II. THE LIFE OF WATTS
In the distinct providence of God, the man appeared, exactly fitted for the important task. Isaac Watts was born at Southampton, England, July 17, 1674, the son of a very intelligent and devout schoolmaster, who during the reign of Charles II was imprisoned and exiled from his family for his nonconformity. Isaac was extraordinarily precocious, studying Greek and Hebrew at the age of eight years, writing verses when a mere child, and attempting Latin and English poetry in his schooldays. His brilliant scholarship brought him offers of a career at one of the universities, but he refused, being staunch in his nonconformity.
He became a Nonconformist minister in 1698 and pastor of the Independent Church, Berry Street, London, in 1702. His health being frail, owing to his excessive study as a student, he was given an assistant, Rev. Samuel Price, with whom he spent “many harmonious years of fellowship in the Gospel.”
Visiting Sir Thomas Abney, a staunch Dissenter living at Theobalds in Hertfordshire, for a week, Watts was persuaded to remain with him and his wife permanently, making his home with them the rest of his life. He never married. His health was always precarious, and his pastorate at the Berry Street Independent Church, which ended only with his death, was largely nominal.
We rarely think of Isaac Watts as anything more than a hymn writer, but his intellectual activities were wide and his writing outside of hymnody extensive. He wrote a number of treatises on Theology. His textbooks on Geography, Astronomy, and Logic were used in the English universities, and at Yale and Harvard.