CHAPTER XVI.

Summary and Estimate of Prose Writings.

In attempting any estimate of the prose writings of Watts we give the

first place to his educational works. And without descending to adulation

it may be fairly questioned whether any one individual in English

literature has effected so much and such various work for the cause of

education as Isaac Watts. As we have seen, he gave a system of logic to

the universities, a very simple system, but it broke up the old trammels

and chains of mere verbal logic, and taught students to look after, and

how to look at things. Johnson says: “Of his philosophical pieces his

‘Logic’ has been received into the universities, and therefore wants no

private recommendation. If he owes part of it to Le Clerc, it must be

considered that no man who undertakes merely to methodize or illustrate

a system pretends to be its author. Few books,” continues Johnson, “have

been perused by me with greater pleasure than his ‘Improvement of the

Mind,’ of which the radical principles may indeed be found in Locke’s

‘Conduct of the Understanding,’ but they are so expanded and magnified

by Watts as to confer upon him the merit of a work in the highest degree

useful and pleasing. Whoever has the care of instructing others may be

charged with deficiency in his duty if this book is not recommended.”

And in another paragraph of his memoir Johnson says: “For children he

condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to

write little poems of devotion and systems of instruction adapted to

their wants and capacities from the dawn of reason through its gradations

of advance in the morning of life. Every man acquainted with the common

principles of human action will look with veneration on the writer who

is at one time combating Locke, and in another making a catechism for

children in their fourth year; a voluntary descent from the dignity of

science is perhaps the hardest lesson that humility can teach.”

There is, indeed, scarcely a department of knowledge, however simple, to

which he did not descend; there is scarcely a region of thought, however

subtle, through which he did not familiarly move. We have a volume on

the “Art of Reading, Writing, and Pronouncing English,” this is for

the very youngest students; and for the same age we have his First and

Second Catechisms, and his “Divine and Moral Songs;” we have his work on

“Astronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes,” and the “Compendium

of the Assembly’s Catechism, with Proofs,” and his most charming and

rememberable “Catechism of Scripture History,” a large and yet most

compendious volume: and thus we reach the period of life when he prepares

the mind for its graver studies and more serious exploits.

The “Logic” is easy and delightful reading, and yet sets in order,

disciplines, marshals, and reviews mental materials so admirably

that it may be read with great profit as well as pleasure. When Lord

Barrington told Watts that he had a purpose to read it through once

every year, he said no extravagant thing. It brings the mind back to its

simplicity; it is not, and does not profess to be, a science of mind

or analysis of method, or the laws of thought, but it is a treatise

on logic, understanding by that term not so much the pushing inquiry

into unexplored domains and fields, as the setting forth the grammar

of thought, the principles of numeration, by which a knowledge of the

contents of the mind may be obtained, which is surely the true idea of

logic. The affluence of illustrations and references is very great, these

occur easily and rapidly, they are gathered up as a reaper gathers up a

sheaf. In its method it reminds us somewhat of Bacon’s “Novum Organum,”

for in every chapter, and every discrimination, illustration, and

distinction, occur instances unfolding the intention of the author, and

we venture to think that no logic has appeared since so well calculated

to make a clear and honest mind. The characteristics of the “Logic” of

Watts are very admirably summed up by Tissot, of Dijon, in his preface

to a translation published in Paris, 1848: “II y a aussi plus de méthode

et de clarté peut-être dans la logique de Watts que dans celle d’Arnaud.

Le bon sens Anglais, le sens des affaires, celui de la vie pratique,

s’y révèle à un très haut degré, tandis que le sens spéculatif d’un

théologien passablement scolastique encore est plus sensible dans _l’Art

de Penser_. Dr. Watts a su être complet; sans être excessif, il a touché

très convenablement tout ce qui devait l’être, et s’est toujours arrêté

au point précis où plus de profondeur nuit a la clarté.”[47]

As the “Logic” is a methodical and orderly arrangement of those

principles which give conduct to the understanding, as we have called

it a grammar rather than an etymology of the laws of thought, a setting

forth of their necessary conditions of thinking, rather than an inquiry

into their first principles, so his “Improvement of the Mind” is an

advance in the education of the character. The “Logic” is a code of

principles, the “Improvement of the Mind” the illustration of those

principles in their practice and action. No book can be better fitted to

strengthen and direct the mind in the first years of mind-life. Is it

ever read now? Is there an edition of it in circulation now? Are there

many youths who would have patience to read it now? And yet no work has

taken its place. It also, like the “Logic,” is fertile in illustrations

of all that the author desires to convey; every means by which the mind

can be enlarged or strengthened is dwelt upon; here there seems to be

no unnecessary diffuseness, but a compact presentation. The style is

apothegmatical, and rather colloquial than rhetorical, and it leaves

upon the mind of the reader the impression of a large world of wealth

in the mind of the author of which its pages are the mere fragments and

indications. There is a wisdom which rules men’s lives and acts in their

minds unconsciously, and ages and times vary in the method pursued for

the attainment of knowledge. Perhaps, in the times in which we live

the method is very much out of sight, and men become wise in spite of

themselves, the faculties of character are sharpened and made intense by

friction. It may also be said that character is not so much the result

of certain rules laid down for practice, as the inevitable pressure of

certain conditions from which it cannot well escape; life educates men

more than books, and the sharp collision of society and its rough usages

more than rules derived from writers. All this is true; but still

some men continue to preach, and others continue to hear, it is to be

supposed under the impression that the preaching and the hearing are not

altogether in vain; and it is a very desirable thing frequently to draw

out into the light certain principles, to give to minds, so to speak, a

pictorial resemblance of the idea.

It is so in the “Improvement of the Mind,” the very subjects are

suggestive: general rules to obtain knowledge,—the five methods

of improvement compared—rules relating to observation—books and

reading—judgment of books—living instruction by teachers—learning a

language—of knowing the sense of writers and speakers—conversation—of

disputes in general—the Socratical way of disputation—forensic

disputes—academic or scholastic disputes—study or meditation—of fixing

the attention—of enlarging the capacity of the mind—of improving the

memory—of determining questions—of inquiring into causes and effects—of

the sciences and their use. Then follows the second part, which was

posthumous; hitherto the mind has been supposed to be attaining, now it

is itself communicating, and here are discussions on methods of teaching

and reading lectures—of an instructive style—of convincing of truth or

delivering from error—of the use and abuse of authority—of managing the

prejudices of men—of instruction by preaching—of writing books for the

public, etc. etc. And beneath all these subjects is spread out a mass

of wise and useful observations, the result, the reader thinks, of a

life of earnest and careful study. A wise and candid judgment pervades

every page. A confidence in the writer as in one who is not writing

merely, but who is giving to the reader a portion of himself, grows in

the mind. Watts was himself an exceedingly careful student. We have

seen how his practice was to condense or to amplify the volumes or the

pages he himself read. He recommended this plan to be followed with the

nobler pieces of composition, and such as it seemed desirable to make the

heirlooms of the mind.

We have now lying before us the “Ecclesiastics” of John Wilkins, the

Bishop of Chester. The volume bears every internal evidence of being

the property of Dr. Watts: it is interleaved, and in addition to the

varied and singular learning of the book itself, in the handwriting

of the Doctor there is a perfect storehouse of references, exhibiting

the amazing world of knowledge over which his mind travelled; and not

merely references, but frequently some condensed expression of sentiment

and opinion. We ought to refer to this very valuable little manuscript

volume again. It often seems surprising that volumes such as these have

fallen into such neglect; but they only share the fate of multitudes of

others in various departments equally worthy. The number of those who

gaze upon the true regalia of literature is very small; our times delight

in startling contrasts, antitheses and paradoxes, and illustrations

frequently rather remarkable for their brilliancy than for their solid

and abiding persuasiveness. The literature of every time has its vices

and its virtues; writers even exercising a far stronger fascination and

spell over their day than Watts are very seldom referred to now, they are

names and little more. They are like extinct creations of other times,

a kind of dodo, a being very near to our own day, but yet only known by

a specimen preserved in a museum. Thus probably the two works to which

we have referred will have few more readers. Yet safer and wiser charts

for travelling the seas of knowledge were never prepared, and while they

breathe a fine mental independence, a freshness wafted from undiscovered

realms, they are eminently free from all that rashness and audacity of

speculation which some have chosen to regard as a pursuit of knowledge,

or as adding to the spoils of the understanding. He kept his students

within the bounds of the knowable and provable, and if he trampled upon

the ridiculous logic which had for years held the mind of Europe in

chains, by the fetters of words which had no kind of sense either in the

heavens or the earth, and resolutely determining that words could only

be valuable when they were the real signs of things, and things of which

something could be known; on the other hand, he gave no encouragement to

licentiousness of thought, which is as dangerous to the well-being of the

intelligence as the servility of opinion. So that, on the whole, whatever

advances and attainments we have made since, we may believe that for the

discipline and tutelage of the young, a better finger-post could scarcely

be set up upon the highways of knowledge than Watts’ “Logic;” a better

and more living guide a young man can scarcely have through the cities of

instruction than his “Improvement of the Mind.”

