Isaac Watts helped win the American Revolutionary War. He didn’t know it, but it’s true. It wasn’t by his hymns being sung, but by their being ripped from songbooks! In June, 1780, three decades after Watts’ death, Rev. James Caldwell, the “Fighting Chaplain,” a Presbyterian pastor whose wife had been killed by the Redcoats, was present at the Battle of Springfield in what would become part of New Jersey. The Continental Army and some militiamen put up a fierce fight. In the middle of the battle, the soldiers ran out of the wadding necessary to pack their gunpowder. Without paper for wadding, the muskets wouldn’t fire and the battle would be lost. That’s when the parson ran into the church, grabbed songbooks full of hymns by Isaac Watts and ran out shouting, “Give ‘em Watts, boys! Give ‘em Watts!” The Patriots balled up pages from the precious hymnbooks to use in their muskets, and thereby won the day.
The author of more than 600 hymns, many of them in common use today in virtually every protestant denomination, Isaac Watts (1674 – 1748) is known as “The Father of English Hymnody.” Following the arrival of the Protestant Reformation, churches in England and Scotland sang the 150 Psalms exclusively and without instrumental accompaniment. This was a conscious rejection of “hymns of human composure” in favor of texts inspired by God. It was the growing acceptance of hymns composed by Watts that led to the widespread use of hymnody along with psalmody in worship.
“O God, Our Help In Ages Past” was written in 1714 at a time when England was in a crisis, facing another wave of religious intolerance from the leadership of the Church of England. Watts was raised in the home of a dissenting minister (what we would today know as independent or congregational) who, like John Bunyan almost 40 years earlier, was imprisoned for a time for worshipping with his family outside the state-sanctioned Anglican Church. Isaac Watts, Sr. was in prison at the time of young Isaac’s birth. He was eventually freed (and fathered seven more children), but Isaac respected his courage and remembered his mother’s tales of nursing her children on the jail steps.
His father ran a boarding school where he taught his frail and sickly son to love languages. By the time he was four years old, young Isaac had mastered Latin; at eight he knew Greek, then he went on to learn French and Hebrew! He was also extraordinarily gifted in poetry, and began writing verse at a young age. One day (so the story goes) he complained to his preacher father that the Psalm singing in their church was dull, and that they never sang the name of Jesus or the details of His life and ministry. His father famously replied, “Then give us something better, young man.” The result was his first hymn, “Behold the Glories of the Lamb,” written at the age of twenty. Even in his later years, Isaac Watts once complained about the psalm singing commonly heard in church: “To see the dull indifference, the negligent and thoughtless air that sits upon the faces of a whole assembly, while the psalm is upon their lips, might even tempt a charitable observer to suspect the fervency of their inward religion.”
When it came time for university studies, Watts chose a Nonconformist academy in London because Oxford and Cambridge were for Anglicans only. He preached his first sermon at the age of twenty-four. In 1702, he became the pastor of the prestigious Mark Lane Independent Chapel, one of London’s most influential independent churches, the church where the famous puritan divine John Owen had been pastor. His health began to fail in the following year, and Mr. Samuel Price was appointed as his assistant in the ministry. In 1712 a fever shattered Watts’ constitution, and Mr. Price was then appointed co-pastor of the congregation. It was at this period that Watts became the guest of Sir Thomas Abney, under whose roof, and after his death (1722) that of his widow, he remained for the rest of his life; residing for the longer portion of these thirty-six years principally at the beautiful country seat of Theobalds in Herts, and for the last thirteen years at Stoke Newington. His degree of D.D. was bestowed on him in 1728, unsolicited, by the University of Edinburgh. His infirmities increased until the peaceful close of his sufferings, Nov. 25, 1748.
By Watts’ time, England was experimenting with religious freedom. In 1714, Queen Anne, a Protestant, became deathly ill. England was thrown into chaos. The era of conditional religious tolerance was suddenly threatened. To make matters worse, Parliament hurriedly passed the Schism Act designed to suppress dissent once again. Watts promptly sat down to write a hymn of comfort for England’s panicked citizens, especially his worried fellow Dissenters. Paraphrasing Psalm 90, he reminded them that God takes the long view of time, while humans are caught up in the trials and tribulations of our current crises.
A thousand ages, in thy sight, are like an evening gone;
short as the watch that ends the night, before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away;
they fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.
In God’s providence, Queen Anne died on the very day the dreaded Schism Act would have become official. George I became king and repealed the Act before it could be enforced. For this reason, the queen’s death was called by some the “Protestant Passover.” Watts and other Nonconformists breathed a sigh of relief.
As noted above, Watts suffered from serious health issues. His illness and unsightly appearance took its toll on his personal life. His five-foot, pale, skinny frame was topped by a disproportionately oversized head. Almost every portrait of him depicts him in a large gown with large folds—an apparent attempt by the artists to disguise his homeliness. This was probably the reason for Elizabeth Singer’s rejection of his marriage proposal. As one biographer noted, “Though she loved the jewel, she could not admire the casket (his body) which contained it.”
