The Death of Isaac Watts, November 25, 1748
Bill Potter
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Protestant Reformation in the 16th Century changed the music
used in the worship of God. No longer the sole provenance of
choirs or professional singers, the congregation began singing
in worship also, especially the Psalms. Martin Luther wrote
thirty-six hymns and encouraged others to do so as well. In
Calvin’s Geneva, Psalters were produced and in the next century,
Protestant composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg
Friederich Handel produced some of the greatest hymnody in
history. Among many of the Puritans in England and America, and
the Presbyterians of Scotland, however, only the Psalms were
considered the appropriate music for the worship of God. Most of
the Protestant hymns before the late 18th Century came from
German composers or were taken from older Latin hymns—until
Isaac Watts.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)

Queen Anne of England (1665-1714)
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Isaac’s father, of the same name, committed early to the
dissenting churches, to the point of arrest and imprisonment. He
was in prison when young Isaac was born in 1674. His mother
nursed him on the prison steps when visiting her husband. He was
eventually released and fathered seven more children. Men
outside the Anglican establishment had fled England earlier in
the century and sailed for America, the Scrooby congregation of
“Pilgrims” in 1620 and more than 10,000 Puritans in the decade
of the 1630s. Those who remained in England, still faced
persecution in the 18th Century under Queen Anne and her
successors.

Watts received an education at King Edward VI School,
Southampton (opened 1554 by Royal Charter of King Edward
VI), learning Latin, Greek, and Hebrew
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Like his father before him, young Isaac was not deterred in
learning and scholarship by the restrictions designed to keep
dissenters from promulgating their ideas. By the age of eleven,
Watts had learned Latin, Greek, French, and Hebrew. He received
formal education in a dissenting academy and he was also
tutored. Following his early education, Watts was called to
pastor a large “Congregationalist” Church in London. After
suffering from a mental distemper and physical difficulties, he
gave up his church and was hired as a tutor; he spent most of
the rest of his life writing poetry, hymns, and other literary
and educational works. The original challenge had come from his
father.

Watts set his text for Our God Our Help
in Ages Past to a tune written by
William Croft (c. 1678-1727) shown here as a choirboy,
c. 1690
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As a young man, Watts had complained about the dismal singing in
the churches. His father told him that if he was dissatisfied,
“write something better.” Watts believed that the Psalms should
be more singable than people were accustomed to and that Jesus
Christ should be more strongly reflected in the Psalter
terminology. With a natural skill at rhyming, (for which he had
been rebuked as a child) and a profound sense of the necessity
of praise, prayer, thanksgiving, and theological expression, he
produced a psalter, well-received by most churches.
In 1707 he published Hymns and Spiritual Songs, which included
the all-time favorite, When I Survey the
Wondrous Cross. He rewrote the Psalter in
Psalms of David Imitated in the language of the
New Testament, with Psalm 78 becoming Joy to the
World, Psalm 72, Jesus Shall Reign Where’er
the Sun, and Psalm 90, Our God Our Help in
Ages Past. Some saw Watts’s paraphrasing as playing fast and
loose with Scripture, and not to be borne in godly worship.
“Watts was unapologetic, arguing that he deliberately
omitted several psalms and large parts of others, keeping
portions ‘as might easily and naturally be accommodated to
the various occasions of Christian life, or at least might
afford us some beautiful allusions to Christian affairs.’
Furthermore, where the psalmist fought with personal
enemies, Watts turned the biblical invective against
spiritual adversaries: sin, Satan, and temptation. Finally,
he said, ‘Where the flights of his faith and love are
sublime, I have often sunk the expressions within the reach
of an ordinary Christian.’”*

Fourth edition title page from Isaac Watts’s “Guide to
Prayer,” 1725
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Watts’s profound ideas were enhanced by his scholarly output
encompassed many subjects. His textbook on Logic became
a cornerstone work in classical education. Among his thirty
published theological works are essays on psychology,
philosophy, and astronomy. His Songs for Little
Children and three volumes of sermons still
bless the Church today. In America, Benjamin Franklin published
his hymnal and Cotton Mather kept up a long correspondence with
his fellow-dissenting Congregationalist.
Isaac Watts died at the age of seventy-four, his reputation as
“the greatest English hymn-writer” secured in the minds of
Christians for more than the next two centuries. Of his more
than 750 hymns: Come Ye that Love the Lord, Our
God, Our Help in Ages Past, Alas! And Did My
Savior Bleed, How Sweet and Awful Is the
Place, I Sing the Mighty Power of God,
and When I Can Read My Title Clear, etc.
etc.!!

* Isaac
Watts: Father of English Hymnody


Image Credits: 1 Isaac
Watts (Wikipedia.org) 2 Queen
Anne (Wikipedia.org) 3 King
Edward VI School, Southampton (Wikipedia.org) 4 William
Croft (Wikipedia.org) 5 Prayer
Guide Title Page (Wikipedia.org)
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