Scott's warfare against the perversions of Calvinism forms a conspicuous feature in his ministerial career. On his removal to the chaplaincy of the Lock Hospital in London, he met with the same troubles as at Olney, on a larger scale, and in an aggravated form. 'Everything,' he writes, 'conduced to render me more and more unpopular, not only at the Lock, but in every part of London ... but my most distinguishing reprehensions of those who perverted the doctrines of the Gospel to Antinomian purposes, and my most awful warnings, were the language of compassionate love, and were accompanied by many tears and prayers.'[821] His printed sermons show us how strongly he felt the necessity of making a bold stand against the pernicious principles of some of the 'professors' who attended his ministry. It required far greater moral courage to wage such a warfare as this than to fight against open sin and avowed infidelity. And when it is also remembered that Scott was a needy man, and that his bread depended upon his keeping on good terms with his congregation, and, moreover, that he had to fight the battle alone, for he was too much identified with the 'Methodists' to receive any help from the 'Orthodox,' his difficult position will be understood. But the brave man cared little for obloquy or desertion, or even the prospect of absolute starvation, when the cause of practical religion was at stake. There is very little doubt that it was. Many who called themselves Calvinists were making the doctrines of grace a cloak for the vilest hypocrisy; and the noble stand which Scott made against these deadly errors gives him a better claim to the title of 'Confessor' than many to whom the name has been given.
In spite of opposition, the good man worked on, with very small remuneration. His professional income (and he had little or nothing else) hardly exceeded 100l. a year. For this miserable stipend he officiated four times every Sunday in two churches, between which he had to walk fourteen miles, and ministered daily to a most disheartening class of patients in a hospital. To eke out his narrow income he undertook to write annotations on the Scriptures, which were to come out weekly, and to be completed in a hundred numbers. The payment stipulated was the magnificent sum of a guinea a number! This was the origin of the famous Commentary. There is no need to make many remarks on this well-known work. As a practical and devotional commentary it did not perhaps attain to the permanent popularity of Matthew Henry's commentary, and in point of erudition and acuteness it is not equal to that of Adam Clarke. But it holds an important place of its own in the Evangelical literature of its class, and its usefulness extended beyond the limits of the Evangelical school. Its immediate success was enormous, perhaps almost unparalleled in literary history, or at least in the history of works of similar magnitude; 12,000 copies of the English edition and 25,250 of the American, were produced in the lifetime of the author. The retail price of the English copies amounted to 67,600l. and of the American 132,300l. One would have been glad to learn that the author himself was placed in easy circumstances by the sale of his work. But this was not the case; on the contrary, it involved him for some time in very serious embarrassments. Scott died, as he lived, a poor man. But one is thankful to know that his old age was passed in comparative peace. His change from London to Aston Sandford, if it was not a remunerative, was at least a refreshing change. In the pure air of his country living he was liberated from the unsatisfactory wranglings, the bitter jealousies, and vexatious interference of his London patrons, whose self-sufficiency and spiritual pride were, like those of many amateur theologians at the present day, in inverse ratio to their knowledge and ability. He had the satisfaction of seeing a son grow up to be worthy of his father. To that son we are indebted for the very interesting biography of Thomas Scott, a biography in which filial piety has not tempted the writer to lose sight of good sense and honesty, and which is therefore not a mere panegyric, but a true and vivid account of its subject.
From Newton and Scott we naturally turn to one who was the friend of both and the biographer of the former.
Richard Cecil (1748-1810) differed widely in point of natural character from his two friends. He was perhaps the most cultured and refined of all the Evangelical leaders. Nature had endowed him with an elegant mind, and he improved his natural gifts by steady application. He was not trained in the school of outward adversity as Newton and Scott had been; but he had trials of his own, mostly of an intellectual character, which were sharp enough. His delicate health prevented him from taking so busy a part as his friends did in the Evangelical movement. But in a different way he contributed in no slight degree to its success. There was a stately dignity, both in his character and in his style of writing, which was very impressive. His 'Remains' show traces of a scholarly habit of mind, a sense of humour, a grasp of leading principles, a liberality of thought, and capacity of appreciating good wherever it might be found, which render it, short though it is, a valuable contribution to Evangelical literature.
There are yet two names among the clerical leaders of the. Evangelical party in the last century which were at least as influential as any which have been mentioned. The two brothers, Joseph and Isaac Milner, were both in their different ways very notable men.
Joseph Milner, the elder brother (1744-1797), lived a singularly uneventful life. After having taken a good degree at Cambridge, he was appointed, at a very early age, headmaster of the grammar school at Hull, in which town he spent the remainder of his comparatively short life. He was in course of time made Vicar of North Ferriby, a village near Hull; and, first, lecturer, and then, only a few weeks before his death, Vicar, of Holy Trinity, the parish church of Hull. Both his scholastic and ministerial careers were successful and useful, but do not call for any particular notice. His Calvinistic views rendered him for a time unpopular, but he outlived his unpopularity, and died, at the age of fifty-three, generally respected, as he deserved to be.
