the lot, being a matter of a continued course, one has occasion to open and shew himself again and again in the same thing; whence it comes to pass, that it ministers ground for a decision, in that momentous point.

“It ministers ground for a decision”: The continuance of a trial provides a basis, an occasion for the decision to act out of one’s faith.

Boston now provides biblical instances of this proposition. Job is the first example. Job is particularly apt because the incident begins with Satan specifically requesting the opportunity to test the trust of Job’s faith by physically afflicting Job:

It was plainly on this bottom that the trial of Job’s state was put. The question was, Whether Job was an upright and sincere servant of God, as God himself testified of him; or, but a mercenary one, a hypocrite, as Satan alleged against him? And the trial hereof was put upon the crook to be made in his lot, Job 1:8–12. and 2:3–6. Accordingly that which all his friends, save Elihu the last speaker, did, in their reasonings with him under his trial, aim at, was to prove him a hypocrite; Satan thus making use of these good men for gaining his point.

He next references the incident of the spies found in Numbers 13-14 and the aftermath. The Israelites having left Egypt came up to the border of Canaan. They then sent in spies to view the land. The land was indeed desirable. But, ten of the spies were too frightened to attempt to enter. Joshua and Caleb were convinced the Lord would bring them victory. Since the people feared to enter, they were sentenced forty years in the wilderness so that all of the adults would die before God would again let the Israelites prepare to enter.

Boston quotes from Numbers 32, where Moses recounts the incident at the end of the 40 years:

10 And the LORD’S anger was kindled the same time, and he sware, saying, 11 Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me: 12 Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun: for they have wholly followed the LORD. 13 And the LORD’S anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed.

Numbers 32:10–13 (AV)

At the end of this trial, Joshua and Caleb would enter the Promised Land because their trust in the Lord was such that their lives conformed to their profession:

As God took trial of Israel in the wilderness, for the land of Canaan, by a train of afflicting dispensations, the which Caleb and Joshua bearing strenuously were declared meet to enter the promised land, as having followed the Lord fully; while others being tired out with them, their carcases fell in the wilderness: so he takes trial of men, for heaven, by the crook in their lot. If one can stand that test, he is manifested to be a saint, a sincere servant of God, as Job was proven to be: if not, he is but a hypocrite; he cannot stand the test of the crook in his lot, but goes away like dross in God’s furnace.

Next Boston provides the instance of the “Rich Young Ruler.” Jesus tried the truth of faith in a man by telling him to give away his great wealth. The man could not give away his wealth, and so the man put his faith in his possessions rather than in the Lord:

A melancholy instance of which we have in that man of honour and wealth, who, with high pretences of religion, arising from a principle of moral seriousness, addressed himself to our Saviour, to know “what he should do that he might inherit eternal life,” Mark 10:17, 21. Our Saviour, to discover the man to himself, makes a crook in his lot, where all along before it had stood even, obliging him, by a probatory command, to sell and give away all he had, and follow him, verse 21. “Sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor—and come, take up the cross, and follow me.” Hereby he was, that moment, in the court of conscience, stript of his great possessions; so that thenceforth he could no longer keep them, with a good conscience, as he might have done before. The man instantly felt the smart of this crook made in his lot, “he was sad at that saying,” verse 22. that is, immediately upon the hearing of it, being struck with pain, disorder, and confusion of mind, his countenance changed, became cloudy and lowring, as the same word is used, Matth. 16:3. He could not stand the test of that crook; he could by no means submit his lot to God in that point, but behoved to have it, at any rate, according to his own mind. So he “went away grieved, for he had great possessions.”

The trial of the man’s faith proved him to be have no true faith:

He went away from Christ back to his plentiful estate, and though with a pained and sorrowful heart, sat him down again on it, a violent possessor before the Lord, thwarting the divine order. And there is no appearance that ever this order was revoked, nor that ever he came to a better temper in reference thereunto.

And so, a prolonged trial has the ability to provide a true test of faith. A faith which does not fail in the face of prolonged difficulty is evidence of a true faith.


There is an easy and immediate application here: Am I experiencing a seemingly unending trial. Has this difficulty caused me to give up my faith? Then I can rest with some assurance that my faith is real because my faith has not ended.

  1. It moves us to seek a better land.

Trials make the world bitter to us. And so God can use trials to break us of our excessive love of this world, which shows itself in sin, by making the world bitter to us. Augustine spoke to this beautifully in his Confessions:

“Whither now wander ye further and further over these difficult and troublesome passages? There is no rest to be found where you seek it. Seek what you do seek, but yet ’tis not there where you are seeking for it. You seek a blessed life in the land of death; ’tis not there: for how should there be a happy life, where there is at all no life?”

Augustine of Hippo, St. Augustine’s Confessions, vol.1, ed. T. E. Page and W. H. D. Rouse, trans. William Watts, The Loeb Classical Library (London; New York: William Heinemann; The Macmillan Co., 1912), 181. [Book IV, 12]

In the words of Boston, trial “weans us from the world”:

Secondly, Excitation to duty, weaning one from this world, and prompting him to look after the happiness of the other world. Many have been beholden to the crook in their lot, for that ever they came to themselves, settled and turned serious. Going for a time, like a wild ass used to the wilderness, scorning to be turned, their foot hath slid in due time; and a crook being thereby made in their lot, their month hath come, wherein they have been caught, Jer. 2:24.

An example, the Prodigal Son who when he suffered in the midst of his rebellion and sin, determined to return home to his father:

Thus was the prodigal brought to himself, and obliged to entertain thoughts of returning unto his Father, Luke 15:17.

A continued trial makes it impossible to take rest in the world. The world is simply so uncomfortable, that we must find our rest elsewhere:

The crook in their lot convinces them at length, that here is not their rest. Finding still a pricking thorn of uneasiness, whensoever they lay down their head, where they would fainest take rest in the creature, and that they are obliged to lift it again, they are brought to conclude, there is no hope from that quarter, and begin to cast about for rest another way. So it makes them errands to God, which they had not before; for as much as they feel a need of the comforts of the other world, to which their mouths were out of taste, while their lot stood even to their mind.

How then do we use this observation? When we realize how interminable our trouble lies upon us, then turn our attention elsewhere:

Wherefore whatever use we make of the crook in our lot, the voice of it is, “Arise ye, and depart, this is not your rest.”

He finishes this section with an observation that this turning us away from the world is a means to kill sin, which he calls “mortification”:

And it is surely that, which of all means of mortification of the afflictive kind, doth most deaden a real Christian to this life and world.

There is an allusion Colossians 3:

1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. 2 Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

Colossians 3:1–5 (AV) By means of having our attention turned away from earth and onto “those things which are above”, we put to death our sin. And so God afflicts us for prolonged periods of time to kill our sin.

How then do we use this knowledge? As long as we direct our greatest attention to seeking earthly relief from the crook, our attention stays on earth. There must come a point where we realize, the earth is not comfortable. It is under a curse and is not fit for humans, we should turn our attention from this world to a ‘city whose builder and maker is God.’ Heb. 11:10. If we have not done so, we should take the opportunity afforded by trouble to cultivate a test for the world to come. In so doing, we put away from us the sin which grieves us so.

We should also realize that we often take to these sins in an effort to ease the pain of the trial. But to do so only compounds our sorrow and trial.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.7

03 Thursday Feb 2022

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B.        How God Lays the Crook

In this section, Boston considers the nature of God’s agency as it relates to the placing of a crook in the lot:

Secondly, That we may see how the crook in the lot is of God’s making, we must distinguish between pure sinless crooks, and impure sinful ones.

1.         Those troubles which do not entail “defilement”

Some troubles are a matter of pain, but do not include any sinful action (as opposed to those troubles which are inherently sinful and cause pain):

First, There are pure and sinless crooks: the which are mere afflictions, cleanly crosses; grievous indeed, but not defiling.

These are the sort of things which by their presence make life difficult, illness, poverty. God can cause these things directly to be present without God being the author of sin:

Such were Lazarus’s poverty, Rachel’s barrenness, Leah’s tender eyes, the blindness of the man who had been so from his birth, John 9:1. Now the crooks of this kind, are of God’s making by the efficacy of his power directly bringing them to pass, and causing them to be.

To prove God’s more direct agency in this things he cites passages which God claims responsibility for poverty:

He is the maker of the poor, Prov. 17:5. “Whoso mocketh the poor, reproacheth his Maker;” that is, reproacheth God who made him poor, according to that, 1 Sam. 2:7. “The Lord maketh poor.”

And physical trouble:

It is he that hath the key of the womb, and, as he sees meet, shuts it, (1 Sam. 1:5.) or opens it, Gen. 39:21. And it is he that formed the eye, Psal. 94:9. And the man was born blind, that the works of God should be made manifest in him, John 9:3. Therefore he saith to Moses, Exod. 4:11. “Who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?”

While God does use secondary agents, a blind person has eyes that do not function correctly; and there will be an actual physical loss whether through injury or malformation; God does not work through an inherently sinful agent:

Such crooks in the lot are of God’s making, in the most ample sense, and in their full comprehension, being the direct effects of his agency, as well as the heavens and the earth are.

