Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friendsHood, Edwin Paxton
Religion
Isaac Watts; his life and writings, his homes and friends
Hood, Edwin Paxton
Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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