had no more work for him to do, he should be glad to be dismissed that
night, “I bless God,” he would say, at other times, “I can lie down with
comfort at night, not being solicitous whether I awake in this world or
another.” When he was almost worn out by his infirmities, he observed in
conversation with a friend, that he remembered an aged minister used to
say, that the most learned and knowing christians, when they came to
die, have only the same plain promises of the gospel for their support,
as the common and unlearned: “and so,” said he, “I find it. It is the
plain promises of the gospel that are my support, and I bless God they
are plain promises, that do not require much labour and pains to
understand them; for I can do nothing now but look into my bible for
some promise to support me, and live upon that.” In this way the
promises became a present inheritance of support and consolation both as
the security and prelibations of his future exaltation before the throne
of God; and “As the setting sun appears of greater magnitude, and his
beams of richer gold than when in his meridian, so this dying believer
was richer in experience, stronger in grace, and brighter in his
evidences for heaven than was usual in any period of his life.” With
some view, no doubt to this happy state of mind, Dr. Grovesnor, being at
the funeral of Dr. Watts, a friend said to him, “Well Dr. Grovesnor, you
have seen the end of Dr. Watts; and you will soon follow him: what think
you of death?” “Think of it.”—he replied, “why when death comes I shall
smile upon him, if God will smile upon me.”
His freedom from corporeal pain, and his uninterrupted assurance that
all was well, excited the strongest sentiments and expressions of
gratitude in his last moments, when without a struggle or a groan,
November 25, 1748, in the 75th year of his age, he departed this life,
eminently beloved of God, and lamented by all wise and good men. Such
are the joys and honours derived from the doctrines of Christianity.
Such are the joys and honours by which the true believer shall be
faithfully attended through the valley of the shadow of death, and which
will be consummated in the fruition of an eternal weight of glory. Let
those who doubt and despise our faith consider of what importance
religion is to the sick and dying, and till they possess the power of
healing, and of restoration from the borders of the grave, let them not
take away the only support of our hopes, the only solace of our
afflictions: Let them not interpose between us and the bright prospects
of life and immortality.
The remains of this great man were deposited in Bunhill-fields
burial-ground, London; and to give a final testimony to his affection
and liberality, his pall was supported by six ministers, two of the
presbyterian, two of the congregational, and two of the
antipoedo-baptist denomination, Dr. Samuel Chandler delivered an oration
at the grave, and Dr. Jennings preached his funeral sermon to the church
of which Dr. Watts had been pastor, from Hebrews xi. 4. “By it he being
dead yet speaketh.” Several other eminent men gave similar testimonies
of respect to his memory. But while his various excellencies procured
him these honours, he in his life time, was concerned to prevent
whatever might be considered as inconsistent with the humility of his
character. He gave directions to have only a stone erected over the
place of his interment, with this humble inscription:
“ISAAC WATTS, D. D. Pastor of a Church of Christ, in London,
successor to the Rev. Mr. Joseph Caryl, Dr. John Owen, Mr. David
Clarkson, and Dr. Isaac Chauncy; after fifty years of feeble labours
in the gospel, interrupted by four years of tiresome sickness, was
at last dismissed to his rest.
“In uno Jesu omnia.
“2 Cor. v. 8.—Absent from the body, and present with the Lord.
“Col. iii. 4.—When Christ who is my life shall appear, then shall I
also appear with him in glory.”
A handsome tomb, bearing this inscription, with the time of his death,
was accordingly erected at the joint expence of Sir John Hartopp, once
his pupil, and Lady Abney, in whose house he so long and so happily
resided.
Footnote 1:
Reynolds.
Footnote 2:
Seed.
Footnote 3:
Howe.
Footnote 4:
Afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.
Footnote 5:
Knox.
Footnote 6:
Goldsmith.
Footnote 7:
Discourses on Humility.
Footnote 8:
Bacon.
