Many of these hymns were based directly upon particular songs or sections from the Bible, but Watts did not intend to neglect or supplant the psalms. Numerous versions of all the psalms were already available; he had written several versions of individual psalms, and he expressed the hope that someone else would take up the task of versifying them to meet his ideals. Eventually, when no one else did, he took up the task, producing about 180 psalm versions.² In a Preface³, he described what he saw as the problems of using the psalms in Christian worship:

• The words appropriate for singing ought to be the thoughts of the congregation addressed to God: not (as Calvin had held) merely a repetition of the Word of God. Reciting the psalter might be a valuable way of learning the Word, but did not conform to the New Testament descriptions of "singing."
• The psalms, being written by people under the covenant of Moses, could not fully express the Christian, nor could they provide for all occasions of Christian worship.
• The circumstances under which the psalms were written did not conform to, and sometimes painfully conflicted with, the circumstances of most people. In particular, the forms of worship described (temple, sacrifices, annual feasts, instrumental music and dancing) were quite different from the New Testament practices; and the social circumstances mentioned were often painfully anachronistic.
• The psalter was not arranged to be used effectively in Christian worship. Some psalms were too long; others contained a mixture of appropriate and unusable content, from which worship planners had to make a coherent selection.

His Hymns addressed the first issue: his Psalms of David addressed the others. He did not attempt to literally express the meaning of the original psalmist, but to "make David sing like a Christian": that is, to express a similar idea suited to New Testament themes and practices, and to fit experiences which members of an eighteenth-century English congregation might have shared. Where there was a traditional Christian understanding of psalms as prophetic, he tried to make the application "clear", often by adding explicit references to the New Testament.⁴

Music:

Watts' concern focused on the texts of the hymns. The worshippers' devotion was stifled, he felt, because the lyrics fell short of the ideal: the words were incoherent doggerel, or represented sub-Christian thoughts. The idea that "more stylish music could have solved the problem" would have seemed perverse to him.

In fact, Watts did not attempt to change either the manner of singing or the style of music used. He personally expressed his dislike for the practice of "lining out"⁵ hymns. [[ add quote here ]] But he still carefully designed his hymns so that they would make sense when thus fragmented. And he wrote them only in meters that were in common use at the time, so that they could be sung to tunes that people already knew.⁶

Use:

In some ways Watts was ahead of his time. I once read about a contemporary church that boasted of "singing nothing more than five years old." Watts' hymns did not come into wide use until the late eighteenth century,⁷ and some of them are still in use.⁸ Others cannot be used effectively today. Already in the late eighteenth century in America, Harvard University president Timothy Dwight⁹ was asked to produce a revision of Watts' psalms that was not so obviously English: what had been a feature in England was a problem in America. And, as Manning¹⁰ remarks, the English language was changing so rapidly in the early eighteenth century that Watts' word formation and usage often seems bizarre or incomprehensible to us today -- much more so than the Wesleys' hymns, which were written only a few years later.

Watts' poetry deserves study for its own sake; and his approach to the Psalms will repay careful attention wherever thought-provoking hymns are valued. But he had two favorite themes that seem to me to be especially needed in our world. One is his approach to creation. For him, the creation spoke volumes about its Creator. That the Deists made too much of this (and too little of the written revelation) is perhaps a reason (but no excuse) for our own neglect of this approach, which is frequently commended by that same written revelation.

Another theme is his approach to time. Living when sudden death by disease was commonplace, spending most of his life as a chronic invalid,¹¹ Watts was acutely aware of the brevity of the time he had, and the importance of using it wisely. Hedged about by medical practitioners, encompassed by so many deliberate distractions, we can easily forget that lesson.

Notes:

¹Or more likely, complained once too many times.

¹See his Psalm 98.

²He divided some psalms into multiple parts, wrote multiple versions of some, and altogether omitted about a dozen (either because they duplicated another psalm, or because he considered their spirit was too alien to the Gospel to be adaptable for Christian worship.) They were originally published as Psalms of David, Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and are included in the online version of his Psalms and Hymns at CCEL.

³Online at CCEL.

⁴Some psalms, like the twenty-third, required few changes. Some, like the nineteenth, profited by rearrangement; others, like the hundred nineteenth, by abridgment. Others, like the ninety-eighth, needed removal of Judaizing practices, and more explicit Messianic references.

⁵That is, a "precentor" would read or sing each line of a hymn, then pause to allow the congregation to sing it, before presenting the next line. This practice makes sense when there are not enough hymnals for everyone, or where many people can't read. Watts' own hymns would have first been introduced to his congregation this way. Today, there are some "Orthodox Presbyterian" groups who sing exclusively according to this tradition, even though it was unknown to Calvin.

⁶In contrast to Charles Wesley, who often deliberately used unusual meters (compare his Psalm 150), at least partly because he disliked many of the psalm tunes in use at the time. (This may have been because they were sung so slowly.)

⁷Benson, The English Hymn, online at CCEL.

⁸Perhaps the best known is When I survey the wondrous cross; Great Songs of the Church contains 13 others.

⁹See I love thy Kingdom, Lord.

¹⁰Hymns of Watts and Wesley, online at CCEL.

¹¹Dictionary of National Biography, "Isaac Watts," online at CCEL.