SOURCE: Marshall, Madeleine Forell and Janet Todd. “Isaac Watts's Divine Delight.” In English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century, pp. 28-59. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1982.

In the following essay, Marshall and Todd analyze Watts's creation of the English hymn and its characteristics.

In Defense of Hymnody

The acceptance of hymns for congregational use, necessary for the establishment of the hymn tradition, depended on a departure from the principle, formulated by Calvin and upheld by the Reformed churches, that Christian song must confine itself to biblical texts, the proper piety of which was guaranteed by divine revelation. Someone had to write hymns that could overcome this resistance. Ideally the champion of hymns would belong to a denomination unbound by church hierarchy, with its need to be persuaded. He would be a man of irreproachable piety, who would speak with authority of the devotional life. And he would be...