John McLeod Campbell, who heard him ‘with very peculiar delight.’ In the following year (1828) he made the acquaintance of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, afterwards one of his closest friends, and of Edward Irving, who invited him to be his assistant in London.
Towards the close of 1829 he went to preach for McLeod Campbell at Row, and also at Port Glasgow, where his sermons on the Charismata or ‘spiritual gifts’ of 1 Corinthians xii.
In the summer of 1830 Scott received an invitation to the pastorate of the Scottish church at Woolwich, but the necessary ordination involved subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith.
This he could not give, and he put his objections in a letter to the moderator of the London presbytery, in which he stated his inability to assent to the doctrine that ‘none are redeemed by Christ but the elect only,’ as well as his conviction that the ‘Sabbath and the Lord's day were not, as stated in the catechism, one ordinance, but two, perfectly distinct, the one Jewish and the other Christian.’ He also mentioned doubts as to the validity of the presbytery's powers in ordination.
On 27 May 1831 he was charged with heresy before the presbytery of Paisley, and deprived of his licence to preach, a sentence which was confirmed by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
He married Ann Ker at Greenock in December 1830, and had an only son, John Alexander Scott, B.A., barrister-at-law, who died on 9 January 1894, aged 48; and a daughter.