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"that Dr . Watts was unable to recommend his new sentiments to the public , because he had never been used to a proper way of reasoning on such a subject . So it proved **
The meaning of this last sentence Mr . Palmer does not comprehend . But I am astonished that he should feel any difficulty in understanding it . Mr . Merivale ' s correspondent declares that
the fact was agreeable to his con . jectures ; he believed that Watts a never been used to a proper way of reasoning on such a subject : ' and the sight of the papers confirmed his judgment .
Very eminent as were the learn . ing and assiduity , the genius and talents of Dr . Watts , it js certain that in closeness of scriptural research and reasoning on the person of Christ , he is extremely inferior to Lardner . A comparison of the celebrated Letter on the
Logos with any one of Watts ' s publications in this controversy * will decide the point . ' . ^ ardner , free from the fetters of human schemes and systems , interprets scripture by scripture ; while the great arid good man with whom I
ana contrasting him , is principally employed in an attempt to reconcile offensive sentiments to popular ph jaseology . The one writes with the rational confidence , of Br-tnan who has discovered truth in all its beautiful simplicity 3 in the other ' perceive a devout and virtuous .
* n inquisitive and candid mind strugg ling with the prejudices of earl y youth . Though I heartily w that all his M . SS . had bqen Panted , I cannot wonder at so
accomplished a divine as Lardner Arming that Dr * Watts bad &e ? er been tised to a proper way
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of reasoning on such a subject , and was therefore unable to re ~ commend his sentiments to the world : his powers were various and superior ; but it was not in controversial theology that ke displayed his strength .
( 9 ) That the worthy family with whom he resided did not suppose that he was become an Unitarian ( 25 ) , may be allowed . They might not have read all 01 ; most of ' his M . SS . and even if
they had , they were not " so thoroughly competent judges" of their contents as Lardner , ( 10 ) Nor can I discover any good cause of arraigning Mr . Neal ' s judgment or impartiality in this affair ( 25 , 26 ) . Does a man ' s
partiality to his own opinion , in . * capacitate him for being a witness to a fact ? The common rules of evidence , Mr . Editor , must be set aside before this principle can be established . Neat ' s testimony to the Unitarianism of Watts and
Hopton Haynes ' s to thafr of Sir Isaac Newton , are in vain attempted to be overthrown by the consideration of their own religious sentiments ; for it will surely be granted , that notwithstanding they were Unitarians , they wqre honest men . The intellectual and
moral qualities of Mr . Neal , appear indeed to have been of no vulgar order ; and his letters to Dr . Doddridge , are perhaps the best in the Collection published by Mr . Stedman .
Mr . P . opposes to Lardner ' s testimony that of Mr . Joseph Parker , of the late Mrs . Abney , of Dr . Gibbons and of Dr . Stennett . He further places stress on the epitaph which Dr . Watts or * dered to be inscribed upon his tombstone , on the funeral dis ~
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Strictures on a recent Publication of Mr . Palmer ' s * —No . I . 721
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1813, page 721, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2434/page/29/
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