Isaac Watts (1674–1748) first published this hymn in his landmark 1707 collection Hymns and Spiritual Songs under the heading “Christ Jesus the Lamb of God Worshiped by all the Creation,” drawn from Revelation 5:11–13’s vision of countless angels united in praise of the Lamb who has redeemed His people. The text beautifully mirrors the historic liturgy of the Divine Service, reminding the congregation that its hymns of praise are joined, as the liturgy itself confesses, “with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven.” So popular did Watts’s English text become that it was translated into Latin, appearing as “Venite, sancti, nostra laeta carmina” in Richard Bingham’s 1871 Hymnologia Christiana Latina, reversing the usual direction of hymn translation. Watts wrote five stanzas; the Lutheran Service Book uses four, and modern hymnals have gently altered the final stanza’s opening declaration, “The whole Creation joyn in one,” to the more invitatory “Let all creation join in one,” tying the hymn’s close directly back to its opening summons, “Come, let us join our cheerful songs.”
Sung at Our Saviour
2025