On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
* ( 8 ) c < But it so happens , " sub . joins Mr . P . ( 22 ) " that we have decisive proof that " what Dr .
Watts wrote and left in manuscript , on the points about which he had given up his early opinions , was written some years before his decease . For the proof of this I refer to a letter of Dr . Jennings to Dr . Doddridge , in which he says , "I believe we shall not have near so
much trouble in publishing the ^ Doctor ' s M . SS . as I expected , when he acquainted me with his design of committing them in part to my care , which was three or
four years ago ? He adds , * for since then he has published most of the M . SS . he designed for the press / These were doubtless the two volumes mentioned above ,
both of which are dated 174 b ( 23 ) , This argument is urged by the letter-writer with apparent triumph . To convert it into decisive proof , he should have shewn ,
first , that by most of the M . SS . Dr . Jennings meant ajli , opthemnext , that " the two volumes mentioned above , " included most of those M . SS . and lastly , that it
Avas utterly improbable Watts should have written any thing on the subjeot of the Trinity at a yet more advanced period of his life * As long as the Solemn Address , &c . is in existence , the probability will be on the other side .
( 8 ) Still Mr . Palmer cannot reconcile Lardner ' s testimony with other facts and dates : I will quote
his own words ( 10 ) : C € Dr . Lardner says that Dr . Watts was & Unitarian several years before his death . This does not agree with the most prevalent report , which is that he changed his sentimenta but a few years be-
Untitled Article
720 Strictures on a recent Publication of Mr Palmer ' s . —No . I .
Untitled Article
fore he died , and this ^ if he became a Unitarian at all , k-4 > y far the most probable /* On this step of the reasoning I shall only observe that the express testimony of such a man as Lardner , is , in my eyes , highly deserving of regard , even though it contradict * the most prevalent report . * ' Are there not numerous cases in which Mr . Palmer declines giving to report the name of evidence ?
He goes on ( ib . ) — c < it is an undeniable fact that Dr . Watts himself published several things
upon this very subject ^ viz . the Trinity and the person of Christ , within the . two last year ? of his life , and it is incredible that in
these his Uriitarianism should not have appeared , especially if he was so very desirous , as is said , to promote that opinion . ' For several years , as is admitted on both hands , W , atts had thought and written and printed much on
the Trinitarian controversy . It is further agreed that tiis opinions
respecting this doctrine , had varied for some time from the popular ideas . Now , in perfect consistence with this representation and with a strict examination of the books which he composed and published , Lardner states that for several years Dr . Watts had been an ' Unitarian , hut that his last
thoughts were completely TJmta * rian . But why , Mr . Palmer should ask ( 1 J ) did Dr . Lardner approve the suppression of the posthumous papers ? Why does he exculpate the executors , who did not think
them " fit for publication ?" My answer is in Larcltier ' s own language : ?• I was of opinion /* he remarks to his nephew ( 13 ) ,
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1813, page 720, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2434/page/28/
-