The New International Encyclopædia/Boston, Thomas

BOSTON, Thomas (1677-1732). A Scottish divine and author, born at Dunse (Berwickshire). He was educated at the University of Edinburgh (M.A., 1694), and in 1699 was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry and appointed to the parish of Simprin. In 1701 he was clerk of synod, and in 1707 became pastor of Ettriek (Selkirkshire). It was through his reading and recommendation to friends of the treatise The Marrow of Modern Divinity that the well-known Marrow controversy (q.v.) was instituted. He wrote Human Nature in its Fourfold State (1720), a strongly Calvinistic work, frequently reprinted, and a popular sermon styled The Crook in the Lot (1863). Consult: His Memoirs (1776) and the Whole Works (ed. by S. McMillan, London, 1854).