2.         Those Crooks Which Entail Sin

There are other troubles which are the direct result of sinful action. A baby can be born with a physical abnormality and no human being’s sin directly caused the problem. But there are other troubles are the direct result of sin, like one who suffers through the criminal actions of another:

Secondly, There are impure sinful crooks, which, in their own nature, are sins as well as afflictions, defiling as well as grievous. Such was the crook made in David’s lot, through his family disorders, the defiling of Tamar, the murder of Amnon, the rebellion of Absalom, all of them unnatural. Of the same kind was that made in Job’s lot, by the Sabeans and Chaldeans taking away his substance, and slaying his servants.

This class of trouble presents a serious problem, because it appears that God caused the evil to take place:

As these were the afflictions of David and Job, respectively, so they were the sins of the actors, the unhappy instruments thereof. Thus one and the same thing may be, to one a heinous sin, defiling and laying him under guilt: and to another an affliction, laying him under suffering only. Now, the crooks of this kind are not of God’s making, in the same latitude as those of the former; for he neither puts evil in the hearts of any, nor stirreth up to it; “He cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempeth he any man, Jam. 1:13. But they are of his making, by his holy permission of them, powerful bounding of them, and wise over-ruling of them to some good end.

As we look to how Boston solves this problem, I will reference John Frame’s note on the difficulty of this issue:

We have seen that natural evil is a curse that God placed on the world in response to man’s sin. We also saw earlier, in chapter 8, that God does harden hearts, and through his prophets he predicts sinful human actions long in advance, indicating that he is in control of human free decisions. Now, theologians have found it difficult to formulate in general terms how God acts to bring about those sinful actions. Earlier in the chapter, we saw Gilson arguing that God is not the cause of sin and evil because evil is nonbeing and therefore has no cause. Gilson is willing to say that God is the deficient cause (which sounds like a contrast to efficient cause), meaning that God creates mutable beings, but does not determine the specific defects that constitute sin. I found his privation theory, and his view of libertarian freedom, inadequate. But the discussion brings out an issue that we all must think about. Do we want to say that God is the “cause” of evil? That language is certainly problematic, since we usually associate cause with blame. Consider Mike, who made Billy put graffiti on the school door. Billy, of course, made the marks, but Mike caused him to do it. And so, most of us would agree, Mike deserves the blame. So it seems that if God causes sin and evil, he must be to blame for it. Therefore, there has been much discussion among theologians as to what verb best describes God’s agency in regard to evil. Some initial possibilities: authors, brings about, causes, controls, creates, decrees, foreordains, incites, includes within his plan, makes happen, ordains, permits, plans, predestines, predetermines, produces, stands behind, wills. Many of these are extrascriptural terms; none of them are perfectly easy to define in this context. So theologians need to give some careful thought to which of these terms, if any, should be affirmed, and in what sense.

Frame, John M.. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief . P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition. This is an extremely debated field. Frame does provide a fascinating way to consider the matter:

I should, however, say something more about the nature of God’s agency in regard to evil. Recall from earlier in this chapter the model of the author and his story: God’s relationship to free agents is like the relationship of an author to his characters. Let us consider to what extent God’s relationship to human sin is like that of Shakespeare to Macbeth, the murderer of Duncan. I borrowed the Shakespeare/Macbeth illustration from Wayne Grudem’s excellent GST. But I do disagree with Grudem on one point. He says that we could say that either Macbeth or Shakespeare “killed King Duncan.” I agree, of course, that both Macbeth and Shakespeare are responsible, at different levels of reality, for the death of Duncan. But as I analyze the language that we typically use in such contexts, it seems clear to me that we would not normally say that Shakespeare killed Duncan. Shakespeare wrote the murder into his play. But the murder took place in the world of the play, not the real world of the author. Macbeth did it, not Shakespeare. We sense the rightness of the poetic justice brought against Macbeth for his crime. But we would certainly consider it very unjust if Shakespeare were tried and put to death for killing Duncan. And no one suggests that there is any problem in reconciling Shakespeare’s benevolence with his omnipotence over the world of the drama. Indeed, there is reason for us to praise Shakespeare for raising up this character, Macbeth, to show us the consequences of sin.

Frame, John M.. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Christian Belief . P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Boston does provide a three-part answer to the problem of God’s relationship to evil. However, not everyone will find his answers satisfactory; and indeed the question is quite difficult.

a.         God grants human beings a measure of free-will, even to sin.

The first argument could be called the “freewill defense”. There is sin, because God permits human beings freewill; even to the point of hurting other human beings. The arugment is as follows: Human beings will sin given the chance. We are rebellious and perverse. Thus, unless God actively restrains a human being from sin, sin will happen.

If I am holding the leash on an angry dog, I do not make the dog bite anyone; but I could permit the dog to bite if I were to let go of the leash.

First, He holily permits them, suffering men to walk in their own ways, Acts 14:16. Though he is not the author of these sinful crooks, causing them to be by the efficacy of his power; yet, if he did not permit them, willing not to hinder them, they could not be at all; for he shutteth, and no man openeth, Rev. 3:7.

Since God has the power to control men, the decision to not exercise that control can result in a sinful action taking place:

But he justly with-holds his grace, which the sinner does not desire, takes off the restraint under which he is uneasy, and, since the sinner will be gone, lays the reigns on his neck, and leaves him to the swing of his lust. Hos. 4:17. “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone.” Psal. 81:11, 12. “Israel would none of me. So I gave them up to their own hearts’ lusts.” In which unhappy situation, the sinful crook doth, from the sinner’s own proper motion, natively and infallibly follow: even as water runs down a hill, wherever there is a gap left open before it. So, in these circumstances, “Israel walked in their own counsels,” ver. 12. And thus this kind of crook is of God’s making, as a just Judge, punishing the sufferer by it. The which view of the matter silenced David under Shimei’s cursings, 2 Sam. 16:10. “Let him alone, and let him curse: for the Lord hath bidden him.”

b.         Even when God permits sin, God limits the scope of sin.

Secondly, He powerfully bounds them, Psal. 76:10. “The remainder of wrath” (namely, the creature’s wrath) “thou shalt restrain.”

This limitation on the scope of sin is a ground for hope, because without God’s limitation, sin would be to the uttermost always:

Did not God bound these crooks, howsoever sore they are in any one’s case, they would yet be sorer: but he says to the sinful instrument, as he said to the sea, “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed.” He lays a restraining band on him, that he cannot go one step farther, in the way his impetuous lust drives, than he sees meet to permit.

By limiting the scope for sin, God exercises control over our troubles:

Hence it comes to pass, that the crook of this kind is neither more nor less, but just as great as he by his powerful bounding makes it to be.

He then provides the example from Job. The Satan (the Accuser) is given power in two successive rounds to afflict Job, but with strict limitation:

An eminent instance thereof, we have in the case of Job, whose lot was crooked through a peculiar agency of the devil: but, even to the grand sinner, God set a bound in the case. “The Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power, only upon himself put not forth thine hand,” Job 1:12. Now Satan went the full length of the bound, leaving nothing within the compass thereof untouched, which he saw could make for his purpose, ver. 18, 19. But he could by no means move one step beyond it, to carry his point which he could not gain within it. And therefore to make the trial greater, and crook sorer, nothing remained, but that the bound set should be removed, and the sphere of his agency enlarged; for which cause he saith, “But touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.” chap. 2:5. And it being removed accordingly, but withal a new one set, ver. 6. “Behold he is in thine hand, but save his life;” the crook was carried to the utmost that the new bound would permit, in a consistency with his design of bringing Job to blaspheme; “Satan smote him with sore boils, from the sole of his foot unto his crown, ver. 7. And had it not been for this bound, securing Job’s life, he, after finding this attempt successless too, had doubtless dispatched him for good and all.

c.         God’s sovereignty controls the outcome of even evil actions

When the wicked cause affliction, their goal is a bad end for the one hurt. And while God may permit the injury, God does not lose control over the outcome. God can use an evil action to obtain a good end.

Thirdly, He wisely over-rules them to some good purpose becoming the divine perfections. While the sinful instrument hath an ill design in the crook caused by him, God directs it to a holy and good end.

Thomas Watson in A Divine Cordial makes this point with a very useful image:

Do not mistake me, I do not say that of their own nature, the worst things are good, for they are a fruit of the curse. But though they are naturally evil—yet the wise overruling hand of God disposing and sanctifying them—they are morally good. As the elements, though of contrary qualities—yet God has so tempered them, that they all work in a harmonious manner for the good of the universe. Or as in a watch, the wheels seem to move contrary one to another—but all carry on the motions of the watch: so things that seem to move cross to the godly—yet by the wonderful providence of God, work for their good.

Boston then provides examples. First,  God used sinful actions to correct David:

In the disorders of David’s family, Amnon’s design was to gratify a brutish lust, Absalom’s to glut himself with revenge, and to satisfy his pride and ambition: but God meant thereby to punish David for his sin in the matter of Uriah.

Second, the murderous actions of the Sabeans effectuate God’s end

In the crook made in Job’s lot, by Satan and the Sabeans and Chaldeans his instruments, Satan’s design was to cause Job blaspheme, and theirs to gratify their covetousness: but God had another design therein, becoming himself, namely, to manifest Job’s sincerity and uprightness. Did not he wisely and powerfully over-rule these crooks made in men’s lot, no good could come out of them: but he always over-rules them so, as to fulfil his own holy purposes thereby, bowbeit the sinner meaneth not so; for his designs cannot miscarry, his counsel shall stand, Isa. 46:10.

