After the Doctor came to London, he wrote to his father, recommending the servant to his particular regard, for that he doubted not he would make an eminent christian, and so he lived and died, leaving an honourable character for piety and uprightness behind him." Soon after he had entered upon his pastoral labours, he was visited with illness, which threatened all the sanguine hopes of his people with an early period to his usefulness. His confinement was long, his recovery slow, and his constitution considerably impaired. Under these circumstances, the Rev. Samuel Price was chosen to assist him in the duties of his office. However, his exertions were renewed with his strength, and his sufferings enabled him to preach more than ever to the instruction and delight of his hearers. In the prosecution of his various plans of usefulness, he met with no material interruption till September, 1712, when he was seized with a fever of such violence, that it brought a debility upon his nerves, for which time afforded no remedy, and which entirely laid him aside from the exercise of his ministry more than four years. How inscrutable are the dispensations of providence, when men who, for disseminating the doctrines of the cross, possess the first qualifications, are laid aside or cut off in the flower of their age, while others, far below mediocrity, live till they become useless and burdensome! Of the affectionate solicitude of his people for the restoration of his health he was honoured with the best evidence by their unceasing prayers to God for him in this season of trouble. Particular days were set apart for this purpose, in which many of his brethren in the ministry united as men deeply impressed with the importance of his life; and their prayers were answered. Mr. Price, his assistant, was now, at Mr. Watts's own desire, elected to be joint pastor with him; and he was accordingly ordained to this office, March 3, 1713. Between these two fellow-labourers there subsisted, till death, an inviolable friendship. The amiable subject of our memoirs speaks of Mr. Price as his faithful friend and companion in the ministry; and mentions a legacy that he leaves him, as only a small testimony of his great affection for him, on account of his services of love during the many harmonious years of their fellowship in the work of the gospel." When the preachers of religion, whether they sustain such immediate relationship or not, thus live superior to the meanness and guilt of depreciating and envying each others reputation, talents, and services in the church; when the despicable spirit of competition, and variance, of cold civility, and jealousy is absorbed in brotherly love, and in generous exertions for the just honour of each other, then they will furnish an effectual confutation to the ignorant clamours of infidelity against priest-craft, and as was the case with these two excellent men, the friendship they exercise will return seven-fold into their own bosoms. The afflicting state to which Mr. Watts was reduced by this sickness, inspired his friends with a tender and becoming sympathy, and particularly engaged the benevolent attention of Sir Thos. Abney, at that time an alderman of London, and afterwards one of its representatives in parliament: A man of eminent piety and zeal, a blessing to his country and the church of God. He died in the year 1722, deeply regretted by all the friends who were contemporary with him and acquainted with his worth, and no less respectfully remembered wherever the works of Dr. Watts are read, by the monuments of his friendship for the author; a friendship pure and uniform, without the usual pride of patronage, or the obsequiousness of timid submis sion. In this family he found an asylum from the anxieties of dependance, and that still more endeared by the perception of reciprocal benefits. Here he experienced all the tenderness and care that the languishing state of his health required. Whatever riches and munificence could supply, or respect and affection suggest to alleviate these painful vicissitudes, he enjoyed to the full extent of his wishes, and to the happy event of his introduction into this benevolent family may be ascribed the prolongation of a life the value of which may be estimated by the many excellent works which he published, during his long residence with them. The same respect and friendship shewn him by Sir Thomas Abney were perpetuated by his lady and their daughter till his days were numbered and finished. Lady Abney died about a year after him. She was endowed with every virtue essential to an illustrious example. The following anecdote, communicated to the late Mr. Toplady by the Countess of Huntingdon, will serve to confirm what is said of the happy terms upon which he lived with this house. The Countess being on a visit to Dr. Watts at Stoke-Newington, was thus accosted by him: Your ladyship is come to see me, on a very remarkable day. "Why is this day so remarkable ?” answered the Countess. "This very day thirty years," replied the Doctor, "I came to the house of my good friend Sir Thomas Abney, intending to spend but a single week under his friendly roof: and I have extended my visit to the length of