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    * Yi& talked with caution in all p laces on those ^ subjects : He has raysed many scruples among many persons ; but I quash them wherever I find 'em . Now , my dear Friend , ! would lay aside all thought of Mr . H . in what follows : Let me inquire of you whether you imagine the great and glorious doctrines of the

    gospell were all contrived , and the affairs themselves transacted , merely to subserve a little morality : Whether our Great Lord J esus Christ , was incarnate and dyed , rose and lives , and gave such a gospeli , chiefely that we might be just and kind to our neighbors ( for those two things include all moratl dutys , ) or rather whether the honor of the wisdom *

    grace , and justice of God , the glory of his Son Jesus Christ , and the eternall enjoyment of his own love which his chosen ones obtain thereby , be not far the greater ends of God ' s contriving the gospeli , and sending it among men , and consequently whether these ought not to be

    insisted on in our preaching at least as much as morality . You know me and my way , therefore I talk to you with freedom , and would have the very sense of your soul on this subject . I could quote St . Paul largely for this purpose , but you know his spirit ; morality was not the chief ornament of it .

    My Bookseller urges me to reprint my Hymns ,- and talks of another edition of the Poems . I earnestly beg you to point me those lines . in either which are offensive to the weak and pious , and shocking and disgustful to the polite , or

    obscure to . the vulgar capacity , or in short -whatever you think should be mended , and if you please with your amendment ; but I entreat it especially for the Hymns in a fortnight ' s time : ffarewell , and love

    Your affectionate Brother in the Gospeli , I . WATTS

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    T # Mr , Samuel Say , Minister at Lowestoftyttear OTarmoutby Suffolk * Letter II . My Dear ffriend , Marcby I a , 1708-9 . Your two Letters require a larger

    answer than I can now give , but Vm ashamed of so long delay . I send you my thanks for those few remarks you were pleased to make on my Hymns . I easily believe a longer review of ' cm would have afforded more numerous and more obvious grounds of friendly

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    censure . The method I took , was to collect all the remarks together that severall friends had made by word or let * ter , and gott a friend or two' together , and spent a whole day in perusing and considering the remarks : I agreed to their judgments 1 think in all things : in the whole , there are near half a hundred lines altered , I hope always for the better * Some that were less offensive were let

    pass ; for the Bookseller desired I would not change too much , besides that lesser faults would not be spied by the vulgar , nor much offend the polite . . But I ' ve added above a hundred , and most of ' em to the First Book . I hope all now more approvable , for their chief design * than the foregoing edition . The Printer ,

    by the cold weather , and by working ofF a Supplement of the New Hymns apart , has been made so dilatory , that he has not yet printed all the First Book . If therefore , you see lines that are very unfittfor Christian use , or evidently improper , or disagreeable to you in the Second or Third Books , point them out to me in a week or two , and oblige me farther .

    I rejoice , dear Bro ; when I find you concurring with me in the great end * of Christianity , ( viz . ) the glory of God ' s perfections , as being much superior , and infinitely preferable to our single or sociall human vertues and relative dutys in this mortall , mixed state . When I used the -words ( meer morality ) I confined

    ' em to this sense , though I know the word morall has a larger extent when applyd to the law , < 5 cc . Cut vulgarly , we mean by it second table dutys . Therefore , we have differed meerly about a word , and 1 ask your pardon for the occasion . I ' m of your mind too , that

    morall relative dutys , such as justice , goodness , truth , &c . 'and solitary , —such as sobriety , temperance , Sic . should be insisted on , and well intermingled with the diviner part of the gospeli : ' tis a just remark , that a minister in the countryknows the morall character of his hearers

    much better than in the city : perhaps we should have more reason to be large upon the second table did we see so much neglect here , as you do there . I hav » e received no notice from Mr .

    Lewis about what you wrote ; but I am utterly precluded long ago , from serving any friend , having a ncer relation , for whom I ' ve [ ejigag'd Mr . Shute ' s interest , whenever any such kind of place falls ; and I believe Mr . Shute will oblige

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    Thv Say Papers . —Original Letters of Dr . Watts " * . 9

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    vox ., in , c

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1809, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1732/page/9/