Despite Christ having only one body (His church), it appears Christians are quick to divide on all sorts of subjects.  Not least is music in church. I’m sure, in your mind already, strong opinions are swelling within! Not only can we disagree about instrumentation and the place of songs in church – but we can divide over the content of songs. Not surprisingly, this is hardly a new problem, and there are lessons for us from believers in the past.

We continue our newsletter series on hymn writers and learn from the life of Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748). Watts was born of a non-conformist family – which means he wasn’t a part of the established ‘Church of England’. Today, with no established church in Australia, we think nothing of fellow-believers being presbyterian or baptist. But in the 18th Century, it meant Watts was unable to go to university, and instead went to a ‘dissenting academy’. Despite that, his work as a ‘logician’ saw him publish a text book (punchily entitled): Logic, or The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry After Truth With a Variety of Rules to Guard Against Error in the Affairs of Religion and Human Life, as well as in the Sciences. It became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale.

But what keeps him more famously in our collective memory is his contribution to the gospel in song.  Circumstances of his day feel remarkably similar to ours.  The political situation sought to stifle the gospel.  King George I and his son, were indifferent to Christianity.  The cynicism of the age was captured in a rumour of a parliamentary bill that sought to ‘have the ‘not’ taken out of the commandments and clapped into the creed’.  Wesley’s evaluated the times thus: ‘What is the present characteristic of the English nation?  It is ungodliness…ungodliness is our universal, our constant, our peculiar character’.  Isaac Watts himself regretted the ‘decay of vital religion in the hearts and lives of men’.  To that he wrote some 750 hymns - and 1 great lesson they (and his life) hold for us.

The need to ‘feel theology’ (and make the objective truth our subjective experience)

He was one of the first prolific English ‘man-made’ hymnists.  Rather than simply setting Psalms to tunes, he sought to express Christian truths and experience.  So his anthology ‘the psalms of David’ (1719), made David ‘speak like a Christian’.  In Watts words, he ‘renovated the Psalms’ – ‘imitating them in the language of the New Testament’ .  He turned Psalm 72 into a song of missionary fervour ‘Jesus shall reign where’er the Sun’.  He takes the affirmation about God in psalm 72, understands how Christ’s arrival fulfils that truth for us, then applies its implications to us (verses mention the gospel going to Persia and India).

Not only did he make clear the transition of Biblical truth through Christ to us, he made it personal.  He took objective truths and wove in how we should respond:  In ‘Alas and did my Saviour bleed’, you can see that move:

“Alas! and did my Saviour bleed And did my Sovereign die??
Would He devote that sacred head For such a worm as I??[…]
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 my self away
’Tis all that I can do.”

Watts’ hymns allow for the objective facts of the cross to remain – but personalise it to have us standing watching, and guide how that should shape our actions.  His most famous work ‘when I survey the wondrous cross’ does the same – teaching us to ‘feel theology’.

In all our debates over music, the tradition Watts helped establish is one we must hold on to. Objective truth of the gospel, shaped by Christ – to re-shape our minds, emotions and actions.

In Him,
Mark Smith