A Circle of Friends.
The friends of Watts, at almost any period of his life, form an
interesting and very memorable circle, a very striking portrait gallery.
Amongst them are some well-known names, and some, comparatively unknown
now, famous then. We have said, about a mile from Theobalds, within the
parish of Cheshunt, lived RICHARD CROMWELL. He was a member of Watts’
church, although he removed from Cheshunt some short time after Watts’
settlement.
But a more remarkable person than Richard Cromwell was Cromwell’s niece,
the granddaughter of the great Protector, Mrs. BENDISH, in whom it was
said the very Protector himself lived again. Her husband was Thomas
Bendish, Esq., a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, Baronet, ambassador
from Charles I. to the Court of Turkey. He died in 1707, but she
survived him till 1728, removing, however, in the latter years of her
life, to Yarmouth. She was a piece of astonishing eccentricity. She had
a great admiration for Owen as a theologian and Watts as a poet; and
very early in his life Watts addressed to her his poem against tears.
She was a member of his church. Her admiration for her grandfather was
extraordinary, and no one was permitted in her presence to express a
doubt concerning his legitimate sovereignty or essential greatness. What
she might have been as a man is beyond all power to speculate; as a woman
she certainly inherited much of her grandfather’s dreamy, musing, moody,
and ruggedly imperative character. Her character and her connections both
alike commanded for her great respect, but she was an oddity. She was
fond of night walks, even on lonely roads. She would not suffer a servant
to attend her, saying God was a sufficient guard, and she would have no
other. Visiting at the houses of friends, she would usually set off at
about one in the morning in her chaise, or on horseback, chanting as she
went one of Watts’ hymns in a key, it is said, more loud than sweet.
There are pictures of her, word paintings, which bring her before our
eyes in the oddest light. Capable of comporting herself with dignity in
the best society, she disdained no menial employment, and very cheerfully
turned her hand to the pitch-fork or the spade among her labourers and
workmen, working herself with a right ready and forcible good will, from
the early morning to declining day, in an attire as mean as the meanest
of those with whom she was toiling, giving no account, say some records,
of either her character or even her sex. It is a curious thing to find
the youthful Isaac Watts talking to this strong-minded creature like a
patriarch in his lines addressed to her in 1699, in which occurs the fine
verse:
If ’tis a rugged path you go,
And thousand foes your steps surround,
Tread the thorns down, charge through the foe;
The hardest fight is highest crowned.
We could have liked a portrait of her from the pen of Watts, or a record
of some of his conversations with her or with her uncle, but it does
not appear to have been in his way either to sketch the portraits of
his friends or to violate private confidences or conferences by putting
them on paper. Her son was another of Watts’ intimates, and with him the
family of Bendish became extinct. He died at Yarmouth, unmarried, in the
year 1753.
Among the ministerial friends of Watts stands the almost forgotten name
of JOHN SHOWER, a very beautiful and eminent man in his day, a man of
large learning and extensive travel. He had ministered for some time
to an English congregation at Rotterdam, and, returning to England, he
passed through the periods of trouble afflicting the communion to which
he belonged. Watts was on terms of close intimacy with him, and they must
have been congenial in their lives of elevated and profoundly cultured
piety.
And there were men around Watts in the ministry with whom he had great
congeniality of sentiment. Eminent among these was SAMUEL ROSEWELL,
the son of Thomas Rosewell, celebrated for his trial for high treason
and unjust condemnation before the impious Jefferies. Watts gives an
interesting account of his visit to him on his death-bed in one of his
sermons preached at Bury Street. “Come, my friends,” says he, “come into
the chamber of a dying Christian; come, approach his pillow, and hear
his holy language: ‘I am going up to heaven, and I long to be gone, to
be where my Saviour is.—Why are His chariot-wheels so long in coming?—I
hope I am a sincere Christian, but the meanest and the most unworthy:—I
know I am a great sinner, but did not Christ come to save the chief of
sinners?—I have trusted in Him, and I have strong consolation.—I love
God, I love Christ.—I desire to love Him more, to be more like Him, and
to serve Him in heaven without sin.—Dear brother, I shall see you at the
right hand of Christ.—There I shall see all our friends that are gone
a little before (alluding to Sir T. Abney).—I go to my God and to your
God, to my Saviour and to your Saviour.’ These,” observes Watts, “are
some of the dying words of the Rev. Mr. S. Rosewell, when, with some
other friends, I went to visit him two days before his death, and which I
transcribed as soon as I came home, with their assistance.” It was after
this visit Watts wrote to his friend the following note:
“DEAR BROTHER ROSEWELL,
“Your most agreeable and divine conversation, two days ago,
so sweetly overpowered my spirits, and the most affectionate
expressions which you so plentifully bestowed on me awakened
in me so many pleasing sensations, that I seemed a borderer on
the heavenly world when I saw you on the confines of heaven and
conversed with you there. Yet I can hardly forbear to ask for
your stay on earth, and wish your service in the sanctuary,
after you have been so much within view of the glorious
invisibilities which the Gospel reveals to us. But if that hope
fail, yet our better expectations can never fail us. Our anchor
enters within the veil, where Jesus, our forerunner, is gone to
take our places (Heb. vi. ult.). May your pains decrease, or
your divine joys overpower them! May you never lose sight of
the blessed world, and of Jesus, the Lord of it, till the storm
is passed and you are safely arrived. And may the same grace
prepare me for the same mansions, and give you the pleasure of
welcoming to those bright regions
“Your affectionate and unworthy friend and brother,
“ISAAC WATTS.
“LIME STREET, _7th April, 1722_.
“Just going to Theobalds.
“P.S.—Our family salute you; they are much affected, pleased,
and edified with their late visit. Grace be with you and all
your dear relations. Amen.”
