Isaac Watts, the eldest of nine children, was born at Southampton, England, July 17, 1674, and named after his father, who kept a boarding-school in that town. He was brought up in the home of a committed Nonconformist — his father had been incarcerated twice for his controversial views. The term Nonconformist was a term used in England after the Act of Uniformity 1662 to refer to an English subject belonging to a non-Christian religion or any non-Anglican church. It refer more narrowly to such a person who also advocated religious liberty. The term was also applied to English Dissenters (such as Puritans and Presbyterians) who violated the Act of Uniformity 1559, typically by practising or advocating radical, sometimes separatist, dissent with respect to the Established Church.

Of the young Isaac Watts, it is related of him that his chief pleasure was in books; that the little money which he received in presents was applied to the gratification of this propensity; that although remarkable for vivacity, he employed his leisure hours in reading instead of joining other boys at play; and that when only seven or eight years old, he composed some devotional verses to please his mother.

At King Edward VI School (where one of the houses is now named "Watts" in his honour), he learned Latin, Greek and Hebrew. His promising talents and his amiable disposition induced some generous persons to offer to send him to one of the English Universities; but having been bred up a dissenter, he was determined to remain one.

In his sixteenth year, therefore, he was sent to the Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington in 1690, kept by Mr. Thomas Rowe. Mr. Rowe said of him, that he never had occasion to reprove him, and that he often held him up as a pattern to his other pupils. He used to mark all the books he read, to abridge some of them, and annotate others, which were interleaved for that purpose. But he pursued his studies during three years with such fervor, and allowing himself no time for needful exercise and needful sleep; that his health and body received irreparable injury. In 1694, he left the academy, and for the two following years prosecuted his studies at his father's house, during which time the greater part of his hymns were composed, and probably most of his juvenile compositions.

He preached his first sermon on the very day whereon he completed his twenty-fourth year; and he "applied himself to the study of the Scriptures, and to the reading of the best commentators, both critical and practical, preparatory to his undertaking taking the pastoral office, to which he was determined to devote his life, and of the importance of which he had a deep sense upon his mind.''
Two years before Mr. Watts entered upon the ministry, he was invited by Sir John Hartopp, to reside in his family, at Stoke Newington, as tutor to his son.

In this family Mr. Watts was happily situated and diligently employed. The rudiments that he used with this pupil were later enlarged and published in 1724, under the title of Logic, with the encouragement of Mr. John Eames, the most learned of his friends.

In 1698, the year of his first appearance in the pulpit, he was chosen assistant to Dr. Isaac Chauncy, pastor of the Independent church, then meeting in Mark Lane; and in January, 1701-2 he accepted the invitation to succeed Dr. Chauncy in the pastoral office.

Watts himself preached upon the plan which he advised; he wrote, it is said, and committed to memory the leading features of his cursory sermon; the rest he trusted to his extemporary power and the promised assistance of the Holy Spirit. He prepared them for the press as well as for the pulpit: much therefore of what had been introduced in delivery, his own memory, we may be sure, would retain; and as the practice of taking notes from a distinguished preacher was at that time not unusual, it is probable that in this way, by which so many of Owen's sermons were preserved by Sir John Hartopp, his recollection may have been assisted.

In an ordination sermon he warned the aspirant student against the fault which would most easily beset him. "Do not say within yourself, how much or how elegantly I can talk upon such a text; but what can I say most usefully to those who hear me, for the instruction of their minds, for the correction of their consciences, and for the persuasion of their hearts? Be not fond of displaying your learned criticisms in clearing up the terms and phrases of a text, when scholars only can be edified by them; nor spend away the precious moments of the congregation, in making them hear you explain what is clear enough before, and hath no need of explaining; nor in proving that which is so obvious that it needs no proof. This is little better than trifling with God and man. Think not, how can I make a sermon correct and earnest, but how I can make the most profitable sermon for my hearers: — not what fine things I can say, either in a way of criticism or philosophy, or in a way of oratory or harangue; but what powerful words I can speak to impress the consciences of those that hear with a serious and lasting sense of moral, divine and eternal things. Judge wisely what to leave out, as well as what to speak. Let not your chief design be to work up a sheet, or to hold out an hour, but to save a soul."