And this is as God has promised:

So the sinful crook is, by the over-ruling hand of God, turned about to his own glory, and his people’s good, in the end; according to the word, Prov. 16:4. “The Lord hath made all things for himself.” Rom. 8:28. “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Thus Haman’s plot, for the destruction of the Jews, was turned to the contrary, Esth. 9:1.

The final example is the case of Joseph’s brother’s selling him as a slave; an evil action which in the end saved the life of his entire family:

And the crook made in Joseph’s lot, by his own brethren selling him into Egypt, though it was on their part most sinful, and of a most mischievous design; yet, as it was of God’s making, by his holy permission, powerful bounding, and wise over-ruling of it, had an issue well becoming the divine wisdom and goodness: both which Joseph noticeth to them, Gen. 50:20. “As for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”

3.         Reflecting on God’s Sovereignty

The promise that “all things work together for good” (Rom. 8:28) is premised ultimately upon the sovereignty of God in afflictions. God can promise that all things will end in good, because God is the one who is sovereign over all actions. If sinful actions lay beyond his power, if God simply does not know will occur; or, if God cannot or will not restrain and direct sin, then the promise of good is undependable.

We need not pretend that this is an easy doctrine. But we can see it illustrated on multiple occasions throughout Scripture. For instance, Habakkuk the prophet complains about moral bankruptcy of Judah. In response, God says that he will send the Chaldeans (Babylon) to bring judgment:

            5           “Look among the nations, and see;

wonder and be astounded.

                        For I am doing a work in your days

that you would not believe if told.

            6           For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,

that bitter and hasty nation,

                        who march through the breadth of the earth,

to seize dwellings not their own.

            7           They are dreaded and fearsome;

their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.

            8           Their horses are swifter than leopards,

more fierce than the evening wolves;

their horsemen press proudly on.

                        Their horsemen come from afar;

they fly like an eagle swift to devour.

            9           They all come for violence,

all their faces forward.

They gather captives like sand.

Habakkuk 1:5–9 (ESV). Habakkuk cannot believe what he has heard from God. It is in this context that we come the famous line, “the righteous shall live by his faith.”

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.6 (the sovereignty of God)

29 Saturday Jan 2022

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IV.       HOW IS GOD INVOLVED IN THE PLACING OF THE CROOK IN THE LOT?

Boston provides the following outline for the next section of his work:

Having seen the crook itself, we are, in the next place, to consider of God’s making it. And here is to be shown, (1.) That it is of God’s making. (2.) How it is of his making. (3.) Why he makes it.

A.        God lays the crook in the lot

First, That the crook in the lot, whatever it is, is of God’s making, appears from these three considerations

1.         The crook follows as a “penal evil”

The crook, however it comes, is one sense always a “penal evil.” By this Boston means that it comes as a “punishment or affliction.” A crook is by definition something which hurts, it causes harm in terms of its experience (even if the eventual outcome results in something better).

First, It cannot be questioned, but the crook in the lot, considered as the crook, is a penal evil, whatever it is for the matter thereof: that is, whether the thing in itself, its immediate cause and occasion be sinful or not, it is certainly a punishment or affliction.

This does not mean there is a one-to-one correspondence between what we suffer and some particular conduct on our behalf.  We cannot look at someone who suffers a lingering disease and saw: this person clearly committed a great sin. This is what Boston means by “whether the thing in itself, its immediate cause and occasion be sinful or not.”

Jesus specifically rejects such thinking:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Luke 13:1–5 (ESV)

What then could possibly be the connection between the falling tower and punishment, if those particular men were not uniquely deserving of death? All death comes as the result of sin’s presence in the world. All of us have been conceived under a sentence of death. To be born is to be brought into a world where the only exit will be death.

Death is the punishment which God has brought upon the world for the presence of sin. And in that sentence of death come all of the lesser trials and losses. God takes complete ownership of sentence. Thus, if God is the only ultimate author of the sentence (God being the only one capable of enforcing the judgment), and God takes credit for such being in the world, and if such is in the world, then God must be the ultimate responsible party:

Now, as it may be, as such holily and justly brought on us, by our sovereign Lord and judge, so he expressly claims the doing or making of it, Amos 3:6. “Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it?” Wherefore, since there can be no penal evil, but of God’s making, and the crook in the lot is such an evil, it is necessarily concluded to be of God’s making.

At this point, someone will ask, yes but what of evil brought upon one in which the pain brought is the result of an actual sin? How is God responsible for a murder? That is an issue which Boston will address later in this work. But that is a real and significant question to be considered.

2.         As a general matter, God is sovereign over all that takes place

The Scripture is plain that God is sovereign over all that takes place in human life:

It is evident from the scripture-doctrine of divine providence, that God brings about every man’s lot and all the parts thereof. He sits at the helm of human affairs, and turns them about whithersoever he listeth [he desires or he pleases]

“Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did he in heaven and in earth, in the seas and all deep places,” Psal. 135:6. There is not any thing whatsoever befals us without his over-ruling hand.

This must be grasped:

With reference to the government of Providence, it is said of God, that “he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth.” Even insensible matter is under his control. Fire and hail, snow and vapour, and stormy wind, fulfil his word: and with reference to intelligent agents, we are told that he maketh the most refractory, even the wrath of man, to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he restrains. The whole Bible exhibits Jehovah as so ordering the affairs of individuals, and of nations, as to secure the grand purpose he had in view in creating the world,—viz., the promotion of his own glory, in the salvation of a multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues. One of the most prominent distinctions between divine revelation and ordinary history is, that when the same general events are narrated, the latter exhibits—(it is its province so to do—it is not able indeed to do more,) the agency of man, the former, the agency of God. Profane history exhibits the instruments by which Jehovah works; the finger of divine revelation points to the unseen but almighty hand which wields and guides the instrument, and causes even Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the Jews and the people of Israel, to do what the hand and the counsel of God determined before to be done.—George Payne, in “Lectures on Christian Theology,” 1850.

C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Psalms 120-150, vol. 6 (London; Edinburgh; New York: Marshall Brothers, n.d.), 194.

Boston underscores this point with the observation that God’s providence is comprehensive when it comes to our life:

The same providence that brought us out of the womb, bringeth us to, and fixeth us in, the condition and place allotted for us, by him who hath determined the times and the bounds of our habitation, Acts 17:26. It over-rules the smallest and most casual things about us, such as hairs of our head falling on the ground, Matth. 10:29, 30. A lot cast into the lap, Prov. 16:33.

There is a profoundly difficult aspect of God’s sovereignty which concerns our decisions and our will. It is one thing for God be sovereign over the rainfall and the sunshine, but is God sovereign over our decisions:

Yea, the free acts of our will, whereby we choose for ourselves, for, even “the king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water,” Prov. 21:1. And the whole steps we make, and which others make in reference to us; for “the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” Jer. 10:23.

And this applies to all sorts of human actions:

And this, whether these steps causing the crook to be deliberate and sinful ones, such as Joseph’s brethren selling him into Egypt; or whether they be undesigned, such as manslaughter purely casual, as when one hewing wood kills his neighbour with the head of the axe slipping from the helve, Deut. 19:5.

Boston does not unwrap the quandary of God’s providence and human decision making not being the actions of a puppet. But he does begin to open the puzzle as to how God could be involved in sinful actions:

For there is a holy and wise providence that governs the sinful and the heedless actions of men, as a rider doth a lame horse, of whose halting, not he, but the horse’s own lameness, is the true and proper cause; wherefore, in the former of these cases, God is said to have sent Joseph into Egypt, Gen. 45:7. And, in the latter, to deliver one into his neighbour’s hand. Exod. 21:13.

This then raises the confusing question of how could God be sovereign over all, and God order that sin not be committed, and also be sovereign over sin (even if it is permitted and not mandated)? While Boston will spend more time on this question, below, the unwrapping of that riddle is not his aim here. A useful article to begin wrestling with that question can be found here: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/are-there-two-wills-in-god

3.         God’s providence is sure

The decisions of God are not potential or suggestive. God’s will is certain and his decrees unchangeable:

Lastly, God hath, by an eternal decree, immoveable as mountains of brass, (Zech. 6:1.) appointed the whole of every one’s lot, the crooked parts thereof as well as the straight. By the same eternal decree, whereby the high and low parts of the earth, the mountains and the valleys, were appointed, are the heights and depths, the prosperity and adversity in the lot of the inhabitants thereof, determined; and they are brought about, in time, in a perfect agreeableness thereto.

If God’s will is set and established before I am even more, then this crook has been laid in my lot from prior to my existence. It was here before I came upon it as I moved through time. It is as if one were hiking through the mountains and came upon a ravine without a bridge. The ravine was there before I began my hike. It could never have not been there when I came to that place:

The mystery of providence, in the government of the world, is, in all the parts thereof, the building reared up of God, in exact conformity to the plan in his decree, “who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will,” Eph. 1:11. So that there is never a crook in one’s lot, but may be run up to this original. Hereof Job piously sets us an example, in his own case, Job 23:13, 14. “He is in one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, even that he doth. For he performed the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with him.”

