Abstract

The link between nature and the spiritual life has been a mainstay in Christianity going back to the beginning of Scripture. However, our modern context has veered toward a humancentric emphasis in the use of nature for spiritual purposes. This article seeks to recover a framework for connecting nature and the spiritual life by analyzing and applying the writings of the hymn-writer Isaac Watts. Influenced by the English Puritans and the eighteenth-century English naturalists, Watts leverages the empirical and the spiritual to employ a theocentric natural theology in his hymnody, psalmody, and spiritual prose. Examining these writings of Watts, in turn, aid in recovering a faithful use of nature in spiritual formation within our modern Christian context.