And among his friends, as we have already seen, he kept up a considerable
intimacy with his own fellow-townsman and fellow-student, SAMUEL SAY, son
of Giles Say, who was ejected from the parish church of St. Michael’s in
Southampton, and one of the first ministers of the Nonconformist church
of that town, and with which Watts’ family was connected. He was a kind
of smaller Watts, a man of large and varied knowledge in the classics,
mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy. For forty-eight years he
kept a journal of the alterations of the weather and of his observations
of remarkable occurrences in nature. Possessed of an extraordinary
genius, it was veiled and shrouded by a modesty as extraordinary; but
about two years before his death some of his papers were committed to the
press, consisting of poems and essays on the “Harmony, Variety and Power
of Numbers, whether in Prose or Verse.” He had a great admiration for
Milton, and translated apparently with great elegance the introduction
of “Paradise Lost” into Latin verse; and in the “Gentleman’s Magazine,”
vol. xxxv., is an interesting paper by him, entitled, “The Resurrection
Illustrated by the Changes of the Silkworm.” Watts thought highly of his
judgment, as the following, among other letters, indicates:
“_April 11th, 1728._
“DEAR SIR,
“Your letter, dated from Feb. 10th to March 5th, afforded me
agreeable entertainment, and particularly your notes on the 2nd
Psalm, in which I think I concur in sentiment with you in every
line, and thank you. The epiphonema to the 16th Psalm is also
very acceptable, and, in my opinion, the Psalms ought to be
translated in such a manner for Christian worship, in order to
show the hidden glories of that divine posey. I beg leave only
to query about the _Sheol_ in Psalm 16, whether that phrase of
‘not seeing corruption’ ought to be applied to David at all,
since Peter (Acts ii. 31) and Paul (Acts xiii. 36) seem to
exclude him. And though I will not say that your sense of the
_soul_, _i.e._, the _life_, may answer the Hebrew manner of the
reduplication of the same thing in other words, yet, as David
sometimes speaks of the _soul_ as a thing distinct from the
body, and may not the _soul_ be taken in this place and _Sheol_
signify _Hades_, the state of the dead?
“I am glad my little prayer-book is acceptable to you and your
daughter. I perceive you have been also (among many others)
uneasy to have no easier and plainer catechism for children
than that of the Assembly. I had a letter from Leicestershire
the very same day when I received yours on the same subject;
and long after this a multitude of requests have I had to set
my thoughts at work for this purpose. I have designed it these
many years. I have laid out some schemes for this purpose,
and I would have three or four series of catechisms, as I
have of prayers. I believe I shall do it ere long if God
afford health. But, dear friend, forgive me if I cannot come
into your scheme of ‘bringing in the creed;’ for it is, in my
opinion, a most imperfect and immethodical composition, and
deserves no great regard, unless it be put in at the end of the
catechism for form’s sake, together with the Lord’s Prayer and
Ten Commandments, as is done in the Assembly’s Catechism. The
history of the life and death of Christ is excessively long in
so short a system and the design of the death of Christ (which
is the glory of Christianity) is utterly omitted. Besides, the
operations, of the Spirit are not named. The practical articles
are all excluded. In short, ’tis a very mean composure, and
has nothing valuable—_præter mille annos_. My ideas of these
matters run in another track, which, if ever I have the
happiness to see you, may be matter for communication between
us. I am sorry I forgot to put up the coronation ode in my
pocket. I will count myself in debt till I have an occasion to
send you something more valuable along with it. Two days (ago)
I published a little essay on charity schools, my treatise of
education growing so much longer in my hands than I designed.
If it were worth while to send such a trifle you should have
it. In the meantime I take leave, and with due salutations to
yourself and yours,
“I am your affectionate brother and servant,
“I. WATTS.”
WILLIAM COWARD is the name of one of Watts’ intimate friends, an oddity
in his way as great as Mrs. Bendish: he had been a merchant in the city;
he lived in retirement at Waltonstow; his name is well known now in
Nonconformist circles as the founder of “The Coward Trust,” a useful
fountain of benevolence for the education of young, and the assistance
of poor decayed ministers. He was a type of man easily realised to the
imagination, dogmatical and opinionated, a bundle of eccentricities.
Among others, it was his whim to establish a rule that the doors of his
house should never be opened, however pressing the emergency, after eight
o’clock at night, to any person whatever, visitor or friend. The name
of Hugh Farmer is still held in high and deserved respect for manifold
attainments, one of Doddridge’s most hopeful students, and who had
probably been recommended to Mr. Coward by Doddridge, to whose academy
Coward was a munificent helper. Farmer was the chaplain of the eccentric
man, but he arrived one evening at the door too late; he found himself
without lodging for the night, and was compelled to betake himself to the
house of another, perhaps equally eminent, but more courteous friend, Mr.
Snell, who not only took him in for that evening, but compelled him to
stay with him for thirty years. Nonconformist ministers appear to have
possessed some singularly appreciative friends in those days. William
Coward, however, was, if a man of singular eccentricity, one possessed
of sterling virtues, and especially zealous in the maintenance of the
more rigid articles of faith, and was constantly devising some plans
of usefulness to assist both metropolitan and country ministers. Watts
appears to have had great influence over him, and could comb his rugged
asperities into smoothness. Watts it was to whom we are greatly indebted
for the shape assumed by the “Coward Trust.” He devoted £20,000, and by
Watts’ wise and most judicious advice it was left in such a manner that,
unlike many other trusts, it has been saved from the consequence of
diversion or litigation; and, largely and most respectably useful, it has
furnished a most helpful hand in giving a thorough and most respectable
education to many a young minister, and helping many a poor one, even to
the present day. The “will” of William Coward is a curiosity, and may be
studied, by those who have patience, on the walls of the library of the
New College.
Among the friends of Watts, whose names ought to be mentioned, we must
not omit that of JOHN SHUTE, LORD BARRINGTON, a person very interesting
in his own times. He moved in that immediate circle of which Watts was a
distinguished member; he was nearly of Watts’ age, and his mother was a
daughter of that Joseph Caryl who was one of Watts’ early predecessors
in the ministry at Mark Lane. He was a thoughtful, scholarly man, as the
several works he published abundantly show.[25] His sixth and youngest
son became the well-known Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham. In the
memoir prefixed to the three volumes of his father’s works, the name of
Dr. Watts is never even mentioned, although the verses from the lyrics,
referring to the intimacy of Shute with John Locke, addressed to him by
Watts, are quoted. He was a member of the Church meeting at Pinners’
Hall, and had previously attended the ministry of Thomas Bradbury;
but when that person behaved so indecently to Dr. Watts, and took so
turbulent a part in the discussion with reference to the Trinity, Lord
Barrington united himself with the Church at Pinners’ Hall, then beneath
the ministry of Dr. Jeremiah Hunt. It seems probable that an intimacy
commenced early in life between Mr. Shute and Isaac Watts, perhaps before
the settlement of Watts in the ministry. It was in 1718 that Swift writes
of him, “One Mr. Shute is named for the secretary to Lord Wharton; he is
a young man, but reckoned the shrewdest head in England, and the person
in whom the Presbyterians chiefly confide; and if money be necessary
toward the good work (that is, the repeal of the sacramental test) in
Ireland, it is reckoned he can command as far as £100,000 from the body
of Dissenters here. As to his principles, he is a truly moderate man,
frequenting the church and the meeting indifferently.” He took the name
of Barrington about the time this letter was written, a connection of
his family, Francis Barrington, Esq., of Tofts, in Essex, leaving to
him his estate conditionally upon his taking his name and adopting his
arms. The high favour in which he stood with George I. exposed him to
the jealousy and enmity of Sir Robert Walpole. He had an interview with
the king on the first day after his arrival in London, apparently in
order that he might decline certain offices of preferment which were made
him, because the Schism and Conformity Bills were as yet unrepealed.