Footnote 9:
What he says in one of his sermons shews to what the corporeal
afflictions of his later days may be ascribed: Midnight studies are
prejudicial to nature, and painful experience calls me to repent of
the faults of my younger years, and there are many before me have had
the same call to repentance. Wearing out the lightsome hours in sleep
is an unnatural waste of sun-beams. There is no light so friendly to
animal nature as that of the sun. Serm. xx.
Footnote 10:
Letters published by Dr. Gibbons.
Footnote 11:
Milton.
Footnote 12:
Robinson.
Footnote 13:
Jennings.
DEDICATION TO THE FIRST VOLUME OF SERMONS.
_To the Church of Christ assembling in Berry-street, London._
Christian Friends, dearly beloved in our Lord;
It is in the service of your souls that I have spent the best period of
my life ministering the gospel among you. Two and twenty years are now
expired since you first called me to this delightful work; from that
time my cares and labours, my studies and prayers, have been employed in
your behalf. I trust they have been accepted with God, and, through his
almighty blessing, have obtained some success. As to their acceptance
with you, I have too many and plain evidences to admit a doubt of it;
which I have often thankfully acknowledged to God and you. Your forward
kindness hath always forbid my request, nor do I remember that you ever
gave me leave to ask any thing for myself at your hands, by your
constant anticipation of all that I could reasonably desire.
While I was thus walking among you in the fellowship of the gospel with
mutual delight, God was pleased to weaken my strength in the way, and
thereby has given you a fairer opportunity to shew the vigour of your
affection under my long weakness and confinement. Your diligence and
zeal in maintaining public worship in the church, under the pastoral
care of my dear brother and colleague[14], in your special days and
hours of prayer for my recovery, your constant and fervent addresses to
the throne of grace on my account in your weekly solemn assemblies, and
your chearful supply of my necessities under so tedious an affliction,
have made me your debtor in a high degree, and have strengthened the
bands of my duty, by adding to them the bands of your love.
As soon as I was capable of the smallest attempt of service, you
received me with all joy in the Lord: And though we were rivals in this
pleasure, yet you will allow that my joy was, at least equal to yours;
for I think I can pronounce it with great sincerity, that “there is no
place, nor company, nor employment, on this side heaven, that can give
me such a relish of delight, as when I stand ministering holy things in
the midst of you.”
As fast as my health increases, you may assure yourselves it is devoted
to your edification. It often grieves me to think how poor, feeble, and
short, are my present labours among you; and yet what days of faintness
I generally feel after every such attempt: So that I am continually
prevented in my design of successive visits to you, by the want of
active spirits while I tarry in the city; and if I attempt to stay but a
week or ten days there, I find a sensible return of weakness; so that I
am constrained to retire to the country-air, in order to recruit and
maintain this little capacity of service.
I bless God heartily, and you are my witnesses, that in my better
seasons of health heretofore, and in the intervals of my studies, I was
not a stranger of your private families, nor thoughtless of your soul’s
improvement.
What shall I do now to make up these defects? What can I do more
pleasing and profitable to you, than to seize the advantages of my
retirement, to review some of those discourses which have assisted your
faith and joy in my former ministry, and to put them into your hands?
Thus something of me shall abide with you in your several houses, while
I am so incapable of much public labour, and of personal visits.
This, my friends, is the true design of sending this volume to the
press: And though many of my brethren may compose far better sermons
than I, whose persons I love and honour, and their labours I read with
reverence and improvement, yet I am persuaded, that share which I have
in your affections, will render these discourses at least as agreeable
to your taste, as those of superior excellency from other hands. If any
other christians shall think fit to peruse them, and find any spiritual
benefit, they must make their acknowledgments to God and you.