thirty years:" Lady Abney who was present, immediately said, Sir what you term a long thirty years visit I consider as the shortest visit my family ever received. His gratitude, in the review of his obligations during a thirty-six years residence with her ladyship, is strongly marked in a passage of his will, where he speaks of the generous and tender care shewn him by her ladyship and her family in his long illness, many years ago when he was capable of no service, and also her eminent friendship and goodness during his continuance in the family ever since. The various stories circulated of his strange nervous affections, or rather it should be said, of his intellectual derangement, appear to have been the fabrications of the designing, and only to have obtained belief with the credulous. "I take upon me, and feel myself happy," says his biographer and friend, Dr. Gibbons, " to aver, that these reports were utterly false, and I do this from my own knowledge of him for several years, and some of them the years of his decay; from the express declaration of his amanuensis, who was ever with him, and above all from that of Mrs. Elizabeth Abney, who lived in the same family with him thirty-six years." But his constitution was broken, and his nervous system considerably disordered and debilitated, by the frequent and heavy strokes of illness, and his intense exertions of mind, especially in his youth*. He was for several * What he says in one of his sermons shews to what the corporeal afflietions 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 sunbeams. There is no light so friendly to animal nature as that of the sun. Serm. xx. years together greatly distressed with insomnia, or continued wakefulness. Very often he could obtain no sleep for several nights successively except such as was forced by medical preparations; and not unfrequently even opiates lost their virtue, and only served to aggravate his malady. It is wonderful how, with such a weak frame and so many shocks rapidly succeeding each other, he was able to maintain such equanimity of temper, and vigour of intellect: The state of his mind through all the decays of nature, his humble confidence and his joy gave the decisive stamp of reality to his hopes and exemplified the sublime attainments of which we are capable in this vale of imperfection and sorrow. His superiority to the pressures of sickness, and his triumphant assurance of the love of God are beautifully expressed in his own devout soliloquy which he entitles Thoughts and Meditations in a long sickness, 1712,-1713. Yet, gracious God, amidst these storms of nature, O glorious solace of immense distress, A peaceful conscience, and a smiling heav'n. The two universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen in the year 1728 seve. rally conferred on him unsolicited and without his knowledge, the degree of doctor in divinity. This academical honour was never better bestowed or received with less vanity; and happy would it have been for such seminaries had titles of this sort never been disgraced by any thing mercenary in their source or by ignorance or superciliousness in their subjects. In this case the honour was reciprocal, so far as a diploma may be allowed to bear any proportion to poignancy of genius, highly cultivated understanding, the richest talents of the head, added to the most amiable virtues of the heart. Although a non-conformist from principles and uniformly such in practice, he held a friendly correspondence with some of the first characters in the established church. Among these were Secker, archbishop of Canterbury, Gibson, bishop of London; Hort, archbishop of Tuam, and many others of elevated rank and eminent literary reputation. Their letters to him are written in an uncommon strain of veneration and esteem, and although many expressions occur which bear too near an affinity to the language of flattery, those who knew the man and were benefited by his writings may be allowed some latitude beyond what is common in such cases. If, while the deadly night shade of infidelity is diffusing its poison through our country, churchmen and dissenters, especially the clergy and those who entertain the same views of the faith that was once delivered to the saints, could agree thus to differ, and lay aside all intemperate zeal for and against the modes and forms of religion; would they mutually cherish brotherly love and unite as far as possible to aid each others exertions in the common cause; what a mighty change would soon be produced in the state of religion, and what sources of pleasure they would daily open to the advocates of the truth? Mental light has no immediate or necessary dependance upon exterior circumstances, nor can it be confined within the bounds of any denomination, so like that glorious element its progress is irresistible, and must be unbounded in its dominion. Here superstition has no influence, bigotry has no power; and although we cannot accurately pronounce the Shibboleth and Sibboleth of different parties, we may yet unite our prayers and our zeal where, as the candidates for eternal life, we are all one. As we often perceive in chemical experiments that two things the most hostile by