4.         Consideration

This is not an easy matter to assimilate into one’s thinking. The argument from harm, that a good God could not possibly permit harm (and thus either God cannot prevent it, or God is not good, or there is no God), seems to be a baseline assumption of human beings.  When we pray that God remove a trouble, I know from experience (my own and others) and that we seem to believe that such trouble may have come as a surprise to God.

That it is God’s will that such trouble come upon us, is a difficult thing to understand.  Especially when we also consider promises such as “all things work together for good.” What sort of good entails me watching my child die?

Perhaps our trouble is that we fundamentally misunderstand ourselves, our world, our place in the world, God, and how these things go together.

It is a trite analogy, but it may begin to open a door as to how to think about such things as our trials: A small child cannot understand that candy which tastes good is not good for you. That broccoli which does not taste good is good for you. That the pain of a vaccination is good because it prevents a disease. And so on. Children simply lack the experience and ability to comprehend the incomprehensible things we tell them, things which are true.

If such happens between us and our children, then how much more would there be limits on our understanding compared to an infinite, eternal, all wise God? Think of how little we actually know about what God is doing with creation. Yes, we are not completely ignorant. But think for a moment of how little you can really understand about hints such as:

9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 3:9–10 (ESV). The glib answer “the angels are watching” does not begin to plumb the mystery hinted at here.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot (a digression on the problem of evil).5

26 Wednesday Jan 2022

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III.       WHAT IF THE CROOK DOESN’T COME FROM GOD?

The proposition that the crook comes from God forms the next section of Boston’s analysis. And it is here that we will stray a bit from Boston’s work to deal with an objection known as the “problem of evil.”

There is a kind of reluctance to place the “blame” with God, because it seems counterintuitive.  And while not an exhaustive consideration, there are few common considerations which should be dealt with before look at Boston’s analysis of the doctrine that all things –even trouble-comes from God.

A.        Here is the greatest argument in favor of atheism

It must be noted that the fact of suffering is fundamental argument in favor of atheism. In its strongest form, it usually produced something like this:

In the second half of the twentieth century, atheologians (that is, persons who try to prove the non-existence of God) commonly claimed that the problem of evil was a problem of logical inconsistency. J. L. Mackie (1955, p. 200), for example, claimed,

Here it can be shown, not that religious beliefs lack rational support, but that they are positively irrational, that several parts of the essential theological doctrine are inconsistent with one another.

H. J. McCloskey (1960, p. 97) wrote,

Evil is a problem, for the theist, in that a contradiction is involved in the fact of evil on the one hand and belief in the omnipotence and omniscience of God on the other.

Mackie and McCloskey can be understood as claiming that it is impossible for all of the following statements to be true at the same time:

(1) God is omnipotent (that is, all-powerful).

(2) God is omniscient (that is, all-knowing).

(3) God is perfectly good.

(4) Evil exists.

The Problem of Evil, https://iep.utm.edu/evil-log/ For a discussion of the philosophy, see also here, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil/  Or if you’d like it as a gibe, “As the Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg commented, ‘If there is a God that has special plans for humans, then He has taken very great pains to hide His concern for us.’” https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-purpose/201910/why-do-bad-things-happen-good-people

There are a number of responses to this assertion. See, a summary of some of the forms of argument here:  https://carm.org/evidence-and-answers/if-god-is-all-powerful-and-loving-why-is-there-suffering-in-the-world/   

This literature in this area of philosophy is, like all philosophical problems which rouse the attention of a sufficient number of philosophers, “extensive.” I think in part that the a difficulty arises from considering the problem of evil in the abstract as a logical problem not as a relational or covenantal category.

The Christian understanding is that suffering has its origin in sin; sin as rebellion against and rejection of God. The creation (including human beings) is created a contingent existence. Life and blessing flow into the creation from God (just as water flows into the Garden from Eden). Sin brought a curse upon the earth, including death.

God has acted to mitigate that curse. Death did not come immediately. Redemption (which can be understood as a means to escape the curse) has also been provided. However horrifying sin and suffering (a fact which must never be downplayed or denied in any respect), the fact remains that sin’s natural product is always the worse possible outcome.

It should also be considered that the most horrifying examples of evil are human evils, the sin of one human being against another.  Perhaps a hypothetical disease could inflict greater pain than one human being could inflict upon another; but the relational aspect makes the pain worse. Relational evil causes despair beyond the pain. I recall hearing a political prisoner discuss being tormented by the police. During the torture, a call came for one of the police officers. It was a wife asking when her husband would be home. The prisoner said, I was able to bear it while I thought I was being handled by monsters. But when I heard him speak to his wife, I knew these were human beings, which made the torment worse.

We can bear almost anything when we know we have love and when we have hope. It is not just the physical pain which overwhelms us; even more it is the absence of relationship. And that is where the discussion of evil as a philosophical problem can go wrong.  Evil is a relational category, which has meaning in the context of God and judgment. Otherwise it is just pain.

To argue from pain to there is no god is incoherent. To argue from “evil” to no God, we must first presume there is a God such that “evil” is a true relational category. The fact of evil presumes a God. To just use “evil” as a figure of speech to denote pain or anything of which I disapprove is an esthetic argument.

I affirm the unmistakable category of evil as something more than pain. But affirming this means I must also affirm the existence of God.

A.        If trouble does not start with God, then the trouble is meaningless.

To say that some proposition X “means” something is really a way of saying that X has a particular relationship to some other category Y. For instance, you drive your car past a
“Stop” sign without stopping. That is a traffic violation.

When we say that is a “traffic violation,” we are referring to the relationship between the legal importance of the sign (it is a command from the government that you must stop your vehicle in a particular lace) and your behavior (you did not stop). Let us assume for a moment some future world in which the current government has fallen and our civilization is now the concern of archaeologists.  A future archaeologist drives his vehicle past a “stop” sign from the excavation. He has not engaged in a traffic violation, because the sign no longer signifies the command of an existent government. To the future archaeologist, the sign no longer means that one must stop. Now it means, there used to be this government which gave these commands (because the new context for the sign is archaeology, not present government).

The same principle holds with suffering. Boston is going to argue to the meaning of suffering (and this meaning will become the basis upon which we should understand and bear suffering) from the fact that suffering takes place in the context of God’s sovereignty: it is meaningful because God has ordained it.

But what if suffering takes place in a world without meaning, because it takes place in a world without God? The great English writer, Thomas Hardy, an atheist, raised the problem of suffering in a meaningless world:

If but some vengeful god would call to me

From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,

Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,

That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” 

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,

Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;

Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I

Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain,

And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?

—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,

And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown

Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

If God were a monster who tormented me from hate, at least that would be hate and I could stand against the hate. But suffering just happens. I am meaningless being subject to meaningless suffering.

It may seem strange, but God’s sovereignty provides a ground for understanding our suffering as meaningful. It also make it possible to affirm that evil is real, and thus something which we can judge to be evil.

B.        God’s sovereignty provides a basis for hope

If suffering has its ultimate origin in the will of God, I have hope that the suffering can be relieved or transformed. If suffering is meaningful; if evil is real; and if God is sovereign and good, then I can expect there to be an end to suffering, and a judgment of evil.

C.         Restating the problem of evil

The objection here would be, What of the suffering of one who does not know of God’s sovereignty and that there will be an end to suffering and a judgment of evil? That person has none of the alleged “good” which can come from suffering.

This argument is actually a bit different, God is unjust to permit evil to exist in the creation.  This is a means to restate the “problem of evil” argument in relational terms.  It is not exactly to say that God does not love. Criminals may love their family and rob their neighbor. Love can be quite exclusive. But it is to say that God does love some particular person. And further that it is unjust of God to not prevent the evil one person commits against another.

But that presents another problem. Since human beings are naturally bent toward evil (and even ordinary people can easily become troopers packing some disapproved minority off to be murdered or enslaved), the solution would be to either transform human nature or to eradicate humans. God has dealt with that objection. The Gospel is an offer to begin the transformation process (which sadly is slow and imperfect at present).

But this raises actually the more difficult question. God has no duty to rescue his enemies. Human beings are in a state of rebellion against God. God has provided a rescue, which is largely rejected (and the offered rescue is scoffed at by the same people most exercised over the problem of evil).

This presents an odd situation. The disgruntled philosopher says If there is a God, God has not done the right thing to remedy evil. A Christian responds, here is what God has done in Jesus the Christ. The philosopher says, that is stupid. That is not the right way to remedy evil: it is too slow in acting, it permits too much evil to exist before it is finally made to stop, and not everyone knows of or will accept the solution.

In this case, the contention is not that there is evil, but that Incarnation was an insufficient means to remedy evil because it does not provide a remedy for every person (or does not operate with the speed the philosopher believes necessary to vindicate God).

To that I can only offer three responses. First, we have the difficult problem of God’s love (as D.A. Carson aptly put it). If God had rescued no one, we would have no one to blame but ourselves. The problem arises because God does not rescue everyone.

Second, there is a solution for those will receive it. And that solution for those who believe will be the remainder of Boston’s work.

