On July 17, 1674, a premature baby named Isaac was born to the Watts family in Southampton, England. When he was still a nursing infant, the child’s father, Isaac Watts Sr., was imprisoned for his religious views. The tiny infant’s devoted mother carried him to the local jail so that the new father could look upon his firstborn son through the bars of his window.

The tiny baby Isaac Watts lived. However, his entire life he would always be weak and have ill health. His father was not a minister but a clothier who served as a deacon in the local Congregational Church. For his status as a dissenter, Isaac Watts Sr. was twice imprisoned for the sake of the truth.

Young Isaac was inspired by his father’s noble example. The son would one day write a hymn that may have been inspired in part by his father’s courage; the younger penned in his hymn of the same title:

I’m not ashamed to own my Lord

Or to defend his cause . . . .

When merely a toddler, little Isaac demonstrated an early love for books, language, and knowledge of all sorts. It’s reported that one day he shouted out to his parents, “A book! A book! Buy a book!” Isaac loved words; by the age of five, he was already proficient in Latin!

As a young boy, Isaac Watts also had a striking ability to speak in rhyme, even when those talking to him were using ordinary speech. The story is often told how one evening, while his father was leading in family Bible reading and prayer, a mouse climbed up a rope along the fireplace. The boy held his peace until the prayer was ended, then he burst out in merriment, saying, “A mouse, for want of better stairs, ran up a rope to say his prayers.”

Like many parents who tire of their children’s repeated idiosyncrasies, Isaac’s parents grew weary of his constant versification. When he was disciplined for overdoing his rhymes, the boy replied, “Oh, Father, do some pity take, And I will no more verses make.”

Isaac Watts was endowed by God with a mind that hungered for knowledge, and he longed for the righteousness of Christ to be granted to him by grace. When he was seven years old, he wrote this acrostic using the letters of his own name:

I am a vile, polluted lump of earth

So I’ve continued ever since my birth

Although Jehovah, grace doth daily give me

As sure this monster, Satan, will deceive me

Come therefore, Lord, from Satan’s claws relieve me

Wash me in Thy blood, O Christ

And grace divine impart

Then search and try the corners of my heart

That I in all things may be fit to do

Service to Thee, and Thy praise too.

By the time he was nine, Isaac Watts could read Greek. Two years later, he could converse in French. At the age of thirteen, he was reading the Hebrew Bible. His mind seemed to absorb knowledge as a sponge, and the Word of God filled his mind and heart.

When he was fifteen years old, Isaac Watts was brought near to death with an attack of smallpox. The disease scarred his body for life, leaving ugly marks on his face and body.

Eventually, Isaac Watts fell in love with a young lady named Elizabeth. She admired his learning and his abilities but could not accept his physical appearance. She said, “I admire the jewel, but I cannot accept the casket [jewelry box].” Crushed by this rejection, Isaac Watts remained a bachelor the rest of his life.

Isaac Watts served God and God alone for the rest of his life. The time that most men devote to nurturing their wives and raising their children, he poured into learning and teaching. Mr. Watts was offered a scholarship to go to Oxford, but as a firm dissenter, he refused to become an Anglican.

Mr. Watts did attend a dissenter’s school in London, but he was largely self-taught. Grieved by the flat, lifeless singing in most churches around him, he longed for something better. When Isaac Watts was nineteen, his father encouraged him to try writing something better. Try he did. His first hymn was “Behold the Glories of the Lamb,” drawn from Revelation Chapter 5.

For two years, Isaac Watts wrote a hymn every single week; the hymns were sung in the church where his father served as a deacon. He continued to write hymns over the coming years and was occasionally asked to preach.

In 1702, on the very day that Isaac Watts turned twenty-four years old, he was ordained as the pastor of Mark Lane Independent Chapel. He now filled the pulpit once occupied by the Puritan theologian John Owen. Over the coming decade, he continued to write hymns, preach sermons, and study varied topics, such as logic, grammar, astronomy, philosophy, and geography. His mind, already filled with Scripture, was a ready instrument in the Master’s hand.

In 1712, another debilitating illness left Mr. Watts so weakened that he could not continue to minister in the pulpit. A kind, generous family in the congregation offered for their pastor to come spend a week on their comfortable estate outside of London. This week of rest turned into thirty-six years! Isaac Watts was an invalid and suffered from jaundice and neuralgia for the remainder of his life.

Although the outward man was perishing, the inward man was being renewed day by day. Isaac Watts went on to write over 600 hymns, among them are such favorites as “Joy to the World,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” “I Sing the Mighty Power of God,” “Alas, and Did My Savior Bleed,” “Come We That Love the Lord,” “There Is a Land of Pure Delight,” and “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.”

In addition to his hymn writing, Mr. Watts wrote a book on logic that is still recognized as a standard authority today. He also wrote a helpful book called The Improvement of the Mind, as well as dozens of shorter works on history, astronomy, and world geography. He corresponded with men across the ocean in New England, such as revivalist preacher Jonathan Edwards and the Mathers, who were a family of Puritan preachers. Isaac Watts rejoiced to follow the progress of America’s Great Awakening.

Mr. Watts realized that he served an omniscient God, a God Who knows all things. By God’s grace, a man can improve his own mind by filling his heart with Scripture, by singing powerful songs of truth, and by diligent study of God’s Word and ways. The hymns of Isaac Watts proclaim God’s Word and His truth, and in learning the words of those songs, one can aptly praise our omniscient God!

In 1739, Mr. Watts suffered a debilitating stroke when he was sixty-five. But he continued to write hymns, dictating the texts to a secretary. He lived another nine years before his eyes closed for the final time on November 25, 1748, at the age of seventy-four. Isaac Watts left behind no wife, no children, no land, no house, and no inheritance. But he left his mark forever upon the world, filling the hearts of millions, some yet unborn, with inspiring psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that glorify the Lord and edify the believer.

The next time you open a hymnal, you will not fail to notice the name of Isaac Watts. Pause and give thanks to God for the sacrificial life of Isaac Watts, “The Father of English Hymnody.”

Sources and Further Reference:

Hatfield, Edwin F. The Poets of the Church, New York, NY: Randolph & Company, 1884.

Johnson, Guye. Treasury of Great Hymns and Their Stories. Greenville, SC: Bob Jones University Press, 1986.

Morgan, Robert. Then Sings My Soul. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003.