I cannot invite the loose and fashionable part of mankind, the vain
censors of the age, and the deriders of the ministry, to become my
readers: Too many of them grow weary of christianity, and look back upon
heathenism with a wishful eye, as the Jews did of old upon the leeks and
onions of Egypt, when they grew angry with Moses, and began to loathe
the bread of heaven. These persons will find but little here that suits
their taste; for I have not entertained you with lectures of philosophy,
instead of the gospel of Christ; nor have I affected that easy indolence
of style which is the dry delight of some modish writers, the cold and
insipid pleasure of men who pretend to politeness. You know it has
always been the business of my ministry to convince and persuade your
souls into practical godliness, by the clearest and strongest reasons
derived from the gospel, and by all the most moving methods of speech,
of which I was capable; but still in a humble subserviency to the
promised influences of the Holy Spirit, I ever thought it my duty to
press the conviction with force on the conscience, when light was first
let into the mind. A statue hung round with moral sentences, or a marble
pillar with divine truths inscribed upon it, may preach coldly to the
understanding, while devotion freezes at the heart: But the prophets and
apostles were _burning and shining lights_; they were all taught by
inspiration to make the words of truth glitter like sun-beams, and to
operate like _a hammer_, and _a fire_, and _a two-edged sword_[15]. The
movements of sacred passion may be the ridicule of an age which pretends
to nothing but calm reasoning. Life and zeal in the ministry of the
word, may be despised by men of luke-warm and dying religion: _Fervency
of spirit is the service of the Lord_[16], may become the scoff and jest
of the critic and the profane: But this very life and zeal, this sacred
fervency, shall still remain one bright character of a christian
preacher, till the names of Paul and Apollos perish from the church; and
that is till this bible and these heavens are no more.
In some of these discourses indeed I have not had the opportunity of so
warm and affectionate an address to the hearers. A true and just
explication of scripture and a convincing proof of the doctrine
proposed, have been the chief things necessary; yet I have endeavoured,
even there, to give a practical and pathetic turn, as far as the design
of the text would bear it: But in the other sermons I blame myself more
for the want of zeal and devout passion, than for the excess of it.
I will readily confess, there are here and there some periods where the
language appears a little too elevated, though not too warm; I know it
is not the proper style of the pulpit: but there is some difference
between speaking and writing. In one the ear must take in the sense at
once; in the other, the eye may review what the first glance did not
fully receive. Besides, my friendly readers will now and then indulge a
metaphor, to one who from his youngest years, has dealt a little in
sacred poesy.
You are my witnesses, that in the common course of my ministry, I often
press the duties of sobriety and temperance, justice and charity, as
well as the inward and spiritual parts of godliness. But since treatises
on the latter subjects are seldom published now-a-days, I have permitted
the matters of secret converse between God and the holy soul, to take up
a larger share in these discourses; and it has been my aim to rescue
these arguments from the charge of enthusiasm, and to put them in such a
light, as might shew their perfect consistence with common sense and
reason. Hereby I have done my part to defend them against the daily
cavils of those low pretenders to christianity, who banish most of these
things from their religion, and yet arrogate and confine all reason to
themselves.
It is necessary that a christian preacher should teach the laws of
sobriety, the rules of charity and justice, our duty to our neighbour,
and our practice of public religion; but it is my opinion that
discourses of experimental piety, and the work of the closet, should
also sometimes entertain the church and the world. Our fathers talked
much of pious experience, and have left their writings of the same
strain behind them: They were surrounded with converts, and helped to
fill heaven apace; for God was with them. But I mourn to think that some
are grown so degenerate in our days, as to join their names and their
works together in a common jest, and to ridicule the sacred matter of
their sermons, because the manner had now and then something in it too
mystical and obscure, and there is something in their style
unfashionable and unpolished.
It must be acknowledged indeed, to the honour of the present age, that
we have some pretences above our predecessors to freedom and justness of
thought, to strength of reasoning, to clear ideas, to the generous
principles of christian charity; and I wish we had the practice of it
too. But as to the savour of piety and inward religion, as to
spiritual-mindedness, and zeal for God, and the good of souls; as to the
spirit and power of evangelical ministrations, we may all complain, the
glory is much departed from our Israel. Happy the men who are so far
assisted and favoured of God, as to unite all these excellencies, and to
join the honours of the past and present age together! How far it has
been attempted amongst you, I have a witness in your consciences: and
though I keep a sincere and painful sense within me of my great defects
on either side, yet I must still pursue the same attempt; and with
reverence and zeal I beg leave to trace the footsteps of my brethren,
who come nearest to this shining character.