Soon after his entrance upon this charge he was seized with a dangerous illness; which, after long confinement and a slow recovery, left him with a constitution so evidently impaired, that the congregation thought an assistant necessary, and accordingly, in July, 1703, appointed Mr. Samuel Price to assist him. Gradually, however, he recovered strength, and continued to officiate during some years with no material interruption; another illness then brought him to the brink of the grave; and when the fever was subdued, a nervous debility remained which for some years entirely incapacitated him for the functions of his office. Days were set apart by his congregation for prayers for his recovery, and many of his brethren in the ministry united in these supplications, "as men deeply impressed with the importance of his life." It was necessary, however, that his place should be supplied, even when their prayers were so far answered as to remove any apprehension of a fatal termination; and by his own desire Mr. Price was elected to be joint pastor with him. This illness proved in its consequences the most important and most fortunatate event of his life. Sir Thomas Abney invited him to try the effect of change of air, at his house at Theobalds: thither Watts went, intending to stay there but a single week, and there he remained six-and-thirty years, which was as long as he lived. It is sometimes said that he wrote most of his well-known books and poems at Abney House, or in its parkland grounds (in which the island heronry of the Hackney Brook that bounded the estate, was his favorite retreat):

"Here," says his first biographer, Dr. Gibbons, "he enjoyed the uninterrupted demonstrations of the truest friendship. Here, without any cares of his own, he had every thing which could contribute to the enjoyment of life, and favour the unwearied pursuits of his studies. Here he dwelt in a family which, for piety, order, harmony, and every virtue, was a house of God. Here he had the privilege of a country recess, the fragrant bower, the spreading lawn, the flowery garden, and other advantages to soothe his mind, and aid his restoration to health; to yield him, whenever he chose them, most grateful intervals from his laborious studies, and enable him to return to them with redoubled vigour and delight. Had it not been for this happy event, he might, as to outward view, have feebly, it may be painfully, dragged on through many more years of languor and inability for public service, and even for profitable study; or perhaps might have sunk into his grave, under the overwhelming load of infirmities, in the midst of his days; and thus the church and the world would have been deprived of those many excellent sermons and works which he drew up and published during his long residence in this family. In a few years after his coming hither, Sir Thomas Abney dies; but his amiable consort survives, who shows the Doctor the same respect and friendship as before: and most happily for him, and great numbers besides ... her thread of life was drawn out to a great age, even beyond that of the Doctor's.

How many working pastors write a textbook on logic that is used for decades by the preeminent universities of the English-speaking world? Who among us can write a book on metaphysics that probes ontology, and at the same time write a book of children's poetry that goes through 95 editions within 100 years of its publication? What modern thinker has published a learned tome on astronomy and also published graded catechisms (one for five-year olds, another for nine-year olds, another for twelve-year olds)? Isaac Watts has.
 

• Speculations on the Human Nature of the Logos
• Horæ Lyricæ, 1706-1709
• Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 1707-9
• The Divine and Moral Songs for the Use of Children, 1715
• The Psalms of David Imitated in the Language of the New Testament (London: J. Clark, 1719)
• Sermons, 1721-1727
• Reliquiae Juveniles: Miscellaneous Thoughts in Prose and Verse, on Natural, Moral, and Divine Subjects (London: 1734)
• Remnants of Time (London: 1736)
• Logic, 1724
• The Improvement of the Mind, 1741
• The World to Come, 1745
• Catechisms, Scripture History, 1732
   

He composed also catechisms of scriptural names, and of the more important transactions recorded in the Bible, and, in the same form, what he entitled "A Short View of the whole Scripture History," but which is in reality, as any such view must be, of considerable length. His love of children made him delight in employing himself for their instruction and amusement. He composed rhyming lines for copy-books, containing moral instruction, and beginning with every letter of the alphabet; copies, composed of short letters, for teaching to write even; and others, each line of which contained all the twenty-four letters...