Among the pieces of our author which are least known are the essays

variously published under the title of “Reliquiæ Juveniles; Miscellaneous

Thoughts in Prose and Verse, on Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects,

written chiefly in younger years.” These were published in 1734, and

dedicated to the Countess of Hertford. A similar volume is the “Remnants

of Time Employed in Prose and Verse; or, Short Essays and Composures on

Various Subjects.” All of these are very pleasing essays, in which the

writer gives a more than ordinary rein to his fancy: the pieces are in

prose and verse, and they display a considerable amount of humour; the

subjects are very various, and display the purely literary excursions

of the author’s mind. The reader will be so far interested as to enjoy

some few selections. To dwell at length upon the characteristics of the

essays, or to indulge in any lengthy citation, would be like writing a

dissertation upon Johnson’s “Rambler,” or Addison’s “Spectator;” indeed,

there is very much of the Christian Rambler and the Christian Spectator

in these papers: brief essays on manners, on certain vices or defects of

character, conveyed after the usage of the time beneath names sheltered

under a Greek or Latin etymology; sometimes a graceful meditation upon a

text of Scripture, and sometimes a poem. We have ourselves found these

essays always fresh and interesting, possessing much of the spirit and

vivacity and philosophical meditativeness of Cowley, with a perpetual

suffusion of Christian sentiment and doctrine, and the whole exhibiting

the vigilance of the author’s eye, and the active usefulness of his mind.

THE SKELETON.

“Young Tramarinus was just returned from his travels abroad,

when he invited his uncle to his lodgings on a Saturday noon.

His uncle was a substantial trader in the City, a man of

sincere goodness, and of no contemptible understanding; Crato

was his name. The nephew first entertained him with learned

talk of his travels. The conversation happening to fall upon

anatomy, and speaking of the hand, he mentioned the carpus and

the metacarpus, the joining of the bones by many hard names,

and the periosteum which covered them, together with other

Greek words, which Crato had never heard of. Then he showed

him a few curiosities he had collected; but anatomy being

the subject of their chief discourse, he dwelt much upon the

skeletons of a hare and a partridge. ‘Observe, sir,’ said he,

‘how firm the joints! how nicely the parts are fitted to each

other! how proper this limb for flight, and that for running;

and how wonderful the whole composition!’ Crato took due

notice of the most considerable parts of those animals, and

observed the chief remarks his nephew made; but being detained

there two hours without a dinner, assuming a pleasant air, he

said, ‘I wish these rarities had flesh upon them, for I begin

to be hungry, nephew, and you entertain me with nothing but

bones.’ Then he carried home his nephew to dinner with him, and

dismissed the jest.

“The next morning his kinsman Tramarinus desired him to hear

a sermon at such a church, ‘For I am informed,’ said he, ‘the

preacher will be my old schoolmaster.’ It was Agrotes, a

country minister, who was to fulfil the service of the day;

an honest, a pious, and a useful man, who fed his own people

weekly with Divine food, composed his sermons with a mixture

of the instructive and the pathetic, and delivered them with

no improper elocution. Where any difficulty appeared in the

text or the subject, he usually explained it in a very natural

and easy manner, to the understanding of all his parishioners.

He paraphrased on the most affecting parts largely, that he

might strike the conscience of every hearer, and had been the

happy means of the salvation of many; but he thought thus with

himself, ‘When I preach at London I have hearers of a wiser

rank, I must feed them with learning and substantial sense,

and must have my discourse set thick with distinct sentences

and new matter.’ He contrived, therefore, to abridge his

composures, and to throw four of his country sermons together

to make up one for the City, and yet he could not forbear to

add a little Greek in the beginning. He told the auditors how

the text was to be explained; he set forth the analysis of the

words in order, showed the _hoti_ and the _dioti_—that is, that

it was so, and why it was so—with much learned criticism—all

of which he wisely left out in the country; then he pronounced

the doctrine distinctly, and filled up the rest of the hour

with the mere rehearsal of the general and special heads; but

he omitted all the amplification which made his performances

in the country so clear and so intelligible, so warm and

affecting. In short, it was the mere joints and carcase of a

long composure, and contained above forty branches in it. The

hearers had no time to consider or reflect on the good things

which were spoken, or apply them to their own consciences; the

preacher hurried their attention so fast onward to new matters

that they could make no use of anything he said while he spoke

it, nor had they a moment for reflection, in order to fix it in

their memories and improve by it at home.

“The young gentleman was somewhat out of countenance when the

sermon was done, for he missed all that life and spirit, that

pathetic amplification, which impressed his conscience when

he was but a school-boy. However, he put the best face upon

it, and began to commend the performance. ‘Was it not,’ said

he, ‘sir, a substantial discourse? How well connected all the

reasons! How strong all the inferences, and what a variety

and number of them!’ ‘It is true,’ said the uncle, ‘but yet

methinks I want food here, and I find nothing but bones again.

I could not have thought, nephew, you would have treated me

two days together just alike; yesterday at home, and to-day

at church, the first course was Greek, and all the rest mere

skeleton.’”

GOD IN VEGETATION.

“Let us first consider this as it relates to the vegetable part

of the creation. What a profusion of beauty and fragrancy, of

shapes and colours, of smells and tastes, is scattered among

the herbs and flowers of the ground, among the shrubs, the

trees, and the fruits of the field! Colouring in its original

glory and perfection triumphs here; red, yellow, green, blue,

purple, with vastly more diversities than the rainbow ever

knew, or the prism can represent, are distributed among the

flowers and the blossoms. And what variety of tastes, both

original and compounded, of sweet, bitter, sharp, with a

thousand nameless flavours, are found among the herbs of the

garden! What an amazing difference of shapes and sizes appears

among the trees of the field and forest in their branches and

their leaves! and what a luxurious and elegant distinction in

their several fruits! How very numerous are their distinct

properties in their uses in human life! And yet these two

common elements, earth and water, are the only materials out

of which they are all composed, from the beginning to the

end of nature and time. Let the gardener dress for himself

one field of fresh earth, and make it as uniform as he can;

then let him plant therein all the varieties of the vegetable

world, in their roots or in their seeds, as he shall think most

proper; yet out of this common earth, under the droppings of

common water from heaven, every one of these plants shall be

nourished, and grow up in their proper forms; all the infinity,

diversity of shapes and sizes, colours, tastes, and smells,

which constitute and adorn the vegetable world, would the

climate permit, might be produced out of the same clods. What

rich and surprising wisdom appears in that Almighty Operator,

who out of the same matter shall perfume the bosom of the rose,

and give the garlic its offensive and nauseous powers; who

from the same spot of ground shall raise the liquorice and the

wormwood, and dress the cheek of the tulip in all its glowing

beauties! What a surprise, to see the same field furnish the

pomegranate and the orange tree, with their juicy fruit, and

the stacks of corn with their dry and husky grains; to observe

the oak raised from a little acorn into its stately growth

and solid timber; and that pillars for the support of future

temples and palaces should spring out of the same bed of earth

that sent up the vine with such soft and feeble limbs as are

unable to support themselves! What a natural kind of prodigy

it is, that chilling and burning vegetables should arise out

of the same spot; that the fever and frenzy should start up

from the same bed where the palsy and the lethargy lie dormant

in their seeds! Is it not exceeding strange that healthful and

poisonous juices should rise up, in their proper plants, out

of the same common glebe, and that life and death should grow

and thrive within an inch of each other? What wondrous and

inimitable skill must be attributed to that Supreme Power, that

First Cause, who can so infinitely diversify effects, where

the servile second cause is so uniform and always the same!

It is not for me in this place to enter into a long detail of

philosophy, and show how the minute fibres and tubes of the

different seeds and roots of vegetables take hold of, attract,

and receive the little particles of earth and water proper for

their own growth; how they form them at first into their own

shapes, sending them up aspiring above ground by degrees, and

mould them so as frame the stalks, the branches, the leaves,

and the buds of every flower, herb, and tree. But I presume

the world is too weary of substantial forms, and plastic

powers, and names without ideas, to be persuaded that these

mere creatures of fancy should ever be the operators in this

wondrous work. It is much more honourable to attribute all to

the design and long forethought of God the Creator, who formed

the first vegetables in such a manner, and appointed their

little parts to ferment under the warm sunbeams, according to

such established laws of motion as to mould the atoms of earth

and water which were near them in their own figure, to make

them grow up into trunk and branches, which every night should

harden into firmness and stability; and, again, to mould new

atoms of the same element into leaves and bloom, fruit and

seed, which last, being dropped into the earth, should produce

new plants of the same likeness to the end of the world.”

FOOD.

“If the food of which one single animal partakes be never so

various and different, yet the same laws of motion which God

has ordained in the animal world, convert them all to the same

purposes of nourishment for that creature. Behold the little

bee gathering its honey from a thousand flowers, and laying up

the precious store for its winter food. Mark how the crow preys

upon a carcase, anon it crops a cherry from the tree; and both

are changed into the flesh and feathers of a crow. Observe the

kine in the meadows feeding on a hundred varieties of herbs

and flowers, yet all the different parts of their bodies are

nourished thereby in a proper manner: every flower in the field

is made use of to increase the flesh of the heifer, and to make

beef for men; and out of all these varieties there is a noble

milky juice flowing to the udder, which provides nourishment

for young children. So near akin is man, the lord of the

creation, in respect of his body, to the brutes that are his

slaves, that the very same food will compose the flesh of both

of them, and make them grow up to their appointed stature. This

is evident beyond doubt in daily and everlasting experiments.