Third, judgment comes to every human being. Death will and does come. It is the grand argument of the “problem of evil” that death comes and it is especially evil when it comes to children. But death is the means to prohibit further human evil. Death is the passage to judgment and justice, is precisely what the philosopher contends is an evil.

This obviously is not the final discussion of the problem of evil. But I hope that it does underscore that the difficult problem has to do with those who suffer evil without the knowledge of God’s work in suffering. Christianity is an to the problem of suffering. When that answer is rejected, I don’t know that I can offer a satisfying further reply. I don’t see how I can resolve your relational argument (there is evil in the world) when you reject the relationship which remedies that trouble.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.4

25 Tuesday Jan 2022

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4.         Where the Crooked Lot Falls

In this section, he considers in what “part of the lot” the crooked providence falls; that is, where would this show up in your life.  He breaks this up into two sections. The first section answers the question, how much of your life could be affected by this difficult providence. The section concerns what aspects of your life may be affected.

a.         How broadly might you be affected?

He gives three answers: anywhere, everywhere, and the most painful place.

i.          Anywhere

In any part of your life may be affected by trouble:

First, It may fall in any part of the lot; there is no exempted one in the case: for sin being found in every part, the crook may take place in any part.

He observes that our troubles are tied to the fact of sin in the world. He is not saying that all of our troubles are the direct result of sin we have committed (which is generally the mistake of Job’s friends), but rather that sin has caused us damage and that the pain of this life follows in the damage which sin has caused and makes possible. This distinction must be kept in mind. If we falsely believe all troubles are punitive responses to sin, we will cause ourselves an additional level of sorrow, as is evidence in Job’s discussions with his “comforters”.  We are blessed and in the Lord’s presence, we will no longer suffer such troubles. But here, such troubles are part of the world:

Being all as an unclean thing, we may all fade as a leaf, Is. 64:6. The main stream of sin, which the crook readily follows, runs in very different channels, in the case of different persons: and, in regard of the various dispositions of the minds of men, that will prove a sinking weight unto one, which another would go very lightly under.

ii.         Everywhere at once

Our troubles may come from every direction at once. While this may not at first seem encouraging, it is important to know when we do suffer trouble from everywhere that we are not uniquely troubled. We easily think other people have far less trouble than we do. We also think their trouble is far more limited in scope. But one trouble easily leads to another problem.  If you think about it, you can see how one problem (feeling sick), can lead to another problem (being easily irritated), can lead to another problem (personal conflict).  Losing one’s job can facilitate marital conflict, and so on.

Secondly, It may at once fall in many parts of the lot, the Lord calling as in a solemn day, one’s terrors round about, Lam. 2:22. Sometimes God makes one notable crook in a man’s lot: but its name may be Gad, being but the forerunner of a troop which cometh. Then the crooks are multiplied, so that the party is made to halt on each side. While one stream, let in from one quarter, is running full against him, another is let in on him from another quarter, till in the end the waters break in on every hand.

And so, if you are considering your own circumstance, do not be surprised if you suffer multiple problems. If you are counseling another, look to see how one thing leads to another.

iii.       The tender part

Experience proves this often true. If you were to lose something which you did not treasure, you would not feel the trial. The loss of something important to you makes the thing a trial. In addition, as we see trials to be a means by which God affects a change in our lives, God will touch us in the place where we are most sensitive. This will be a theme Boston will return later and explore in some different dimensions:

Thirdly, It often falls in the tender part, I mean that part of the lot wherein one is least able to bear it, or, at least, thinks he is so,

He then gives an example from the Psalms which speaks of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas:

 Psal. 55:12, 13. “It was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it—But it was thou, a man, mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.”

Boston repeats the proposition, in the place where we are least able to bear a loss, there will we will experience the loss:

If there is any one part of the lot, which, of all other, one is disposed to nestle in, the thorn will readily be laid there, especially if he belongs to God: in that thing wherein he is least of all able to be touched, he will be sure to be pressed.

Then he provides the reason why God will try us at that place:

There the trial will be taken of him; for there is the grand competition with Christ. “I take from them the desires of their eyes, and that whereupon they set their minds,” Ezek. 24:25. Since the crook in the lot is the special trial appointed for every one, it is altogether reasonable, and becoming the wisdom of God, that it fall on that which of all things doth most rival him.

It will strike us in the place we are most vulnerable to idolatry: “Idolatry does not consist merely of erecting an image and praying to it, but it is primarily a matter of the heart, which fixes its gaze upon other things and seeks help and consolation from creatures, saints, or devils. It neither cares for God nor expects good things from God sufficiently to trust that God wants to help, nor does it believe that whatever good it encounters comes from God.” Kirsi I. Stjerna, “The Large Catechism of Dr. Martin Luther,” in Word and Faith, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, and Timothy J. Wengert, vol. 2, The Annotated Luther (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2015), 302–303.

b.         What aspects of your life may be affected

But, more particularly, the crook may be observed to fall in these four parts of the lot.

1.         We may suffer in our body

He will explain this point at greater length below, but we must not think that something which arises from a “natural” cause happens without the determination of God.  The natural cause which we observe does not tell the whole story. God is sovereign over the operation of gravity and magnetism. The bacteria in our colon are under the watchful eye of God. Even the “regular” flow of nature, rocks falling toward the ground, and so on are all on within God’s control and also “natural”.  God’s control and the regularity of the world are not two separate sources of control.

And so if we experience some physical deformity or ailment, it comes from God:

First, In the natural part, affecting persons considered as of the make allotted for them by the great God that formed all things. The parents of mankind, Adam and Eve, were formed altogether sound and entire, without the least blemish, whether in soul or body; but, in the formation of their posterity, there often appears a notable variation from the original. Bodily defects, superfluities, deformities, infirmities, natural or accidental, make the crook in the lot of some: they have something unsightly or grievous about them.

He then gives examples of such injuries mentioned in the Bible:

Crooks of this kind, more or less observable, are very common and ordinary, the best not exempted from them: and it is purely owing to sovereign pleasure they are not more numerous. Tender eyes made the crook in the lot of Leah, Gen. 29:17. Rachel’s beauty was balanced with barrenness, the crook in her lot, chap. 30:1. Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, was, it should seem, no personable man, but of a mean outward appearance, for which fools were apt to contemn him, 2 Cor. 10:10. Timothy was of a crazy frame, weakly and sickly, 1 Tim. 5:23.

God in particular takes credit for physical problems: “Then the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?” Exodus 4:11 (ESV)

And there is a yet far more considerable crook in the lot of the lame, the blind, the deaf and dumb. Some are weak to a degree in their intellectuals; and it is the crook in the lot of several bright souls to be overcast with clouds, notably bemisted, and darkened from the crazy bodies they are lodged in: an eminent instance whereof we have in the grave, wise, and patient Job, going mourning without the sun, yea, standing up and crying in the congregation, Job 30:28.

And so when one suffers a physical ailment, we should see that as ultimately coming from God.

2.         We may suffer in reputation

Boston uses the word honor. We may be injured in the way that other people speak of us. This is in slander and gossip. It is a harm which seems slight until it is suffered. Such injuring of the character of another is a sin: “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” Ephesians 4:31 (ESV)  And thus we are considering here a harm which comes at sinful action of other people.

Secondly, It may fall in the honorary part. There is an honour due to all men, the small as well as the great, 1 Pet. 2:17. and that upon the ground of the original constitution of human nature, as it was framed in the image of God.

Note that every human being by virtue of being in the image of God is entitled to honor for that image. Thus, this is a severe strike. And yet God will sometimes allow on to the victim of malicious gossip:

But, in the sovereign disposal of holy providence, the crook in the lot of some falls here: they are neglected and slighted; their credit is still kept low; they go through the world under a cloud, being put into an ill name, their reputation sunk.

Sometimes this the result of careless conduct,

This sometimes is the native consequent of their own foolish and sinful conduct; as, in the case of Dinah, who, by her gadding abroad to satisfy her youthful curiosity, regardless of, and therefore not waiting for a providential call, brought a lasting stain on her honour, Gen. 34.

But there is another circumstance, where the wrong falls on the innocent. The charge is malicious and false; but the victim cannot clear his name. And if it is the will of God, the charge will stick even in the face of innocence:

But where the Lord minds a crook of this kind in one’s lot, innocence will not be able to ward it off in an ill-natured world: neither will true merit be able to make head against it, to make one’s lot stand straight in that part. Thus David represents his case, Psal. 31:11, 12, 13. “They that did see me without fled from me: I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander of many.”

This is a remarkable statement. God will sometimes permit a slander to continue in the face of truth.  But, as a dear friend and pastor once said to me, You are never more like Jesus than when you are wrongfully accused.

3.         We may suffer in our work

God may strike us in our work. We may work and it is not successful. And God may prosper the wicked (it does not take much work to find a wicked gazillionaire):

Thirdly, It may fall in the vocational part. Whatever is men’s calling or station in the world, be it sacred or civil, the crook in their lot may take its place therein.

He then provides examples of prophets who were struck in their ministry:

Isaiah was an eminent prophet, but most unsuccessful, Is. 53:1. Jeremiah met with such a train of discouragements and ill usage in the exercise of his sacred function, that he was well-near giving it up, saying, “I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name,” Jer. 20:9.

