Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, England, in 1674 into a Nonconformist family. Because Protestant Dissenters who would not conform to the Church of England were excluded from Oxford and Cambridge, he studied at Thomas Rowe’s academy at Stoke Newington. He later became assistant minister and then pastor of an Independent congregation in London. Persistent ill health restricted his public ministry, and from 1712 he lived with the Abney family while continuing to preach when able and to write on theology, education, logic, poetry, and worship.

Watts became one of the most influential figures in English Protestant hymnody. His Hymns and Spiritual Songs appeared in 1707, followed by The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament in 1719. In that psalter he reshaped many biblical psalms for Christian congregational use rather than limiting himself to strict metrical translation.

“Our God, Our Help in Ages Past” is his nine-stanza paraphrase of the opening portion of Psalm 90, published under the heading “Man Frail, and God Eternal.” Other enduring Watts texts include “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “Jesus Shall Reign,” and “Joy to the World.” He died in 1748 and was buried at Bunhill Fields in London.