Isaac Watts was most likely doing what he was known for most as he composed the words for “Give to Our God Immortal Praise”. It was a talent he’d had since childhood, and when fused to his knowledge of scripture as an adult, Isaac was doing something that perhaps was about as natural for him as breathing is for the rest of us. It was 1719 (or perhaps earlier) when this 45-year-old minister in England (see its flag here) penned some rhyming phrases that expressed what he coaxed his hearers to remember and appreciate about the God that earlier generations had first lauded in a different form that Isaac felt compelled to reconstruct. It was a method based on a philosophy that he’d learned from his own father, and it could be summed up this way: Don’t worship by rote, nor conform to a practice of one’s Christian faith that is compelled by a state authority. One’s faith must by freely practiced to be genuine. God does not want your worship to be mechanical…make it personal, with words that say what you really feel in your own vernacular.
Isaac Watts’ Nonconformism – objection to the exclusivity of state-authorized methods of Christian worship in 17th Century England – included his practice of rewriting traditional songs used in the Anglican Church, including the Psalms. Watts evidently felt that merely mouthing the exact words of a psalm was not conducive to sincere worship, and so he sought to take the ideas that a psalmist had verbalized centuries earlier and recraft and update them so that they would resonate with Christianity in his own experience. One that he took on as a challenge was apparently Psalm 136, which contains a very familiar song of its own for the Jewish people. Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever. Indeed, those first words of Psalm 136 are the words that Isaac felt compelled to repeat in verse one his own version in ‘Give to Our God…’. The latter phrase ‘his love endures forever’, is voiced 26 times in the psalm, so you can imagine that Isaac might have wondered whether this expression had become rote in the singing of the psalm in the Anglican Church. And, would the Christians of Watts’ era have had more reason to praise God than what the Hebrews acknowledged when they sang Psalm 136? Watts did not want to excise the thought of repetition, so instead he had the churchgoers of his own era sing ‘Repeat His mercies in your song’ to conclude alternating verses (verses 1, 3, 5, and 7) as well as the phrase 'his mercies ever shall endure' (verses 2,4,6,8) of his hymn’s eight stanzas, as a way of reminding worshippers what their spiritual ancestors had done. The Jewish generations sang of God’s creative power, and of his mercy in rescuing them from Egypt, to bring them to their inheritance in Canaan. Watts added to the psalmist’s message by recognizing the Gentiles’ predicament -- dead in sin (in Watts’ original verse 6) -- and what the Father has done through Christ for everyone -- He sent His Son with power to save (in Watts’ original verse 7) – with the latter being something that none of the Psalms could fully capture for those of us freed by Jesus. Thank God that Isaac and others of his time had the courage to challenge their era’s conventions and prompt Christians to exalt the Son for what he’s done!
Psalm 136 says much of value to praise God, but what would it be like if Christ had been forced out of the picture by a state that said you could not change the words of the ancient text to give it more meaning in the A.D. era? Isaac saw a big gap there, and indeed his life was spent making the old texts for singing mean more. We learn new words for saying the same message, but by doing so we can make them more personal. That’s what Isaac was after. This father/godfather of English hymnody (he reportedly wrote some 750 hymns) was part of a movement that has continued for centuries beyond his own time. It is about making the themes and expressions of Christianity more meaningful for each generation, by using new words to say the ancient thoughts one more time in one more new way. It’s rather ironic that sometimes you might hear some people say ‘why aren’t the old hymns good enough…why can’t we just sing an old Isaac Watts hymn’? Hmmm…if we could see Isaac’s face today, would he be wearing a wry smile, or rolling his eyes? Giving Him praise isn’t suspended just because we’re using new words.
See all the hymn’s original verses here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/g/i/v/e/t/givetour.htm
Also see the following website for information about Isaac Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Watts
See also here for the author’s biography: https://hymnary.org/person/Watts_Isaac
Read about the religious philosophy to which Watts adhered here : Nonconformist (Protestantism) - Wikipedia
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