The hymn below by Isaac Watts is titled “The Last Judgment,” 15 stanzas derived from thoughts on judgment in Psalm 50. This version of Psalm 50 is labeled in The Psalms of David to be sung “To the old proper Tune.” It is meter 10.10.10.10.11.11. This, in contrast to another versification that is to be sung “To a new Tune.” That one is meter 10s. (6 lines).
At the Third Ireland Sacred Harp Convention, a group sings the solfege syllables and then the first stanza by Watts. With his tune Pennsylvania, Jeremiah Ingalls captures some of the spectacle, suspense, and solemnity of Watts’s poetry on the last judgment.
Calls the south nations and awakes the north;
From east to west the sovereign orders spread,
Through distant worlds and regions of the dead:
The trumpet sounds; hell trembles; heav’n rejoices
Lift up your heads, ye saints, with cheerful voices.
His vengeance sleeps no more; behold the day:
Behold, the Judge descends; his guards are nigh;
Tempests and fire attend him down the sky.
When God appears, all nature shall adore him;
While sinners tremble, saints rejoice before him.
To hear my justice, and the sinner’s doom;
But gather first my saints,” the Judge commands,
“Bring them, ye angels, from their distant lands.”
When Christ returns, wake every cheerful passion
And shout, ye saints; he comes for your salvation.
Sealed by th’ eternal Sacrifice in blood,
And signed with all their names; the Greek, the Jew,
That paid the ancient worship or the new.”
There’s no distinction here; join all your voices,
And raise your heads, ye saints, for heav’n rejoices.
And near me seat my fav’rites and my sons:
Come, my redeem’d, possess the joys prepared
Ere time began; ’tis your divine reward.”
When Christ returns, wake every cheerful passion;
And shout, ye saints; he comes for your salvation
I am the Judge: ye heav’ns, proclaim abroad
My just eternal sentence, and declare
Those awful truths that sinners dread to hear.”
When God appears, all nature shall adore him;
While sinners tremble, saints rejoice before him.
Now feel my wrath, nor call my threat’nings vain:
Thou hypocrite, once dressed in saints’ attire,
I doom the painted hypocrite to fire.”
Judgment proceeds; hell trembles; heav’n rejoices;
Lift up your heads, ye saints, with cheerful voices.
Do I condemn thee; bulls and goats are vain
Without the flame of love; in vain the store
Of brutal off’rings, that were mine before.”
Earth is the Lord’s, all nature shall adore him;
While sinners tremble, saints rejoice before him.
When did I thirst, or drink thy bullocks’ blood?
Mine are the tamer beasts and savage breed,
Flocks, herds, and fields and forests where they feed.”
All is the Lord’s, he rules the wide creation;
Gives sinners vengeance, and the saints salvation.
Thy solemn chatt’rings and fantastic vows?
Are my eyes charmed thy vestments to behold,
Glaring in gems, and gay in woven gold?”
God is the Judge of hearts, no fair disguises
Can screen the guilty when his vengeance rises.
A God, a Spirit, with such toys as these,
While, with my grace and statutes on thy tongue,
Thou lov’st deceit, and dost thy brother wrong?”
Judgment proceeds; hell trembles; heav’n rejoices;
Lift up your heads, ye saints, with cheerful voices.
Thieves and adulterers are thy chosen friends;
While the false flatt’rer at my altar waits,
His hardened soul divine instruction hates.”
God is the Judge of hearts, no fair disguises
Can screen the guilty when his vengeance rises.
But didst thou hope that I should ne’er reprove?
And cherish such an impious thought within,
That the All-Holy would indulge thy sin?”
See, God appears; all nature joins t’ adore him;
Judgment proceeds, and sinners fall before him.
And thy own crimes affright thy guilty soul;
Now like a lion shall my vengeance tear
Thy bleeding heart, and no deliv’rer near.”
Judgment concludes; hell trembles; heav’n rejoices;
Lift up your heads, ye saints, with cheerful voices.
Awake before this dreadful morning rise;
Change your vain thoughts, your crooked works amend,
Fly to the Saviour, make the Judge your friend:
Then join the saints, wake every cheerful passion;
When Christ returns, he comes for your salvation.