The same bread-corn which we eat at our tables will give rich

support to sparrows and pigeons, to the turkey and the duck,

and all the fowls of the yard: the mouse steals it and feeds on

it in its dark retirement; while the hog in the sty, and the

horse in the manger, would be glad to partake. When the poor

cottager has nursed up a couple of geese, the fox seizes one

of them for the support of her cubs, and perhaps the table of

the landlord is furnished with the other to regale his friends.

Nor is it an uncommon thing to see the favourite lap-dog fed

out of the same bowl of milk which is prepared for the heir

of a wealthy family, but which nature had originally designed

to nourish a calf. The same milky material will make calves,

lap-dogs, and human bodies.”

CHRIST AS A SUN.

“I cannot deny myself, in this place, the pleasure of

publishing to the world a very beautiful resemblance, the first

hints and notices whereof I received formerly in conversation

from my reverend and worthy friend Mr. Robert Bragge, whereby

the person of Christ as God-man in His exalted state may

be happily represented. The sun in the heavens is the most

glorious of all visible beings: his sovereign influence has a

most astonishing extent through all the planetary globes, and

bestows light and heat upon all of them. It is the sun that

gives life and motion to all the infinite varieties of the

animal world in the earth, air, and water. It draws out the

vegetable juices from the earth, and covers the surface of it

with trees, herbs, and flowers. It is the sun that gives beauty

and colour to all the millions of bodies round the globe;

by its pervading power perhaps it forms minerals and metals

under the earth. Its happy effects are innumerable; they reach

certainly to everything that has life and motion, or that

gives life, support, or pleasure to mankind. Now suppose God

should create a most illustrious spirit, and unite it to the

body of the sun, as a human soul is united to a human body:

suppose this spirit had a perceptive power capacious enough

to become conscious of every sunbeam, and all the influences

and effects of this vast shining globe, both in its light,

heat, and motion, even to the remotest region; and suppose at

the same time it was able, by an act of its will, to send out

or withhold every sunbeam as it pleased, and thereby to give

light and darkness, life and death, in a sovereign manner, to

all the animal inhabitants of this our earth, or even of all

the planetary worlds. Such may be the ‘glorified human soul

of our blessed Redeemer united to His glorified body;’ and

perhaps His knowledge and His power may be as extensive as

this similitude represents, especially when we consider this

soul and body as personally united to the Divine nature, and

as one with God. Now this noble thought may be supported by

such considerations as these. As our souls are conscious of

the light, shape, motions, etc., of such distant bodies as the

planet Saturn or the fixed stars, because our eyes receive rays

from thence; so may not a human soul united to a body as easily

be supposed to have a consciousness of anything, wheresoever

it can send out rays or emit either fluids or atoms from its

own body? May not the sun, for instance, if a soul were

united to it, become thereby so glorious a complex being, as

to send out every ray with knowledge, and have a consciousness

of everything wheresoever it sends its direct or reflected

rays? And may not the human soul of our Lord Jesus Christ

have a consciousness of everything wheresoever it can send

direct or reflected rays from His own shining and glorified

body? To add yet to the wonder, we may suppose that these

rays may be subtle as magnetic beams, which penetrate brass

and stone as easily as light doth glass; and at the same time

they may be as swift as light, which reaches the most amazing

distance of several millions of miles in a minute. By this

means, since the light of the sun pervades all secret chambers

in our hemisphere at once, and fills all places with direct

and reflected beams, if consciousness belonged to all those

beams, what a sort of omniscient being would the sun be! I mean

omniscient in its own sphere. And why may not the human soul

and body of our glorified Saviour be thus furnished with such

an amazing extent of knowledge and power, and yet not be truly

infinite? Let us dwell a little longer upon these delightful

contemplations. If a soul had but a full knowledge and command

of all the atoms of one solid foot of matter, which according

to modern philosophy is infinitely divisible, what strange and

astonishing influences would it have over this world of ours?

What confusions might it raise in distant nations, sending

pestilential streams into a thousand bodies, and destroying

armies at once? And it might scatter benign or healing and

vital influences to as large a circumference. If our blessed

Lord, in the days of His humiliation, could send virtue out of

Him to heal a poor diseased woman, who touched the hem of His

garment with a finger, who knows what healing atoms, or what

killing influences, He may send from His dwelling in glory to

the remotest distances of our world, to execute His Father’s

counsels of judgment or mercy? It is not impossible, so far as

I can judge, that the soul of Christ in its glorified state may

have as much command over our heavens and our earth, and all

things contained in them, as our souls in the present state

have over our own limbs and muscles to move them at pleasure.

Let us remember that it is now found out, and agreed in the

new philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, that the distances are

prodigious to which the powerful influence of the sun reaches

in the centre of our planetary system. It is the sun who holds

and restrains all the planets in their several orbits, and

keeps in those vast bodies of Jupiter and Saturn in their

constant revolutions—one at the distance of 424 millions, and

the other at the distance of 777 millions of miles—besides

all the other influences it has upon everything that may live

and grow in those planetary worlds. It is the sun who reduces

the long wanderings of the comets back again near to himself

from distances more immensely great than those of Saturn and

Jupiter. And why may not the human nature of our Lord Jesus

Christ, both in soul and body, have a dominion given Him by the

Father larger than the sun in the firmament? Why may not the

Son of God be endued with an immediate consciousness and agency

to a far greater distance? Thus if we conceive of the human

soul of Christ, either in the amazing extent of its own native

powers or in the additional acquirements of a glorified state,

we see reason to believe that its capacities are far above

our old usual conceptions, and may be raised and exalted to a

degree of knowledge, power, and glory suitable and equal to His

operations and offices, so far as they are attributed to His

human nature in the word of God.”

APPARENT FOLLY REAL WISDOM.

“This very man, this Gelotes, a few days ago, was carried by

his neighbour Typiger, to see a gentleman of his acquaintance;

they found him standing at the window of his chamber, moving

and turning round a glass prism, near a round hole which he

had made in the window-shutter, and casting all the colours

of the rainbow upon the wall of the room. They were unwilling

to disturb him, though he amused himself at this rate for

half an hour together, merely to please and entertain his

eyesight, as Gelotes imagined, with the brightness and the

strength of the reds and the blues, the greens and the

purples, in many shifting forms of situation, while several

little implements lay about him, of white paper and shreds of

coloured silk, pieces of tin with holes in them, spectacles and

burning-glasses. When the gentleman at last spied his company,

he came down and entertained them agreeably enough upon other

subjects, and dismissed them. At another time, Gelotes beheld

the same gentleman blowing up large bubbles with a tobacco-pipe

out of a bowl of water well impregnated with soap, which is a

common diversion of boys. As the bubbles rose, he marked the

little changeable colours on the surface of them with great

attention, till they broke and vanished into air and water. He

seemed to be very grave and solemn in this sort of recreation,

and now and then smiled to see the little appearances and

disappearances of colours, as the bubbles grew thinner towards

the top, while the watery particles of it ran down along the

side to the bottom, and the surface grew too thin and feeble

to include the air, then it burst to pieces and was lost.

‘Well,’ says Gelotes to his friend, ‘I did not think you would

have carried me into the acquaintance of a madman; surely he

can never be right in his senses who wastes his hours in such

fooleries as these. Whatsoever good opinion I had conceived of

a gentleman of your intimacy, I am amazed now that you should

keep up any degree of acquaintance with him, when his reason is

gone and he is become a mere child. What are all these little

scenes of sport and amusement, but proofs of the absence of

his understanding? Poor gentleman! I pity him in his unhappy

circumstances; but I hope he has friends to take care of him

under this degree of distraction.’ Typiger was not a little

pleased to see that his project, with regard to his neighbour

Gelotes, had succeeded so well; and when he had suffered him to

run on at this rate for some minutes, he interrupted him with a

surprising word: ‘This very gentleman,’ says he, ‘is the great

Sir Isaac Newton, the first of philosophers, the glory of Great

Britain, and renowned among the nations. You have beheld him

now making these experiments over again by which he first found

out the nature of light and colours, and penetrated deeper into

the mysteries of them than all mankind ever knew before him.

This is the man, and these his contrivances, upon which you so

freely cast your contempt, and pronounce him distracted. You

know not the depth of his designs, and therefore you censured

them all as fooleries, whereas the learned world has esteemed

them the utmost reach of human sagacity.’