The hymn books of the churches of New England during the time of the American Revolution were largely filled with the songs of Isaac Watts. During the war, while American colonists were engaged in battle with British soldiers, they ran out of ‘wad’ for their muskets. A local pastor who was nearby ran into the church and gathered up the hymn books. He then proceeded to tear out the pages and give them to the soldiers to be used as wadding in their muskets, as he yelled out "give 'em Watts, boys!" Thus is the origin of the modern term of anger, "to give them 'watt' for."

Watts' logic text book was written for beginners of logic, and the book is arranged methodically. He divided the content of his elementary treatment of logic into four parts: perception, judgement, reasoning, and method, which he treated in this order. Each of these parts is divided into chapters, and some of these chapters are divided into sections. The content of the chapters and sections is then subdivided by using some combination of the following devices: divisions, distributions, notes, observations, directions, rules, illustrations, and remarks. Thus, every contentum of the book comes under one or more of these headings, and this methodical arrangement serves to make the exposition clear. In Watts' Logic there are some notable departures from what one would expect to find in a text book of logic from Watts' time, and there are also some notable innovations.

One departure from most other authors of logic is that Watts was careful to distinguish between judgments and propositions. According to Watts, judgment is "to compare... ideas together, and to join them by affirmation, or disjoin then by negation, according as we find them to agree or disagree." However, he continues by saying, "when mere ideas are joined in the mind without words, it is rather called a judgment; but when clothed with words it is called a proposition." In the third part, Watts discusses reasoning and argumentation, with particular emphasis on the theory of syllogism, which was a centrally important part of the classical logic which Watts' was treating in his work. According to Watts, and in keeping with the common practice of logicians of his day, Watts defined logic as an art, as opposed to a science. Throughout Logic, Watts revealed his high conception of logic by stressing the practical side of logic, rather than just the speculative side. According to Watts, as a practical art, logic can be really useful in any of our inquiries, whether they are inquiries in the arts, or inquiries in the sciences, or inquiries of an ethical kind. It is Watts' emphasis on logic as a practical art which distinguishes his book from others. For, by stressing that there is a practical and non-formal part of logic, Watts was able to give rules and directions for any kind of inquiry, including the inquiries of science and the inquiries of philosophy.

Isaac Watts' Logic became the standard text on logic at Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Yale; being used at Oxford University for well over 100 years. The Logic was followed in 1741 by a supplement, The Improvement of the Mind, which itself went through numerous editions and later inspired Michael Faraday.

John Wesley had long acknowledged the genius, discipline and piety of Watts, and when Wesley came to publish his first hymn book, one-third of its hymns were Isaac's. When John Wesley published his tract, The Doctrine of Original Sin, he incorporated 44 pages of Watts's earlier work, Ruin and Recovery.

In this patient and peaceful state of mind, on the 25th of November 1748, and in the 75th year of his age, he departed "in sure and certain hope." His body was deposited in the burial-ground of Bunhill-fields. His pupil, Sir John Hartopp, and his true friend, Lady Abney, under whose roof he had partaken of all the comforts of affluence, for six-and-thirty years, erected a handsome tomb over his grave; the epitaph he had composed himself, in these humble words:

ISAAC WATTS, D. D.
Pastor of a Church of Christ in London,
successor to
THE REV. JOSEPH CARYL, DR. JOHN OWEN, MR. DAVID
CLARKSON, AND DR. ISAAC CHAUNCY;
after fifty years of feeble labours in the gospel,
interrupted by four years of tiresome sickness,
was at last dismissed to his rest.
In uno Jesu omnia.
2 Cor. v. 8. Absent from the body and present with the Lord.
Col. iii. 4. When Christ who is my life shall appear, then shall I also
appear with him in glory.