The Hymns of Isaac Watts as a Model of Pastoral Theology

DANIEL JOHNSON

Eucharisma 2 , (Autumn 2024), 12-19.

I’m old enough to remember pastors leading the whole church service. They would do the welcome, choose the songs, host the service, and then preach. In the last few decades, this pattern has changed to church services being a game of two halves; the worship band lead the first half, and the pastor leads the second half. I know I’m painting in broad strokes here, and there will be exceptions, but this pattern is common. 

This piece draws from my PhD research on Isaac Watts, the eighteenth-century hymnwriter.¹ But we aren’t going where you might expect. This article isn’t going to be a criticism of contemporary praise and worship, or a plea to return to hymn singing. My emphasis is on something that I think has been lost in the last few years, and it’s based on the observation that many (not all), but many) of the hymn writers in previous generations were primarily pastors; Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, John Newton, Augustus Toplady. There are exceptions (Anne Steele, Fanny Crosby, William Cowper), but the point still stands; pastors saw hymn writing, and congregational singing, as a central facet of their ministries. Even in and of itself, that isn’t my point; I’m not going to argue that pastors should be on the microphone each Sunday morning, or that you bench your worship team. What I’m going to argue for is that the pastoral perspective of congregational singing is, in my observation, more clearly seen in the hymn tradition. 

What do I mean by a pastoral perspective? I mean that in 2 Timothy, Paul uses three metaphors for Christian ministry; the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer (2 Timothy 2.1-7). He then returns to these images in chapter 4; preaching should take place in season and out of season, he has fought the good fight and finished the race. Solider, athlete, farmer. Paul wants to instil in Timothy a long-term vision of ministry. Paul isn’t living and dying by how Sunday goes, he is measuring his labours for the Lord in seasons and years. The pastoral perspective is grounded in the long view. This article will argue that Isaac Watts is a helpful model in reminding us that the fruit of congregational singing is not seen in how well the music went last Sunday morning, but should be seen through the long view. 

Isaac Watts was born in 1674. His father was imprisoned twice during Watts’ childhood for his nonconformist convictions. Isaac Watts went to Thomas Rowe’s dissenting academy in 1690, where he studied theology, logic, and philosophy. His notebooks from this period are housed in the Dr Williams’ Library, and demonstrate that he was familiar with the Church Fathers, Reformers, and Puritans. It also reveals an interest in hymn singing, with references to Thomas Ford and Benjamin Keach, and their works on the theology and practice of congregational song. In 1707, having been appointed as pastor of Mark Lane church, London in 1702, he published his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, and in 1719 published The Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament. Before we move on, it’s worth noting that it took 25 years from Watts’ initial reflections on hymn singing to the publication of his Psalms. Soldier, athlete, farmer. 

Watts wrote his hymns for two interconnected reasons. Doctrine and passion. He opened the preface to his Hymns by saying, ‘While we sing the Praises of our God in his Church, we are employed in that part of Worship which of all others is the nearest a-kin to Heaven: and ‘tis pity that this of all others should be performed the worst upon Earth.’² This is clearly a high view of congregational singing; that it is the part of worship which most closely reflects the praises of heaven. However, in his own estimation it was not on earth as it was in heaven. He goes on:

The Gospel brings us nearer to the heavenly State than all the former Dispensations of God amongst Men: And in these very last Days of the Gospel we are brought almost within sight of the Kingdom of our Lord; yet we are very much unacquainted with the Songs of the New Jerusalem, and unpracticed in the Work of Praise. To see the dull Indifference, the negligent and the thoughtless Air that sits upon the Faces of a whole Assembly, while the Psalm is on their Lips, might tempt even a charitable Observer to suspect the Fervency of inward Religion; and ‘tis much to be feared that the Minds of most of the Worshippers are absent or unconcerned.³

Here we can see the motivating factors of doctrine and passion. The dominant practice in nonconformist congregational singing was metrical psalmody, and typically those written by Sternhold and Hopkins in the sixteenth century. Metrical psalmody was based on a literal interpretation of the psalms, and was practised through the method of lining out, where a song leader sings a line and the congregation repeat it. As such, Watts observed that the New Testament doctrines of Christ were absent, and that the practice was resulting in widespread boredom. In other words, congregational singing should be centred on the truths of Scripture, and should cultivate enlivened affections within the singer. What you think and what you feel when you sing were of vital importance to Watts. 

Watts’ ambition was to produce a body of hymns that were based on a spiritual interpretation of Scripture; he interprets the Old Testament through the light of the New. And this, in turn, cultivates the affections. For example, in The Different Success of the Gospel, he wrote:

But Souls enlightened from above,
With Joy receive the Word;
They see what Wisdom, Power and Love
Shines in their dying Lord.