“Gelotes was all confusion and silence; whereupon Typiger

proceeded thus: ‘Go now and ridicule the law-giver of Israel,

and the ceremonies of the Jewish Church, which Moses taught

them; go, repeat your folly and your slanders, and laugh at

these Divine ceremonies, merely because you know not the

meaning of them, go, and affront the God of Israel, and

reproach Him for sending Moses to teach such forms of worship

to the Jews. There is not the least of them but was appointed

by the Greatest of Beings, and has some special design and

purpose in the eye of Divine Wisdom. Many of them were

explained by the Apostle Paul, in his letter to the Hebrews,

as types and emblems of the glories and blessings of the New

Testament; and the rest of them, whose reason has not been

discovered to us, remain, perhaps, to be made known at the

conversion of the Jews, when Divine light shall be spread over

all the ancient dispensations, and a brighter glory diffused

over all the rites and forms of religion which God ever

instituted among the race of Adam.’”

A PLEA FOR CHRISTIANIZING HORACE.

“It is a piece of ancient and sacred history which Moses

informs us of, that when the tribes of Israel departed from

the land of Egypt, they borrowed of their neighbours gold and

jewels by the appointment of God, for the decoration of their

sacrifices and solemn worship when they should arrive at the

appointed place in the wilderness. God Himself taught His

people how the richest of metals which had ever been abused to

the worship of idols might be purified by the fire, and being

melted up into a new form, might be consecrated to the service

of the living God, and add to the magnificence and grandeur

of His tabernacle and temple. Such are some of the poetical

writings of the ancient heathens; they have a great deal of

native beauty and lustre in them, and through some happy turn

given them by the pen of a Christian poet may be transformed

into Divine meditations, and may assist the devout and pious

soul in several parts of the Christian life and worship.

Amongst all the rest of the Pagan writers, I know none so

fit for this service as the odes of Horace, as vile a sinner

as he was. Their manner of composure comes nearer the spirit

and force of the Psalms of David than any other; and as we

take the devotions of the Jewish king, and bring them into our

Christian churches, by changing the scene and the chronology,

and superadding some of the glories of the Gospel so may the

representation of some of the heathen virtues, by a little more

labour, be changed into Christian graces, or, at least, into

the image of them, so far as human power can reach. One day,

musing on this subject, I made an experiment on the two last

stanzas of Ode xxix, Book iii.

‘Non est meum, si mugiat Africis

Malus procellis, ad miseras preces

Decurrere, et votis pacisci,

Ne Cypriæ Syriæque merces

Addant avaro divitias mari;

Dum me, biremis præsidio scaphæ,

Nudum per Ægeos tumultus

Aura ferat, geminusque Pollux.’

THE BRITISH FISHERMAN.

Let Spain’s proud traders, when the mast

Bends groaning to the stormy blast,

Run to their beads with wretched plaints,

And vow and bargain with their saints,

Lest Turkish silks or Tyrian wares

Sink in the drowning ship,

Or the rich dust Peru prepares,

Defraud their long projecting cares,

And add new treasures to the greedy deep.

My little skiff that skims the shores,

With half a sail and two short oars,

Provides me food in gentler waves;

But if they gape in watery graves

I trust the Eternal Power, whose hand

Has swelled the storm on high,

To waft my boat and me to land,

Or give some angel swift command

To bear the drowning sailor to the sky.”

A work like this would be incomplete if it did not attempt some general

estimate, however feeble, of our author’s works, which are, however, so

various that it is difficult to bring their relation to their author’s

mind beneath one classification. The remark Dr. Jennings made in his

funeral sermon is simply just, when he says he “questions whether any

author before Dr. Watts ever appeared with a reputation on such a variety

of subjects as he has, both as a prose writer and a poet. However,” he

adds, “this I may venture to say, there is no man now living of whose

works so many have been diffused at home and abroad, which are in such

constant use, and translated into such a variety of languages, many of

which I doubt not will remain more durable monuments of his great talents

than any representation I can make of them, though it were to be graven

on pillars of brass. Thus did he shine as an ingenious man and a scholar.”

This circumstance of _the variety of his writings_ constitutes them an

element of his character: he was more various than intense, acute rather

than profound. There are some of his works upon which we need not permit

ourselves to be detained, they illustrate his readiness in turning to

every kind of labour which seemed to give the promise of usefulness, for

usefulness was evidently in everything the object he set before himself.

Regarded by the immense apparatus now at hand for every kind of mental

exercise Watts’ labours do some of them seem needless; but regarded from

his own age, it appears as if he created, originated, and gave effect

to almost every department of religious or improving knowledge. If the

reader looks round the literary horizon of that day, he will learn

rightly to estimate the benefits conferred by this writer; and these

works, the smallest, the most inferior of his mental exercises, were

not one of them a mere compilation, they were all the emanations of that

perpetually active mind, which, whether the body were well or ill, must

be employed for some useful object and end. None of his books were made

out of other books, excepting, indeed, so far as almost every volume must

imply the knowledge of a subject and the mind of an author; and at the

same time it must be said that some of his books for the young have been

dropped but not surpassed; they might still furnish the best hints and

the best arrangements for obtaining and imparting knowledge.

Being a literary man, Watts falls beneath a class of observations

which are not either necessary or applicable in forming an estimate

of almost any of his brethren, such as Howe, or Jacomb, or Bradbury,

or, indeed, any of the writers of his order or day. The _wisdom_ of

his mind was remarkable; it was “a city, built four square.” In this

useful purpose, which he ever kept before him, whatever charges may be

preferred against him on the score of the indulgence of fancy (and many

of his writings reveal how capable he was of such excursions), he kept

his mind singularly free from the literary vanities of his times, and

his times as singularly illustrate at once the vanity and the glory of

literature. If anybody would know what vanities there were, let him take

down the volumes of the Athenian Oracle,[48] and he will find few other

volumes which will give so lively an impression of the literary folly

of those times. Old Samuel Wesley, John Wesley’s father, did not disdain

to contribute largely to those pages; they are affluent in absurdities,

while they have a show of learned ignorance. Select a few; most of the

essays are in the way of question and answer. “Balaam being a Moabite,

how could he understand the ass speaking to him in Hebrew? How came the

two disciples to know Moses and Elias on the mount? I am resolved to go

round the earth on foot; I desire to know whether my head or my feet will

travel the most, and how much the one more than the other? Whether or no

there is a vacuum? Whether it is more proper to say the soul contains

the body, or the body the soul? Whether the quadrature of the circle be

possible? Pray, why does _a n d_ not spell _t u m_? _t h e_, _m e d_?

etc. etc. Whether Adam was a giant? How a silkworm lives when it has left

off eating and is enclosed in its web? Whether it is prudent to live in

a room haunted by spirits? Whether, since mermen and mermaids have more

of the human shape than other fishes, they may be thought to have more

reason? Where extinguished fire goes to? Where was the land of Nod? How

is it the spaniel knows its master’s horse? Whether a finite creature is

capable of enduring infinite loss?” etc. etc.

These volumes, perhaps, constitute the most amazing collection of

nonsense in our own or any other language; nor are they without a certain

value as illustrating, not only the time, then in possession of men, but

the ridiculous way in which they used it. Of course there are questions,

and many of them, of a more grave and serious character, but for the most

part they are the very soap-bubbles of the most foppish and foolish

imaginations, the most undisciplined and frequently prurient and indecent

fancies. The indulgence in these was quite a phase of the intellectual

life of the time. A singular chapter in the curiosities of literature

and science a reader may find in such volumes as the “Philosophical

Conferences of France;”[49] and the vanities of theology were quite

equal to the vanities of literature, as may be seen in the innumerable

productions of the time.

With a mind so disposed to imaginative excursions, it is quite worthy

of notice that Watts preserved a wise balance of all his powers and

faculties; he lived on the confines of the age of the wildest mysticism

our literature has known. From some words in his works he appears to have

been well acquainted with the writings of Henry More, and also to have

entertained for them that reverence and respect which assuredly many of

them command; but from their singular and erratic fancies he kept himself

quite free. Very strange are the matters with which we find these old

men entertained themselves, affirming “that God of Himself is a dale of

darkness, were it not for the light of the Son;” “that the star-powers

are Nature, and the star-circle the mother of all things, from which all

is, subsists, and moves;” “that the waters of the world are mad, which

makes them rave and run up and down, so as they do in the channels of the

earth;” “that they, at last, shall be calcined into crystal;” “that the

pure blood in man answers to the element of fire in the great world, his

heart to the earth, his mouth to the Arctic pole; and”—but we will not

finish this sublime stretch of metaphysical imagination—“that there be

two kinds of fires, the one a cold fire and the other hot, and that death

is a cold fire;” “that everything has sense, imagination, and a fiducial

knowledge of God in it—metals, meteors, and plants not excepted.” Also

the like pleasant excursions of fancy are found in “Paracelsus,” as “that

the stars are, as it were, the phials, or cucurbits, in which meteorical

sal, sulphur, and mercury are contained, and that the winds are made

out of these by the ethereal vulcans, are blown forth out of these

emunctories, as when a man blows or breathes out of his mouth;” “that

the stars are, as it were, the pots in which the archeus, or heavenly

vulcan, prepares pluvious matter, which, exhaled from thence, first

appears in the form of clouds, and after condenses to rain;” “that hail

and snow are the fruits of the stars, proceeding from them as flowers and

blossoms from trees;” “that the lightning and thunder are, as it were,

the deciduous fruits of the ethereal stars;” “that the stars eat and are

nourished,” etc. etc.