What an odd thing. God calls them to work and then does not bless it in an obvious way. God calls the prophet and then the prophet is discouraged to the point of death.  This shows us how easily can misread the providence of God from the outcome:

The Psalmist observes this crook often to be made in the lot of some men very industrious in their civil business, who “sow the fields”—and at times “God blesseth them, and suffereth not their cattle to decrease:” but, “again, they are minished and brought low, through oppression, affliction and sorrow,” Psal. 107:37–39.

Job is the obvious choice of one who was struck in his financial arrangements (as well as family, reputation, and body):

Such a crook was made in Job’s lot, after it had long stood even.

When it is the will of God, no effort or care will avoid his will:

Some manage their employments with all care and diligence; the husbandman carefully labouring his ground; the sheep-master “diligent to know the state of his flocks, and looking well to his herds;” the tradesman early and late at his business; the merchant diligently plying his, watching and falling in with the most fair and promising opportunities; but there is such a crook in that part of their lot, as all they are able to do can by no means even.

Why will following all the admonitions of Proverbs about careful work and prudent action not guarantee a good outcome? Because God’s sovereignty is in the end what will control the outcome:

For why? The most proper means used for compassing an end are insignificant, without a word of divine appointment commanding their success: “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not?” Lam. 3:37. People ply their business with skill and industry, but the wind turns in their face, providence crosseth their enterprizes, disconcerts their measures, frustrates their hopes and expectations, renders their endeavours successless, and so puts and keeps them still in straitening circumstances.

We cannot dictate the end of anything, when God determines otherwise:

“So the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise,” Eccl. 9:11. Providence interposing, crooks the measures which human prudence and industry had laid straight towards the respective ends; so the swift lose the race, the strong the battle, and the wise miss of bread: while, in the mean time, some one or other providential incident, supplying the defect of human wisdom, conduct, and ability, the slow gain the race, and carry the prize; the weak win the battle and enrich themselves with the spoil; and bread falls into the lap of the fool.

4.         We may be injured in our relationships

Boston will call this the “rational part” but he means for us “the relational” part of our life. He has an interesting image relationships, they are “the joints of society.” They are a place where things happen and thus a place where society can break. Moreover, we are not made for perfect isolation. We need relationships as a means of comfort and rest. Thus, when a relationship becomes the source of injury, it can be especially painful:

Lastly, It may fall in the rational part. Relations are the joints of society; and there the crook in the lot may take place, one’s smartest pain being often felt in these joints. They are in their nature the springs of man’s comfort; yet they often run the greatest bitterness to him. Sometimes this crook is occasioned by the loss of relations.

When you begin to consider the matter, the Bible is filled with many examples of relationships which became a source of sorrow. Boston provides some examples:

 Thus a crook was made in the lot of Jacob, by means of the death of Rachel, his beloved wife, and the loss of Joseph, his son and darling, which had like to have made him go halting to the grave. Job laments this crook in his lot, Job 16:7. “Thou hast made desolate all my company;” meaning his dear children, every one of whom he had laid in the grave, not so much as one son or daughter left him.

Sometimes our relationship to another person makes vulnerable to injury, because the loved one is hurt, we are hurt:

Again, sometimes it is made through the afflicting hand of God lying heavy on them; the which, in virtue of their relation, recoils on the party, as is feelingly expressed by that believing woman, Matth. 15:22. “Have mercy on me, O Lord,—my daughter is grievously vexed.” Ephraim felt the smart of a course of family affliction, when he called his son’s name Beriah, because it went evil with his house, 1 Chron. 7:23.

The more opportunity we have for comfort, the more opportunity there is for sorrow:

Since all is not only vanity but vexation of spirit, it can hardly miss, but, the more of these springs of comfort are opened to a man, he must, at one time or other, find he has but the more sources of sorrow to gush out, and spring in upon him; the sorrow always proportioned to the comfort found in them, or expected from them.

And plainly we can suffer direct injury from one in relation with us:

And, finally, the crook is sometimes made here by their proving uncomfortable through the disagreeableness of their temper, disposition, and way. There was a crook in Job’s lot, by means of an undutiful, ill-natured wife, Job 19:17. in Abigail’s, by means of a surly, ill tempered husband, 1 Sam. 25:25 in Eli’s, through the perverseness and obstinacy of his children, chap. 2:25 in Jonathan’s, through the furious temper of his father, chap. 20:30, 33.

Because of sin, we can expect and we will find examples of every sort of relation, even in those places where it would be most unwelcome, that a crooked dispensation may fall:

So do men oftentimes find their greatest cross where they expected their greatest comfort. Sin hath unhinged the whole creation, and made every relation susceptible of the crook. In the family are found masters hard and unjust, servants froward and unfaithful; in neighbourhood, men selfish and uneasy; in the church, ministers unedifying, and offensive in their walk, and people contemptuous and disorderly, a burden to the spirits of ministers; in the state, magistrates oppressive, and discountenancers of that which is good, and subjects turbulent and seditious: all these cause crooks in the lot of their relatives.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.3

24 Monday Jan 2022

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3.         Four Characteristics of a Crook

More particularly, the crook in the lot hath in it four things of the nature of that which is crooked.

a.         It runs contrary to what we desire

Boston describes this as being “disagreeable” and “wayward”. A crook is something which runs “crooked”. But this crookedness is only apparent, and can only be seen from our point of view:

First, Disagreeableness. A crooked thing is wayward; and being laid to a rule answers it not, but declines from it.

But this is not the ultimate truth of the matter. From the perspective of God the matter is straight:

There is not in any body’s lot, any such thing as a crook in respect of the will and purpose of God. Take the most harsh and dismal dispensation in one’s lot, and lay it to the eternal decree, made in the depths of infinite wisdom, before the world began, and it will answer it exactly without the least deviation, all things being wrought after the counsel of his will, Eph. 1:11. Lay it to the providential will of God, in the government of the world, and there is a perfect harmony.

He then takes one of many possible examples:

If Paul is to be bound at Jerusalem, and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles, it is the will of the Lord it should be so, Acts 21:11, 14. Wherefore the greatest crook of the lot, on earth, is straight in heaven: there is no disagreeableness in it there.

Boston then repeats the point: there will something crooked in the sense that we find it disagreeable. But when this is compared to what God intends, it is not a crooked line but a perfectly placed dispensation:

But in every body’s lot there is a crook in respect of their mind and natural inclination. The adverse dispensation lies cross to that rule, and will by no means answer it, nor harmonize with it. When divine Providence lays the one to the other, there is a manifest disagreeableness: the man’s will goes one way, and the dispensation another way; the will bends upward, the cross events presseth down: so they are contrary. And there, and only there, lies the crook.

And here Boston draws out an additional: The disagreeableness of the dispensation is part of its purpose. To walk by faith, and not by sight, is to trust God and follow in what he has laid before us even when our path is so disagreeable. Do you trust that God is sovereign, good, and wise? Then the path upon which you must walk is straight even though to sight it is crooked:

It is this disagreeableness which makes the crook in the lot fit matter of exercise and trial to us, in this our state of probation: in the which, if thou wouldst approve thyself to God, walking by faith, not by sight, thou must quiet thyself in the will and purpose of God, and not insist that it should be according to thy mind, Job 34:23.

b.         It is a disagreeable sight

The crook is something which is grievous to our sense:

Secondly, Unsightliness. Crooked things are unpleasant to the eye: and no crook in the lot seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, making but an unsightly appearance, Heb. 12:11.

From this, Boston draws a bit of practical counsel: Do not spend your effort brooding over the difficulty of your circumstance. I think of Psalm 3, wherein David sees his plight, turns it over to God, and then goes to sleep.

Therefore men need to beware of giving way to their thoughts to dwell on the crook in their lot, and of keeping it too much in view. David shews a hurtful experience in his, in that kind, Psal. 39:3. “While I was musing, the fire burned.”…

If we are going to take a view to our circumstance, that sight of faith must be a sight taken “in light of the holy word”:

Indeed a Christian may safely take a steady and leisurely view of the crook of his lot in the light of the holy word, which represents it as the discipline of the covenant. So faith will discover a hidden slightness in it under a very unsightly outward appearance; perceiving the suitableness thereof to the infinite goodness, love, and wisdom of God, and to the real and most valuable interest of the party; by which means one comes to take pleasure, and that a most refined pleasure in distresses, 2 Cor. 12:10. But whatever the crook in the lot be to the eye of faith, it is not at all pleasant to the eye of sense.

c.         A crook can leave us emotionally uneven

This particular element is a bit difficult to follow in Boston’s explanation. As I understand it, he is speaking of the emotional moves which take place when confronted with a crook:

Thirdly, Unfitness for motion. Solomon observes the cause of the uneasy and ungraceful walking of the lame, Prov. 26:7. “The legs of the lame are not equal.” This uneasiness they find who are exercised about the crook in their lot: a high spirit and a low adverse lot, makes great difficulty in the Christian walk.

This uneven movement leaves us vulnerable to sin and temptation:

There is nothing that gives temptation more easy access, than the crook in the lot; nothing more apt to occasion out-of-the-way steps. Therefore saith the apostle, Heb. 12:13. “Make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way.”