Believers, having received the illuminating and indwelling Spirit joyfully receive God’s Word. But this joy is a result of seeing the gospel of Christ crucified and his glories displayed therein. 

I return to my opening point. Let’s compare our congregational singing to preaching for a moment. It’s very common for preachers to have a series; it may be thematic or expository, but very few pastors preach stand-alone sermons week by week. These series are prayerfully planned out, often months at a time. And they are balanced; it’s not uncommon to move between different books of the Bible: something like a series in Ephesians, followed by a study of the life of Abraham, and then evangelistic sermons from Mark’s Gospel, then a 5 week focus on prayer, etc. And then the series that follow will touch on themes and books that haven’t been looked at; so you might look at the attributes of God, preach through Habakkuk, then 1 Peter, and then follow your series on Abraham with the lives of Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and then move to John’s Gospel, The point is, preachers attentively ensure that their sermons provide a rich and balanced diet from the feast of Scripture. They cover themes, doctrines, books, events, and characters. And many pastors devote considerable time to their preaching; it’s not uncommon to devote 10 hours to a sermon. 

Does our congregational singing receive this level of attention? 

Are your songs helping your congregation understand Scripture better? I don’t mean as to whether they generally affirm Christian doctrine, but can you point to songs that help your congregation understand Exodus, or Solomon, or Acts more clearly? Do your songs cover the same breadth of doctrine that you would reasonably expect from a volume of Systematic Theology? Do the songs you sing express the breadth of human experience? If preaching is a necessary dimension of discipleship, what role do songs play in this? It is evident from a cursory comparison of Colossians 3:16 and Ephesians 5:19-20 that congregational singing is designed to worship God and edify the church, and yet it seems that the generations that preceded us had a firmer grasp on this than we do. 

Let us take one doctrine, the doctrine of Scripture. Consider these verses from Watts’ hymn The Faithfulness of God in His Promises. 

Tell of his wondrous Faithfulness,
And sound his Power abroad
Sing the sweet Promise of his Grace,
And the performing God. 

Proclaim ‘Salvation from the Lord
‘For wretched dying Men; 
His Hand has writ the Sacred Word
With an Immortal Pen.

Engrav’d as in Eternal Brass
The mighty Promise lies,
Nor can the Powers of Darkness raise
The Records of the Skies.

The hymn grounds the divine inspiration of Scripture in the character and work of God; the God who gives salvation to the wretched and the dying wrote the sacred word, and therefore his promises are sweet and true. The singer does not just learn to generally affirm that the Bible is God’s Word, but expresses a view of Scripture which draws them closer to the heart of God. 

Elsewhere, the doctrine of Scripture is applied in pastoral care for the suffering:

The Volume of my Father’s Grace
Does all my Griefs asswage
Here I behold my Saviour’s Face
Almost in every Page.

I am willing to confidently assume that your church, like mine, rarely sings about the doctrine of circumcision. I’m not necessarily suggesting that you ought to do this, but see what Watts does in the following hymn. In Circumcision Abolish’d, Watts brings together themes of promise, covenant, grace, and redemption: 

The Promise was divinely free,
Extensive was the Grace;
I will the God of Abraham be,
And of his num’rous Race. 

He said; and with a bloody Seal
Confirm’d the Words He spoke;
Long did the Sons of Abraham feel
The sharp and painful Yoke. 

Till God’s own Son descending low
Gave his own Flesh to bleed;
And Gentiles taste the Blessing now
From the hard Bondage freed. 

The God of Abraham claims our Praise,
His Promises endure,
And Christ the Lord in gentler Ways
Makes the Salvation sure.

 If a sermon can explain that Christ is the true and greater Abraham, then our songs can too. And before we start to think that singing about doctrine is the antithesis to praise, see this verse:

The Oath and Promise of the Lord
Joyn to confirm the wond’rous Grace;
Eternal Power performs the Word,
And fills all Heav’n with endless Praise.

For Watts, the doctrine of Scripture reveals a praise-worthy author. Elsewhere, in the hymn Christ is the Substance of the Levitical Priesthood, Watts employs typological exegesis throughout. The hymn begins, ‘The true Messiah now appears, The Types are all withdrawn’, and the third verse reads:

Aaron must lay his Robes away,
His Mitre and his Vest,
When God himself comes down to be
The Off’ring and the Priest.

He took our mortal Flesh to show
The Wonders of his Love,
For us he paid his Life below
And prays for us above.

If the priestly role of Christ is indeed a comforting doctrine, revealed in the Old and New Testaments, then it can be sung about too. 

