Adult biographies, Book Reviews

The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts

by Douglas Bond 2013 / 163 pages Isaac Watts was born in 1674 when the Psalms sung in the English Church were stiff and difficult to sing.  As a young man Watts began to wonder, “Why may we no longer sing of Christ as God?  When Christ makes all things new, why must our praises remain in the Old Covenant?” We who love to sing the Psalms know that is Christ portrayed and foreshadowed in the Psalms. What Watts wanted to do was bring Christ into every hymn he wrote. He believed in redemptive-historical preaching, and wanted to apply this to the Church's songs too, so he began to interpret and paraphrases the Psalms in a new form, showing how they pointed to Christ. His most famous hymn is “When I survey the Wondrous Cross.” To us today some of his hymns might seem frivolous but there are also many that we love that have found their way into the hymn section of our Book of Praise: “Jesus Shall Reign Where ever the Sun” (Hymn 80, based on Psalm 136), “O God Our Help In Ages Past” (Hy. 54/Ps. 90), “Give to Our God Immortal Praise” (Hy. 80/Ps. 136), to name but a few. And, another, “Joy to the World” (Ps. 98), is also well known to us. This short biography would be very suitable for any high school or church library.

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An excerpt: "…one evening during family worship at the dinner table [while] his father read Scripture and guided family prayers, Watts spotted a mouse climbing up the bell pull and began to giggle. Rebuked by his father, who asked him why he was laughing during prayer, Watts replied:

There was a mouse for want of stairs Ran up a rope to say his prayers.

"His parents, amazed at the boy’s ability to rhyme in his head without writing the lines down on paper, encouraged his rhyming – for a while. As children will do when encouraged, Watts began rhyming all the time. Annoyed by the incessant rhyming, his father forbade him to do it – and he meant it. Isaac soon forgot and fell back into rhyming. Taking him over his knees, Watts Sr. prepared to lay into his son’s backside with the switch. Then young Watts rather unconvincingly cried:

O father, do some mercy take And I will no more verses make."