his works have been blessed in me, and of course to return him my hearty thanks; for though it is owing to the operation of the Blessed Spirit that any thing works effectually upon our hearts, yet if we are not thankful to the instrument which God is pleased to make use of, which we do see, how shall we be thankful to the Almighty whom we have not seen? Well am I acquainted with his works, especially with his Psalms, Hymns, and Lyrics. How often, by singing some of them when by myself, on horseback and elsewhere, has the evil spirit been made to flee away, Whene'er my heart in tune was found Like David's harp of solemn sound." From such testimonies to the effect of his poems Watts must have received more heartfelt satisfaction than the highest degree of critical approbation and popular applause could have communicated to a mind like his. Dr. Johnson, in what he says of him and his poems, has been equally mistaken concerning the species of poetry, and the characteristics of the author. He thought that the first attempt to employ the ornaments of romance in the decoration of religion was made by Mr. Boyle's Martyrdom of Theodora. This is not remarkable, because if he had been as conversant with the stores of our earlier poetry as he was with almost any other department of general literature, he would not have commenced his collection of the British Poets (the first of its kind) with Cowley. But when he asserts that devotional poetry is unsatisfactory, because the paucity of its topics enforces perpetual repetition, and the sanctity of the matter rejects the ornaments of figurative diction, it seems as if he had taken a most contracted and short-sighted view of the subject, and as if he had forgotten that of all poetry, inspired poetry is the most figurative. He says of Watts himself, in his poetical character, that his judgment was clear, and that he noted beauties and faults with very nice discernment. Where was this judgment and this nice discernment when he professed his admiration of Sir Richard Blackmore, and went for an example of English heroic verse in his Grammar, to that knight's "excellent poem, called King Arthur?" But to this praise of Dr. Watts every reader will assent, that his thoughts are always religiously "that he is at least one of the few poets pure; with whom youth and ignorance may be safely pleased;" "that happy will that reader be whose mind is disposed, by his verse or his prose, to copy his benevolence to man, and his reverence to God;" that "if he stood not in the first class of genius, he compensated this defect by a ready application of his powers to the promotion of piety;" and that "to those all human eulogies are vain, whom we believe applauded by angels and numbered with the just." Feeble as Dr. Watts always was in body, and much as he had suffered from illness, he attained to a good old age. The conduct of some very near relations embittered his latter days, and for a while he seemed, being at the time in a state of extreme weakness, stupefied by it to such a degree as hardly to take notice of any thing about him. The worst part of this behaviour, which one of Doddridge's friends characterizes as "most marvellous, infamous, enormous wickedness," was concealed from him. "Lady Abney," says the writer, "keeps him in peaceful ignorance, and his enemies at a becoming distance; so that in the midst of this cruel persecution he lives comfortably; and when a friend asks him how he does, answers, Waiting God's leave to die.' It was in this stage of his decay that he mentioned the observation of an aged minister, how "the most learned and knowing Christians, when they come 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 that 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." 6 In this patient and peaceful state of mind, on the 25th of Nov. 1748, and in the 75th year of his age, he departed "in sure and certain hope." His body was deposited in the burial-ground of Bunhill-fields. His pupil, Sir John Hartopp, and his true friend, Lady Abney, under whose roof he had partaken of all the comforts of affluence, for six-and-thirty years, erected a handsome tomb over his grave; the epitaph he had composed himself, in these humble words: ISAAC WATTS, D. D. Pastor of a Church of Christ in London, successor to THE REV. JOSEPH CARYL, DR. JOHN OWEN, MR. DAVID after fifty years of feeble labours in the gospel, 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. Keswick, August 20, 1834. R. S. PREFACE. It has been a long complaint of the virtuous and refined world, that poesy, whose original is divine, should be enslaved to vice and profaneness; that an art, inspired from heaven, should have so far lost the memory of its birth place, as to be engaged in the interests of hell. How unhappily is it perverted from its most glorious design! How basely has it been driven away from its proper station in the temple of God, and abused to much dishonour! The iniquity of men has constrained it to serve their vilest purposes, while the sons of piety mourn the sacrilege and the shame. The eldest song, which history has brought down to our ears, was a noble act of worship paid to the God of Israel, when his 'right hand became glorious in power! when thy right hand, O Lord, dashed in pieces the enemy: the chariots of Pharaoh and his hosts were cast into the Red Sea. Thou didst blow with thy wind, the deep covered them, and they sank as lead in the mighty waters.' Exod. xv. This art was maintained sacred through the following ages of the church, and employed by kings and prophets, by David, Solomon, and Isaiah, in describing the nature and the glories of God, and in conveying grace or vengeance |