But Watts’ hymns were not just about Scripture and doctrine. Watts wanted to write hymns that defined, cultivated, and sustained godly affections.⁹ Watts saw the dull indifference on the faces of the congregation as they sang (something you have never witnessed, I’m sure), and it caused him to suspect the fervency of inward religion. This is an important point in Watts; he sees a connection between the outward expression and the inner devotion:

The Heart with all the inward Powers and Passions must be devoted to him in the first Place: This is Religion indeed. The great God values not the Service of Men, if the Heart be not in it: The Lord sees and judges the Heart; he has no Regard to outward Forms of Worship if there be no inward Adoration, if no devout Affection be employ’d therein.¹⁰

The outward forms of worship are not to be neglected, but the devout affections of the heart must be fuelling these forms. Watts had a high view of singing and its role in the passions of the believer. He wrote that, ‘the ART OF SINGING is a most charming Gift of the God of nature and designed for the Solace of our Sorrows and the Improvement of our Joys.’¹¹ Watts was convinced that singing was designed by God to serve the expression of devotional passion. He encouraged the readers of the Preface to his Psalms of David to ‘remember, that the very power of singing was given to human nature chiefly for this purpose, that our own warmest affections of soul might break out into natural or divine melody, and that the tongue of the worshipper might express his own heart.’¹² Similarly, he wrote in his Short Essays that the purpose of singing is ‘to vent the inward devotion of our spirits in words of melody, to speak our own experience of divine things, especially our religious joy.’¹³ The preface to his Hymns continues:

The most frequent Tempers and Changes of our Spirit, and Conditions of our Life are here copied, and the Breathings of our Piety expressed according to the variety of our Passions; our Love, our Fear, our Hope, our Desire, our Sorrow, our Wonder and our Joy, all refined into Devotion, and acting under the Influence and Conduct of the Blessed Spirit; all conversing with god the Father by the new and living Way of Access to the Throne, even the Person and the Mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁴

But, just as the godly affections could be raised through song, so too the wild and unruly passions could be subdued; cold hearts could be warmed, and the singer could be renewed and refreshed. Watts saw the three persons of the Trinity as being involved in this process of restraining the sinful passions and the cultivation of godly affections; of the role of Christ, Watts wrote in The Distemper, Folly and Madness of Sin:

Madness by Nature reigns within
The Passions burn and rage,
Till God’s own Son with Skill Divine
The inward Fire asswage.

Watts also saw the role of the Holy Spirit as essential within the sovereign influence of God upon the believer’s passions. When speaking of the fruits of the Spirit in the life of the believer, he wrote that the ‘sanctified Affections are so great Part of the new Creature, that the very Graces of the holy Spirit are called by their Names’, concluding with the rhetorical question: ‘What is this blessed Catalogue of the Fruits of the Spirit, but the Passions of Nature refined and renewed by Grace?’¹⁶ The necessity of the Holy Spirit in the cultivation of the passions is expressed throughout his hymns:

Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening Powers,
Kindle a Flame of sacred Love,
In these cold Hearts of ours.

Eternal Spirit, we confess
And sing the Wonders of thy Grace;
Thy Power conveys our Blessings down
From God the Father and the Son.

Watts suffered greatly during his life; he spent most of his adult life as a recluse, living with chronic ill health. As such, his hymns give voice to these sufferings within an understanding of God’s sovereignty:

If Light attends the Course I run,
'Tis he provides these Rays;
And 'tis his Hand that hides my Sun,
If Darkness cloud my Days.

His assurances in God’s grace can be seen in the hymn, Comfort under Sorrows and Pains:

Now let the God my Saviour smile,
And show my Name upon his Heart,
I would forget my Pains awhile,
And in the Pleasure lose the Smart.

But O, it swells my sorrows high
To see my blessed Jesus frown;
My spirits sink, my comforts die,
And all the springs of life are down.

Yet why, my Soul, why these Complaints?
Still while he frowns his Bowels move;
Still on his Heart he bears his Saints,
And feels their Sorrows and his Love.

Note the affective language here: pleasure, sorrow, comfort, love. Watts is deeply pastoral in his approach. His hymns can reach heights of joyful exuberance, but he is not afraid to let the full spectrum of life be expressed in his hymns. 

In conclusion, I want to suggest that if we view our worship services in isolation, then we will seek songs and performances that appear to be immediately successful. However, if we take the long view, and adopt the mindset of the soldier, athlete, and farmer, then we will see our songs as a means by which our congregations will grow over greater periods of time. When my kids were little, a friend told us not to worry if they don’t have a balanced diet in every meal; see what they eat in a week or a month. So too with our worship songs; what if we gave our congregations a much broader diet of themes, moods, and theologies, and assessed these the way we reflect on our preaching? What if our songs both defined and refined what it is to live a life of godly affections? What if our songs helped our congregations understand the narratives and doctrines of Scripture? What if our songs gave voice to our deepest griefs and highest joys? 

