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Tag Archives: Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts, I Sing My Savior’s Wondrous Death

26 Saturday Mar 2016

Posted by memoirandremains in Hymns

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Crucifixion, Hymns, Isaac Watts, Resurrection

I sing my Savior’s wondrous death,

     He conquered when he fell:

“’Tis finished!” said his dying breath,

     And shook the gates of hell.


“’Tis finished!” our Immanuel cries,

     The dreadful work is done;

Hence shall his sovereign throne arise,

     His kingdom is begun.


His cross a sure foundation laid

     For glory and renown,

When through the regions of the dead

     He passed to reach the crown.


Exalted at his Father’s side

     Sits our victorious Lord;

To heav’n and hell his hands divide

     The vengeance or reward.


The saints, from his propitious eye,

     Await their several crowns

And all the sons of darkness fly

     The terror of his frowns.

The Peaceful Gates of Heav’nly Bliss

27 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Atonement, Christology, Isaac Watts

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Atonement, Hymns, Isaac Watts, mercy

Hymn 108

Come, let us lift our joyful eyes
Up to the courts above,
And smile to see our Father there
Upon a throne of love.

Once ’twas a seat of dreadful wrath,
And shot devouring flame
Our God appeared “consuming fire,”
And Vengeance was his name.

Rich were the drops of Jesus’ blood
That calmed his frowning face,
That sprinkled o’er the burning throne,
And turned the wrath to grace.

Now we may bow before his feet,
And venture near the Lord;
No fiery cherub guards his seat,
Nor double-flaming sword.

The peaceful gates of heav’nly bliss
Are opened by the Son;
High let us raise our notes of praise,
And reach th’ almighty throne.

To thee ten thousand thanks we bring,
Great Advocate on high;
And glory to th’ eternal King,
That lays his fury by.

Isaac Watts, The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

O, how I hate those lusts of mine

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by memoirandremains in Uncategorized

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Confession, Hymns, Isaac Watts, Mortification, Music, Prayer

O, if my soul were formed for woe,
How would I vent my sighs!
Repentance should like rivers flow
From both my streaming eyes.

Twas for my sins my dearest Lord
Hung on the cursed tree,
And groaned away a dying life
For thee, my soul, for thee.

O, how I hate those lusts of mine
That crucified my God!
Those sins that pierced and nailed his flesh
Fast to the fatal wood!

Yes, my Redeemer, they shall die,
My heart has so decreed;
Nor will I spare the guilty things
That made my Savior bleed.

Whilst, with a melting, broken heart,
My murdered Lord I view,
I’ll raise revenge against my sins,
And slay the murd’rers too.

Hymn 103. (Isaac Watts)

Now sinners, dry your tears

12 Sunday Oct 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaac Watts

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Hymns, Isaac Watts, poem, Poetry

Hymn 104
Reconciliation.

Raise your triumphant songs
To an immortal tune;
Let the wide earth resound the deeds
Celestial grace has done.

Sing how eternal love
Its chief Beloved chose,
And bid him raise our wretched race
From their abyss of woes.

His hand no thunder bears,
Nor terror clothes his brow;
No bolts to drive our guilty souls
To fiercer flames below.

’Twas mercy filled the throne,
And wrath stood silent by,
When Christ was sent with pardons down
To rebels doomed to die.

Now, sinners, dry your tears,
Let hopeless sorrow cease;
Bow to the sceptre of his love,
And take the offered peace.

Lord, we obey thy call;
We lay an humble claim
To the salvation thou hast brought,
And love and praise thy name.
Isaac Watts, The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

You May Heal Your Wounds

09 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaac Watts, Literature, Music

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Hymn, Hymns, Isaac Watts, poem, Poetry, salvation

Hymn 103
Meter: C. M.
Christ’s commission.
(John 3:16, 17)

Come, happy souls, approach your God
With new melodious songs;
Come, tender to almighty grace
The tribute of your tongues.

