I’ll Praise My Maker While I’ve Breath

For the Love of God, Volume 1 (Wheaton: Crossway, 1998) is a series of daily reflections by D.A. Carson based on the Bible reading scheme of Robert Murray M’Cheyne. Carson notes that one of the psalms for today (Psalm 146) inspired the following hymn by Isaac Watts, which I haven’t sung for years but which I think is wonderful.

I’ll praise my Maker while I’ve breath,

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler pow’rs;

My days of praise shall ne’er be past,

While life and thought and being last,

Or immortality endures.

Why should I make a man my trust?

Princes must die and turn to dust;

Vain is the help of flesh and blood:

Their breath departs, their pomp and pow’r

And thoughts all vanish in an hour,

Nor can they make their promise good.

How happy they whose hopes rely

On Israel’s God, Who made the sky

And earth and seas with all their train:

His truth forever stands secure;

He saves th’ oppressed, He feeds the poor,

And none shall find His promise vain.

The Lord gives eyesight to the blind;

The Lord supports the sinking mind;

He sends the lab’ring conscience peace;

He helps the stranger in distress,

The widow, and the fatherless,

And grants the pris’ner sweet release.

He loves His saints, He knows them well,

But turns the wicked down to hell;

Thy God, O Zion! ever reigns:

Let every tongue, let every age,

In this exalted work engage;

Praise Him in everlasting strains.

I’ll praise Him while He lends me breath,

And when my voice is lost in death,

Praise shall employ my nobler pow’rs;

My days of praise shall ne’er be past,

While life and thought and being last,

Or immortality endures.

Isaac Watts (1674-1748)