Because the British emphasis of Isaac Watts' psalms and hymns became politically incorrect in the United States following the American Revolution, the Congregational and Presbyterian churches of Connecticut asked Timothy Dwight to revise Watts' collection. The title of Dwight's volume explains its contents: The Psalms of David … by I. Watts. A New Edition in which the Psalms omitted by Dr. Watts are versified, local passages are altered, and a number of Psalms are versified anew in proper metres. By Timothy Dwight … To the Psalms is added a Selection of Hymns (1801). This edition, known as “Dwight’s Watts,” became a popular collection in the United States, although Dwight’s own versifications of psalms were often very free even by late eighteenth-century standards.

 

Inspired by Psalm 137:5-6, Dwight's text was published in eight stanzas; the first line was originally "I love your kingdom, Lord" (Dwight equated the kingdom of God with the church of God). The Psalter Hymnal includes his stanzas 1-2 and 6.

 

Dwight's text is the oldest hymn text by an American author in common use today. In three compact stanzas "I Love Your Church" proclaims a profound love for the church of God, for its members who are saved by Christ, and who express their communion in whole-life worship.

 

ST. THOMAS is actually lines 5 through 8 of the sixteen-line tune HOLBORN, composed by Aaron Williams and published in his Collection (1763, 1765) as a setting for Charles Wesley's text "Soldiers of Christ, Arise." The harmonization is by Lowell Mason. Well-suited to part singing, ST. THOMAS must remain stately, with two broad beats per bar.

 

God of grace and glory,

whom saints and angels

delight to worship in heaven,

we bless you,

we magnify you,

we adore you

as Lord of heaven and earth.

We bless and thank you

for all those made saints

through Jesus Christ,

who have testified to your love,

and shared the gifts with which you graced them.

May your Spirit be powerfully at work

through the communion of your saints

to build us all up in faith and love,

for loving service to each other

and to the world you so love,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

You are no longer strangers and aliens,

but you are citizens with the saints

and also members of the household of God,

built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.

In him the whole structure is joined together

and grows into a holy temple in the Lord;

in whom you also are built together spiritually

into a dwelling place for God.

—Ephesians 2:19-22, NRSV

I looked, and there was a great multitude

that no one could count, from every nation,

from all tribes and peoples and languages,

standing before the throne and before the Lamb,

robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God

who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

How grateful we are of the life and witness of . . .

We are grateful for this vast company of witnesses.

Help us to keep our eyes on Jesus,

forerunner in faith, Lord of all.

By your Spirit, teach us even now

to sing the song of heaven:

—based on 1 Corinthians 2:9; Hebrews 12:1-2; Revelation 7:9-12