him who has nothing else to give, to bestow the fruit of his mind; and open a door for the exertion of that noblest prerogative of power-the right of being eminently useful.

The benefit to the instructer will not terminate here. There are none, who, in religious habits and feelings, have perfected their character; and many, probably, among those who will be induced to instruct, have scarcely begun to form theirs, or think of the subject. To such, Sunday schools will furnish an occasion and strong inducement to examine for themselves. In addition to the comparatively personal and interested motives of preparing, on their own account, for the events of life and for death; will be added that, to young persons at least, far more powerful one, the desire of being able to direct others, in things that may be of infinite concern to them; and they will learn and realize, that it is not to those who only do the commandments, that the blessing is promised, but to those who do and teach them.

DR. WATTS.

In a short notice of Dr. Miller's Letter to the Editor of the Unitarian Miscellany in our last number, we made a single remark on a paragraph relating to the opinions of Dr. Watts, and intimated our intention of turning again to the subject. This we feel interested in doing, because it is not long since we laid before our readers an account of a posthumous work of Dr. Watts,* from which, as we endeavoured to show, no fair and true conclusion could be drawn, except that he had become convinced that the commonly received doctrine of the Trinity is not the doctrine of the scriptures. In this sense, and in no other sense than this, have we and others called him a Unitarian; and if there be meaning in words, so far as the orthodox trinity is concerned, he is a Unitarian; and it will be perceived as we go on, that when this is attempted to be denied, that in fact is denied which was never asserted, viz.: that he is a Socinian, or that he relinquished the doctrine of the atonement and its kindred opinions. This may be very true, but it is clearly nothing to the purpose. The sentence in the Unitarian Miscellany, which called forth Dr. Miller's argument, was nothing more than this: "Do you believe Watts and Whitby became bad men, when they abandoned their trinitarian sentiments?"

Dr. Miller commences his paragraph with "entering his soJemn protest against placing the pious, the heavenly-minded

* See Christian Disciple for November and December, 1820. p. 461.

Watts," in the company of Unitarians. We do not wonder at it. Watts would be a bright ornament to any class of Christians. All love and honour him. And it is not strange that the orthodox should struggle to believe, and to make others believe, that he never departed from a single article of their creed.

Dr. Miller goes on to say, "That Dr. Watts lived and died a Trinitarian, I consider as clearly established, not only by his biographers, but also still more clearly by his works."

This is merely expressing an opinion, that a controverted point is established one way. Now we have an opinion that it is established the other way. It still remains to be decided which opinion is correct; and it is hazarding little to say, that if more cannot be advanced in the Doctor's favour than he has put forward in this paragraph, his cause is too feeble to stand. "It is true, he appears to have speculated on the constitution of our Saviour's person, in a manner not always wise or prudent."

This is a little extraordinary. Dr. Watts was for a long season deeply, anxiously, solemnly exercised in his mind upon this subject, which he felt to be surrounded by difficulties; and instead of stifling them by the authority of creeds or theological masters, he carried them soberly to the scriptures, and laid them before God in his prayers, and with all the earnestness of a troubled soul, sought to have the subject set clearly before his understanding. Any one who knows Dr. Watts at all, knows that he pursued this subject with the most devout and humble and self-diffident spirit; that he presented a model in regard to the spirit and manner of his inquiries. We can hardly conceive of any one having read his Serious Address to Almighty God, and yet saying that "he speculated in a manner not always wise and prudent." Not indeed "wise and prudent" if he meant to continue forever bound to the creed in which he was educated; but completely "wise and prudent" if he meant to perform the christian duty of faithful and pious" search of the scriptures." And we should hardly imagine that any result, or apprehended result, of such a search, would warrant a christian to stigmatise his brother as unwise and imprudent.

"But that he fully maintained the Divinity of the Son of God, is as unquestionable as any fact concerning him."

No one denies it. He did so for many years. But that he finally changed his opinion is equally "unquestionable." The proof of which we shall adduce presently.

"This great and good man, to whom the interests of vital piety are so much indebted in the preface to his work entitled

"Orthodoxy and Charity United,' comes to a formal and solemn conclusion, that Socinians are not Christians, and that we cannot hope for their salvation."

This is not true. Dr. Watts does not say a word about Socinians in that preface ;-no, nor about Unitarians in any form. Probably Dr. Miller thought they were intended by those, who "oppose, renounce, or deny the great doctrines of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, or his propitiation for sin by his death," who are mentioned in the preface. But we deny altogether, that this is a just definition of either Socinian or Unitarian. As to Socinians indeed, we know of none now; that is merely a convenient nickname of obloquy. But as to Unitarians, it is not at all essential to the name, that a man should "deny, renounce, or oppose" those doctrines. Dr. Watts might hold them all; and yet if at last he gave up the doctrine of three equal persons in one God, he became a Unitarian; in a strict, proper, and sufficient sense of that term. And this is what we mean when we place his name in that class.

Besides even if the assertion were true, what would it amount to? The book entitled "Orthodoxy and Charity United" was written and published sometime before it is pretended, that his opinion on this head was unitarian; and therefore the argument is singularly foreign from its mark.

