The works of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D. D. in nine volumes (volume 1 of 9)Watts, Isaac
Religion
The works of the Rev. Isaac Watts, D. D. in nine volumes (volume 1 of 9)
Watts, Isaac
Dissenters, Religious -- England; Sermons, English -- 18th century; Theology -- Early works to 1800; Theology -- History -- 18th century
Dr. Vicesimus Knox, in his Christian Philosophy, after a long citation
from the Inward Witness to Christianity, concludes thus:—“For my own
part, I cannot but think this good man approached as nearly to christian
perfection as any mortal ever did in this sublunary state; and therefore
I consider him as a better interpreter of the christian doctrines than
the most learned critics, who, proud of their reason and their learning,
despised or neglected the very life and soul of christianity, the
living, everlasting gospel, the supernatural operation of divine grace;
and be it ever remembered, that Dr. Watts was a man who cultivated his
reason with particular care, who studied the abstrusest sciences, and
was as well qualified to become a verbal critic, or a logical disputant
on the scriptures, as the most learned among the doctors of Sorbonne, or
the greatest proficients in polemical divinity. I mentioned this
circumstance for the consideration of those who insinuate that the
doctrines of grace cannot be entertained but by ignorant as well as
fanatical persons; by persons uninitiated in the mysteries of
philosophy.”
His Theological Works are numerous, and none of them appear to have been
hurried into the world under the impulse of a thoughtless vanity. The
perspicuity and elegance of his expression and the richness of his
imagination, enliven the most common subjects, and add lustre to the
most interesting. The multiplicity and diversity of his native and
acquired talents are every where conspicuous; and the application of
these talents uniformly discovers an accurate knowledge of human nature,
a high veneration of the gospel, an unshaken attachment to the cause of
christian liberty, and an habitual readiness for any sacrifice to the
virtue and happiness of the world. While exploring the most abstruse
subjects of corporeal and spiritual nature, he became a teacher of
babes; and that wayfaring men, though almost ideots, might not err in
the path of life, he laid aside the metaphysician and the philosopher,
to explain the doctrines and familiarise the history of the bible.
“Whatever he took in hand was, by incessant solicitude for souls,
converted to theology; it is difficult to read a page without learning,
or at least wishing, to be better. The attention is caught by indirect
instruction, and he that sat down only to reason, is on a sudden
compelled to pray.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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