THIS year marks the 350th anniversary of the birth of Isaac Watts (Diary, 30 August), and I was glad when his life and work formed the theme of a recent broadcast of Radio 4’s Sunday Worship, which came from the Methodist Central Hall.

Although Methodism is, of course, most associated with the sublime hymnody of Charles Wesley, it was appropriate that they hosted a tribute to his great predecessor; for it has been argued that Watts is really responsible not just for so many individual hymns that we still know and love, but for the emergence of hymn-singing itself as an essential element of Christian worship.

There had been singing before, of course, but it was confined to psalms and canticles. There was hardly any place, before Watts, for new hymns — hymns rooted and grounded in the New Testament, and in all that was done for us on “the wondrous cross”. Watts, of course, also loved the Psalms, and many of his greatest hymns are based on well-known psalms, as, for example, “O God, our help in ages past”, which is based on Psalm 90.

But Watts was doing far more than rendering the Psalms into metrical form, or even paraphrasing them, as is made clear in the title of his book The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, published in 1719. Indeed, Watts made it clear that his reading of the Psalter was entirely Christo-centric: “Where the Psalmist describes religion by the fear of God, I have often joined faith and love to it. Where he speaks of pardon of sin through the mercies of God, I have added the merits of a Saviour. Where he talks of sacrificing goats and bullocks, I rather mention the sacrifice of Christ, the Lamb of God.”

But the hymn for which Watts is most celebrated is the incomparable “When I survey the wondrous cross”. It would be impossible to estimate the sheer amount of good that this hymn has done: the new faith it has kindled, the faltering faith it has renewed, the grief it has helped people to bear, the voice it has given to our deepest joys and sorrows, and the almost miraculous way it carries us, whatever our present troubles, into sheer thankfulness.

I was asked recently by a distinguished hymn-writer to compose a sonnet in praise of Isaac Watts. I found it impossible, because, as soon as I started praising him, I imagined Watts himself rebuking me, deflecting all my praise to Christ and telling me to turn once more to Jesus. So that “turn” itself became the subject of the sonnet:

For Isaac Watts

How can I praise you Isaac for this gift
Whereby you voice the height and depth of grace?
I sing your words and feel my spirit lift
Into a realm of utter thankfulness.
How can I praise a man who shuns all praise
And pours contempt on any fame or pride?
Don’t praise or even notice me, he says,
But turn your eyes unto the One who died.
Lose all your life in Christ and he will save,
Prostrate yourself and He will lift you up.
His Love will raise you even from the grave.
Sorrow and love are mingled in the cup
Christ drains for you. Sorrow and love combine
As He gives all He is in bread and wine.