but a few flowers before the idol in the temple. After viewing the exterior of the building, we ventured to walk within the wall which surrounds it, not without apprehensions that we should be refused admittance; to our great surprise, no opposition whatever was made to us. Acquiring fresh zeal from this unexpected occurrence, we took our stand close to the temple. Here we could see the Priest, seated on the ground, receiving the gifts, and presenting them before the idol and giving a flower or chaplet, or some other trifling token of respect, to the devotees, who came in such numbers as to keep him incessantly engaged. Our appearance attracted general notice; so that many came around us, wondering what could be our object. We now begun the distribution of our Tracts, and to our surprise they were received with the greatest readiness. The officiating Priest, surprised at the sight, forsook his post, to see what was going on. Stern and forbidding in his looks, he approached, looked on, but said nothing. On our walking round the exterior of the building, one of the devotees cried out, that he would clear the way, that we might look and see the god. Mr. Bowley, desirous that we should view the interior of the temple, made an attempt to walk in; but the Priest stopped him, saying, that there was no admittance, unless we put off our shoes. At this we withdrew. As we stood by the temple, proud of our station, but indignant at beholding almost innumerable insults offered to Jehovah, I could not help bewailing the degradation of man, adoring the long-suffering and patience of the Almighty, and longing for the period when this people shall "cast their idols to the moles and to the bats," and become living stones in the temple of mercy which the Lord is erecting from our ruined and polluted race. During the whole of our visit to the temple, the people conducted themselves respectfully towards us, and we retired without the smallest molestation. We afterwards distributed a considerable number of Tracts, and copies of portions of the New Testament, in the fair. FOR THE MISCELLANY. FULL many a star of purest light, Full many a flower of beauty blooms, Along our dubious doubtful way: When pale affliction's fainting child, With joy he views the fountain flow, Whose waters can assuage his woe; Yes, Saviour! in thyself divine, These heavenly beauties, graces shine. JUBAL. Religious Miscellany. "SAY YE TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION, BEHOLD, THY SALVATION COMETH." No. 10. Vol. I. CARLISLE, MARCH 21, 1823. From the London Eclectic Review, for December, 1822. most places in favor of it: many hypocrites, I doubt not, there are among those who are for it, but they are not all hypocrites.' He speaks elsewhere of the enmity of loose professors a SELECT REVIEW-ABRIDGED. The Life of the Rev. THOMAS SCOTT,gainst searching, practical preaching;? Rector of Aston Sandford, Bucks: I including a Narrative drawn up by himself, and copious extracts of his Letters. By John Scott, A. M. (Concluded from page. 133.) but justly observes, that persons of this description are found as well among professed Arminians, as among Calvinists. There is indeed the antinomianism of Popery, and that of Socinianism. Speculative antinomianism, however, it must be admitted, is, for the most part, the residum of an evangelical creed. It is a weed which indicates the richness of the soil. It is the miserable after-grass of wholesome doctrine. Something better than itself will almost uniformly be found to have preceded it,from the seeds of which, for want of due culture it has sprung. A season of remarkable revival and reformation, such as shall have been distin Mr. Scott's removal did not add to his happiness. It was, he seems himself to think, a false step, for which he lays the blame on his own inadvertence. Certainly, none could attach to his motives; and though it led to a series of unspeakable mortifications, it was overruled for incalculable good to others, as it became the occasion of his being known as a writer, and of his undertaking the Commentary. It is but just to add, that he was deceived by representa-guished by the rapid spread of scriptions which proved delusive. The Lock Hospital, to which he was now appointed chaplain, was at this time, almost the headquarters of that loose and notional religion,' on which he had commenced his attack when in the country. Both at Olasy and in London, it was his fate to be brought into immediate collision with the dregs, the caput mortum of an orthodoxy, from which the vital and es-. sential parts had been evaporated. 'Sure I am,' he says in one of his letters, that evangelical religion is in many places wofully verging to antinomianism,- -one of the vile theresies that ever Satan invented.' Again: A religion bordering on antinomianism has the countenance of respectable names: strong prejudices are in tural doctrines by means of truly evangelical preaching, will be very apt to lead to such a state of things in the Church, if the means of perpetuating practical religion in combination with a sound creed, be neglected. Antinomianism is only another name for religion divested of its spirituality. It is the blow-fly of a summer season, and can live only in the element of worldly ease and outward security, or in the artificial calm of a callous mind. The perversion of the best things is always worst; and this must needs apply to the Gospel, which, if it fails to sanctify the heart, and to spiritualize the character, not simply falls short of its purpose, but leaves the man all the worse