Upon this occasion he stated to the king the grievances beneath which
Dissenters suffered, although they were amongst the most hearty and
faithful friends of the House of Hanover. In the fifth year of this
reign he was created a peer. He stood very high in the friendship of the
king, and it seems that it was this very friendship which brought about
the close of his political life when, in 1723, he was expelled from the
House of Commons for his connection with the Harburgh lottery. This was
a company formed for carrying on trade between England and the king’s
electoral dominions, and it had been proposed that it should be assisted
by a lottery to defray the expenses in deepening the River Elbe near the
port of Harburgh; the project had not met with the approbation of Lord
Barrington, but he received the king’s personal commands to continue
as sub-governor of the company, Prince Frederick being the governor.
It furnished, however, the occasion which Sir Robert Walpole knew how
to use for the removal from his path of a man dangerous to his own
unscrupulous ambition. The project itself was simply a means, favoured by
the king, for promoting trade between the two countries. But now, in his
retirement, he betook himself to pursuits of a very different character,
and the volumes of his theological works are most interesting, and show
abundantly how he brought to bear upon the department of theology that
clearness of judgment which had characterized his political life, united
to a keen analytic power of criticism and discrimination very interesting
to follow through the subjects he discusses; his essay “On the
Dispensation of God to Mankind as revealed in Scripture” is especially
entertaining and suggestive.
He was nephew, by his mother, of Sir Thomas Abney, and this would make
his intimacy with the family in which Watts resided very natural; but at
his house at Tofts he kept round about him much intellectual society, and
sometimes even of persons widely differing in opinion from himself, such
persons as Antony Collins,[26] the well-known sceptical writer of that
day. The Greek Testament was frequently the subject of investigation and
criticism, and on one occasion it is said Collins remarked concerning the
apostle Paul, “I think so well of him as a man of sense and a gentleman,
that if he had asserted he had worked miracles himself, I would have
believed him.”
Lord Barrington instantly produced a passage to that effect, when the
disconcerted sceptic seized his hat and hastily retreated from the
company. Upon another occasion his lordship inquired how it was that
although he professed to have no religion himself, he was so careful
that his servants should attend regularly at church, when he replied
he did this to prevent them robbing and murdering him. This amiable
nobleman, moderate, wise, and well informed, if we may not rather speak
of him as a man of extensive and varied scholarship, was such a one as
could well appreciate and sympathize with Isaac Watts. At the old house
at Tofts, or Beckets, in Berkshire, where Lord Barrington died, we may
be sure that Watts was a frequent visitor, and it was the frequency of
the intercourse probably which permits us so few letters between them,
and of those letters none before 1718. We have already quoted the high
estimate he formed of Watts’ “View of Scripture History;” his estimate of
the “Logic” he rates so highly that he says, “I shall not only recommend
it to others, but use it as the best manual of its kind myself, and I
intend, as some have done Erasmus or a piece of Cicero, to read it over
once a year.” The following note sets every point of his friendship with
Watts in a very pleasing light:
“LONDON, _Jan. 11, 1718_.
“REV. SIR,
“I cannot dispense with myself from taking the first
opportunity I have of acknowledging your great favour in
assisting me so readily to offer up the praise due to Almighty
God for His signal mercies vouchsafed me on three several
occasions, and of assuring you that it was with the utmost
concern I understood that I must not flatter myself with
the hopes of your being with us in this last. But how very
obliging are you, who would give yourself the trouble to let
me know that, though you could not give me the advantage
of your company at Hatton Garden, yet I should not want
your assistance at a distance, where you would address such
petitions to heaven to meet ours as tend to render me one of
the best and happiest men alive. This they will influence to
me in some measure, both by their prevalency at the throne
of grace, and by instructing me in the most agreeable manner
what I should aspire to. Whilst I read your letter, I found
my blood fired with the greatest ambition to be what you wish
me. I will, therefore, carefully preserve it, where it shall
be least liable to accidents, and where it will be always
most in my view. There, as I shall see what I ought to be, by
keeping it always before me, I shall not only have the pleasure
of observing the masterly strokes of the character you wish
me, but, I hope, come in time to bear some resemblance to it.
Whilst you were praying for us, we did not forget you; nor
shall I cease to beseech Almighty God to make you a bright
example of passive virtue, till He shall see fit to restore you
to that eminent degree of acceptableness and service you have
once enjoyed.
“I am, sir, your most obliged humble servant,
“BARRINGTON.
“My wife is very much obliged by your civility. She has desired
a copy of your letter, which, she says, will be as useful to
her as it has been entertaining, if it be not her own fault.
Both our humble services attend the good family where you
are. I am sorry my lady’s cold is like to deprive us of their
company on Wednesday.”
