SKU: MN.CH-1343

UPC: 765844006727. English.

Isaac Watts (1674 –1748) was born in Southampton, England and was brought up in the home of a committed religious Nonconformist; his father, also Isaac Watts had been incarcerated twice for his views. Watts could not attend Oxford or Cambridge because of being a Noncomformist and because these universities were restricted to Anglicans, instead attending the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690. Watts lived at Abney Hall in Stoke Newington until his death in 1748; he was buried in Bunhill Fields. He left an extensive legacy of hymns, treatises, educational works, and essays. His work was influential amongst Nonconformist independents and religious revivalists of the 18th century by contributing to English hymnody with new poetry to be used in worship. The older tradition was based on the poetry of the Bible which was developed from the teachings of the 16th-century Reformation leader John Calvin. Watts’ introduction of extra-Biblical poetry opened up a new era of Protestant hymnody with other poets following in his path. Many of Watts’ hymns are included in the Christadelphian Hymnal, the Episcopal Church’s Hymnal 1982, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, the Baptist Hymnal, the Presbyterian Trinity Hymnal, and the Methodist Hymns and Psalms. Many of his texts are also used in the American Hymnal and The Sacred Harp. Several of his hymns are used in the hymnals of the Church of Christ, Scientist and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Of the more that 600 tunes in the Sacred Harp, 149 of them have words by Isaac Watts. Similarly, of the 180 tunes in the Missouri Harmony 2005 Edition, Isaac Watts is credited with the words for 75 of them. The majority of these words come from Watts monumental Psalms and Hymns, first published in 1707.