THE LIFE OF GOD IN THE SOUL OF MAN; WITH Nine other Discourses ON IMPORTANT SUBJECTS. TO WHICH IS ADDED, A SERMON PREACHED AT THE AUTHOR'S funeral, Perfectionis ac felicitatis summum est uniri Deo. BOSTON : STEREOTYPED FROM THE LAST LONDON EDITION, Peirce and Williams. 1881. ' AMONG those who have been ripened early for usefulness, and after being eminently useful, have been early removed to the rest that remaineth for the people of God,' few have been more celebrated for a lovely, unobtrusive piety than SCOUGAL. Bishop Burnet, with a name high in public esteem, and engagements numerous and important in public life, did not deem it unworthy of his station and character to become a warm eulogist of the young author, and of that work of his, which was published in his lifetime. This, his main work, and which has gained him most reputation, The life of God in the soul of man,' has been the delight of the pious for a century and a half. It cannot be necessary to repeat the praises bestowed on it-for its simplicity, fervor, method of arrangement, and exhibition of the genuine amiableness of religion. That its publication is seasonable at the present time, in order to direct the attention of its readers from subjects of doubtful disputation to the diligent keeping of the heart, no self-observer can question. It has, indeed, been reprinted often-but, so far as the writer of this brief notice is informed, never accompanied in America with the Sermons of the author. These, and the discourse delivered on his death, with a preface by a former editor, can hardly fail to render the present edition acceptable to the friends of true piety in America. Boston, May 6, 1829. C1344.47,10 PREFACE. MR. HENRY SCOUGAL, the worthy author of the following book, was born about the end of June, in the year 1650. His father, Mr. Patrick Scougal, was sometime minister at Salton, and afterwards Bishop of Aberdeen; in which See he sat above twenty years from the Restoration. He was married to Margaret Wemyss, daughter to a gentleman in Fife, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. John Scougal, the eldest son, became Commissary of Aberdeen. Our author was the second. The youngest son, James, upon his eldest brother's death, succeeded him in the commissariat; which post he sold to Mr. Robert Paterson, father to the late Commissary of Aberdeen. He then went to Edinburgh; where he was made one of the senators of the College of Justice, by the title of Lord Whitehill. Catharine Scougal, the elder daughter, married Alexander Scrogie, Bishop of Argyle; and Jane, the younger, became spouse to Mr. Patrick Sibbald, one of the ministers of Aberdeen. But to return to our author. From his childhood, he made uncommon progress in divine, as well as human learning. At the age of fifteen, he went to the University; where he finished his courses in four years' time: and scarce had he ceased to be a pupil, when he became a Professor.. Having adorned this character four years, the more immediate service of God in his church, required him to enter into holy orders; and he was soon after settled at Auchterless,. a small village about twenty miles from Aberdeen. Here he had preached the gospel but the space of one year, when he was called to Aberdeen, and promoted to the Professorship of Divinity, in King's College there, though yet no more than four and twenty. This important function he discharged with the highest honour, till about his twenty |