T IV Eighteenth-century Hymns I. THE SCHOOL OF WATTS HE greater sacred poets of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries spoke, for the most part, to themselves and to God; their hymns are of the study and the oratory. But with the eighteenth century a new era began. Its chief hymnwriters were ministers of religion, accustomed to offer prayer and praise, not only for themselves, but for the people. Their hymns were for the congregation and the religious society. They were written with the distinct intention of providing for common need; and in the Nonconformist Churches hymns supplied the place of the rejected liturgy, enabling the congregation to unite in praise and prayer. The earlier centuries give us many rich devotional poems, few of which are entirely suited to the public worship of our time. But we now reach, what George Macdonald calls, 'the zone of hymn-writing,' and are embarrassed by the plenteousness of the stores available for use in the service of the sanctuary. Moreover, by this time modern English has become fairly established, and there are few archaic expressions to distract the unlearned. Whatever may be said of the metrical Psalters, no one can doubt that we are in an ampler, purer air when we listen to Isaac Watts (1674-1748). Brighter days were dawning for the religious life of England, and especially for the Nonconformists. Yet as a babe Isaac Watts was nursed by his mother as she sat on a stone near the door of the prison where his father was confined for conscience' sake. But by the time he was a man the sky had cleared, and there is little in his hymns to recall the times of trouble except the version of Ps. lxxv., 'applied to the glorious revolution by King William or the happy accession of King George to the throne,' in which these verses occur Britain was doomed to be a slave; Her frame dissolved, her fears were great, To bear the pillars of the State. No vain pretence to royal birth, Shall fix a tyrant on the throne; Will rise and make His justice known. His own life was happy, and its story is singularly attractive. His feeble health saved him from many a rough conflict, and called forth the affectionate hospitality of Sir Thomas and Lady Abney. It was seemly that the non-juring Bishop Ken should find a home with a peer of the realm at Longleat, but Dr. Watts found an even more congenial refuge at Theobalds and at Abney Park. There are few pleasanter stories than that of Lady Huntingdon's calling upon Dr. Watts, when he said to her, 'Madam, you have come to see me on a very remarkable day. This day thirty years I came hither to the house of my good friend, Sir Thomas, intending to spend but a week under his hospitable roof, and I have extended my visit to thirty long years.' 'Sir,' said his gracious hostess, Lady Abney, 'what you term a long thirty years' visit, I consider as the shortest visit my family ever received.' If the world had dealt a little less kindly with the poet, it might have been all the better for his poetry, which lacks the vigour, the martial music, the glorious enthusiasm of Luther and of Charles Wesley. He was, it is true, not without at least one coarse and bitter adversary-Thomas Bradbury, a Nonconformist minister of some fame and more notoriety; who seems, without any special reason, to have regarded Dr. Watts as a suitable mark for his vehement and vulgar abuse. He sneeringly forbade 'Watts's whims'1 to be sung in his congregation, and charged the saintly poet with 'burlesquing' the poetry of the most High God. He led, if he did not initiate, the charge of Arianism. Had Watts been as ready for a theological fray as This small witticism was repeated by Romaine in the preface to his Treatise on Psalmody, though he had the good sense to strike it out of his second edition, at the request, it is said, of Lady Huntingdon. John Wesley, or even John Fletcher, Bradbury would have had judgement without mercy. But Watts's letters in reply to these reiterated accusations are models of Christian controversy, or rather of Christian remonstrance. Their last encounter was at a meeting where Watts's feebleness made it difficult for him to make himself heard. 'Shall I speak for you, Brother Watts?' asked Bradbury. 'Well, you have often spoken against me,' was the gently sarcastic reply. Bradbury's malice can have done Watts little real harm, except that of establishing the suspicion in a good many minds that he leaned to Unitarianisma charge which has been repeated to our own day. The mild and colourless character of many of Watts's hymns made them favourites with Unitarian editors of a former time; but the author of and of Not all the blood of beasts When I survey the wondrous Cross, is not to be claimed as Arian, Unitarian, or anything other than an evangelical believer. Our concern is with Watts as a hymn-writer rather than as a theologian. He was the first man, able to write good hymns, who set himself seriously to secure freedom in worship. In the meeting-house at Southampton he wearied of the dull and halting verse of Barton, and was not slow to accept his father's challenge to write something better. If tradition may be relied on, his first hymn, written during the week and sung on the following Sunday, was that which he placed first in his Hymns and Spiritual Songs, with the title : A NEW SONG TO THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN (Rev. v. 6, 8, 9-12.) Behold the glories of the Lamb, Let elders worship at His feet, Those are the prayers of the saints, Eternal Father, who shall look Into Thy secret will? Who but the Son shall take that book And open every seal? He shall fulfil Thy great decrees, The Son deserves it well; Lo, in His hand the sovereign keys Now to the Lamb that once was slain, Salvation, glory, joy remain. For ever on Thy head. This is far from being one of Watts's best hymns, but it is vastly better than Barton's best. |