How vast the treasure we possess!

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How vast the treasure we possess!

Author: Isaac Watts
Tune: WELLS (Holdroyd)
Published in 23 hymnals

Representative Text

How vast the treasure we possess!
How rich thy bounty, King of grace!
This world is ours, and worlds to come;
Earth is our lodge, and heav'n our home.

All things are ours: the gifts of God;
The purchase of a Savior's blood;
While the good Spirit shows us how
To use, and to improve them too.

If peace and plenty crown my days,
They help me, Lord, to speak thy praise;
If bread of sorrows be my food,
Those sorrows work my lasting good.

I would not change my blest estate
For all the world calls good or great;
And while my faith can keep her hold,
I envy not the sinner's gold.

Father, I wait thy daily will;
Thou shalt divide my portion still;
Grant me on earth what seems thee best,
Till death and heav'n reveal the rest.

The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts

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Author: Isaac Watts

Isaac Watts was the son of a schoolmaster, and was born in Southampton, July 17, 1674. He is said to have shown remarkable precocity in childhood, beginning the study of Latin, in his fourth year, and writing respectable verses at the age of seven. At the age of sixteen, he went to London to study in the Academy of the Rev. Thomas Rowe, an Independent minister. In 1698, he became assistant minister of the Independent Church, Berry St., London. In 1702, he became pastor. In 1712, he accepted an invitation to visit Sir Thomas Abney, at his residence of Abney Park, and at Sir Thomas' pressing request, made it his home for the remainder of his life. It was a residence most favourable for his health, and for the prosecution of his literary… Go to person page >

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First Line:	How vast the treasure we possess!
Author:	Isaac Watts
Meter:	8.8.8.8
Language:	English
Copyright:	Public Domain

1 Corinthians 3:21
(hymns)

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Notes

How vast the treasure we possess. J. Watts. [All things in Christ.] This hymn, as in Bickersteth's Christian Psalmody, enlarged edition, 1841, the Baptist Psalms & Hymns, 1858, and others, in 5 stanzas of 4 lines, is a cento from two hymns appended to Watts's Sermons, 1721-4, the first beginning, "How vast the treasure we possess"; and the second, "My soul, survey thy happiness." In the cento, stanza i. is from the first, and stanzas ii.-v. are from the second of these two hymns.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)

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