Yet another of the circle of friends, whose names occur to the mind
when we think of Watts, is the saintly JAMES HERVEY. One of Watts’
biographers speaks of “the bloated effusions of Hervey which are
now justly discarded, then not only tolerated, but admired.” It is
an unjust judgment; James Hamilton was much more fair and faithful
when he says of him that “he had a mind of uncommon gorgeousness, his
thoughts are marched to a stately music, and were arrayed in the richest
superlatives;” and he speaks of Hervey’s “Theron and Aspasia” as “one
of our finest prose poems.” James Hervey deserves that his name should
be mentioned with great affection and respect. His life was perpetually
stretched upon a rack of infirmity and weakness. There is even a kind of
pathetic drollery in watching him at Weston Favell living his bachelor’s
life, and, while stirring the saucepan which held the gruel constituting
his modest meal, turning aside to derive some new fancy, fact, or image
from the microscope on his study table. As a writer, he indulged himself
too freely in colour, but many of his works are very pleasing; he was
not only passionately fond of natural scenery, but in an equal degree
delighted in the discoveries of natural history; his copious description
of the human frame is one of the most seductive dissertations on anatomy
and physiology in our language; and those subjects, not remarkable for
being invested with the charms of fancy, certainly do in his descriptions
appear to be invested by the fascinations of poetry. He was a friend
of both Doddridge and Watts. He lived ever in the neighbourhood of the
grave, but his little church of Weston Favell was filled with a loving
congregation. It was a small flock, for it was a small church: but the
humble villagers felt a large amount of affectionate regard for their
feeble and yet famous friend. Into his church he speedily introduced,
after their publication, Dr. Watts’ Hymns. So he tells Watts:
“To tell you, worthy Doctor, that your works have long been
my delight and study, the favourite pattern by which I would
form my conduct and model my style, would be only to echo
back in the faintest accents what sounds in the general voice
of the nation. Among other of your edifying compositions,
I have reason to thank you for your ‘Sacred Songs,’ which
I have introduced into the service of my church; so that
in the solemnities of the Sabbath, and in a lecture on the
week-day, your music lights up the incense of our praise, and
furnishes our devotions with harmony. Our excellent friend, Dr.
Doddridge, informs me of the infirm condition of your health,
for which reason I humbly beseech the Father of spirits and
the God of our life to renew your strength as the eagle’s, and
to recruit a lamp that has shone with distinguished lustre in
His sanctuary; or, if this may not consist with the counsels
of unerring wisdom, to make all your bed in your languishing,
softly to untie the cords of animal existence, to enable your
dislodging soul to pass triumphantly through the valley of
death, leaning on your beloved Jesus, and rejoicing in the
greatness of His salvation. You have a multitude of names
to bear on your breast and mention with your lips, when you
approach the throne of grace in the beneficent exercise of
intercession; but none, I am sure, has more need of such an
interest in your supplications than, dear sir, your obliged and
humble and affectionate servant,
“JAMES HERVEY.”
There could not be a very long intimacy between these two, or much
knowledge of each other; they were both hermits, following, in the midst
of much weakness, the calls of duty and the pursuits of a cultivated
taste. The letter we have just quoted was written the year before Watts
died; Hervey lived ten years longer, but died at the age of forty-seven.
He forms one of a cluster of men singularly interesting to contemplate.
With Doddridge, from their vicinity in the same county, he was on terms
of the closest intimacy. He was a large scholar, a poet by natural
temperament, and an intense lover of natural description. His works, once
so famous, are almost forgotten, and have fallen into quite an undeserved
neglect, partly arising, it may be, from the unfavourable estimate formed
of them by those who have not read them, or who may have fixed their
impressions from the scanning his “Contemplation of the Starry Heavens,”
or his “Reflections in a Flower Garden,” or his “Descant on Creation.”
His portrait should be suspended in the gallery of those we are noticing
as one, who, if not among Watts’ most intimate friends, yet revered and
loved him much.
But there is one name with which that of Watts is constantly united; it
is the name of one whose nature in a marked and special manner seemed
fitted to produce a perfect harmony and accord, it is the name of PHILIP
DODDRIDGE. At what period the friendship commenced cannot be very exactly
ascertained. Probably, had the life of Doddridge been spared to pen the
biography of his venerable friend, the present biographer might have felt
his work a superfluity of naughtiness; but, considerable as the distance
was between the ages of the friends, Watts preceded his younger brother
by only a short time to the grave. Like Watts, his name is especially
associated with the hymnology of England; nor is there a collection of
sacred songs which does not contain some strains from the pair of sweet
singers. Doddridge is indeed rather known by a few pieces, very sweet
and helpful, but limited in the range of their emotions, and never
attempting the lofty and dazzling flight of Watts’ nobler pieces.
Doddridge’s life is full of interest; it has yet to be written, for
there was a variety of incidents in his story which scarcely appears
in the biography of Kippis, or the admirable memoir of Job Orton. All
things considered, it was a wonderful life: its activity was amazing,
the variety of his literary acquirements and spoils was prodigious; one
would say he had much more of the poet’s temperament than Watts; he was
impulsive, passionate, affectionate, yet we certainly miss in him that
indefinable something which constitutes the poet, and which something,
Watts assuredly possessed.
In some particulars both in his ancestry and earlier career Doddridge
resembled Watts; Philip, like Isaac, was the child (he was the twentieth)
of a mother whom persecution had drifted to our shores; at his birth his
mother seemed so near to death that no attention was given to the almost
lifeless little castaway, the infant, and the world almost lost Philip
the moment he was born.
If Watts probably received his first lessons in biblical knowledge from
his grandmother by the fireside of the old house in French Street, the
Dutch tiles in the chimney constituting an illuminated and illustrated
Bible, from which Doddridge’s mother first initiated her own son into
Bible lore, have become a famous tradition. Like Isaac, Philip made so
much progress in scholarship, that he had the offer of a training in
either University if he would enter the Established Church; it was made
generously by the Duchess of Bedford. Philip, like Isaac, declined the
temptation, and so he found his _alma mater_ beneath the more modest and
obscure roof of a Dissenting academy at Kibworth, in Leicestershire.
Doddridge was born in the year when Watts first became the co-pastor
of Dr. Chauncy, and he died in 1751, scarcely two years after the
venerable friend whom he so much honoured and loved. Thus, when Watts
died, Doddridge was on his way to the tomb, dying by the slow process of
consumption. Great as was the difference in point of age, it is affecting
to read the following letter from Watts to Doddridge—indeed, it simply
expresses the truth they were “both going out of the world.”
“STOKE NEWINGTON, _Oct. 18, 1746_, Saturday.
