Scott, THOMAS, commentator, was born the tenth of a grazier's thirteen children at Braytoft, in Lincolnshire, February 16, 1747. He studied hard in spite of drawbacks as a surgeon's apprentice and farm labourer, and received priest's orders from Bishop Green of Lincoln in 1773. He became curate of Weston Underwood, and in 1780 succeeded as curate at Olney the famous John Newton, whose characteristic Calvinistic theology he had already imbibed. In 1785 he became lecturer to the London Lock Hospital, and in 1803 was preferred to the rectorship of Aston Sandford in Bucks, where he died, April 16, 1821. His Force of Truth (1779) has great autobiographic interest, and Essays on the Most Important Subjects in Religion (1793) long enjoyed and deserved celebrity, but his name is best remembered by his Bible, with Explanatory Notes (5 vols. 1788-92; 5th and best ed. 6 vols. 1822). The prospectus of the 1850 edition stated that already £500,000 had been paid by purchasers for copies of this work, which is beyond doubt a remarkable monument of sound learning and exegetical sagacity.
His complete Works, including sermons and treatises doctrinal and controversial, were edited by his son, the Rev. John Scott (10 vols. 1823-25), who also published a Life, partly autobiographical (1822).