"Temptation is the fire that brings up the scum of the heart"
About this Quote
A pot set to boil looks clean until the flame licks its underside. Then the hidden films and flecks rise, darkening the surface. That is the force of the image: temptation heats the heart so that what is already in it, the pride, envy, lust, and unbelief, comes roiling up where it can be seen. The fire does not create the scum; it reveals it. Under allure or pressure, the heart discloses its sediment.
Thomas Boston, a Scottish Presbyterian minister of the early 18th century, wrote from a Calvinist conviction about the depth of human sin and the necessity of grace. He belongs with the Puritan tradition that loved the biblical figure of the refiner’s fire, where heat separates pure metal from dross. For Boston, the heart is the seat of affections and motives, not a neutral chamber but one marked by original sin. When temptation arrives, its danger is real, yet its revealing power can be medicinal: it shows a person to himself and drives him to seek cleansing beyond his own strength.
There is a sober charity in the image. It warns against naivete about our goodness. If we are shocked by sudden surges of anger or desire, that shock is itself a sign we did not know ourselves. Temptation teaches self-knowledge. But it also guards against despair. The rise of scum is not the end of the story. A skilled hand skims it off; a wise soul confesses, watches, prays, and mortifies. Boston would insist that God is not the tempter, yet in providence he permits temptations and trials to refine his people, humbling them and making them cling to Christ.
So the fire exposes and the exposure becomes a means of grace. The task is not to deny what surfaces, nor to wallow in it, but to let the sight of it send us to the One who alone can purify the heart.
Thomas Boston, a Scottish Presbyterian minister of the early 18th century, wrote from a Calvinist conviction about the depth of human sin and the necessity of grace. He belongs with the Puritan tradition that loved the biblical figure of the refiner’s fire, where heat separates pure metal from dross. For Boston, the heart is the seat of affections and motives, not a neutral chamber but one marked by original sin. When temptation arrives, its danger is real, yet its revealing power can be medicinal: it shows a person to himself and drives him to seek cleansing beyond his own strength.
There is a sober charity in the image. It warns against naivete about our goodness. If we are shocked by sudden surges of anger or desire, that shock is itself a sign we did not know ourselves. Temptation teaches self-knowledge. But it also guards against despair. The rise of scum is not the end of the story. A skilled hand skims it off; a wise soul confesses, watches, prays, and mortifies. Boston would insist that God is not the tempter, yet in providence he permits temptations and trials to refine his people, humbling them and making them cling to Christ.
So the fire exposes and the exposure becomes a means of grace. The task is not to deny what surfaces, nor to wallow in it, but to let the sight of it send us to the One who alone can purify the heart.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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