THEIR AUTHORS AND ORIGIN. 83
the verse is weakened and debased according to the judgment of critics," yet all will admit that many of his hymns are of unpa ralleled excellence. Montgomery justly styles Watts "the greatest name among hymn -writers."
To Dr. Watts must be assigned the praise of beginning in our language a class of productions which have taken a decided hold upon the universal religious mind. On this account, Christian worshippers of every denomination and of every English speaking land owe him an incalculable debt of gratitude. Mason, Baxter, and others, had preceded Watts as hymn-writers, but their hymns were not used in public worship. Prejudice prevented the use of anything beyond the Psalms, and those not yet in their Christian rendering. But Watts made the Christian hymn part of modern public worship. "He was," says Montgomery, "almost the inventor of hymns in our language, so greatly did he improve upon his few almost forgotten predecessors in the composition of sacred song." His aim was usefulness in public worship. He says, "The most frequent tempers and changes of our spirit, and t conditions of our life, are here copied, and the breathings of our piety expressed according to the variety of our passions, our love, our fear, our hope, our desire, our sorrow, our wonder, and our joy, as they are refined into devotion, and act under the influence and conduct of the blessed Spirit, all conversing with God the Father by the new and living way of access to the throne, even the person and the mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ. To Him also, even to the Lamb that was slain and now lives, I have addressed many a song, for thus doth the holy Scripture instruct and teach us to worship in the various short patterns of Christian psalmody described in the Eevelation. Ihave avoided the more obscure and controverted points of Christianity, that we might all obey the direction of the Word of God, and sing His praises with understanding (Psalm xlvii. 7). The contentions and distinguishing words of sects and parties are excluded, that whole assemblies might assist at the harmony, and different churches join in the same worship without offence."
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