Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 32:127 (Jul 1875)
Article: Dr. Watts’s Theory Of Christ’s Pre-Existent Human Nature
Author: Henry L. Kendall

BSac 32:127 (July 1875) p. 421

Dr. Watts’s Theory Of Christ’s Pre-Existent Human Nature

Rev. Henry L. Kendall

To the student of New England theology it will ever be an interesting work to seek some acquaintance with those men whose writings contributed either to the matter or the form of the literature of that theology. It is often easy to trace among certain of the old English divines, a similarity to the thought, and modes of thought, and that same kind of logical suggestiveness which characterizes the New England writers. Among the very foremost of these men, who may thus be called the English fathers of American Christian thought, stands Dr. Watts. His prose works formed a large part of the thorough and critical studies of President Edwards. Indeed, one cannot read a chapter of these writings without perceiving at once that here was one of the great sources of that vigor of style, closeness of reasoning, and that glowing eloquence of reasoning, that “logic on fire,” which so distinguishes the great theologian.

Comparatively few are aware of the high place which these writings once held, and the immense influence they exerted; and we must still accord to their author the title of “great,” for the decline of this influence is not because of any modern discovery of subtle sophistry in thought, or of unsubstantiality in the bases of thought, but it is due to certain other causes, which, in their inevitable workings, have dug the grave of the offsprings of many a great man’s thoughts. We may hint a few of them.

Some of the truths contained in these works were those important ones that are needed everywhere and at all times, and thus the law of universal use has caused them to be

BSac 32:127 (July 1875) p. 422

reproduced in later writings, and thus, in America especially, in the abundance of the new, the old has passed away. Especially does this law obtain in respect to the controversial portions of his works. The fate of these has been like that of all controversial writings, which, when the interest of debate which gave birth to and sustained them has passed away, have always given place to the same truth sin new relations, and in forms more attractive, because more in accord with the advances of philosophy, and better adapted to modern discussion.

Again, with Watts the reputation of the poet has obscured that of the theologian. It is a curious law of the human mind which exalts a man in its opinion to a degree measured by that one of his excellences of which it has the most vivid idea, and then lets every other quality, however good it be, go for naught. From the day that Milton’s Paradise Lost became known to the world, his prose works became forever a dead thing in literature. So it has been that, since th...