BOSTON, THOMAS Scottish divine, author of The Fourfold State, was born at Duns on March 17, 1676. In 1699 he became minister of the small parish of Simprin, where he found in 1704 a book which had been brought into Scotland by a commonwealth soldier. This was "E. F.'s" famous Marrow of Modern Divinity, a compendium of the opinions of leading Reformation divines on the doctrine of grace and the offer of the Gospel. On Boston's recommendation, Hog of Carnock reprinted The Marrow in 1718; Boston also published an edition with notes of his own and, with eleven others, defended the book against the act of the general assembly (1720) which condemned it. The book, whose authorship is sometimes attributed to Edward Fisher (fl. 1627-65), became the standard of a far-reaching movement in Scottish Presbyterianism. The "Marrow Men" remained Cal vinists, and therefore could not preach a universal atonement ; they were in fact extreme particular redemptionists. In 1707 Boston was translated to Ettrick, where he died on May 20, 1732. The Fourfold State (172o) treats of the four states of humanity, primitive integrity in the Garden of Eden, the fall, salvation on earth, and its consummation in heaven. But even more popular in Scottish peasant homes were Boston's Crook in the Lot and his Autobiography (1776; ed. D. Low 1,908).
See A. Thomson, Life of Thomas Boston (1895).