"In one of his Lyrick Poems, having expressed a hope that he should find Mr. Locke in heaven, he declares in a note, that his hope was founded on the confident persuasion, that Locke was not a Socinian."

And supposing this be so; what then? The Lyrick Poems were published long before he became a Unitarian; and it is not strange that a Calvinist should express this sentiment. Dr. Miller argues here as one would do, who should soberly set out to prove that Paul never was a christian, because he was once a persecutor of christians.

"Besides all this, his Psalms and Hymns are so entirely opposed to the feelings of Unitarians, that they are sung in none of their places of worship, without being mutilated or altered."

Here is another argument of the same sort-just nothing to the purpose. His Psalms and Hymns, especially the latter, were "juvenile productions," some of them being written "even when he was a school boy;" and it is well known that when he became older, he was as anxious as any Unitarian to have them altered. It is not strange that he wrote trinitarian Hymns and Doxologies while he was a trinitarian.

"How are these facts to be reconciled with Dr. Watts's Unitarianism???

How is Paul's persecution of the Christians to be reconciled with his christianity? How is the sunshine of the day to be reconciled with the darkness of the night?

"But it is alleged by some, that he afterwards altered his mind."

If the writer would for one moment have paused to think, this sentence would have reminded him that all he had been saying was wasted; and then by blotting out the whole he would have saved both himself and his readers the pain of so idle a show of argument.

"I have heard much on this subject; but nothing that deserves to be considered as supporting the allegation, has ever met my eye; nor do I believe that it was a fact."

This is a very summary way of jumping over the matter. It would have been but fair to bave given the public a little opportunity of judging of the weight of what he had heard, instead of thus deciding upon it all in one sentence. Were not his readers to be trusted? Would not some of them think the cause a little suspicious, when a whole page had been spent in proving that Dr. Watts was a trinitarian in that part of his life when every body allows that he was so; while the evidence that he finally became otherwise is dismissed in one small sentence-with a mere assertion and no argument?

But there is one argument.

"That a man so pre-eminently conscientious and disinterested as he is confessed to have been, should have left the world, without disavowing and calling in, his psalms and hymns, and especially his Doxologies, in all which the Trinity is so strongly acknowledged, is proof enough for any candid mind, that he continued, to the end of life, to receive and glory in that doctrine."

Here we allow there is a strong antecedent presumption. But we cannot admit that the strongest argument a priori is of the least weight in a case of fact, where testimony can be produced. It is altogether nugatory. The question is not what we should think he would have done, but what did he do? We want proof. And proof enough there is to show that this, this only argument in the case, is wholly unfounded.

It is a well known fact, that Dr. Watts did express a regret of many things which he had written in his Psalms and Hymns; he greatly desired to alter them; and it was matter of grief to him, that he had so put out of his hands the copyright of the book, that he could not alter without consent of the proprietors; and to them the book, from its wide circulation, had become so profitable, that they would not consent to any changes which might injure its sale and diminish their profits. This is stated in Palmer's New Series-vol. III.

25

Life of Watts, and fully established in Belsham's Life of Lindsey. It was asserted too in the preface to one edition of the Psalms and Hymns by the editor, who professed to have received it from a gentleman who had it from Dr. Watts himself, that he had "undertaken and finished a revisal of them" with the view of making such alterations. And although Mr. Palmer doubts the fact, since the copy would probably have been found after the Doctor's death; yet, at any rate, it serves to show what the general impression was respecting his wishes on the subject. So that we are abundantly warranted in saying, that he did virtually "disavow,' and desired to "call in," his psalms, hymns, and doxologies.

It may serve further to satisfy us on this point, to be reminded, that the Rev. Martin Tompkins wrote to Dr. Watts on this subject, and put to him this very question; "whether, upon your present notion of the Spirit, you can esteem some of those Doxologies you have given us there, I will not say, as some of the noblest parts of christian worship, [the Doctor's words] but as proper christian worship? And if not, whether you may not think it becoming you, as a lover of truth, and as a christian minister, to declare as much to the world; and not suffer such forms of worship to be recommended by your name and authority, to the use of the christian church in the present time and in future generations ???

The doctor replied thus: "I freely answer, I wish some things were corrected. But the question with me is this: as I wrote them in sincerity at that time, is it not more for the edification of christians, and the glory of GoD, to let them stand, than to ruin the usefulness of the whole book, by correcting them now, and perhaps bring further and false suspicions on my present opinions? Besides, I might tell you, that of all the books I have written, that particular copy is not mine. I sold it for a trifle to Mr. Lawrence near thirty years ago, and his posterity make money of it to this day, and I can scarce claim a right to make any alteration in the book which would injure the sale of it."

But it should be remembered further, even if it were otherwise; if there were no evidence that he ever expressed disapprobation of a single verse; still Dr. Miller's inference would be far from infallible. Positive evidence, in another form, of a change of opinion, would destroy it. And as it was only at the very close of life that he was fully established in the change, his silence in regard to his hymns would breathe no imputation against his "conscientiousness or disinterestedness." So that allowing the Doctor his best ground, his argument amounts to nothing.

But let us set it against the positive proof derived from the account which Watts himself has left of his opinions.