But it is as a writer that Joseph Milner claims our chief regard. His 'Church History' may contend with Scott's 'Commentary,' for the first place among the Evangelical literature of the last century. The plan of this important work was a happy and an original one—original, that is, so far as execution was concerned; for the first idea was not original—it was suggested by a fragment written by Newton at Olney. Having observed with regret that most Church histories dwelt mainly, if not exclusively, upon the disputes of Christians, upon the various heresies and schisms which in all ages have distracted the Christian Church, Milner felt that they were calculated to impress their readers with a very unfavourable view of the Christian religion, as if the chief result of that religion had been to set men at variance with one another.[822] Mosheim, the fullest historian of the Church in that day, seemed to Milner a notable offender in this respect. Milner therefore purposed to write a 'History of the Church of Christ,' the main object of which should be to set forth the blessed effects which Christianity had produced in all, even the darkest ages, and which should touch but slightly and incidentally, and only so far as the subject absolutely required it, upon the heresies and disputes which formed the staple of most Church histories. His history, in fact, was to be a history of real not nominal Christians. He thought that too much had been said about ecclesiastical wickedness, and that Deists and Sceptics had taken advantage of this against Christians. Such a work was a 'desideratum,' and had the execution been equal to the conception, it would have been simply invaluable. If genuine piety, thorough honesty, a real desire to recognise good wherever it could be found, and a vast amount of information, in the amassing of which he was aided by a wonderfully tenacious memory and great industry, were sufficient to ensure success, Milner certainly possessed all these qualifications in an eminent degree. But in others, which are equally essential, he was deficient. In the first place, his work laboured under the fatal defect of dulness. Of all writers, perhaps the ecclesiastical historian has most need of a lively, racy style, of the art of selecting really prominent facts and representing them with vividness and picturesqueness. The nature of his subject is drier than that of the civil historian. He must write much which to the majority of readers will be heavy reading, unless they are carried along by the grace and attractiveness of the composition. Milner has not the art of setting off his characters in the most effective manner. There is a want of spring and dash about his style which has prevented many from doing justice to his real merits.
Then again, he was rather too much of a partisan, to make a good historian. With every wish to give honour where honour was due, his mind was not evenly balanced enough for his task. Holding, as Milner did, the very strongest and most uncompromising views of the utter depravity of mankind, he can allow no good at all to what are termed 'mere moral virtues.' Indeed, he will hardly allow such virtues to be 'splendid sins.' He is far too honest to suppress facts, but his comments upon facts are often tinged with a quite unconscious unfairness. Thus, he admits the estimable qualities which Antoninus Pius possessed, but 'doubtless,' he adds, 'a more distinct and explicit detail of his life would lessen our admiration: something of the supercilious pride of the Grecian or of the ridiculous vain-glory of the Roman might appear.'[823]
A kindred but graver defect is Milner's incessant depreciation of all schools of philosophy. Instead of seeing in these great thinkers of antiquity a yearning after that light which Christianity gives, he can see in them nothing but the deadliest enmity to Christianity. 'The Church of Christ is abhorrent in its plan and spirit from the systems of proud philosophers.' 'Moral philosophy and metaphysics have ever been dangerous to religion. They have been found to militate against the vital truths of Christianity and corrupt the gospel in our times, as much as the cultivation of the more ancient philosophy corrupted it in early ages.' The minister of Christ is warned against 'deep researches into philosophy of any kind,' and much more to the same effect. It was this foolish manner of talking and writing which gave the impression that the religion which the Evangelicals recommended was a religion only fitted for persons of weak minds and imperfect education. Such sweeping and indiscriminate censures of 'human learning' (at least of one important branch of it) not only encouraged contemptuous opinions of Evangelicalism among its enemies, but also tended to make many of its friends think too lightly of those gifts which, after all, come as truly from 'the Father of lights' as these which are more strictly termed spiritual. It was a very convenient doctrine for those who could certainly never have attained to any degree of intellectual eminence, to think that they were quite on a level with those who could and did: nay, that they had the advantage on their side because intellectual eminence was a snare rather than a help to Christianity. It is all the more provoking to find such passages as those which have been quoted from Milner in Evangelical writings (and they are not uncommon) because the Evangelical leaders themselves were very far indeed from being deficient either in abilities or attainments. Perhaps none of them can be classed among the first order of divines; but those who assert that the Wesleys, Romaine, Newton, Scott, Cecil, and the Milners were fools and ignoramuses, only show their own folly and ignorance.
Another defect of Milner as a historian is, that he is rather too anxious 'to improve the occasion.' Whatever century he is treating of, he always seems to have one eye steadily fixed upon the latter part of the eighteenth century. He takes every possible and impossible opportunity of dealing a sideblow to the Arminians and Schismatics of his own day:[824] for Milner, though he was called a Methodist, was a most uncompromising stickler for every point of Church order.