All this, and a good deal more to the like purpose. Since the beginning

of the world, men have asked of themselves and others strange questions,

like those Southey discovered in Luys de Escobar: “When God made dresses

for Adam and Eve, how did He get the skins of which those dresses were

made, seeing that beasts were not yet killed?” “Perhaps,” says the

respondent, “He made skins on purpose.” “Why are there three persons in

the Trinity rather than four or five?” “St. Cosmas and St. Damian cut off

a black man’s leg and fastened it on a white man; which will have the

leg at the resurrection?” “How did Adam learn Hebrew?” Queer curiosities

these, all of which will remind the reader of the madness of Elinora

Melorina, a lady of Mantua, who, being fully persuaded she was married

to a king, would kneel down and talk with him, as if he had then been

present with his retinue. Nay, if she by any chance found a piece of

glass upon a dunghill, or if she came upon a piece of oyster-shell or

tin, or any such thing that would glisten in the sunshine, she would say

it was a jewel sent from her lord and husband, and upon this account she

would fill her cabinet full of this kind of rubbish. The cabinets of the

mystics, amidst some worthier matter, are full of the kind of rubbish we

have quoted above, which, when instanced as solutions of things psychical

or physical, seem to be as satisfactory as the old story of the foolish

person who, riding an ass to the pond to drink by the light of the moon,

and some clouds intervening, and hiding the moon while the ass was

drinking, arrived at the grave conclusion that the ass had swallowed up

the moon, and took it clean out of being. When such grave problems and

questions are the result of so much of fasting and devotion, they only

remind us of the question preferred by a monk on one occasion to a higher

Church dignitary: “How many keys did Christ give to Peter?” which brought

the satisfactory reply, that “he ought to prepare himself by a course of

physic for such grave, sweet, and savoury questions!” Illustrative as

they are of the literary vanities and follies of the time, follies to

which even scholarly clergymen and eminent writers lent themselves, and

as illustrating also not only the freedom of Watts from such epidemical

foolishness, but the work he did in calling the mind to healthful methods

of thought, the writer trusts their quotation here may be forgiven.

He appears to have preserved his mind in great stillness. It is the quiet

and still mind which is wise and prudent; and, like Henry More, to whom

we have referred, his life would repeat what that great man was wont to

say, “In the more peaceful spirit, when it is also a quick and perceptive

one, will always reside those faculties which are to the soul vision and

power. In the deep and calm mind alone, in a temper clear and serene,

such as is purged from the dregs, and devoid of the more disorderly

tumults of the body, doth true wisdom or genuine philosophy, as in its

own proper tower, securely reside.” Hence the first great attribute of

Watts’ mind is _clearness_.

He ever kept before him a purpose of _usefulness_, alike in teaching men

what to think about, and how to think about it; indeed, it is simply

true, as Gibbons has remarked, that _perspicuity_ was eminently a feature

of his intellect; and it must be admitted that upon whatever he speaks

or writes, he is always clearly to be understood—as we have seen, it was

by no means a great virtue of his age, or of his contemporaries; and if

he discoursed upon the more lofty and difficult subjects of thought or

philosophy, they seem to acquire clearness in their passage through his

mind. He did not crowd words upon each other, and images of every order

were used by him, not to add to the splendour of a paragraph, or to set

off a division, but for the purpose of reflecting light on the reader’s

mind. He has dwelt himself upon the prime importance of perspicuity.

In his “Improvement of the Mind,” he says: “He that would gain a happy

talent for the instruction of others must know how to disentangle and

divide his thoughts, if too many are ready to crowd into one paragraph;

and let him rather speak three sentences distinctly and clearly, which

the hearer receives at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd all

the thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer has forgotten before

he can understand it.” It is a prime virtue in Watts’ style that it

is clear; it ought to be a chief virtue in every writer. In him it

illustrated the character of his mind. He seemed even to be impatient

of the dark and obscure, and he never would permit himself to repose

near the absolutely incomprehensible without attempting in some way to

understand it; so, also, as he attempts to express his mind upon any

subject, his sentences instantly appear to be the very windows of the

intellect. And this accounts for that other noticeable characteristic of

his style—_its perfect ease_. There was smoothness and grace, the entire

absence of the turgid and the bombastic; his sentences flowed along in

happy harmony. Very frequently such a style conveys the impression that

a man has nothing to say, when, perhaps, it is by immense labour, and

by the study of the finest writers, and by conversation, that he has

attained to that grace and natural ease of manner in which all who listen

or who read are instantly able to apprehend the meaning. Thus he himself

translates his favourite Horace:

Smooth be your style, and plain and natural,

To strike the sins of Wapping or Whitehall;

While others think this easy to attain,

Let them but try, and with their utmost pain,

They’ll sweat and strive to imitate in vain.

Another attribute, to which Gibbons alludes, in Watts’ style is his

_dignity_, especially in the use of his metaphors and in the restraint he

puts upon himself in his most ardent and animated passages. A wise use

of the passions is a marked characteristic of his writings, as he says,

“Did the Great God ever appoint statues for His ambassadors to invite

sinners to His mercy; words of grace written upon brass or marble would

do the work almost as well; where the preachers are stone no wonder if

the hearers are motionless.” And in a fine passage in which he reprobates

the philosophy of the Earl of Shaftesbury, under the name of Rhapsodus,

who affirms that neither the fear of future punishment, nor the hope of

future reward, can possibly be called good affections, Watts exclaims:

“Go, dress up all the virtues of human nature in all the beauties of your

oratory, and declaim aloud on the praise of social virtue and the amiable

qualities of goodness, till your hearts or lungs ache, among the looser

herds of mankind, and you will ever find, as your _heathen fathers_

have done before you, that the wild appetites and passions of men are

too violent to be restrained by such mild and silken language. You may

as well build up a fence of straw and feathers to resist a cannon-ball,

or try to quench a flaming granado with a shell of fair water, as hope

to succeed in these attempts. But an eternal heaven and an eternal

hell carry a Divine force and power with them. This doctrine, from the

mouth of Christian preachers, has begun the reformation of multitudes.

This Gospel has recovered thousands among the nations from iniquity and

death. They have been awakened by these awful scenes to begin religion,

and afterwards their virtue has improved itself into superior and more

refined principles and habits by Divine grace, and risen to high and

eminent degrees, though not to consummate state. The blessed God knows

human nature better than _Rhapsodus_ doth, and has throughout His Word

appointed a more proper and more effectual method of address to it by the

passions of hope and fear, by punishments and rewards.”

His _ideas_ are large and ample; thoughts thronged through his pages.

Admirable as his prose is, he writes still like a poet, and he speaks

of the value of poetry as not a mere amusement or the embroidery of the

mind, he says how it “brightens the fancy with a thousand beautiful

images, how it enriches the soul with great and sublime sentiments and

refined ideas, and fills the memory with a noble variety of language,

it teaches the art of describing well, of painting everything to the

life, and presenting the pleasing and frightful scenes of nature and

providence, vice and virtue, in their proper charms and horrors; it

assists the art of persuasion, leads to a pathetic mode of speech and

writing, and adds life and beauty to conversation.”

And hence his style is so _attractive_; it has often been an enjoyment to

us to turn over the pages of his prose writings. What a variety of topics

is presented to us in his interesting inquiry “Concerning Space,” and

how interesting his treatment makes the discussion, however abstract the

topic. It is the same with his philosophic essays on “Innate Ideas,” and

on the “Nature of Substance,” and in that on the “Strength and Weakness

of Human Reason.” His sermons, we have before said, have not the pomp

and glow of Jeremy Taylor, but they resemble, and certainly do not fall

inferior to, those of John Donne, in a quiet metaphysical subtlety and a

happy use of images supplied by fancy; but let us select a few:

THE SOUL AND GOD.

“My soul is touched with such a Divine influence that it cannot

rest, while God withdraws, _as the needle trembles, and hunts

after the living loadstone_.”

A SENSITIVE HEART.

“Nothing could displease Phronissa (so this good mother

is called) more than to hear a jest thrown upon natural

infirmities. She thought there was something sacred in misery,

and it was not to be touched with a rude hand.”

IMPULSIVE CHRISTIANS.

“Such Christians as these (such who are weak and too much under

the influence of their passions) live very much by sudden fits

and starts of devotion, without that uniform and steady spring

of faith and holiness which would render their religion more

even and uniform, more honourable to God and more comfortable

to themselves. They are always high on the wing, or else lying

moveless on the ground. They are ever in the heights or in the

depths, travelling on the bright mountains with the songs of

heaven on their lips, or groaning and labouring through the

dark valleys, and never walking onward as on an even plain

towards heaven.”

THE FULFILMENT OF DIVINE PREDICTIONS.

“How easy it will be for our blessed Lord to make a full

accomplishment of all His predictions concerning His kingdom;

salvation shall spread through all the tribes and ranks of

mankind, as the lightning from heaven in a few moments would

communicate a living flame through ten thousand lamps or

torches placed in a proper situation and neighbourhood.”

