Religious, Memoirs 

Born into relative obscurity in 1676 in Duns, Berwickshire, Thomas Boston died in 1732 in the small parish of Ettrick in the Scottish Borders. But his 56 years of life, 45 of them spent in conscious Christian discipleship, lend credibility to the spiritual principle that it is not where a Christian serves, but what quality of service he renders, that really counts. Graduating in Arts from Edinburgh University, Boston spent only one session in theological college before completing his studies extramurally. As a Hebrew scholar he was, writes George Morison, 'welcomed as an equal by the finest Hebrew scholars in the world'; as a theologian, Jonathan Edwards wrote that he was 'a truly great divine'. But it is a loving, faithful, rigorously self-disciplined Christian pastor, and one deeply committed to the grace of God, that Boston is best remembered. He settled in Ettrick for a 25 year ministry that saw the numbers of communications rise from 60 to 777. Constantly burdened for his congregation, Boston taught them in season and out of season, in pulpit and in home; burdened for the truth of the gospel, he overcame all natural timidity to engage in controversy over the teaching of Professor Simson, and in the famous 'Marrow Controversy'. It is as a preacher that Boston's influence was most widely felt. Boston's Memoirs record the joys and sorrows, burdens and victories of his life. Out of these labours, and his deep Christian experience, Thomas Boston gave the church one of its most enduring spiritual autobiographies.