So strange, so boundless was the love
That pitied dying men,
The Father sent his equal Son
To give them life again.

Thy hands, dear Jesus, were not armed
With a revenging rod,
No hard commission to perform
The vengeance of a God.

But all was mercy, all was mild,
And wrath forsook the throne,
When Christ on the kind errand came,
And brought salvation down.

Here, sinners, you may heal your wounds,
And wipe your sorrows dry;
Trust in the mighty Savior’s name,
And you shall never die.

See, dearest Lord, our willing souls
Accept thine offered grace;
We bless the great Redeemer’s love,
And give the Father praise.

Was it for crimes that I had done

14 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Atonement, Christology, Confession, Desire, Humility, Isaac Watts, Joy, Literature, Music

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Alas and Did my Savior Die, Hymn, Isaac Watts, poem, Poetry

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?

Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,
And bathed in its own blood,
While all exposed to wrath divine
The glorious Suff’rer stood!

Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree!

Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When God, the mighty Maker, died
For man, the creature’s sin.

Thus might I hide my blushing face,
While his dear cross appears;
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes to tears.

But drops of grief can ne’er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away;
’Tis all that I can do.

16 From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
18 All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
-2 Corinthians 5:16-21

We Need Poets

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaac Watts, Literature, Martin Luther, Music

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Douglas Bond, Isaac Watts, Martin Luther, poem, Poet, Poetry, Poets, The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts

First, we need Watts’ poetry in our lives. Our world clambers after the latest thing, and as we wear ourselves out in the process, great poets such as Watts often get put in a box on the curb for the thrift store pickup. How could a gawky, male poet, living and writing three hundred years ago, be relevant today? Our postmodern, post-Christian, post-biblical culture has almost totally dismissed what was called poetry in Watts’ day. Few deny it: ours is a post-poetry culture. Martin Luther insisted that in a reformation, “We need poets.” [Here I Stand]  However, Christians often accept the decline of poetry without a whimper. Won’t the machinations of society carry on just fine without poetry? Won’t the church do just fine without it? It’s not like poetry contributes anything vital. You can’t eat it. So thought Hanoverian King George II: “I hate all poets!” he declared. But are Christians to stand deferentially aside as culture pitches poetry —the highest form— into the lowest circle of hell?

 

Bond; Douglas (2013-10-29). The Poetic Wonder of Isaac Watts (A Long Line of Godly Men Profiles) (Kindle Locations 167-170). Reformation Trust Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Ye saints, ascend the skies

31 Thursday Oct 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaac Watts, Resurrection

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Hymn, Isaac Watts, poem, Poetry, Resurrection, Ye Saints Ascend the Skies

Why do we mourn departing friends,
Or shake at death’s alarms?’
Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call them to his arms.

Are we not tending upward too
As fast as time can move?
Nor would we wish the hours more slow
To keep us from our love.

Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.

The graves of all his saints he blessed
And softened every bed;
Where should the dying members rest,
But with the dying Head?

Thence he arose, ascending high,
And showed our feet the way;
Up to the Lord our flesh shall fly,
At the great rising day.

Then let the last loud trumpet sound,
And bid our kindred rise;
Awake, ye nations under ground;
Ye saints, ascend the skies.

–Isaac Watts, Hymn 3

A Short History of Isaac Watts and English Church Music

04 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by memoirandremains in Isaac Watts, Music

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History, Isaac Watts, Music

 

 Issac Watts:

 Isaac Watts, born in 1664, died 1748, was not technically a Puritan.  He was born too late to be part of the Puritan movement, but he is certainly allied with the Puritans in his desire to rethink the whole of Christian worship and practice in terms of the Bible.  He, like the Puritans, was unwilling to continue a particular practice merely because it had always been done that way.

Watts was named for his father, a non-conformist minister.  To understand what it means to be a Anonconformist@ , you must understand a small bit of history.  In 1660, Charles II was Arestored@ to the throne of England.  Charles, a Roman Catholic at heart was welcomed by much of the population who both hated the Puritans and could not have cared less about the their religion, except in a superstitious sort of way; they  were willing to have any religion, as long it made no greater claims upon them than to be baptized as infants and require an occasional trip to church.