And here he shows pastoral sympathy:

They are to be pitied then who are labouring under it, and not to be rigidly censured; though they are rare persons who learn this lesson, till taught by their own experience. It is long since Job made an observe in this case, which holds good unto this day, Job 12:5. “He that is ready to slip with his feet, is as a lamp despised in the thought of him that is at ease.”

d.         The emotional entanglement of the crook:

The trouble provokes a strong emotional response, as we all know from experience:

Lastly, Aptness to catch hold and entangle, as with fish hooks, Amos 4:2. The crook in the lot doth so very readily make impression, to the ruffling and fretting of one’s spirit, irritating corruption,

And this irritation becomes an opportunity for temptation:

that Satan fails not to make diligent use of it to these dangerous purposes: the which point once gained by the tempter, the tempted, ere he is aware, finds himself intangled as in a thicket, out of which he knows not how to extricate himself. In that temptation it often proves like a crooked stick troubling a standing pool; the which not only raiseth up the mud all over, but brings up from the bottom some very ugly thing.

For proof of this point, he considers Psalm 73:

Thus it brought up a spice of blasphemy and Atheism in Asaph’s case, Psal. 73:13. “Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence.” As if he had said, There is nothing at all in religion, it is a vain and empty thing that profiteth nothing; I was a fool to have been careful about purity and holiness, whether of heart or life. Ah! is this the pious Asaph! How is he turned so quite unlike himself!

The trouble stirs up our heart. Temptation taking advantage fishes out the sin which remains in our flesh (why this is a good thing is not explained at this point);

But the crook in the lot is a handle, whereby the tempter makes surprising discoveries of latent corruption, even in the best.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.2

21 Friday Jan 2022

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B. What is a “crook”

These being premised, a crook in the lot speaks in the general, two things, (1.) Adversity. (2.) Continuance. Accordingly it makes a day of adversity, opposed to the day of prosperity in the verse immediately following the text.

  1. Adversity

What makes something adverse? It is adverse because it is not what we wish would take place:

First, Some one or other piece of adversity. The prosperous part of one’s lot, which goes forward according to one’s wish, is the straight and even part of it: the adverse part going a contrary way, is the crooked part thereof.

There will be straight and crooked in the life of everyone:

God hath intermixed these two in men’s condition in this world; that, as there is some prosperity therein, making the straight line, so there is also some adversity making the crooked. The which mixture hath place, not only in the lot of saints, who are told, that in the world you shall have tribulation, but even in the lot of all, as already observed.

  1. Continuance

Interestingly, he speaks of a crook of something with some permanence. It is not which arises and disappears. His concern in this work with troubles which seemingly will not end. That is an important consideration, and one of the great difficulties with a sorrow. Earlier, he noted the “problem” raised in Ecclesiastes 7, “Surely oppression drives the wise into madness.” It is not passing slight which breaks one down, but the persistence.

We tend not to concern God as a solution to our trouble, until after we have exhausted our immediate resources. It is our inability to move which turns us to God. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 1, our troubles arise so that we will learn not to trust ourselves, but God who raises the dead:

Secondly, It is adversity of some continuance. We do not reckon it a crooked thing, which though forcibly bended and bowed together, yet presently recovers its former straightness. There are twinges of the rod of adversity, which passing like a stitch in one’s side, all is immediately set to rights again: one’s lot may be suddenly overclouded, and the cloud evanish ere he is aware. But under the crook, one having leisure to find his smart, is in some concern to get the crook evened. So the crook in the lot is adversity continued for a shorter or longer time.

He then divides the continuity into three types:

a. Where the consequences persist

Some problems take place within a short period of time. But the pain and consequence persist, perhaps for a life time, such as the murder of a child by a wicked king. Matt. 2:18. The child was lost in a moment; the sorrow never ended.

The thing may fall out in a moment, under which the party shall go halting to the grave.

b. A series of troubles

Troubles may fall in succession, like the troubles which fell upon Job. Job. 1:16-18.

In that case the party is like unto one, who, recovering his sliding foot from one unfirm piece of ground, sets it on another equally unfirm, which immediately gives way under him too: or, like unto one, who travelling in an unknown mountainous track, after having with difficulty made his way over one mountain, is expecting to see the plain country, but instead of this there comes in view, time after time, a new mountain to be passed.

This is something which is experienced by even Joseph and Peter, and most notably the Lord throughout his life.

c. A continuous trial

Finally, a trial may begin and continue without remission. He gives the example of Rachel who spent years desiring but not obtaining a child.

This world is a wilderness, in which we may indeed get our station changed: but the remove will be out of one wilderness-station to another. When one part of the lot is evened, readily some other part thereof will be crooked.

That is an important point to remember. So much of our sorrow comes due to our expectations being dashed. But here, in this world, we are in a wilderness. Why do we expect something other than trial. As C.S. Lewis realized, sorrow makes sense in this world. What is inexplicable is joy.

Thomas Boston, The Crook in the Lot.1

21 Friday Jan 2022

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The Crook in the Lot

Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight which he hath made crooked? – Eccl. 7:13

I.          Introductory Remarks

He begins the work with the general proposition that we will not never properly respond to difficulties in this life if we do not begin with the understanding that God is sovereign, and that our present difficulty is actually a “work of God.” This will come quite a surprising assertion to many people, but it is at the heart of Boston’s counsel in this book.

The “crook in the lot” means the difficulty in your present “lot”, your circumstance or condition.

A.        Proof of the Point

Before we look at his work, we will just note a few examples of this proposition found in the Scripture:

Isaiah 45:5–7 (ESV)

            5           I am the Lord, and there is no other,

besides me there is no God;

I equip you, though you do not know me,

            6           that people may know, from the rising of the sun

and from the west, that there is none besides me;

I am the Lord, and there is no other.

            7           I form light and create darkness;

I make well-being and create calamity;

I am the Lord, who does all these things.

1 Samuel 2:6–8 (ESV)

            6           The Lord kills and brings to life;

he brings down to Sheol and raises up.

            7           The Lord makes poor and makes rich;

he brings low and he exalts.

            8           He raises up the poor from the dust;

he lifts the needy from the ash heap

                        to make them sit with princes

and inherit a seat of honor.

                        For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,

and on them he has set the world.

B.        The Introductory Paragraph:

A just view of afflicting incidents is altogether necessary to a Christian deportment under them: and that view is to be obtained only by faith, not by sense. For it is the light of the word alone that represents them justly, discovering in them the work of God, and consequently designs becoming the divine perfections. These perceived by the eye of faith, and duly considered, one has a just view of afflicting incidents, fitted to quell the turbulent motions of corrupt affections under dismal outward appearances.

C.         Context for Eccl. 7:13

Boston begins by noting that Ecclesiastes 7 contains a series of seemingly contradictory or paradoxical statements. He assumes a knowledge of the text, which reads as follows:

Ecclesiastes 7:1–11 (ESV)

Birth is better than death:

 A good name is better than precious ointment,

and the day of death than the day of birth.

Mourning is better than feasting:

            2           It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

                        for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will lay it to heart.

Sorrow is better than laughter:

            3           Sorrow is better than laughter,

for by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

            4           The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Rebuke is better than singing and laughter:

            5           It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise

than to hear the song of fools.

            6           For as the crackling of thorns under a pot,

so is the laughter of the fools;

this also is vanity.

Solomon then raises a problem:

Ecclesiastes 7:7–10 (ESV)

            7           Surely oppression drives the wise into madness,

and a bribe corrupts the heart.

            8           Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,

and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

            9           Be not quick in your spirit to become angry,

for anger lodges in the heart of fools.

            10         Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

Solomon then proposes a general solution:

Ecclesiastes 7:11–12 (ESV)

            11         Wisdom is good with an inheritance,

an advantage to those who see the sun.

            12         For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money,

and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

And then a “particular” solution, which is the basis for Boston’s work:

Ecclesiastes 7:13 (ESV)

            13         Consider the work of God:

who can make straight what he has made crooked?

D.        How is this a “solution” to the trouble of life:

            It is not immediately clear how seeing that a difficulty is a work of God and will not be removed is any sort of a “solution” to the trouble of life. But it is precisely here that Boston finds help:

In which words are proposed, (1.) The remedy itself, (2.) The suitableness thereof. First, The remedy itself is a wise eying the hand of God in all we find to bear hard upon us: Consider the work (or, See thou the doing) of God, to wit, in the crooked, rough, and disagreeable parts of thy lot, the crosses thou findest in it.

1.         The remedy is a matter of seeing a thing rightly

Notice here how he proceeds with the psychology of worry. As we consider the trouble, we become increasing unhappy:

Thou seest very well the cross itself; yea thou turnest it over and over in thy mind, and leisurely views it on all sides; thou lookest withal to this and the other second cause of it; and so thou art in a foam and fret:

Rather than brood on the object of or distress, we should realize that it comes from God:

but, wouldst thou be quieted and satisfied in the matter, lift up thine eyes toward heaven, see the doing of God in it, the operation of his hand: look at that, and consider it well; eye the first cause of the crook in thy lot, behold how it is the work of God, his doing.