for having been familiarized with doctrines which he 146 Life of Rev. Thomas Scott. has learned the unhappy art of resisting or eluding with success. A person of less fortitude of mind than Mr. Scott, must have been overwhelmed by the discouragements with which he had to struggle during the early part of his ministry in London. -Having, in the autumn of 1787, added his little treatise on Growth in Grace to his previous publications, the Force of Truth, the Treatise on Repentance, and the Sermon on Election and final Perseverance, and finding nothing which he published sell, even so far as to pay the expenses, he was led to conclude that he had mistaken his talents, and 'almost resolved to print no more.' His Essays, however, which, first appeared in the form of Tracts, in the year 1793, were more successful. Prior to their appearance, he had entered upon his great work, the Family, Commentary, the first number of which appeared on March 22d, 1788, and the last copy was sent to press, June 2d, 1792. The history of this herculean labor unfolds a series of vexations, losses, and disquietudes not easily to be paralleled in the annals of the 'calamities of authors.' The first projector of the work was a mere adventurer, equally destitute. of capital, honor, and honesty, who engaged Mr. Scott to furnish matter for the publication, which was issued in weekly numbers, agreeing to pay him a guinea per number. When but fifteen numbers were printed, the resources of the publisher were exhausted, and the author very imprudently took upon himself to obtain pecuniary assistance, in order to support the sinking credit of a man who proved not to have been solvent at the time. It is difficult to account for such extreme rashness and inconsideration in a man of so much prudence and solidity of judgment. It shewed, as he confesses, that he knew little of the world; but this does not afford an adequate explanation of the circum stance. The more satisfactory account is, that his 'inclination biased his judgment,' and his eagerness made him overlook the most obvious considerations. His confidence in the man he exerted himself to befriend, was most unhappily misplaced, and it met with the blackest ingratitude. But precipitation and imprudence are all that can be alleged against Mr. Scott in the whole transaction. His conduct in other respects was entirely worthy of him, and displayed a perseverance, a delicacy of moral feeling, and a disinterestedness rarely exhibited. In September, 1790, while the hands of this good man were thus full of employment, and his heart, of most overwhelming cares, he lost his first wife; so that my distress and anguish,' he says, 'at this period, were beyond whatever will be known or conceived of by others, at least in this world.' We apprehend that his spirits never completely recovered from the pressure and agitation of this crisis. The wonder is, that his health did not appear at the time, to be more injured, and that, throughout the long continued trial, his faith does not seem to have failed. Nothing can be more exemplary than the patience and resignation with which he bore these accumulated trials, and his unshaken trust in the providence of God. Let who will,' he says in another letter-take property and credit, if the Lord Jesus does but receive my soul.' This is the language or a broken spirit, but of a spirit triumphing over its own weakness, and great in its humility-the humility of a child, combined with the devotedness of a martyr. Mr. Scott cantinued to officiate as chaplain to the Lock Hospital till the spring of 1803, having during seventeen years discharged the duties, and contended with the trials and difficultes of his ungrateful station, on the wretched stipend, first of £80, then Life of Rev. of £100, and during the last year only, of £150. During this period, he had attended the patients in the wards, without any compensation from man,' and had preached a weekly lecture without any remuneration, except a few presents. These engagements, had allowed him scarcely any time for exercise or relaxation; and in his fifty-seventh year, his health was beginning to exhibit the effects of such close application and constant exertion. But now the time was come, when this faithful minister of an Apostolic Church, was to be rewarded for his devoted labors, with the long withheld recompense of ecclesiastical preferment. What shall be done with the man whom the Church delighteth to honor? From the ample store of her rich benefices, from the numberless presentations which, during seventeen years, afforded the means of dignifying and rewarding true piety, and theological ability, and active service, which can be spared for the venerable chaplain to the Lock Hospital, the Author of the Family Commentary? In 1801, Mr. Scott asked for, and he obtained, the living of Aston Sandford, which, when he had erected a parsonage house, brought in to its new rector something under £100 a year!! stances, to the letter of the apostolic mandate, "Owe no man any thing," was morally impossible; and it might be well if those persons who very gravely and very unfeelingly insist on the impropriety and manifest evils of a minister's running in debt, and who apply to their conduct, when thus circumstanced, the arbitrary unbending standard of commercial punctillio, would consider in how very different a light these things may appear another day; how very different a standard will then be applied to human conduct; and how a minister's debts may possibly witness, at a higher tribunal, against both the exacter and the censurer of them. From a man in Mr. Scott's predicament, the following advise comes with peculiar force. "To those who seem to think it pitiable, that your children are not previously provided for, I should fairly avow my sentiments, that the Christian, and above all the minister, is to seek first the kingdom of God, for himself and his children, and that God has expressly promised that all else shall be added. Your Father knoweth what things you have need of. If I, a poor sinner, had £100, to spare without any inconvenience, and knew that you really wanted it, should I not give it you; How much more shall your heavenly Father, &c. 