In the absence this year of a Thanksgiving service, I will post Thanksgiving hymns on this site this week. If the President issues a proclamation for 2020, I will also post it here.
The first hymn, so very appropriate for this year, was written by Isaac Watts and appears in some 1400 hymnals. It reminds us of God’s sovereignty from creation, through events and trials of this life, to the ultimate blessing, worthy of Thanksgiving: our heavenly home. Can’t you just hear it sung with 32′ organ pipes in a large church, with a huge congregation of believers professing its truths?
Or, can we just pray its words in silence, alone if necessary, when we declare our belief and sure knowledge that God reigns supreme and that all is well. It is so very convincing.
There were originally seven verses.
O God, our Help in ages Past, , Our Hope for years to come, Our Shelter from the stormy blast And our eternal Home.
Before the hills in order stood Or earth received her frame, From everlasting Thou art God, To endless years the same.
Under the shadow of Thy throne, Your saints have dwelt secure. Sufficient in Your arm alone And our defense is sure.
The busy tribes of flesh and blood With all their lives and cares Are carried downward by Your floods And lost in foll’wing years.
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.
O God, our Help in ages past, Our Hope for years to come; Be Thou our Guard while life shall last, And our eternal Home.
from Hymnary.org
| Short Name: | Isaac Watts |
| Full Name: | Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748 |
| Birth Year: | 1674 |
| Death Year: | 1748 |
Isaac Watts was the son of a schoolmaster, and was born in Southampton, July 17, 1674. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin, in his fourth year, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas’ pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. It was a residence most favourable for his health, and for the prosecution of his literary labours. He did not retire from ministerial duties, but preached as often as his delicate health would permit.
The number of Watts’ publications is very large. His collected works, first published in 1720, embrace sermons, treatises, poems and hymns. His “Horae Lyricae” was published in December, 1705. His “Hymns” appeared in July, 1707. The first hymn he is said to have composed for religious worship, is “Behold the glories of the Lamb,” written at the age of twenty. It is as a writer of psalms and hymns that he is everywhere known. Some of his hymns were written to be sung after his sermons, giving expression to the meaning of the text upon which he had preached. Montgomery calls Watts “the greatest name among hymn-writers,” and the honour can hardly be disputed. His published hymns number more than eight hundred.
Watts died November 25, 1748, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. A monumental statue was erected in Southampton, his native place, and there is also a monument to his memory in the South Choir of Westminster Abbey. “Happy,” says the great contemporary champion of Anglican orthodoxy, “will be that reader whose mind is disposed, by his verses or his prose, to imitate him in all but his non-conformity, to copy his benevolence to men, and his reverence to God.” (“Memorials of Westminster Abbey,” p. 325.)
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