In all these things I rejoice, and cannot conceal my joy, that my kind
and faithful companion in the service of your souls, practises his
ministry with the same views and designs; and he hath been sensibly
owned and assisted of God, to support and to build up the church, during
my long confinement. His labours of love both for you and for me, shall
ever endear him both to me and you. May the divine blessing gloriously
attend his double services in the seasons of my absence and painful
restraint! May your united prayers prevail for my restoration to the
full exercise of my ministry among you! And may you all receive such
lasting benefit by our associated labours, that you may stand up, and
appear as our crown and our joy in the great day of the Lord! This is
the continual and hearty prayer of,
My dear Friends,
Your affectionate and afflicted
Servant in the gospel,
I. WATTS.
Theobalds in Hertfordshire,
February, 21, 1720-21.
Footnote 14:
Mr. Samuel Price.
Footnote 15:
2 Cor. iv. 4, 6. John v. 35. Jer. xxiii. 29. Heb. iv. 12.
Footnote 16:
Acts xviii. 25. Rom. xii. 11.
PREFACE[17].
I am bound to give thanks to God always, for the acceptance that my
sermons have found among the more pious and religious part of mankind.
As it hath been the chief design of my ministry to explain the common
and most important things of our religion, to the understanding of every
christian, and to impress the most necessary duties of it on the spirit
and conscience, so when I am solicited to make my labours yet more
public, I would repeat the same work; I would fain give my readers the
clearest conceptions of some of the great articles of christianity, and
draw out the plain principles of truth which are in the head, to a
powerful and holy influence over the heart and life.
These discourses have but little hope to gratify those curious minds,
who turn over the leaves superficially to search if there be any new
discoveries in them, and being disappointed, lay down the book with
disdain: My chief intent was to entertain and assist those humble
christians, who converse in secret with God and their own souls.
And since it is the custom of many persons to read a sermon in the
evening of the Lord’s-day, as part of their family-worship, I was
desirous also to suit the sermons which I publish to such a pious
service. Now when the discourses, which are rehearsed in families have
much of criticism and speculation in them, or long and difficult trains
of reasoning, every one may observe, what a negligent air sits upon the
faces of the hearers, what a drowsy attention is given to this religious
exercise, and the greatest part of the household find very little
improvement.
I grant, it is sometimes necessary to preach, and print such discourses
which are more critical and laborious in exposition of difficult texts,
and which by artificial trains of argument, may penetrate deep into the
hidden things of God, and _bring forth things new as well as old_. But I
am content to wave the honour of such performances in the more general
course of my labours, whether of the pulpit or the press, and chiefly to
pursue those methods which more directly tend to the edification of the
bulk of mankind, in the knowledge of Christ and in practical godliness.
We are too often ready to judge that to be the best sermon, which has
many strange thoughts in it, many fine hints, and some grand and polite
sentiments. But a christian in his best temper of mind will say, “That
is a good sermon which brings my heart nearer to God, which makes the
grace of Christ sweet to my soul, and the commands of Christ easy and
delightful: That is an excellent discourse indeed, which enables me to
mortify some unruly sin, to vanquish a strong temptation, and bears me
from all the enticements of this lower world; that which bears me up
above all the disquietudes of life, which fits me for the hour of death,
and makes me ready and desirous to appear before Christ Jesus my Lord.”
If the publication of these discourses shall be so happy, as through the
influence of the Blessed Spirit to attain these ends, I have obtained my
best aim and hope, and will ascribe the glory to God my Saviour.
The first sermons which I published[18] were taken up chiefly in the
more spiritual parts of our religion, and such as relate more
immediately to the secret transactions of the soul with God, and with
his Son Jesus Christ. In several following discourses, I have attempted
to explain many duties of the christian life which refer to our
fellow-creatures. I hope no man who loves the gospel of Christ, will
knit his brow and throw disgrace upon the book, with a contempt of dull
morality: If such a person would give himself leave to peruse these
sermons, perhaps he would meet with so much of Christ and the gospel in
them, that he might learn to love his Saviour better than ever he did,
and find how necessary moral duties are to make his own religion either
safe or honourable: While _we are saved by faith_ in the blood and
righteousness of the Son of God, we must remember also, that it is such
a _faith as worketh by love_, for _faith without works is dead_, and
useless to all purposes of hope and salvation.
