The Life of God in the Soul of Man is by Henry Scougal, a Scottish minister and theologian who lived from 1650 to 1678. He wrote it as a private letter of spiritual counsel to a friend, and allowed it to be published in 1677, a year before he died at twenty-eight.
Two corrections to the earlier version of this review, which had the history wrong in two places. The book was written in 1677, not 1948. And its English is late seventeenth century, not Elizabethan; Elizabeth I had been dead for seventy years by the time Scougal wrote.
Why this small book matters
The earlier review left out the single most important fact about it. In the spring of 1735, Charles Wesley handed a copy to his friend George Whitefield. Whitefield read it and concluded, in his own words, that he must be born again or be damned. He later said he never knew what true religion was until he read this book.
Whitefield went on to become the defining preacher of the Great Awakening. So a private letter from a dying young Scot is, by a reasonable reading of history, one of the hinges of the eighteenth-century revival. That is why it stayed in print for three hundred years.
The central claim
Scougal’s definition is the line everyone quotes: true religion is the life of God in the soul of man. His argument is that Christianity is not fundamentally a set of correct opinions, nor a programme of moral effort, but a life God places in a person which then grows.
He is aiming at religion that consists of external duties performed without any inward change. His test is what you love, not what you profess or how carefully you behave.
Structure
Three parts. The first sets out the nature of that divine life and distinguishes it from counterfeit religion. The second argues for its excellence, chiefly the excellence of divine love. The third deals with the difficulties and duties involved, which is the practical section.
It is short, commonly printed at around a hundred pages depending on the edition.
What reading it is like
Denser than the page count suggests. Scougal writes long, carefully built sentences, and you cannot skim him. But the prose is warm rather than cold, and because it began as a letter to one person it never sounds like a lecture.
Note that editions vary a good deal. Some modernise the spelling, some reproduce the seventeenth-century text, some bundle Scougal’s other works or add a Whitefield preface. Check what you are getting.
Who it suits
Good for a man whose faith has become a matter of routine and attendance, because that is precisely the target. Good for slow reading, a few pages at a time. Also a reasonable first Puritan-era book, since it is far shorter and warmer than most.
Not the pick if you want practical steps, application questions, or anything structured for a group. Scougal offers a diagnosis, not a programme.
Bottom line
A hundred pages that helped convert George Whitefield, and still the sharpest short answer to the question of whether your religion has any life in it. Read it slowly, and read it when you suspect the answer might be no.
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