He had an eminent _power in description_; the following meditation is

a rich illustration of this. The whole meditation is far too long to

quote—his descriptions of the awakening life of leaves, and birds, and

insects—but he closes:

THE FIRST OF MAY.

“’Tis a sublime and constant triumph over all the intellectual

powers of man, which the great God maintains every moment

in these inimitable works of nature, in these impenetrable

recesses and all mysteries of Divine art; and the month of

May is the most shining season of this triumph. The flags and

banners of Almighty wisdom are now displayed round half the

globe, and the other half waits the return of the sun to spread

the same triumph over the southern world. The very sun in

the firmament is God’s prime minister in this wondrous world

of beings, and he works with sovereign vigour on the surface

of the earth, and spreads his influence deep under the clods

to the very root and fibre, moulding them in their proper

forms by Divine direction. There is not a plant, nor a leaf,

nor one little branching thread above or beneath the ground,

which escapes the eye or influence of this beneficent star. An

illustrious emblem of the omnipresence and universal activity

of the Creator.”

The following strikes us as very pleasing:

ON DISTANT THUNDER.

“When we hear the thunder rumbling in some distant quarter

of the heavens, we sit calm and serene amidst our business

or diversions; we feel no terrors about us, and apprehend no

danger. When we see the slender streaks of lightning play afar

off in the horizon of an evening sky, we look on and amuse

ourselves as with an agreeable spectacle, without the least

fear or concern. But lo! the dark cloud rises by degrees; it

grows black as night, and big with tempests; it spreads as it

rises to the mid-heaven, and now hangs directly over us; the

flashes of lightning grow broad and strong, and, like sheets of

ruddy fire, they blaze terribly all round the hemisphere. We

bar the doors and windows, and every avenue of light, but we

bar them all in vain. The flames break in at every cranny, and

threaten swift destruction; the thunder follows, bursting from

the cloud with sudden and tremendous crashes; the voice of the

Lord is redoubled with violence, and overwhelms us with terror;

it rattles over our heads as though the whole house was broken

down at once with a stroke from heaven, and was tumbling on us

amain to bury us in the ruins. Happy the man whose hope in his

God composes all his passions amid these storms of nature, and

renders his whole deportment peaceful and serene amidst the

frights and hurries of weak spirits and unfortified minds.”

Many pages might be filled with such passages in which the compactness

of the proverb, or the pleasantry of the fancy, or the richness of the

description, is remarkable. It comes out of such characteristics as we

have noticed, that he reformed the preaching of his day, especially

as to the structure of sermons; it was the age of, what he calls very

felicitously, “branching sermons;” and even John Howe, as both Robert

Hall and Henry Rogers[50] have remarked, “far outwent many of his

most extravagant contemporaries in minute and frivolous subdivision;

we have sometimes heads arranged rank and file, half a score deep.”

Henry Rogers continues, “If any would wish to see the full extent to

which Howe carried this fault, they may look into the ‘scheme’ (a very

accurate one), which his publishers prefixed to the first edition of the

‘Delighting in God,’ and by the time the student has thoroughly digested

and mastered that, he will find little difficulty I apprehend in any of

the first books of Euclid.” It was the characteristic of nearly all the

great Puritan preachers before Watts. He speaks of some who would draw

out a long rank of particulars in the same sermon under one general, and

run up the number to eighteenthly! or seven and twentiethly! until they

cut all their sense into shreds, so that everything they say of anything

is a new particular; and he says, he has sat under this preaching until

he has thought of Ezekiel’s vision in the valley full of bones, “behold

they were very many and very dry.” He adds, “A single rose bush, or a

dwarf pear, with all their leaves, flowers, and fruit about them, have

more beauty and spirit in themselves, and yield more food and pleasure to

mankind, than the innumerable branches, boughs, and twigs of a long hedge

of thorns.” In the same manner he satirizes another kind of preaching,

in which there are no breaks and pauses. “Is there no medium,” he says,

“between a sermon made up of sixty dry particulars, and a long loose

declamation without any distinction of the parts of it? Must a preacher

divide his works by the breaks of a minute watch, or let it run on

incessantly like the flowing stream of sand in the hour-glass?” And thus

he inquires, “Can a long purling sound awaken a sleepy conscience? Can

you make the arrow wound where it will not stick? Where all the discourse

vanishes from the remembrance, can you imagine the soul to be profited or

enriched? When you brush over the closed eyelid with a feather, did you

ever find it give light to the blind? have any of your soft harangues,

your continued threads of silken eloquence, ever raised the dead?” Very

happily he says, “Preachers talk reason and religion to their auditories

in vain, if they do not make the argument so short as to come within

their grasps, and give a frequent rest to their thoughts; they must

break the Bread of Life into pieces to feed children with it, and part

their discourse into distinct propositions, to give the ignorant a plain

scheme of any one doctrine, and enable them to comprehend or retain it.

The auditors of the first kind of preacher have some confusion in their

knowledge, the hearers of the last have scarce any knowledge at all.”

The reader will not fail to notice, in this nervous passage, the happy

imagery by which the writer gives point to his ideas.

But that which we have said hitherto refers rather to the style, the

vehicular frame-work in which Watts set forth his thoughts; it is more

important to enter into the mind and spirit of the man; and, first, no

attribute seems more remarkable than the seraphic _reverence_ of his

nature. It is not easy to mention a writer who more distinctly realises

to the mind one of those six-winged seraphs Isaiah saw, who with twain

covered his face, with twain his feet, and with twain stood ready to

fly; Watts appeared ready for any flight; but reverence, an awful sense

of the mysterious and inscrutable, governed every movement of his soul.

The Unitarians have, with singular audacity, sought to drag him through

the Serbonian bog of creedless Christianity.[51] It is a fine remark,

quoted by Southey, that “such doubts as troubled him he subdued, not in

a martial posture, but upon his knees.” It is very certain that he had

a large speculative disposition; he approached very near to the veil

which hides from man the incommunicable light; there is not a line in

his writings which displays a tendency towards Arianism. Towards the

doctrine of Socinianism he does not condescend to give a single glance.

His complaint was, and we apprehend it to be a more common one than

even those who are troubled with it are aware, not that he could not

believe all that is revealed, but that revelation had not conferred

more light upon the subjects of even incomprehensible knowledge. But

his prayer, his “solemn address to the great and ever-blessed God, upon

what he had written concerning the great and ever-blessed Trinity,” is

certainly an extraordinary, a passionate and most humble utterance of

an ardently devout mind. It is too lengthy for entire quotation, but

some of the closing paragraphs will convey the spirit of the entire

piece, and the whole may be read, if read in the spirit in which it was

written, with profit to every one: “Blessed and faithful God, hast Thou

not promised that ‘the meek Thou wilt guide in judgment, the meek Thou

wilt teach Thy way?’ Hast Thou not taught us by Isaiah, Thy prophet,

that Thou wilt ‘bring the blind by a way they know not, and wilt lead

them in paths which they have not known?’ Hast Thou not informed us by

the prophet Hosea, that ‘if we follow on to know the Lord, then we shall

know Him?’ Hath not Thy Son, our Saviour, assured us, that our Heavenly

Father will give His Holy Spirit to them that ask Him? And is He not

appointed ‘to guide us into all truth?’ Have I not sought the gracious

guidance of thy Good Spirit continually? Am I not truly sensible of my

own darkness and weakness, my dangerous prejudices on every side, and

my utter insufficiency for my own conduct? Wilt Thou leave such a poor

creature bewildered among a thousand perplexities, which are raised by

the various opinions and contrivances of men, to explain Thy Divine

Truth? Help me, Heavenly Father, for I am quite tired and weary of these

human explainings, so various and uncertain. When wilt Thou explain it to

me Thyself, O my God, by the secret and certain dictates of Thy Spirit,

according to the intimation of Thy Word? Nor let any pride of reason,

nor any affectation of novelty, nor any criminal bias whatever, turn my

heart aside from hearkening to these Divine dictates of Thy Word and Thy

Spirit. Suffer not any of my native corruptions, nor the vanity of my

imagination, to cast a mist over my eyes while I am searching after the

knowledge of Thy mind and will, for my eternal salvation.

“I entreat, O most merciful Father, that Thou wilt not suffer the remnant

of my short life to be wasted in such endless wanderings in quest of Thee

and Thy Son Jesus, as a great part of my past days have been; but let

my sincere endeavours to know Thee, in all the ways whereby Thou hast

discovered Thyself in Thy Word, be crowned with such success that my

soul, being established in every needful truth by Thy Holy Spirit, I may

spend my remaining life according to the rules of Thy Gospel, and may,

with all the holy and happy creation, ascribe glory and honour, wisdom

and power, to Thee who sittest upon the throne, and to the Lamb for ever

and ever.”

We have stated the matter fairly as in relation to Watts’ entireness of

faith, but justice has not been done to Watts in relation to that dilemma

and agitation of public opinion and sentiment which forced him into

controversy. It was not that he himself doubted, neither was it that he

for himself approached the confines of a discussion of which it might be

said—

Dark with excessive light its skirts appear.