2.         This is a suitable remedy to quiet our heart

 Secondly, As for the suitableness of this remedy, that view of the crook in our lot is very suitable to still indecent risings of heart, and quiet us under it: for who can (that is, none can) make that straight which God hath made crooked?

How can this be true? The argument runs as follows:  It will impossible to change something which God ordained. No matter how hard you try, it will not change. How could this be a good thing? It teaches us submission to the will of God:

As to the crook in thy lot, God hath made it; and it must continue while he will have it so. Shouldst thou ply thine utmost force to even it, or make it straight, thine attempt will be vain: it will not alter for all thou canst do, only he who made it can mend it, or make it straight. This consideration, this view of the matter, is a proper means, at once to silence and satisfy men, and so to bring them unto a dutiful submission to their Maker and Governor, under the crook in their lot.

Now we take up the purpose of the text in these three doctrines. I. Whatsoever crook there is in one’s lot, it is of God’s making. II. What God sees meet to mar, one will not be able to mend in his lot. III. The considering of the crook in the lot, as the work of God, or of his making, is a proper means to bring one to a Christian deportment under it.

II.        The Proposition

Doctrine I. Whatsoever crook is in one’s lot, it is of God’s making.

III.       The “Crook”

Here two things fall to be considered, namely, the crook itself, and God’s making it.

A.        We must necessarily experience the “crook” which follows from sin being in the world

As to the crook itself, the crook in the lot, for the better understanding thereof, these few things following are premised.

1.         The Course of our life is in the providence of God

There is a certain train or course of events, by the providence of God, falling to every one of us during our life in this world: and that is our lot, as being allotted to us by the sovereign God, our Creator and Governor, in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways. This train of events is widely different to different persons according to the will and pleasure of the sovereign Manager, who ordereth men’s conditions in the world in a great variety, some moving in a higher, some in a lower sphere.

2.         Our life will have difficulties, a “crook”

In that train or course of events, some fall out cross to us, and against the grain; and these make the crook in our lot. While we are here, there will be cross events, as well as agreeable ones, in our lot and condition. Sometimes things are softly and agreeably gliding on; but, by and by, there is some incident which alters that course, grates us, and pains us, as when, having made a wrong step, we begin to halt.

3.         Everyone will experience difficulties

Every body’s lot in this world hath some crook in it.

a.         Objection: other people don’t have trouble

He then raises an objection:

Complainers are apt to make odious comparisons: they look about, and taking a distant view of the condition of others, can discern nothing in it but what is straight, and just to one’s wish; so they pronounce their neighbour’s lot wholly straight.

b.         Trouble is common to everyone

No one is spared trouble here:

But that is a false verdict: there is no perfection here, no lot out of heaven without a crook. For as to “all the works that are done under the sun, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight,” Eccl. 1:14, 15.

i.          Example Haman

He considers the example of Haman in the book of Esther, a high court official who seemingly had complete power over everyone who displeased him. What he did not know was the gallows which he was having built were to be used to hang him:

Who would have thought but Haman’s lot was very straight, while his family was in a flourishing condition, and he prospering in riches and honour, being prime minister of state in the Persian court, and standing high in the king’s favour? Yet there was, at the same time, a crook in his lot, which so galled him, that all this availed him nothing, Esth. 5:13.

ii.         Trouble can only really be known by its own experience

We feel our pain, but not the pain of others.

Every one feels for himself, where he is pinched, though others perceive it not.

iii.       No one has a wholly troubled life

There are always at least some moments of ease in even the worst life:

No body’s lot in this world, is wholly crooked: there are always some straight and even parts in it. Indeed, when men’s passions, having got up, have cast a mist over their minds, they are ready to say, All is wrong with them, nothing right: but though in hell that tale is, and ever will be true, yet it is never true in this world; for there, indeed, there is not a drop of comfort allowed, Luke 16:25

The mercy we receive also comes from God

but here it always holds good, that it is of the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Lam. 3:22.

c.         Trouble is the child of sin in the world

Trouble came into this world because of sin. And trouble is an inseparable part of our life in this world

Lastly, The crook in the lot came into the world by sin: it is owing to the fall, Rom. 5:12. “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” under which death the crook in the lot is comprehended, as a state of comfort or prosperity is, in scripture-style, expressed by living, 1 Sam. 25:6. John 4:50, 51.

Sin so bowed the hearts and minds of men, as they became crooked in respect of the holy law: and God justly so bowed their lot, as it became crooked too. And this crook in our lot inseparably follows our sinful condition, till dropping this body of sin and death, we get within heaven’s gates.

Thomas Boston, On the Instability of Human Goodness

04 Tuesday Feb 2020

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In August 1710, Thomas Boston preached a sermon entitled, “The Instability of Human Goodness” based upon the text of Hosea 6:4, “For your goodness is as a morning cloud, and as the early dew it goeth away.” The text itself concerned the instability of the Israelites faced by the prophet Hosea. Boston takes the text, which first applied particularly to the Israelites as a common attribute of us humans. The fault of the Israelites was not unique to them:

Such is the instability of many in the good way of the Lord, that the goodness at which they sometimes arrive, passeth away as a morning cloud, and as the early dew.

He then begins to make observations on the good state of human beings. First, he notes that he often fails quickly after some good thing has come to them. The Israelites turned to the Golden Calf just after Mount Sinai. How quickly the disciples deserted Christ after the Last Supper. How quickly the disciples feared after the miracle of the loaves and fish.

Second, goodness often fails slowly,

The devil does not always act the part of a roaring lion when he intends to strip people of their attained goodness, but in this work advances with a soft pace. We may observe that men’s goodness ordinarily goes away by degrees, almost imperceptibly.

He goes on to note:

It is a piece of Satan’s policy to attack people with slender temptations at first, when he designs to rob them; for then they think they are strong enough for them, therefore they grapple with them on their own strength and are foiled. A small temptation will take off the chariot wheels of the soul. An unseasonable thought has sometimes proved a wide door, by which a good frame has escaped.

Third, goodness will fail when it is most needed:

As the heat of summer produces many insects which are not to be seen in the frost of winter; so the time of peace in the church produces many false friends who will never stand the shock of trouble for the gospel.

Why then does goodness fail? The primary reason he gives is that the one who fails truly does not know the Lord. He notes this in three ways: The Spirit does not dwell in them. They are not united to Christ. They may be frequent in a church, but that is not their real element.

He then addresses those who know the Lord, do show a loss of their goodness. And for this he gives four types.

First, they become discouraged; they will not seize heaven by force. They face a difficulty, a delay and they quit:

They cannot wait on at Christ’s gate. They know not what it is to have their appetite sharpened with disappointments; but as soon as they feel not that sweetness in religion which they imagined, they go directly to their old lusts; and find in them what they could not find in religion.

Second, they will not mortify their sin, but let it linger until it turns on them in force:

Another reason is, the entertaining of unmortified lusts, which are like the suckers that draw the sap from the tree and make it barren. It is hard to get wet wood to take fire, but harder to get it to keep in the fire, but hardest of all, to get a heart polluted with, and enslaved to vile affections, to retain any attained goodness. They that have many friends in the enemy’s camp will find their hands sore bound up in the day of battle. …That heart will not abide with God that has secret filthy lusts to nourish.

He then considers these two matters from a different angle; rather than consider them subjectively, he states them objectively: :The profits and pleasures of the world soon charm away men’s goodness.” He gives these in rather strking terms:

They are tenter hooks of the soul, the black devils that draw men from God, and from that sweetness that is in the enjoyment of him, and drive them like the demoniac among the tombs in the region of the dead. They are the wasps and flies that buzz about and sting the soul when it should rest in the bosom of God. And for the pleasures of the world, when they once get a hold of the heart, they quickly run away with it.

He gives a final statement which helps explain the whole, “Unwatchfulness over the heart and life. Our goodness is a tender bud that will easily be blasted if we do not take all possible care of it.” He turns this into a remarkable picture:

What wonder then, if in such a case our goodness goes away, when there is no watching; for such a soul is like a great fair, where some are going out, some entering, and those within are all in confusion.

He ends with an admonition to jealously protect what goodness we have. To this he provides practical direction:

Advices 1. Do not sit down contented with any measure that you have attained. Alas! little satisfies people in religion. He that does not exert himself to grow, will assuredly decay. “Do not think that you have already attained, or are already perfect; but follow after, if that you may apprehend that for which also you are apprehended of Christ Jesus.” Labour to make two talents of your one by industry. The fire will be extinguished by withholding fuel, as well as by throwing water upon it.

  1. Keep up a holy jealousy over your own hearts. You hear that the goodness of some is as the early cloud, and the morning dew, it passeth away. This should make us say, each for himself, Lord is it I? “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” If you be saying with Hazael, “Am I a dog, that I should do this?” Look that you be not the dog, that will be among the first to do it.
  2. Put what you have in the Lord’s hand. Depend upon him and wait about his hand for more influences. For this purpose be much in prayer. You may come to get that in secret, which you have not got at the table.

Lastly, And what I say to one I say to all, watch. The time is short. Watch, and ere long you shall be in that place, where the gates are not shut by day, and there is no night there. But if any man draw back, the Lord’s Spirit will have no pleasure in him. Amen.