What Does Isaac Watts Mean

Isaac Watts: Working for Him Mister Isaac Watts was a seventeenth century poet and hymn writer. He was born in Southampton, England on July 17, 1674. His childhood was surrounded by religious activities. His father was a Dissenter who was arrested and thrown in jail in the early years of Isaac Watts' childhood. Although his father was not present to pass down his beliefs as a Dissenter, Isaac Watts had no problem following in his father's footsteps because Isaac Watts lived in the time when Dissenters were of majority townspeople. Isaac Watts was the eldest of eight children also believed that the state should not interfere with the church. At the age of 4, Isaac Watts began to learn the language of Latin. Later, Isaac Watts continued to further educate himself at the Free-School of Southampton where he also learned the languages of Greek, French, and Hebrew.
The Church of England offered Mister Isaac Watts a scholarship to attend, but he denied the scholarship to study at the Newington Green Academy of Thomas Rowe, a liberal academy for Dissenters. After attending the Newington Green Academy of Thomas Rowe, Isaac Watts returned to his hometown, Southampton, at the age of twenty. Throughout Isaac Watts' career, he was known as a "scion of the seventeenth-century Independent Dissenter" (Poetry Foundation). During his career, Isaac Watts was known to be an educator, a minor poet, and a preacher. His work represented "emotional immediacy, the child's sensibility, and simplicity itself" (Poetry Foundation). In 1698, Isaac Watts became the assistant pastor at Mark Lane Meeting in London, and on March 8, 1702 he accepted the invitation to be the head pastor at the Mark Lane Meeting. Isaac Watts' earliest of work was recorded at the age of seven. Many of his works, such as his sermons, prayers, educational works, and theological essays, "flowed from his pen" (Poetry Foundation). At an early age, Isaac Watts had a biographer who recorded the minor, yet brilliant works of him. His "somber religious convictions and precocity" (Poetry Foundation) is verified by his created works as a child; throughout the later years in his career, Isaac Watts represented a "heroic Puritan resistance" (Poetry Foundation). Isaac Watts' work consistently preached to people of his religious views and his objection of "frivolous poetry"; he also used hymns to bring people together in song against the sins of the world. Isaac Watts was interested in the colonial American Universities and the liberal education for women; he was also intrigued by the "view of a lively, influential, eighteenth-century literary counterculture" (Poetry Foundation). Isaac Watts' hymns differentiated from the others by containing less aggressive and caricature-like diction. He justified his distinctive hymns as "refined and disciplined, becoming devotion" which provided "expressions of perfect piety" (Poetry Foundation). His style of evangelical diction provided worshippers of God with certain ways of worshipping. "Lyrics can be dangerous in the hands of common believers" (Poetry Foundation), so when Mister Isaac Watts, as the major religious leader he was, created profoundly aspiring hymns, many of the common believers tended to simply sing along. "Against Quarreling and Fighting" by Isaac Watts has a theme correlating with its title. The theme of the poem is disapproving quarreling and fighting. In the first stanza, the author uses animals of beast-like qualities, such as dogs, bears, and lions, to show that God made to fight; on the other hand, God made humans to love one another. In stanza 2, "Your (People in general) hands were never made to tear each other's eyes" represents God's true purpose for humans: not to quarrel, or fight, but to serve and carry out His work. "He sees what children dwell in love and marks them for his own" in the last stanza shows that God "marks", or takes ownership, in those who rightfully serve Him. In the poem, the tone and mood serves as an attitude of serious preaching.
The author's diction is in terms of God and the Bible. In stanza three, the line "Let love through all your actions run and all your words be mild" preaches religion through peace. In the last stanza, the author preaches against violence by suggesting that God "marks" the children dwelling in love as "His own". In the first stanza, the author uses different animals to symbolize God's meaning between animals and humans. God made animals, not humans, to "bark and bite" and "growl and fight" (lines 1 and 3). The author uses the word "let" to express release; the author wants the readers to "let", as in allow, animals to provide all the viciousness in the world, instead of humans. The author uses a visual imagery to show praise in God. In the last stanza line 18, the author states God sits at his "heavenly throne". This line gives the visual image to the readers of a king-like persona. God "reigns from above" on his throne portrays a sense of someone keeping an eye of the reader; "Heavenly throne" gives a perspective of ruling the
people. All of stanza three is a homily because it preaches peace within spirit. "Let love through all your actions run" allows people to spiritually love one another through actions. Words are part of actions; therefore, the words the readers speak should be "mild". The last two lines of stanza 3 state that we should "live like the blessed Virgin's Son" because if "He grew in favor both with man and his Father too", then the reader shall do the same. Also in stanza 3, lines 11 and 12, "Live like the blessed Virgin's Son, that sweet and lovely child." is a loose sentence. The second part of the loose sentence describes the Virgin's Son as sweet and lovely, which shows how God wants the readers actions to run. Lines 11 and 12 allows the reader to have a role model, the Virgin's Son; and, it creates an expectation that the author has for the reader as in being a very loveable, non-violent human being. The poem "Against Quarreling and Fighting" by Isaac Watts relates to the Bible verse "Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all" (Romans 12:17). Both the poem and Bible verse portray disapproval of evil in violence. In the poem, it says to "never let such angry passions rise" by following the Bible verse in "giving thought to do what is honorable in sight of all". The verse and poem correlate the meanings of avoiding evil by serving God and doing his desired work.