Concerning Psalm 50, Watts made several paraphrases. The first follows the Psalm more closely and is divided into three parts, in Common Meter. He also wrote another version of the third part in Long Meter. Following these, he has two versions of “The Last Judgment” (the first with 9 stanzas and the second with 15) of which he says, “I have taken occasion from this Psalm to represent the Last Judgment.” He also affixes the following explanations, which apply to stanzas 3, 6, and 7 in the first version, but to stanzas 4, 9, 10, and 11 in the version that appears here.
“All the saints have made a Covenant with God by Sacrifices (as in the Text) and as it were set their Names to God’s Covenant of Grace, ratified by the Sacrifice of Christ of eternal virtue; Tho’ the Jews did it in the antient Forms of Worship, and the Gentiles in the New.”
“As the Jewish Formal Worshippers contented themselves with Burnt Offerings, &c. and trusted in them; so Hypocrites in Christianity build their Hopes upon outward Forms, gay Ceremonies, rigid Austerities, fanciful Vows, &c.”
He further writes:
“If the former Heroick Metre do not fit the old Proper Tune of the Fiftieth Psalm, for want of Double Rhymes at the End of every Stanza, I have here altered the Form of it much, in order to fit exactly to the old Proper Tune, adding a Chorus, or (as some call it) the Burden of the Song, betwixt every Four Lines. I hope it will not be displeasing to the more Musical Part of my Readers to be entertained with such a Variety.”
“Heroic Meter” is used to describe verse form for epic or elevated poetry, which may not always be the same. In this case of Watts’s Psalm 50, it is 10s. meter. Fitzroy Pyle calls it “Iambic Decasyllable.”[ii]
This above version of The Last Judgment can be sound on pages 137-140 in The Psalms of David: Imitated in the Language of the New Testament, and apply’d to the Christian State and Worship (Isaac Watts, London: J. Clark, 1719). (There are some slight orthographic updates in the version that I copied.)
Isaac Watts was born in Southampton, July 17, 1674, the son of a schoolmaster. His father was a Nonconformist, and was imprisoned more than once for his religious convictions. Isaac learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew early in his youth, and was writing good verse by the age of seven. At age sixteen, he went to study in the Stoke Newington Academy under Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. Isaac became the assistant minister of the Independent Church on Berry Street, London, in 1698 and in 1702, he became the pastor. In 1712, he moved to Abney Park residence of Sir Thomas Abney, and stayed there the rest of his life.
Watts died November 25, 1748, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. Additionally, there is a monument erected in Abney Park Cemetery and one in the South Choir of Westminster Abbey.
Jeremiah Ingalls, the composer of the tune Pennsylvania, was born on March 1, 1764, in Andover, Massachusetts, the son of Abijah Ingalls and Elisabeth Hutchinson. His father, a American Revolutionary War veteran, died while Jeremiah was still a teenager. Around 1788, he moved to Newbury, Vermont, and married Mary Bigelow in 1791. They had eleven children.
Ingalls was a farmer and singing school teacher. He served as a choirmaster and deacon at the First Congregational Church in Newbury, Vermont. He was excluded from the church in 1810, on a charge of failing to repent of marital infidelity.[iii] After this he moved to Rochester, Vermont, and then to Hancock, Vermont. Ingalls continued teaching and composing music. He died April 6, 1838, at the age of 74. He was buried at the old Hancock Village Cemetery in Hancock, Addison County, Vermont.
In 1805, Ingalls published The Christian Harmony; or, Songster’s Companion (Exeter, NH: Henry Ranlet).[iv] The tune Pennsylvania possibly first appeared in print in Abraham Maxim’s tunebook The Northern Harmony (Exeter, NH: Norris & Sawyer, 1808).[v]
[ii] “The Rhythms of the English Heroic Line: an Essay in Empirical Analysis,” Hermathena Vol. 28, No. 53 (1939), p. 100.
[iii] I am unaware of the details of this situation, but he and his wife remained together until his death.
[iv] In 2005 a four-shape version of The Christian Harmony was published for the Jeremiah Ingalls Society Bicentennial Singing in Newbury, Vermont (Thomas B. Malone, editor).
[v] The Shenandoah Harmony credits the source of the tune Pennsylvania to the 2nd edition of Maxim’s Northern Harmony, yet dates the tune to 1796.
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