'I have been nearly thirty-five years in order,' he says in 1805, and except during two years that I re- Yet he avowed himself 'a great mained single, my regular income as friend to men's doing all as well as a minister would never defray more they possibly can,' and enforced on than half my expenditure.' Yet, he his son the necessity, as regarded his was always provided for." He had comfort, independence, and usefultaken no vow of poverty; he was no ness, of keeping down his expenses begging priest; but he was really ac- within the limits of his resources. His tuated by the spirit counterfeited by faith in Divine Providence was, howthe Romish mendicants, and which ever, to be put to a severe test toit would have been better for the wards the close of his days. Just as Church had Protestantism, when it he anticipated having, by the sale of rejected the counterfeit, shown more his Commentary, the means of paying disposition to honor. Mr. Scott was off all his debts, and disencumbering diligent, frugal, and self-denying, in himself of the embarrassments under a more than ordinary degree. Still, which he had so long labored, on refor a person to adhere in his circum-ceiving the bookseller's account, he 148 Life of Rev. Thomas Scott. found large quantities of books, which had been, through mistake, reported to him as sold, now first brought to account. This discovery, which placed him in the condition of still owing upwards of £1200, appears to have distressed him more than almost any thing he had ever met with. Amidst increasing infirmities, he began to forebode dying insolvent, and thus leaving a stigma upon his character and profession. In this predicament, he was compelled to disclose his difficulties to a few friends, among whom the Rev. Mr. Simeon of Cambridge, was the first he applied to; and it does honor to that gentleman, that with so much alacrity, kindness, and delicacy, he exerted himself most effectually to extricate Mr. Scott from his embarrassments. Perhaps, the consequences of his own miscalculation and imprudence are what a pious man finds it the most difficult to sustain with resignation, or to re fer with confidence to God in his prayers. He is apt to feel less warranted to expect being rescued from them. In this case however, the printing of his whole works, which was certainly an ill-advised speculation on the part of Mr. Scott, proved the very means of relieving him beyond his most sanguine expectations, and in a way the least painful to his feelings. They were now taken off his hands by his friends; and besides what the sale of the books produced, he received as presents, in little more than two months, at least £2000. Mr. Scott had removed to Aston in the spring of 1803. Here he completed the second edition of his Family Commentary, a third and fourth impression of which he lived to revise and carry through the press; and he was superintending a stereotype edition, which has since been published, when he was seized with his last illness in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He expired on the 16th of April, 1821. The Letters written in his latter years are peculiarly val uable and interesting, and exhibit his character in all the mellowness and sanctity of an aged disciple. All that might once have appeared harsh or rugged in his temper, was now softened down into gentleness; the natural effect of age being in his case, not simply counteracted, but reversed by the influence of religion. This is not the place to enter into strictures on the merits of Mr. Scott as a theologian and commentator. Mr. Wilson, in his funeral sermon for Mr. Scott, has by no means overstated the value of his labors; and Andrew Faller pronounced a panegyric on the Commentary, not less just than it was emphatic, when he said: 'I believe it exhibits more of the mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures, than any other work of the kind extant.'-As a preacher, Mr. Scott's manner was against him, and he was fully conscious that popularity was not within his reach. For may great benefit,' he says, 'I am left with something about me which is very unacceptable among most professors of religion. Some things requisite for popularity I would not have if I could; and others I could not have if I would.' This, perhaps is the secret for his having been for above thirty years left to struggle with his difficulties and embarrassments while chaplain to the Lock, without the offer of a more eligible station; and of his obtaining at last nothing better from the Church his step-mother, than the meagre preferment which looked more like starvation and exile. Tomline at Winchester, and Thomas Scott at Aston Sandford, were contrasts such as the world too often exhibits. But to receive in this life his "good things, was not the reward which Mr. Scott had respect to. We cannot close this article without expressing our high satisfaction with the manly, judicious, and abl |