With the restoration of the King, the country became extremely debauched and depraved.  The public life of the country turned upon the Puritans with force.  Poems and plays attacked the Puritans. The political and religious elite also set out after them.  In 1660, John Bunyan was cast into prison.  In 1662, the law ejected 2000 Puritans from their pulpits.  In 1664, another law made it illegal to hold religious services which did not Aconform@ to the requirements of the Anglican Church.  Many found the Anglican service to be filled with man-made inventions and elements which were idolatrous.

Some men could not Aconform@ to the requirements of the government without defiling their conscience.  Such men were called non-conformists.  One of them, Isaac Watts, was thrown into prison.  The wife of Isaac would bring their infant, also named Isaac to the prison to visit and sit on the stone outside the jail door.

As a young man, Watts was very diligent and intelligent.  And, like many young people you now know, Watts ruined his health by spending too much time studying.  This was not a terribly uncommon thing with young men who were or became Puritans.  Oddly enough from our perspective, the Puritan movement was a youth movement centered in the university.  There were parents who were afraid to send their sons to college for fear they should come back Puritans.

Like Watts, the Puritans were also quite literary.  There are wonderful examples of Puritan poetry, from men and women, such as John Milton, Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor.  Watts, in writing poems, fell within that legacy.


The young Watts threw himself into education.    However, his naturally weak constitution was made even more fragile by his excessive study.   He finished college at the age of 20.  He preached on occasion beginning in 1698.  In 1701, he accepted the call to become the minister of a non-conformist church.  He accepted his call with great reluctance and asked the congregation to consider other men, whom Watts considered better qualified than himself.  When the church insisted on Isaac, he consented.

Very shortly thereafter, Watts fell terribly ill.  Fortunately, a wealthy family in the church took Watts in.  He spent the remainder of his life living on their estate, protected from the need to work when he was too ill.  Watts never married.

The space given to Watts permitted him to continue to minister and preach, when his health permitted.  He also wrote various books, including a logic book which was a standard textbook for a couple of hundred years.

Incidentally, he also reworked the entire practice of Christian congregational singing.


History of English Church Song

To understand the  Watts-Revolution, you need to understand just a bit about the history of English Church Song.  At the time of the Reformation, both Luther and later Calvin worked to put singing back in the hands of the congregation.  By the late Middle Ages, singing was given completely to the choir.

Although Luther and Calvin both gave the song back to the congregation, they did so in different ways.  Calvin was of the opinion that only the Psalms should be sung.  Luther permitted the composition of hymns on appropriate topics.  In fact, many hymns we still sing, such as a Mighty Fortress is our God were written by Luther.

The English Reformers had strong ties to Geneva, the home of Calvin. The English Protestants took over Calvin=s habit of singing only the Psalms.


To that end, there were various editions of metrical Psalms published; that would be a Psalm reworked to have meter and rhyme so as to be easier to sing.

Editions of these works appeared in the 1500’s and became the standard B indeed the only text for the songs which were sung in the Christian Churches in England.  This brings us to work of Isaac Watts.

The Watts – Revolution

In the early 18th century, a variety of ministers began to voice concerns about the sole use of metrical Psalms for congregational singing.  Some argued for reinvigorating the old style of Psalm singing.  Some argued for adding New Testament songs to the existing Psalms.  Isaac Watts suggested that the ministers re-think and re-work the practice of congregational songs.


Watts conceived of congregational songs as Christians singing to God.  Since singing was done by Christians directing their attention and worship towards God, it was appropriate that the words of their songs properly reflect their own experience and understanding of God.  From that simple proposition, Watts set out a two-fold scheme for rethinking and reworking song:  First, they needed to reconsider the Psalms.  Second, they needed to add songs which would reflect the fullness of the Christian life.