Arianism was vexing the church in general in England in that age.[52]

Many of the churches, especially those to which Watts stood related,

indicated a close proclivity to Arian sentiment. The peculiar spirit of

the times had created this degeneracy of sentiment; there was little

of what we are now accustomed to denominate practical Christianity—the

activities created by Methodism were quite unknown. All over the country

were Nonconformist churches (nooks of retreat), where some learned,

scholarly, and philosophical minister was at the head of a class of

thoughtful minds. Numbers of them seemed to have little to do but to

think; the heart did not minister much to the head in many instances. The

Unitarianism of our day was unknown. It thus represented very much the

high Arian sentiment of reverence to Christ without the acknowledgment

of His Godhead. The hymns of Watts abound in expressions of praise to

Christ and to the Holy Spirit. He was called upon to vindicate that which

he himself had done; he was called upon to defend that whole scheme of

doctrine which accepted the Three Persons in the Divine Godhead. Perhaps

the defect in all such efforts is, that the very attempt to embody some

doctrines within the forms of the understanding naturally and essentially

depraves them. If we say, as we often do, a God understood is no God at

all—and this remark applies to mere natural religion—the same holds true

of those higher doctrines of revelation which are the adumbrations of

“the light which no man hath seen or can see.” There are doctrines in

Theology, even as there are doctrines in Science, the demonstration of

which is rather negative than positive. Chemists tell us of an element

essential to our life—we breathe it every moment; it contributes to

the balance of all the powers of the atmosphere; it tames the subtle,

fiery-tempered oxygen, the wild and vehement hydrogen; it represses,

allays, and composes, but itself has no colour no odour; it has no active

properties, no chemical affections; it is one of the greatest mysteries

in nature. It is invisible, and yet it proclaims its presence; the

chemist cannot touch it, but he is sure of its existence. It may well

fill our minds with awe that we are ever in the presence of such an

agent, that before it the lamp of science is darkened, like a man with a

dim light in a room in which he sees phantoms he cannot touch, and hears

voices the causes of which he cannot detect, and as he holds up his lamp

he is aware of a presence that disturbs him, that will not enter into his

knowledge, and for which he cannot account. Only he knows that it is.

Such is nitrogen. It is thus we apprehend the doctrine of the Trinity.

All efforts must fail to apprehend the doctrines involved in the idea

of the Trinity, which insist upon either the idea of personality or

numeration, as they are understood by us. Watts, with the Bible in his

hand, stood on the defensive against the aggressions of Arianism, and

having attempted to unfold the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, he

published his further dissertation, “The Arian Invited to the Orthodox

Faith; a plain and easy method to lead such as deny the Proper Deity

of Christ into the belief of that Article.” Those who charge Arianism

upon Watts can only do so, because throughout the argument he has

conducted it in a strain of eminent courtesy and charity. He approached

the matter in no spirit of disputation, but with a cordial desire to

promote, if possible, healing and unity; nor do we think that there are

any indications, in the course of any of his discussions, that his own

mind or faith was unhinged; but the discussions around him compelled

him to direct his attention to questions certainly not uncongenial to

his speculative and analytic order of mind. Probably the reader feels

that there is a sufficient correspondence between the sense of our own

spiritual wants and the revelation given to us in the Divine Word to

make us feel that the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead is a necessity

of our moral nature, and that it is a doctrine, as we have already

intimated, best held, as most satisfactory to the mind and conscience,

when held _im_plicitly rather than _ex_plicitly.

The claim which the Unitarians put forth to find in Watts one of

themselves is not less than audacious and dishonest. It is, however,

founded—very ridiculously, we venture to think—upon some expressions

reported after his death, which implied that he would have been willing,

had he been able, to have altered some expressions in his hymns. Truly

it is amazing that the author could survive the publication of his

first volume forty years, and not alter many barbarisms of metre and

expression. It may, perhaps, be partly accounted for from the fact that

the copyright of the hymns had passed at once from his hands. We can

very well believe there were certain expressions in his hymns he would

have been not indisposed to alter, without touching at all upon matters

of doctrine. It will be time enough for Unitarians to claim Watts when

they are able to set aside his last published words, and to reconcile

them with that faith which they call theirs, or to account, upon such

principles as they would make him hold, for the sentiments which fell

from his lips when dying.

But as a study of Watts’ mind, these pieces of his are like all that

emanated from his pen, characterized by exceeding reverence for the

subject he attempted to elucidate, and by charity, respect, and courtesy

towards his opponents. Johnson says: “I am only enough acquainted with

his theological works to admire his meekness of opposition, and his

mildness of censure. It was not only in his books, but in his mind, that

orthodoxy was united with charity.” Some will, perhaps, almost think

that this width of charity in Watts degenerated into a vice; we hope this

book has made it evident that he both had strong convictions and knew how

to act upon them steadily. But his heart was very inclusive in its love.

It was not merely that he lived within the shadows of persecution, and

belonged to an order whose opinions were only tolerated; he represented

the mildest type of Nonconformity. Perhaps we shall surprise some readers

not very well acquainted with his writings, by informing them that one

of the latest efforts of his mind and pen was upon the inquiry, “Whether

an Establishment is altogether an Impossibility.” This was in his Essay,

published in the year 1739, on “Civil Power in Things Sacred.” It is a

singular scheme, and the question is discussed with great moderation

and candour; but it is rather a plea for a system of national education

than the establishment of a national religion. He inquires, indeed,

whether there might not be established a religion consistent with the

just liberties of mankind, and practicable with every form of civil

government. He thinks that officers should be appointed by the State

to explain and enforce the great duties and sanctions of morality, and

that the citizens should be compelled to receive such lessons as are

unquestionably at the foundation of a national well-being, the welfare,

strength, and support of the State, and that such teachers, as public

benefactors, should be sustained at the charge of the State.

Watts’ philosophical works exhibit him in the same light as his

theological. They are marked by a vivid disposition to analysis and

speculation, and by that elevated reverence of thought which appertains

to all his writings. Instance his “Inquiry Concerning Space; whether

it be Something or Nothing, God or a Creature.” Most minds are quite

unequal to such discussions, and many regard them as unwise, irreverent,

and dangerous. They are a kind of intellectual Matterhorn which certain

daring spirits assault from age to age—the origin of evil, liberty, and

necessity—the nature of substance, and time, and space. It would surely

be a dangerous and a doubtful doctrine to teach that such questions are

only the territories or hunting-grounds of the bold masters of sceptical

negations. It does not derogate from the greatness of Isaac Watts to

admit that he was neither a Joseph Butler, a William de Leibnitz,

nor a Jonathan Edwards; but in his mind such studies became means of

usefulness. He fashioned Alpenstocks for climbers among those higher

mountain ranges, through which he had himself travelled. In such studies

a reverent mind may at once enlarge the understanding while learning the

limitation of its powers. A wise guide will here, too, guard against the

dangerous _crevasse_, while he hath himself

The secret learned

To mix his blood with sunshine, and to take

The wind into his pulses.[53]

Johnson quotes a passage from Mr. Dyer, charging Watts with confounding

the idea of space with empty space, and that he did not consider that

though space might be without matter, yet matter, being extended, could

not be without space. But in reply to this, it may be remarked that this

is the whole question, and extended matter falls rather beneath the

denomination of substance. It appears certainly the case that Watts, in

his discussion, deals with infinite space, or say, certainly, indefinite

space—that is, extension abstracted from phenomena. Such space Sir Isaac

Newton reverently regarded as the sensorium of God. Newton was so

essentially reverent even in thought that it was not possible for him to

indulge an idea which was capable of depraving religious conceptions; but

all minds, even religious minds, have not been equally reverent. Hence

some have gone on to regard space as the immensity of God, as a property

of God. But it would follow from this that as space is extended, so God,

too, must be extended; and whatever tends to conform God with nature, or

to place Him in contact with it, in any other way than as in relation

to His wisdom and His will, is essentially unscriptural, and it is a

dangerous proclivity below which yawn the fearful gulfs of Pantheism

and Atheism. In these discussions our writer anticipated many of those

shadows which in the course of a few years were to project themselves

over the whole domain of philosophy and theology; and, indeed, only a

few years before, in the great work of Spinosa, ominous indications had

been given; and the second part of the “Living Temple” of John Howe bore

immediately upon the coming questions. Watts’ essay penetrates into the

stronghold of Pantheism. Newton and Pascal, both looking up into the

infinite spaces, felt their nature called on to reply to the questions

suggested. The silence terrified Pascal; Newton’s calmer nature gathered

up even infinite space into the great idea, that it was but a mode, or

attribute, of God. Some such doctrines govern the Essays of Watts: Space,

he argues, cannot be God; we cannot indeed conceive that infinite space

ever began to be, we have an idea of it as eternal and unchangeable;

according to Watts it seems to contain what existence it has in the

very idea, nature, or essence of it, which is one attribute of God, and

whereby we prove His existence. It appears to be a necessary being and

has a sort of self-existence, for we cannot tell how to conceive it not

to he. It seems to be an impassible, indivisible, immutable essence,

and therefore according to the ghastly pantheistic philosophy it is

argued that space is God. This idea Watts concisely set aside, because

it involves the absurdity of making the blessed God a Being of infinite

length, breadth, and depth, and ascribing to Him parts of this nature

measurable by inches, yards, and miles. Perhaps this is not so clear to

all readers as it was to the writer himself; but the close seems more

satisfactory when he says, “Strongest arguments seem to evince this, that

it must be God, or it must be nothing.” Watts, then, was an Idealist,

and the remark of Johnson arises from a misapprehension of the drift of

the essay. He argues that space is only the shadow cast by substance—we

are sure that shadow or darkness is a mere nothing, and space is nothing

but the absence of body, as shade is the absence of light, and both are

explicable without supposing either to be real beings: it is therefore

merely an abstract idea, or, as we should say, a “thought-form;” it will

follow from this that such an idea of space dissolves one of the charming

illusions of Pantheism, and that there rises from the midst of this

universe of unidentical being the personality of man.