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” is a paraphrase of Psalm 90:1-5. That psalm is probably the oldest passage in the Bible, other than the book of Job. It is attributed to Moses, which would place it about the same time as the Pentateuch, around 1400 B.C. Watts wrote his hymn in 1714, and published it in a collection of poetic versions of the Psalms in 1719. He called the collection, The Psalms of David in the Language of the New Testament. It included poetic versions of each of the 150 Psalms, to include “Joy to the World,” based on Psalm 98, and “Jesus Shall Reign,” based on Psalm 72. He also wrote original hymns drawn from the New Testament, such as “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed.” Watts was a lifelong Dissenter. However, some years after his death, officials erected a monument in his memory in the South Choir of Westminster Abbey, proof that his contributions were too significant not to be acknowledged.
More than a poet, however, Watts was also a scholar of wide reputation, especially in his later years. He wrote nearly 30 theological treatises; essays on psychology, astronomy, and philosophy; three volumes of sermons; the first children’s hymnal; and a textbook on logic that served as a standard work on the subject for generations. But his poetry remains his lasting legacy and earned him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Benjamin Franklin published his hymnal, Cotton Mather maintained a long correspondence with him, and John Wesley acknowledged him as a genius. It was Wesley who changed the opening phrase from Watt’s original “Our God, Our Help” to what has since been most common: “O God, Our Help.”
Like so many of Charles Wesley’s hymns, one can find biblical allusions in almost every line, not only to Psalm 90, but to other passages as well. The original text of this hymn had nine stanzas. Most hymnals today omit those stanzas after numbers 3 and 6.
Stanza1 lauds the loving power of God which has always sheltered us and will always shelter us, taking us from “the stormy blast” to “our eternal home,” a comprehensive assurance that stretches into heaven itself.
O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast, and our eternal home.
Stanza 2 reminds us that all of God’s saints have rested secure, “under the shadow” of His throne, where nothing can touch us apart from His will because of His strong arm and loving heart.
Under the shadow of Thy throne Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone, and our defense is sure.
Stanza 3 points us to either side of eternity: back to the time before the mountains were created or the vast stretches of earth’s frame were shaped, and “to endless years” as God in His covenant love for us is ever the same.
Before the hills in order stood, or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God, to endless years the same.
This omitted stanza is almost a quote from Psalm 90:3, reminding us that we were made from the dust of the earth, and until our final bodily resurrection, we will return again to dust.
Thy word commands our flesh to dust, “Return, ye sons of men:”
All nations rose from earth at first, and turn to earth again.
Stanza 4 changes our perspective of time as we wonder how long before God will respond to deliver us from earth’s woes. A thousand ages are nothing to Him, a mere moment in eternity. We need not fear if He delays. His timing will always prove to be perfect.
A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night before the rising sun.
Stanza 5 is another that reflects the turmoil in the nation when Watts was writing. It is a blessing for us as well in the midst of the cultural and political and moral turmoil of our time that though we “are carried downward” in that flood and seemingly lost, He holds us securely in His hand.
The busy tribes of flesh and blood, with all their lives and cares,
Are carried downward by Thy flood and lost in foll’wing years.
Stanza 6 goes further to remind us that, apart from a biblical world and life view, time will carry us all away and we will be forgotten, “as a dream dies” with the morning light. But the hymn does not end here. There is more to be said, because of God’s sovereignty and plan for our future.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the op’ning day.
In another generally omitted stanza, Watts pictures the fresh flowers that open in the morning light, only to be cut down by the mower before night arrives. This comes from verses 5 and 6 of the Psalm. If it were not for God’s covenant plan, so brief and meaningless would our lives be.
Like flow’ry fields the nations stand pleased with the morning light;
The flow’rs beneath the mower’s hand lie with’ring ere ‘tis night.
Stanza 7 returns to the opening phrase, but this time rejoicing in the certainty of His being our guard, not only “in ages past” but also in the present “while troubles last” and into the future till we reach “our eternal home.”
O God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last, and our eternal home.
The hymn tune associated with this hymn was composed in 1708 by William Croft (1678-1727). He named it ST ANNE in honor of the church where he served as organist at the time, St. Anne’s Church in Soho, London. Croft was later chosen to serve as the organist at Westminster Abbey. Later composers subsequently incorporated the tune in their own works. George Frideric Handel used the tune in his anthem “O Praise the Lord.” J. S. Bach’s massive triple Fugue in E-flat is often called the “St. Anne Fugue” in the English speaking world, because of the similarity of its subject to the first line of the hymn tune. Dietrich Buxtehude, who inspired much of Bach’s work, organist of St. Mary’s in Lübeck in North Germany, used the same first line of the hymn tune for the first fugue of his Praeludium-pedaliter in E major for organ.
“O God, Our Help in Ages Past” has often been sung in time of personal and national pain, helping people find solace in these wonderful promises from the Lord. How we need that today with such social unrest from things like Critical Theory and the substitution of Social Justice for Biblical Justice. Here is a recording of the hymn being sung at the prayer service in 2001 in Washington’s National Cathedral following the 9-11 attacks. You will see Billy Graham being escorted to his seat, as he was invited to speak words of gospel comfort at that agonizingly difficult time.