“DEAR SIR,
“My much esteemed friend and brother,
“It was some trouble to me that you even fancied I had
taken anything ill at your hands; it was only my own great
indisposition and weakness which prevented the freedom and
pleasure of _conversation_; and I am so low yet that I can
neither study nor preach, nor have I any hope of better days
in this world; but, blessed be God, we are moving onwards, I
hope, to a state infinitely better. I should be glad of more
Divine assistance from the Spirit of Consolation, to make me
go cheerfully through the remaining days of my life. I am very
sorry to find, by reports from friends, that you have met with
so many vexations in these latter months of life; and yet I
cannot find that your sentiments are altered, nor should your
orthodoxy or charity be called in question. I shall take it a
pleasure to have another letter from you, informing me that
things are much easier, both with you and in the west country.
As we are both going out of the world, we may commit each other
to the care of our common Lord, who is, we hope, ours in an
unchangeable covenant. I am glad to hear Mrs. Doddridge has
her health better; and I heartily pray for your prosperity,
peace, and success in your daily labours.
“I am yours affectionately, in our common Lord,
“I. WATTS.
“P.S.—I rejoice to hear so well of Mr. Ashworth: I hope my lady
and I have set him up with commentators, for which he has given
us both thanks. I trust I shall shortly see your third volume
of the ‘Family Expositor.’”
Watts’ life was uniform; we can scarcely point to a period and say the
man woke into life and being then and there; but Doddridge reached his
period of interior life and labour when he became pastor and tutor at
Northampton, and it would almost seem as if disappointment in love made a
man of him.
The work accomplished by Doddridge in the academy of which he was tutor
was enormous, and it exhibits the thoroughness of the training in the
small unostentatious academy where the Dissenting ministers of that day
gathered their stores of knowledge, and received their education for the
ministry.
And he was great as a preacher—the peasants of the neighbourhood thought
so—his usefulness among them was eminent; and Akenside, the poet, thought
so. The variety of his correspondence is an amazing characteristic too;
various, not only as to the personages with whom he corresponded, but the
subjects upon which he corresponded with them. Like Watts, his sweet and
gentle nature charmed the most obdurate—he had not even a Bradbury to
ruffle the equanimity of his spirit—even the rough and savage Warburton
became kind to him; he reviewed the “Divine Legation,” in the “Works
of the Learned,” a review of that day; and it was to the English Bishop
who quarrelled with everybody, the gentle Nonconformist was indebted for
obtaining that easy passage in the sailing vessel, in which the captain
gave up his cabin to him, that he might journey to the warm airs of
Lisbon to lay aside his labours and to die. Doddridge is known by many
of his works. His “Family Expositor” a long time held a place in the
family and in the study; but a far more extensive fame has followed the
authorship of “The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.” This work,
as its dedication to Dr. Watts shows, owes also its existence to him;
two letters exhibit, on either side, the sentiments these admirable men
entertain for each other; the first is the dedication to which reference
has been made:
“REV. AND DEAR SIR,
“With the most affectionate gratitude and respect I beg
leave to present you a book, which owes its existence to
your request, its copiousness to your plan, and much of its
perspicuity to your review, and to the use I made of your
remarks on that part of it which your health and leisure would
permit you to examine. I address it to you, not to beg your
patronage to it, for of that I am already well assured, and
much less from any ambition of attempting your character, for
which, if I were more equal to the subject, I should think
this a very improper place, but chiefly from a secret delight
which I find in the thought of being known to those whom this
may reach as one whom you have honoured, not only with your
friendship, but with so much of your esteem and approbation
too, as must substantially appear in your committing a work
to me, which you had yourself projected, as one of the most
considerable services of your life.
“I have long thought the love of popular applause a meanness
which a philosophy far inferior to that of our Divine Master,
might have us to conquer. But to be esteemed by eminently
great and good men, to whom we are intimately known, appears
to me not only one of the most solid attestations of some
real worth, but, next to the approbation of God and our own
consciences, one of its most valuable rewards. It will, I doubt
not, be found so in that world to which spirits like yours are
tending, and for which, through Divine grace, you have obtained
so uncommon a degree of ripeness. And permit me, sir, while
I write this, to refresh myself with the hope that when that
union of hearts which has so long subsisted between us shall
arrive to its full maturity and endearment there, it will be
matter of mutual delight to recollect that you have assigned
me, and that I have, in some degree, executed a task which
may, perhaps, under the blessing of God, awaken and improve
religious sentiments in the minds of those we leave behind us,
and of others that may arise after us in this vain, transitory,
and ensnaring world.
“Such is the improvement you have made of capacities for
service that I am fully persuaded heaven has received very
few in these latter ages who have done so much to serve its
interests here below; few who have laboured in this best of
causes with equal zeal and success; and therefore I cannot but
join with all who wish well to the Christian interest among us,
in acknowledging the goodness of Providence to you, and to the
Church of Christ, in prolonging a life, at once so valuable
and so tender, to such an advanced period. With them, sir, I
rejoice that God has given you to possess in so extraordinary
a degree, not only the consciousness of intending great
benefit to the world, but the satisfaction of having effected
it, and seeing such an harvest already springing up, I hope,
as an earnest of a more copious increase from thence. With
multitudes more I bless God that you are not in the evening
of so afflicted and so laborious a day rendered entirely
incapable of serving the public from the press and from the
pulpit, and that, amidst the pain your active spirit feels when
these pleasing services suffer long interruption from bodily
weakness, it may be so singularly refreshed by reflecting on
that sphere of extensive usefulness in which by your writings
you continually move.
“I congratulate you, dear sir, while you are in a multitude
of families and schools of the lower class, condescending
to the humble yet important work of forming infant minds
to the first rudiments of religious knowledge and devout
impressions, by your various catechisms and divine songs, you
are also daily reading lectures of logic and other useful
branches of philosophy to studious youth; and this not only
in private academies but in the most public and celebrated
seats of learning, not merely in Scotland, and in our American
colonies, where for some peculiar considerations it might be
most naturally expected, but, through the amiable candour of
some excellent men and accomplished tutors, in our English
universities too. I congratulate you that you are teaching no
doubt hundreds of ministers and private Christians by your
sermons, and other theological tracts, so happily calculated
to diffuse through their minds that light of knowledge, and
through their hearts that fervour of piety, which God has been
pleased to enkindle in your own. But above all I congratulate
you that by your sacred poetry, especially by your psalms and
your hymns, you are leading the worship, and, I trust also,
animating the devotions of myriads in our public assemblies
every Sabbath, and in their families and closets every day.