I am not advocating a wholesale return to singing Watts’ hymns. What I am arguing for is that we learn from his convictions, and the pastoral theologies that undergirded his hymn writing. These things are worthy of our consideration, and even if we reach different conclusions to Watts, may our songs reflect the depth, height, and breadth of God, His Word, and His gospel. Because, love so amazing, so divine, demands our souls, our lives, our all. 

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So, how do we apply these things? There are a few ways to move forwards practically with this, to expand the pastoral and theological repertoire of your congregational song.

• Psalm-singing. There are lots of versions of the psalms designed for congregational worship (some which follow Watts’ approach, some which are more literal), but they certainly cover a breadth of theme and mood.
• Contemporary writers e.g. Resound Worship, Porter’s Gate, Rachel Wilhelm, CityAlight. Seek out people who are intentionally writing congregational songs that are broader in theme, and mood.
• Reviving hymns. Indelible Grace do this really well. But it’s possible to use old and unfamiliar hymns. A website like hymnary.org allows you to find texts by theme and pair them with tunes – setting unfamiliar words to a familiar hymn tune can make the song far more accessible. The words might need a bit of editing and tweaking (which is fine if they are out of copyright), but it can work really nicely, especially for a one-off text that you might not use again.
• Writing songs. Something like Resound Worship’s 12 Song Challenge is a great starting point for in-house writers who want to develop their skills. Cultivate gifting in your church. Again, writing words to existing hymn tunes can be a helpful starting point. A good way of doing this would be to write a song to go along with a sermon series. Get the preachers, musicians, and lyricists together to work on something together.
• Expand your genres. “Worship music” has certain stylistic features, all of which are cultural. How does your congregational singing reflect the cultural diversity of your congregation? Some musical styles are better suited to themes than others.

1. For further study into Watts’ hymns, see David W. Music, Repeat the Sounding Joy: Reflections on Hymns by Isaac Watts (Mercer University Press, 2020); Music, David W., Studies in the Hymnody of Isaac Watts (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2022). The best introduction to Watts is Graham Beynon, Isaac Watts: His Life and Thought (Christian Focus, 2013). ↩︎
2. Isaac Watts, Hymns and Spiritual Songs. In Three Books (London, 1707), iii. ↩︎
3. Watts, Hymns, iii. ↩︎
4. Hymns 1709, 95. ↩︎
5. Hymns 1707, 142. ↩︎
6. Hymns 1707, 237. ↩︎
7. Hymns 1709, 249. ↩︎
8. Hymns 1707, 88-89. ↩︎
9. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see Daniel Johnson, ‘Isaac Watts’ Hymnody as a Guide for the Passions’, English Literature 5 (2018). ↩︎
10. Isaac Watts, Discourses of the Love of God (London, 1729), 108. ↩︎
11. Isaac Watts, ‘Thoughts on Poetry and Musick’, in The Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained: Or, An Introduction to the Art of Singing by Note. Fitted to the Meanest Capacities., ed. Thomas Walter (Boston: printed, 1721), i. ↩︎
12. Psalms, iii. ↩︎
13. Hymns 1707, 257. ↩︎
14. Hymns, 1707, vii. ↩︎
15. Hymns 1709, 265. Watts’ use of the term, ‘madness’, is not a medical diagnosis, but as a description of the foolish and fallen state of the human condition. An excerpt from a sermon helps to clarify his meaning; urging sinners to repent and convert, he wrote, ‘Have you no Reason that tells you that there is a God and a Judgement, and a terrible Account one day to be given of the Guilt and Madness which you now indulge?’ See Isaac Watts, Sermons (London, 1721), 123. ↩︎
16. Discourses, 172-173. ↩︎
17. Hymns 1707, 109. ↩︎
18. Hymns 1709, 248. ↩︎
19. Hymns 1707, 123. ↩︎
20. Jennifer Clement argues that early modern references to bowels to denote the love of God were a rhetorical device to ensure that descriptions of this divine love were perceived as affective experiences. One of the most significant examples of this is the posthumous publication of Richard Sibbes’ sermons on the Song of Songs, entitled Bowels Opened, which carries the descriptive subtitle, ‘A Discovery of the Neere and deere Love, Union and Communion betwixt Christ and the Church, and consequently betwixt Him and every beleeving soule’. See Jennifer Clement, ‘Bowels, Emotion, and Metaphor in Early Modern English Sermons’, The Seventeenth Century 35:4 (2020): 435–51; Richard Sibbes, Bowels Opened (London, 1639). ↩︎