Some critics have entertained a grim joke at the expense of Watts, that

having annihilated space, he proceeded in the next place to annihilate

substance, anticipating at once Berkeley and Hume. Let it then be

remembered that he engaged in none of these excursions in a vain or

Pyrrhonistic spirit: his essays were written not to unhinge, but to

rest and settle and give repose to the mind; indeed he says, “There

are mysteries wherein we bewilder and lose ourselves by attempting to

make something out of nothing;” substance is one of these. He goes for

some distance on the way with Locke, especially in refuting the idea

that substance is something real in nature; with Locke he argues that

“all the ideas we have of particular, distinct sort of substances, are

nothing but several combinations of simple ideas coexistent in such, the

cause of their union, which makes the whole subsist of itself.” Only

then comes in the important question, “what is it that supports the

accidents and qualities of being?” At this point Watts parts company

with Locke. His ideas of substance seem to be antagonistic to Locke,

and dangerously sustaining Spinosa, who taught, as our readers know,

that the whole universe, God and this world, may be the same individual

substance—“How can I be sure that God and the material world have not

one common substance?” But, very singularly, Watts himself in tracing

the mistakes upon this matter to their origin, seems to fall into the

very error he seeks to explode, the idea of a real, invisible abstract

or concrete, seems to stand behind all things; he says, the mistakes

which men make arise from the occult quality in the termination of names,

_ity_ in solidity, _sion_ in extension, which imply a quality without

including the substance; as white_ness_, without including the substance

or the thing that is white; the word white is concrete, and denotes the

thing or substance together with the quality, and he says, “We ought to

remember that _things_ are made by God, or Nature, _words_ are made by

man, and sometimes applied in a way not exactly agreeable to what things

and ideas require.” The object of Watts in his discussion of the idea of

substance, was the same as that in his discussion in the idea of space,

to disarm Spinozism of its gross and crude ideas of God. But we do not

feel that the same success closes the discussion. Perhaps it will be

sufficient to admit at once that space and substance are both modes of

Divine operation. Push the inquiry to any extent, and the most absolute

Spinozist is compelled to halt in some such conclusion. That God is

extended, that He is a mere infinite extension, is an absurdity; but it

seems that no injustice is done to the most reverent and infinite thought

of God by regarding Him as the essential _sub-stans_, the substance as of

all souls, so of all being.

That about the philosophic essays which interests us is their freshness,

and the clear, easily lucid, and charmingly illustrated style in which

the doctrines are conveyed. They assuredly are a very happy commentary

upon Locke, from whom he often separates, as in the essay on “Innate

Ideas;” he agrees with Locke in the main, and then proceeds to discourse

upon many simple ideas which are innate in some sense. His essay to prove

that the “Soul never Sleeps,” and “On the Place and Motion of Spirits,

and the Power of a Spirit to move Matter,” are interesting; that on the

“Departing and Separate Soul” is a sublime piece of writing, and on the

“Resurrection of the same Body,” and on the “Production and Nourishment

of Plants and Animals.” Few persons now, it may be supposed, even know of

the existence of these essays; they seem to us pieces of truly delightful

reading, most instructive, suggestive, and entertaining, singularly free

from hard and unpleasant lines of dogmatism, full of delightful and

suggestive pictures; take the following:

SUNBEAMS AND STARBEAMS.

“What a surprising work of God is vision, that notwithstanding

all these infinite meetings and crossings of starbeams and

sunbeams night and day, through all our solar world, there

should be such a regular conveyance of light to every eye as to

discern each star so distinctly by night, as well as all other

objects on earth by day! And this difficulty and wonder will

be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double,

triple, and tenfold reflections and refractions of sunbeams,

or daylight, near our earth, and among the various bodies on

the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large

elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain,

let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches

diameter, and at two inches distance; every eye must receive

many rays of light reflected from every plate, in order to

perceive its shape and colour; now, if there were but one ray

of light came from each plate, here would be ten thousand

rays falling on every single eye, which would make twenty

thousand times ten thousand, that is, two hundred millions

of rays crossing each other in direct lines in order to make

every plate visible to every man. But if we suppose that each

plate reflected one hundred rays, which is no unreasonable

supposition, this would rise to twenty thousand millions. What

an amazing thing is the distinct vision of the shape and colour

of each plate by every eye, notwithstanding these confused

crossings and rays! What an astonishing composition is the eye

in all the coats and all the humours of it, to convey those ten

thousand white images, or those millions of rays so distinct

to the retina, and to impress and paint them all there! And

what further amazement attends us if we follow the image on

the retina, conveying itself by the optic nerves into the

common sensory without confusion? Can a rational being survey

this scene and say there is no God? Can a mind think on this

stupendous bodily organ, the eye, and not adore the Wisdom that

contrived it?”

And the following is not only most interesting, but anticipates, with

much strength, a line of argument important to the sceptical philosophy

of our own day. The German Buchner binds up his atheistic philosophy

between the two covers of Force and Matter; and many in our own country

follow in the same train of singularly forgetful thought: forgetful

because force and matter are really not sufficient to constitute a

universe; the regulative and directive power which controls force and

manipulates matter to its will is assuredly as essential a factor as

either force or matter.[54] Thus Dr. Watts argues in his remarks:

THE DIRECTION OF MOTION A PROOF OF DEITY.

“Yet, after all, I know it may be replied again, that

gravitation is a power which is not limited in its agency by

any conceivable distances whatsoever; and therefore, when

these starbeams are run out never so far into the infinite

void by the force of their emission from the star, yet their

gravitation towards the star, or some of the planetary worlds,

which sometimes, perhaps, may be nearer to it, has perpetual

influence to retard their motion by degrees, even as the

motion of a comet is retarded by its gravitation towards the

sun, though it flies to such a prodigious distance from the

sun, and in time it is stopped and drawn back again and made

to return towards its centre. And just so, may we suppose,

all the sunbeams and starbeams that ever were emitted, even

to the borders of the creation, to have been restrained by

degrees by this principle of gravitation till, moving slower

and slower, at last they are stopped in their progress and made

to return toward their own or some other planetary system.

And if so, then there is a perpetual return of the beams of

light towards some or other of their bright originals, an

everlasting circulation of these lucid atoms, which will hinder

this eternal dilation of the bounds of the universe, and at the

same time will equally prevent the wasting of the substance

of the lucid bodies, the sun or stars. Well, but if this

power of restraining and reducing the flight of starbeams be

ascribed to this principle of gravitation, let us inquire what

is this gravitation, which prevents the universe from such a

perpetual waste of light? It cannot be supposed to be any real

property or natural power inhering in matter or body, which

exerts its influence at so prodigious a distance. I think,

therefore, it is generally agreed, and with great reason, that

it is properly the influence of a Divine power upon every atom

of matter which, in a most exact proportion to its bulk and

distance, causes it to gravitate towards all other material

beings, and which makes all the bulky beings in the universe,

viz., the sun, planets, and stars, attract the bodies that are

near them towards themselves. Now this law of nature being

settled at first by God the Creator, and being constantly

maintained in the course of His providence, it is esteemed

as an effect of nature, and has a property of matter, though

in truth it is owing to the almighty and all-pervading power

of God exerting its incessant dominion and influence through

the whole material creation, producing an infinite variety of

changes which Ave observe among bodies, confining the universe

to its appointed limits, restraining the swift motion of the

beams of light, and preserving this vast system of beings from

waste and ruin, from desolation and darkness. If there be a

world, there is a God; if there be a sun and stars, every ray

points to their Creator; not a beam of light from all the lucid

globes, but acknowledges its mission from the wisdom and will

of God, and feels the restraint of His laws, that it may not

be an eternal wanderer. But I call my thoughts to retire from

these extravagant rovings beyond the limits of creation. What

do these amusements teach us but the inconceivable grandeur,

extent, and magnificence of the works and the power of God, the

astonishing contrivances of His wisdom, and the poverty, the

weakness, and narrowness of our own understandings, all which

are lessons well becoming a creature?”

In the same manner, also, he replies to the modern doctrine of

_traducianism_ in his remarks on

CREATION OR CONSERVATION.