This, sir, at least so far as it relates to the service of the
sanctuary, is an unparalleled favour by which God hath been
pleased to distinguish you, I may boldly say it, beyond any of
His servants now upon earth. Well may it be esteemed a glorious
equivalent, and, indeed, much more than an equivalent, for all
those views of ecclesiastical preferment to which such talents,
learning, virtues, and interests might have entitled you in an
establishment; and I doubt not but you joyfully accept it as
such.
“Nor is it easy to conceive in what circumstances you could,
on any supposition, have been easier and happier than in that
pious and truly honourable family in which, as I verily believe
in special indulgence both to you and to it, Providence has
been pleased to appoint that you should spend so considerable
a part of your life. It is my earnest prayer that all the
remainder of it may be serene, useful, and pleasant. And as, to
my certain knowledge, your compositions have been the singular
comfort of many excellent Christians—some of them numbered
among my dearest friends—on their dying beds, for I have heard
stanzas of them repeated from the lips of several who were
doubtless in a few hours to begin the ‘Song of Moses and the
Lamb,’ so I hope and trust that, when God shall call you to
that salvation, for which your faith and patience have so long
been waiting, He will shed around you the choicest beams of
His favour, and gladden your heart with consolations, like
those which you have been the happy instrument of administering
to others. In the meantime, sir, be assured that I am not a
little animated in the various labours to which Providence
has called me, by reflecting that I have such a contemporary,
and especially such a friend, whose single presence would be
to me as that of a cloud of witnesses here below to awaken my
alacrity in the race which is set before me. And I am persuaded
that, while I say this, I speak the sentiment of many of my
brethren, even of various denominations, a consideration
which I hope will do something towards reconciling a heart so
generous as yours, to a delay of that exceeding and eternal
weight of glory which is now so nearly approaching. Yes, my
honoured friend, you will, I hope, cheerfully endure a little
longer continuance in life amidst all its infirmities from an
assurance that, while God is pleased to maintain the exercise
of your reason, it is hardly possible you should live in
vain to the world or yourself. Every day and every trial is
brightening your crown, and rendering you still more and more
meet for an inheritance among the saints in light. Every word
which you drop from the pulpit has now surely its peculiar
weight. The eyes of many are on their ascending prophet,
eagerly intent that they may catch, if not his mantle, at least
some divine sentence from his lips, which may long guide their
ways, and warm their hearts. This solicitude your friends
bring in those happy moments when they are favoured with your
converse in private, and, when you are retired from them, your
prayers, I doubt not, largely contribute towards guarding your
country, watering the Church, and blessing the world. Long may
they continue to answer these great ends. And permit me, sir,
to conclude with expressing my cheerful confidence that in
these best moments you are often particularly mindful of one,
who so highly esteems, so greatly needs, and so warmly returns
that remembrance as,
“Reverend Sir, your most affectionate brother,
“And obliged humble servant,
“PHILIP DODDRIDGE.
“NORTHAMPTON, _Dec. 13, 1744_.”
This dedication, of which Dr. Watts said, “It is the only thing in
that book I can hardly permit myself to approve,” may be appropriately
followed by a letter to Mr. David Longueville, minister to the English
church at Amsterdam, who had written to Dr. Watts asking his advice with
reference to the translation of the works of Doddridge into the Dutch
tongue; to this Watts replies:
“REV. SIR,
“It is a very agreeable employment to which you call me, and
a very sensible honour you put upon me, when you desire me to
give you my sentiments of that reverend and learned writer, Dr.
Doddridge, to be prefixed to a translation of any of his works
into the Dutch tongue. I have well known him for many years; I
have enjoyed a constant intimacy and friendship with him ever
since the providence of God called him to be a professor of
human science, and a teacher of sacred theology to young men
among us, who are trained up for the ministry of the Gospel. I
have no need to give you a large account of his knowledge in
the sciences, in which I confess him to be greatly my superior;
and as to the doctrines of divinity and the Gospel of Christ,
I know not of any man of greater skill than himself, and
hardly sufficient to be his second. As he hath a most exact
acquaintance with the things of God and our holy religion,
so far as we are let into the knowledge of them by the light
of nature and the revelations of Scripture, so he hath a most
happy manner of teaching those who are younger. He hath a most
skilful and condescending way of instruction, nor is there any
person of my acquaintance with whom I am more entirely agreed
in all the sentiments of the doctrine of Christ. He is a most
hearty believer of the great articles and important principles
of the Reformed Church, a most affectionate preacher and
pathetic writer on the practical points of religion, and, in
one word, since I am now advanced in age beyond my seventieth
year, if there were any man to whom Providence would permit
me to commit a second part of my life and usefulness in the
Church of Christ, Dr. Doddridge should be the man. If you have
read that excellent performance of his, ‘The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul,’ etc., you will be of my mind; his
dedication to me is the only thing in that book I could hardly
permit myself to approve. Besides all this, he possesses a
spirit of so much charity, love, and goodness towards his
fellow Christians, who may fall into some lesser differences of
opinion, as becomes a follower of the blessed Jesus, his Master
and mine. In the practical part of his labours and ministry,
he hath sufficiently shown himself most happily furnished with
all proper gifts and talents to lead persons of all ranks
and ages into serious piety and strict religion. I esteem it
a considerable honour which the Providence of God hath done
me, when it makes use of me as an instrument in His hands to
promote the usefulness of this great man in any part of the
world; and it is my hearty prayer that our Lord Jesus, the Head
of the Church, may bless all his labours with most glorious
success, either read or heard, in my native language or in
any other tongue. I am, reverend sir, with much sincerity your
faithful humble servant, and affectionate brother in the Gospel
of our common Lord,
“ISAAC WATTS.”
“The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul” is still the best book of
its kind; but, without doing any dishonour to its great merits, it may be
said that it is built up too much upon a frame-work like that of Scupoli
and A’Kempis, and we have known readers to whom it has rather been a
message of despair than of mercy. Salvation and spiritual happiness seem
to be rather in the attainment of some subjective condition, than in the
finished work of Christ; the soul seems to be invited rather to brood
over, or look in upon itself, than to look outward and upward to Christ.
