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 implicitly rather than explicitly.
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