It must be acknowledged still that there are a thousand lines in it which were not made for a Church in our days to assume as its own. There are also many deficiencies of light and glory which our Lord Jesus and His apostles have supplied in the writings of the New Testament. And with this advantage I have composed these spiritual songs, which are now presented to the world. Nor is the attempt vain-glorious or presuming, for, in respect of clear evangelical knowledge, The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than all the Jewish prophets.
Such a defence of Christian hymns is superfluous to-day, but it took many long years to convince the Churches that ‘When I survey the wondrous Cross’ was more suitable for use in Christian worship than Ps. cix.
When Watts’s victory was achieved it was only too complete. In the congregations of his own denomination it was counted almost an impiety to sing anything but his psalms and hymns. This extravagant and narrow loyalty to Watts naturally placed the Dissenting congregations at a great disadvantage—far greater than that which the Methodist societies suffered through the too exclusive use of Wesley’s hymns. The idea that one man can write the hymns of any Church or congregation is long since exploded; indeed, we go further, claiming that a good hymn belongs to Christendom. We do not ask what a man’s ‘denomination’ is before giving him a place in our hymn-books. Only the Romanists, and some of them faint-heartedly, now demand that the writer and the singer must belong to the same communion.
Watts has been at once unduly lauded and unduly depreciated. Keble spoke of him as ‘no poet,’ and this may be true of his ‘poems,’ but his greater hymns could only have been written by a poet of no mean order. Montgomery puts the case more justly when he calls Watts ‘one of the least of the poets of his country,’ but ‘the greatest name among hymn-writers.’[94] Professor Palgrave does Watts full justice—
His views as an Independent were modified and enlarged by his sweet, devout temper—may we not add, by his gift in poetry? And ‘every Christian Church,’ as Dr. Johnson finely remarked, ‘would rejoice to have adopted’ one so fervently devout, so faithful to his duty—we may add, so much more truly gifted by nature as a poet than common Fame has recognized. As with C. Wesley and other good men, fluency, want of taste and finish, the sacrifice, in a word, of art to direct usefulness, have probably lost them those honours in literature to which they were born. But they have their reward.[95]
The sacrifice of art to usefulness was much more deliberate in the case of Watts than of Wesley. Charles Wesley often wrote in haste, with the rush and glow of a present inspiration, with thoughts that must find expression, and which it was easier to utter in poetry than in prose. Watts designed his hymns for the service of the house of God, and had ever before him the dull man in the pew and the tiresome man in the singing gallery. ‘I have seldom,’ he explained, ‘permitted a stop in the middle of a line, and seldom left the end of a line without one; to comport with the unhappy mixture of reading and singing, which cannot presently be reformed.’ ‘The metaphors,’ he continues, ‘are generally sunk to the level of vulgar capacities. If the verse appears so gentle and flowing as to incur the censure of feebleness, I may honestly affirm that sometimes it cost me labour to make it so. Some of the beauties of poesy are neglected, and some wilfully defaced.’ Finally, he describes his work as ‘an attempt for the reformation of psalmody amongst the Churches.’ In estimating Watts’s contribution to the hymn-book of the modern Church, this service must be gratefully recognized. It may seem to us that he stooped too much ‘to the level of vulgar capacities,’ but in this he had to consider what men were able to bear; and we must remember that even those of his hymns which were to perish in the using had their share in preparing the way for the ‘nobler, sweeter song’ in which the Church praises her Lord to-day.
When the Independent Churches began to seek a wider range of choice than Watts could afford, they proceeded by way of supplement, as the Methodists did until 1903. Dr. Thomas Gibbons, Watts’s affectionate but ponderous biographer,[96] issued one in 1769, and others followed in fairly rapid succession, amongst their editors being George Burder, Dr. Bengo Collyer, and finally Josiah Conder, whose book was prepared in 1833 under the direction of the Congregational Union.[97] When at length the Congregationalists began to compile completely new books, Watts naturally still exercised a preponderating influence—as in the excellent Leeds Hymn-book of 1853. But each successive official or unofficial publication emanating from the Congregational Churches has been marked by a great reduction in the number of Watts’s hymns, so that the present Congregational Church Hymnal contains fewer hymns by Watts than were included by Dr. Martineau in his Hymns for the Church and Home. If we turn to the hymn-books of other Churches, the reduction in the number of hymns by Dr. Watts is even more striking; e.g. the Church Hymnary (Presbyterian) gives only nine, and Church Hymns only fourteen.
At present it would seem as though Dr. Watts were more honoured in the Methodist Churches than among his own people, the Methodist and the Primitive Methodist each giving a larger number of his pieces than either the Congregational or Baptist hymn-books. Probably the number of Watts’s hymns in common use will be further reduced. Some inferior compositions still hold their place. They are survivals of a time when the Church’s hymn-book was vastly poorer than it is to-day. But when the lowest point is touched, there must ever remain a number of imperishable hymns which will be sung in the Church of Christ as long as it is militant here on earth.
Watts’s hymns were greatly helped in public favour by the publication of his Psalms in 1719. The Dissenting Churches, for the most part, soon agreed with his own judgement that the two books were ‘such a sufficient provision for psalmody as to answer most occasions of the Christian’s life.’ Long use had made psalm-singing as a distinct part of the service essential, and it was many years before the Dissenting Churches cared for a hymn-book which did not make the distinction between psalms and hymns. The place of honour, or at least of precedence, was given to the Psalms, and as far as possible every psalm was paraphrased.
Watts’s preface to The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament and Applied to the Christian State and Worship is a vigorous manifesto, and it may well have seemed to some men as audacious as many readers find Wesley’s famous preface. His chief contention was that Jewish psalms must be translated, paraphrased, or, to use his own word, ‘imitated’ in Christian language before they are fit for use in Christian worship. He specially emphasizes the small number of psalms sung at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and, gaining courage as he writes, adds, ‘Though, to speak my own sense freely, I do not think David ever wrote a psalm of sufficient glory and sweetness to represent the blessings of this holy institution.’