nature, and most averse to unite, by the addition of a third become perfectly miscible, so by a spirit of true piety and candour poured out upon both, we should see conformists and non-conformists extend to each other the right hand of fellowship and unite in every office of friendship and in all the obligations of their religious characters. May the auspicious period soon dawn when Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and when Judah shall not vex Ephraim. Let us no more contend, nor blame Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive, In offices of love, how we may lighten Each other's burden in our share of woet. "Such characters as Dr. Watts still live and flourish in our churches: (I adopt the words of a late acute writer). It would be easy to give a long list of names from the dawn of the reformation to this day: but I sacrifice the pleasure of doing so to the modesty of my friends. This however, I will venture to say, and no man shall stop me of this boasting, we have in our churches now exact copies of our ancient models. The prophets, do they live for ever? Yes they do. The spirit of Elijah rests upon Elisha! The grave solidity of Cartwright and Jacob seemed to reside in our Owens and Goodwins and Gills. The vivacity of Watts and Bradbury and Earle lives in others, whom I dare not name. The patient laborious Fox, the silver Bates, the melting Baxter, the piercing Mead, the generous Williams, the instructive Henry, the soft and candid Doddridge, Ridgley, and Gale, and Bunyan and Burgess, in all their variegated beauties yet flourish in our pulpits exercising their different talents for mutual edification. We have Barnabas the son of consolation, and Boanerges the thunderer, still.+ Milton. * Letters published by Dr. Gibbons, Ye servants of the Most High God, who shew unto us the way of salva tion! Peace be within the walls of your churches, and prosperity within your dwelling-houses*.” One great man after celebrating the just praises of Dr. Watts's talents, after acknowledging he was such as every christian church would rejoice to adopt, descends to the miserable littleness of cautioning the world against his non-conformity, as if that were a diminution of his literary, or a blot upon his theological reputation. A melancholy proof how far a philosophic mind may sometimes be debased by a churlish bigotry; the very spirit that gave birth to all the persecutions which harrassed and oppressed the present established church when she dissented from the church of Rome, and to which we may ascribe all the animosities which divide and degrade those who only deviate in questions of a circumstantial discipline since that period. In Dr. Watts were combined all the excellencies which form a complete reverse of a party zealot, and if a meek and lowly mind could shield the memory of any man from the envenomed influence of this passion, his nonconformity had never been mentioned but with a view of recommending the virtues by which he so greatly adorned it. As an author no man's posthumous claim upon the gratitude of the church and of his country, can be urged with a more imperative tone: The natural strength of his genius, which he cultivated and improved by a very considerable acquaintance with the most celebrated writers, both ancient and modern, had enriched his mind with a large and uncommon store of just sentiments, and useful knowledge of various kinds. His soul was too noble and large, to be confined within narrow limits, he could not be content to leave any path of learning untried, nor rest in a total ignorance of any science, the knowledge of which might be for his own improvement, or might in any way tend to enlarge his capacity of being useful to others. Though that which gave him the most remarkable pre-eminence was the extent and sublimity of his imagination: how few have excelled, or even equalled him in quickness of apprehension, and solidity of judgment: and having also a faithful memory to retain what he collected from the labours of others, he was able to pay it back again into the common treasury of learning with a large increase. It is a question whether any author before him ever appeared with reputation on such a variety of subjects, as he has done, both as a prose-writer, and a poet. However this we may venture to say, that there is no man now living of whose works so many have been dispersed, both at home and abroad, that are in such constant use, and translated into such a variety of languages; many of which will remain more durable momments of his great talents, than any representation we can take of them, though it were to be graven on pillars of brasst. His excellent friend, Dr. Doddridge, in his dedication of his Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, congratulates him, "that while condescending to the humble work of forming infant minds to the first rudiments of religious knowledge by his various Catechisms and Divine Songs, he was also daily reading lectures of logic and other useful branches of philosophy to studious youth, and this not only in private academies but in the most celebrated seats of learning, not merely in Scotland, and in our American colonies, + Jennings, * Robinson. |