Still it has been rendered into all the leading languages in Europe. But
it is in his hymns that the influence of Doddridge most resembles that of
his friend. His hymns have been spoken of as a kind of spiritual amber:
but that term, appropriate as it is, is rather descriptive of hymns in
general; are they not all pieces of secreted spiritual electricity,
rare and rich in spiritual emotion? And many of Doddridge’s have an
ineffable beauty. Logan, the Scotch poet, has the doubtful reputation
of the authorship of several very sweet hymns; we say doubtful, because
the authorship turns rather ominously towards the more likely genius of
Michael Bruce; but, in any case, the famous hymn, so sanctified in almost
every Scotch household, as it rises to the old tune of Martyrdom—
O God of Bethel, by whose hand,
ought not to be regarded as his. It may not be uninteresting to notice
together the variations in the two hymns:
LOGAN.
O God of Bethel! by Whose hand
Thy people still are fed;
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led;
Our vows, our prayers, we now present
Before Thy throne of grace.
God of our fathers! be the God
Of their succeeding race.
Through each perplexing path of life,
Our wandering footsteps guide:
Give us each day our daily bread,
And raiment fit provide.
O spread Thy covering wings around,
Till all our wanderings cease,
And at our Father’s loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace.
Such blessings from Thy gracious hand,
Our humble prayers implore;
And Thou shalt be our chosen God
And portion ever more.
DODDRIDGE.
O God of Jacob, by Whose hand
Thine Israel still is fed,
Who through this weary pilgrimage
Hast all our fathers led;
To Thee our humble vows we raise,
To Thee address our prayer,
And in Thy kind and faithful breast
Deposit all our care.
If Thou through each perplexing path,
Wilt be our constant guide:
If Thou wilt daily bread supply,
And raiment will provide;
If Thou wilt spread Thy shield around,
Till these our wanderings cease,
And at our Father’s loved abode
Our souls arrive in peace;
To Thee, as to our covenant-God,
We’ll our whole selves resign;
And count that not our tenth alone,
But all we have is Thine.
It is not generally known that Doddridge pursued for many years the
practice of Watts—perhaps he derived it from him—of writing a hymn
after each or many of his sermons, so that the volume of his hymns is a
tolerably large one, numbering three hundred and forty-seven. Many of
them have great evangelical tenderness and beauty; we do not remember
that they ever depart from a good and correct taste; they never soar up
to Watts’ daring heights, but they are often very sweet and exquisite;
they are like the notes of a nightingale in the depths of evening
shades, or sometimes like dove-like wings flashing near to the earth, but
in the bright sunshine, “wings tipped with silver, or feathers of yellow
gold.” And, perhaps, we appreciate rather more the frequent ecstasy of
his hymns in the memory of the fact that the story of his own life shows
him not to have been incapable of human passion.
To Doddridge we are indebted for a pleasing illustration of the early
reception of Watts’ sacred verses; Southey has quoted it in his life
of Watts; the incident shows that the hymns, in spite of the sneers of
Bradbury, were hailed with much delight, as supplying a very great want,
not only in public but domestic service. The letter from Doddridge is
dated 1731.
“Till heaven is enriched by your removal thither, I hope, sir, to find
in you a counsellor and a friend, if God should continue my life, and I
cannot but admire the goodness of Providence in honouring me with the
friendship of such a person. I can truly say your name was in the number
of those which were dearest to me long before I ever saw you. Yet, since
I have known you, I cannot but find something of a more tender pleasure
in the thought of your successful various services in the advancement
of the best causes, that of real, vital, practical Christianity. What
happened under my observation a few days ago gave me joy with regard to
you, which is yet so warm in my mind, that I hope, sir, you will pardon
my relating the occasion of it. On Wednesday last I was preaching in a
barn to a pretty large assembly of plain country people at a village a
few miles off. After a sermon from Hebrews vi. 12, we sang one of your
hymns (which, if I remember right, was the 140th of the second book).
And in that part of the worship I had the satisfaction to observe tears
in the eyes of several of the auditory, and after the service was over,
some of them told me that they were not able to sing, so deeply were
their minds affected with it, and the clerk in particular told me he
could hardly utter the words of it.[27] These were most of them poor
people who work for their living. On the mention of your name, I found
they had read several of your books with great delight, and that your
hymns and psalms were almost their daily entertainments. And when one of
the company said, ‘What if Dr. Watts should come down to Northampton?’
another replied, with a remarkable warmth, ‘The very sight of him would
be like an ordinance to me!’ I mention the thing just as it was, and am
persuaded it is but a familiar, natural specimen of what often occurs
amongst a multitude of Christians who never saw your face. Nor do I by
any means intend it as a compliment to a genius capable of entertaining
by the same compositions the greatest and the meanest of mankind, but
to remind you, dear sir (with all the deference and humility due to a
superior character), how much you owe to Him who has honoured you as the
instrument of such extensive service. Had Providence cast my lot near
you, I should joyfully have embraced the most frequent opportunities
of improving my understanding and warming my heart by conversing with
you, which would surely have been greatly for my advantage as a tutor,
a minister, and a Christian. As it is, I will omit none which may fall
in my way; and when I regret that I can enjoy no more of you here, will
comfort myself with the thoughts of that blessed state where I hope for
ever to dwell with you, and to join with you in sweeter and sublimer
songs than you have taught the Church below.”
One of the most notable persons who crossed the life of Dr. Doddridge
was Colonel James Gardiner: the stern soldier loved the gentle Doctor,
and not less did the gentle spirit of the Doctor attach itself firmly
to the stern soldier. Another instance of the singular hinges on which
friendships are suspended. Doddridge wrote his life, and it created
no little sensation, especially in those circles to which Colonel
Gardiner belonged. One of the last letters of the Countess of Hertford
to Dr. Watts refers so distinctly to this book and to the character of
Doddridge, that it may appropriately find a place here:
“PERCY LODGE, _Nov. 15, 1747_.