The Psalms

Watts never suggested that the church leave-off singing metrical versions of the Psalms.  He merely noted that the Church should be particular about the selection and use of the Psalms.

               While all the Psalms were profitable to believers, not all of the Psalms were appropriate for the believer as one personally singing to God.

In addition, the Psalms alone cannot express the full scope of understanding of a believer who lives after the time of the cross of Christ.  The incarnation, the birth, death, burial and resurrection of Christ are not fully and plainly expressed when one is limited to the Psalms alone; for that there was needed ANew Testament Songs@.

New Testament Songs

Watts argued for the use of songs specifically written to address the truth and experience of the believer who has the New Testament.  Watts explained that songs were a form of teaching, and, since the preacher explained the New Testament, indeed the whole of the Bible, it would be equally appropriate for the pastor to teach the congregation by means of songs which expounded a biblical truth.


Watts= Psalms and Hymns

In December 1705, Watts published his Psalms and Hymns.  The book contained three sections: The paraphrased Psalms, hymns for communion and Afree composures@.  Although the book initially received some rather stiff objections, it soon became a great favorite of church.  Watts= book had wide ranging affects.  In 1731, a fellow-pastor writing to Watts said that Watts= book was the Adaily entertainment@ of many poor members of his congregation.  As late as 1864, a new edition of Watts= book sold 60,000 copies.

Watts= book opened the door for other ministers to write their own songs for their congregations.  For example, John Newton wrote Amazing Grace to underscore the sermon on a particular day.  In 1784 a compilation of songs written by various pastors B much like the hymnal in the pew before you B  was published.

In addition to his Psalms and Hymns, Watts also invented the Children=s Song.

The Nature of the Book

If you were to pick up a copy of Watts= book, you would not find music, as you would in a modern hymnal.  Instead you would find only words.  There were various melodies which the congregation would know.  A small number of melodies would be sufficient to sing any of the songs in the book.

Since the songs were considered to be a lesson, the emphasis was on the words, not the melody.  Songs perform a teaching a function, you remember them, think about them, repeat them.  As with anything, you should be wise in what you are willing to learn; consider the songs who leave in your heart.


How a Song was Written

The songs themselves were teaching based upon a biblical text.  Watts would turn his meditation upon that text into a short poem.  The poem is a compact exposition of gospel truth.  For example, AGod forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ@ (Gal. 6:14) and Paul=s note that Athey . . . crucified the Lord of Glory@ (1 Cor. 2:8) becomes,

1          When I survey the wondrous cross,

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.


2          Forbid it Lord that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God;

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood. 

In those short words, Watts teaches the incarnation, the crucifixion, the atonement, grace, the righteousness of God, and Christian humility.  The gospels= description of the crucifixion becomes

3          See, from His head, His hands,

His feet, Sorrow and love flow mingled down;

Did e=er such love and sorrow meet,

Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Complete dedication of the believer, such as Paul=s command to Apresent your bodies as a living sacrifice@, becomes

 


4          Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were a present far too small;

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.

The poem moves the believer to a more complete dedication to Christ by showing forth Christ, who Ahath loved us and hath given himself for us as an offering and sacrifice to God@ (Eph. 5:2).  This poem becomes a picture of the truth, AThat we loved him because he first loved us@ (1 John 4:19).   This short poem transverses a great swath of Christian doctrine in a manner which engages both the heart and the mind.   Here is great matter packed in a manner that even a child can carry it about.

We could make similar examinations of any number of songs written by Watts, such as Joy to the World, or Alas and did My Savior Bleed@ or any number of other songs.  Indeed, I would encourage you do so.  I would encourage you to memorize these songs.

And, if you have children, teach them to memorize these and other hymns B but don=t pay them to do so.  The grandmother of Charles Spurgeon offered young Charles money for each hymn of Watts which he memorized B which a great plan until she discovered that he had a photographic memory and could inhale a hymn by Watts at a glance.

 

 

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