My design in these sermons is to represent vice and virtue in their
proper colours, I foresee that many readers will quickly spy out their
neighbours’ names amongst the vicious or unlovely characters; but it
would turn perhaps to their better account, if they can find their own:
for there is many a description here that a hundred persons may lay a
righteous claim to. It was my business to set a faithful glass before
the face of conscience, by which we may examine ourselves, and learn
_what manner of persons we are_; and I pray God to keep it daily before
my own eyes. I acknowledge my defects, and stand corrected in many of my
own sermons. Blessed be God for a Mediator who is _exalted to give
repentance and forgiveness of sins_.
Yet it may not be an improper or unsuccessful method of reproof to fold
down a useful leaf now and then for a friend, and give him notice in
such an inoffensive manner of any blemishes that may belong to his
character. Thus the silent page shall bestow upon him the richest
benefit of friendship; it may whisper in his ear a secret word of
admonition, and convey it to his conscience without offence. Such a
gentle monitor may awaken him to inward shame and penitence; may rouse
his virtue to shine brighter than ever, and scatter the clouds that hung
dark upon the evidence of his graces.
Since I first published these discourses[19], the world has been
furnished with a more complete account of most of these subjects, in
that excellent treatise called the “Christian Temper,” which my worthy
friend Doctor Evans hath sent abroad, and which is, perhaps, the most
complete summary of those duties which make up the christian life, that
hath been published in our age.
The next three sermons are employed on that divine subject, which I am
ready to call the chief wonder and glory of the christian religion, that
is, the great atonement for sin made by the death of Christ, and the
practical uses derived thence[20]. This is the blessed foundation of our
hope, which I have endeavoured to set in a clear light, and to support
by reasoning drawn from the types and predictions of the Old Testament
and the clearer language of the New. This is that grace and that
righteousness which was witnessed by the law and the prophets, as St.
Paul expresses it; Rom. iii. 24. This is that important work of the
blessed Saviour, who was promised to the guilty world ever since the
fall, and whose various glories have been well represented, according to
ancient prophecy, in a happy correspondence with the doctrine of the New
Testament, by a volume of “Discourses on the Messiah,” lately published
by Dr. William Harris. I wonder how any man can read all these
correspondencies of the type, prophecy and history, and not be convinced
that Jesus was the appointed Saviour of the world.
The several sermons that follow next, are all formed upon some of the
most momentous concerns of a christian, _viz._ How to improve every
thing for the advantage of our own souls; how to look on all things as
working for our good; how to employ the time of life to noble purposes,
and such as the saints above can never be employed in; and to improve
the death of others to valuable ends in the christian life, and
especially to a preparation for our own departure. The death of that
worthy gentleman and excellent christian, Sir Thomas Abney, gave the
first occasion to some of these meditations, for the use of the mourning
family, which were much amplified afterwards in my public ministry. Here
I have endeavoured to awaken myself and my friends to an immediate and
constant readiness for a dismission from this sinful, and sorrowful, and
tempting world: And God grant when that awful hour approaches, I may be
so far honoured by divine grace, as to become an example as well as a
teacher.
The last discourse of all, exhibits the “most plain and obvious
representation of the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, as it lies in the
bible, and the great and necessary use that is to be made of it in our
religion.” It is a doctrine that runs through the whole of our serious
transactions with God, and therefore it is necessary to be known by men.
Without the mediation of the Son, and the influences of the Spirit, we
can find no way of access to the Father, nor is there any other hope of
his favour proposed in the gospel.
I thought it proper also, to publish it at this season, to let the world
know, that though I have entered into some further enquiries on this
divine subject, and made humble attempts to gain clearer ideas of it, in
order to vindicate the truth and glory of this sacred article; yet I
have never changed my belief and profession of any necessary and
important part of it, as will here appear with abundant evidence.