“REVEREND SIR,
“The last time I troubled you with a letter was to return you
thanks for your work on the “Glory of Christ,” a subject which
can never be exhausted, or ever thought of without calling for
all the praise which our hearts are capable of in our present
imperfect state. My gratitude to you is again awakened by
the obligation I am under (and, indeed, the whole Christian
Church) to you for giving Dr. Doddridge the plan, and engaging
him to write his excellent book of “The Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul.” I have read it with the utmost
attention and pleasure, and, I would hope, with some advantage
to myself, unless I should be so unhappy as to find the
impression it has made on my heart wear off like the morning
dew which passeth away, which God in His mercy avert. If you
have a correspondence with him, I could wish you would convey
my thanks to him, and the assurance that I shall frequently
remember him in my humble (though weak) address to the throne
of Almighty Grace (and which I know myself unworthy to look up
to any otherwise than through the merits and sufferings of our
blessed Saviour), that he may go on to spread the knowledge and
practice of his doctrine, and that he may add numbers to the
Church, and finally hear those blessed words, ‘Well done, thou
good and faithful servant, enter thou into thy Master’s joy.’
“I cannot help mentioning to you the manner of this book
falling into my hands, as I think there was something
providential in it. About four months ago my poor lord had
so totally lost his appetite that his physician thought it
necessary for him to go to Bath. I was not a moment in doubt
whether I should attend him there, because I knew it was my
duty, and, besides, I could not have been easy to be absent
when I hoped my care might be of some use. Yet I undertook the
journey with a weight upon my spirits, and a reluctance which
is not to be described, though I concealed it from him. Since
the great affliction with which it pleased Almighty God to
visit me by the death of a most valuable and only son, I found
myself happiest in almost an entire retreat from the world, and
being of a sudden called into a place where I remembered to
have seen the utmost of its hurry and vanity exerted, terrified
my imagination to the last degree, and I shed tears every time
I was alone at the thought of what I expected to encounter; yet
this dreaded change has, by the goodness of God, proved one
of the happiest periods in my life, and I can look back upon
no part of it with greater thankfulness and satisfaction. I
had the comfort to see my Lord Hertford recovering his health
by the use of those waters as fast as I could hope for. I
found it was no longer necessary, as formerly, to avoid giving
offence, to be always or frequently in company; I enjoyed
the conversation of two worthy old friends, whom I did not
expect to meet there, and had an opportunity of renewing my
acquaintance with Lady Huntingdon, and admiring that truly
Christian spirit which seems to animate the whole course of
her life; and, as I seldom went out, I read a great deal, and
Frederick, the bookseller, used to send the new books which he
received on the waggon nights, of which I kept what I chose,
and sent back the rest. One night he sent me an account of some
remarkable passages relating to the life of Colonel Gardiner;
as I had known this gentleman in his unconverted state, and
often heard with admiration the sudden and thorough change of
his conduct for many years, it gave me curiosity to read a book
which seemed to promise me some information upon that subject.
I was so touched with the account given of it that I could not
help speaking of it to almost everybody I saw; among others,
the Dowager Lady Hyndford came to make me a visit in the
morning, and as I knew she was of his country, and had lived
much in it, I began to talk to her of the book, and happened to
name the author. Upon which she said she would believe whatever
he wrote, for he was a truly good man, and had wrote upon the
‘Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul’ in a manner which
she was sure would please me. She gave me the title in writing,
and I bought the book the day before I left Bath. I have now
been at home three weeks, and have already had the pleasure
to engage several others to read it, who, I hope, will think
of it as I do. I would not wish to trouble you to write to me
yourself, but a letter from your amanuensis to let me know how
you enjoy your health, and whether you are still carrying on
some work of your pen to the glory of our great Master, would
be a very sincere pleasure to me. Let me beg to be remembered
in your prayers, for I am every day more sensible of the
imperfection of my own, and yet, I hope, my heart is sincere in
its desires, that it may be brought to a perfect conformity and
submission to the will of my heavenly Father. My Lord Hertford
always mentions you with regard, and will be glad of your
acceptance of the assurance of his friendship.
“I am, with an affectionate esteem, Sir,
“Your most faithful and obliged humble servant,
“F. HERTFORD.”
It is impossible not to feel that, viewed from many aspects, Philip
Doddridge must have been Watts’ most congenial friend. The largest
portion of Watts’ work was done before they knew each other, but
friendships founded in sympathy ripen very rapidly, and the difference
of years is very slightly felt where there is a great and happy
congeniality of hearts. Watts was not a glowing correspondent, but none
of his letters are so tender as those to Doddridge, to whom he writes
as his “dear and valuable friend,” and always his “affectionate brother
and fellow servant,” and the letters warm greatly as the correspondence
increases, Doddridge always looked up to, and spoke of, Watts in terms
of extraordinary reverence and affection; in their work they were
very similar; Doddridge’s nature was smaller than his friend’s, but
in its measure it was very harmonious and perfect. Watts had a fine
metaphysical sagacity, and the keenness with which he analyzed never
interfered for a moment with the clearness of visions by which he stepped
from the discrete to the concrete, and from parts to the whole; hence,
notwithstanding his fair and catholic nature, he appears to have been
much more absolutely dogmatic than Doddridge, and it was perhaps the
defect of this great man’s teaching that from the fatal facility which
brought him into contact with every class and shade of opinion, the lines
of his more absolute creed were not fixed with sufficient distinctness:
but from his tutorship there passed forth a variety of men who all
delighted to confess their obligations to Doddridge,—Hugh Farmer, Andrew
Kippis, Job Orton, Benjamin Fawcett, and, if not the most scholarly, that
beautiful and well-known teacher, who realized perhaps beyond any his
tutor’s spirit and his tutor’s peculiar power, Risdon Darracott. Such was
Doddridge, without some notice and knowledge of whom a review of the life
and times, the friends and labours of Watts would be incomplete.
One hundred and twenty years have passed away since Philip Doddridge
died, but his name and many of his works are still as sweet and
fragrant as ever. His “Life of Colonel Gardiner” is still one of the
most interesting of religious biographies; his “Family Expositor” still
holds its place in the family; his theological lectures are still an
invaluable curriculum; his correspondence is full of entertainment and
interest; his hymns are still sung in all our churches, and that to
which we have referred, which ought assuredly to be spoken of as his, “O
God of Bethel,” sounded the other day down the aisles of Westminster,
as the body of Livingstone was lowered into the grave. Doddridge’s
body, of course, was denied a resting-place at Lisbon by the civil
and ecclesiastical authorities, but it was permitted to repose in the
burying-ground of the English Factory. The great earthquake, which
occurred shortly after, left his grave undisturbed, and it is a spot of
holy ground unto this day.[28]
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