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THE
GREYHOUND had been thrashing about in the north Atlantic storm
for over a week. Its canvas sails were ripped, and the wood on one side
of the ship had been torn away and splintered. The sailors had little
hope of survival, but they mechanically worked the pumps, trying to keep
the vessel afloat. On the eleventh day of the storm, sailor John Newton
was too exhausted to pump, so he was tied to the helm and tried to hold
the ship to its course. From one o'clock until midnight he was at the
helm.
With the storm raging fiercely, Newton
had time to think. His life seemed as ruined and wrecked as the battered
ship he was trying to steer through the storm. Since the age of eleven
he had lived a life at sea. Sailors were not noted for the refinement of
their manners, but Newton had a reputation for profanity, coarseness,
and debauchery which even shocked many a sailor.
He was known as "The Great
Blasphemer." He sank so low at one point that he was even a servant to
slaves in Africa for a brief period. His mother had prayed he would
become a minister and had early taught him the Scriptures and Isaac
Watts' Divine Songs for Children. Some of those early childhood
teachings came to mind now. He remembered Proverbs 1:24-31, and in the
midst of that storm, those verses seemed to confirm Newton in his
despair:
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Amazing
Grace: The Store of John Newton
Complete list of John Newton's Hymns (CCEL)
Letters of John Newton
John Newton on Controversy
Reading
the
Bible
More Than A Calvinist
Newton wrote many hymns, both with
Cowper and on his own. He also wrote poetry. While he is not as
elegant a poet as Cowper, his poetry has a clarity and simple charm
that is appealing.
On Dreaming
The World
Praise for
the Incarnation
Men
Honoured Above Angels
Saturday
Evening
Ebenezer
At the
Close of the Year
Joy and
Peace in Believing
The Day of
Judgement
Bitter and
Sweet
Prayer Answered by Crosses
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Because I have called, and ye refused
. . . ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my
reproof: I also laughed at your calamity; I will mock when your fear
cometh: when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh
as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come upon you. Then shall they
call upon me, but I will not answer.
Newton had rejected his mother's
teachings and had led other sailors into unbelief. Certainly he was
beyond hope and beyond saving, even if the Scriptures were true. Yet,
Newton's thoughts began to turn to Christ. He found a New Testament and
began to read. Luke 11:13 seemed to assure him that God might still hear
him: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your
children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit
to them that ask him."
Deliverance
That day at the helm, March 21, 1748, was a day Newton remembered ever
after, for "On that day the Lord sent from on high and delivered me out
of deep waters." Many years later, as an old man, Newton wrote in his
diary of March 21, 1805: "Not well able to write; but I endeavor to
observe the return of this day with humiliation, prayer, and praise."
Only God's amazing grace could and would take a rude, profane,
slave-trading sailor and transform him into a child of God. Newton never
ceased to stand in awe of God's work in his life.
New directions
Though Newton continued in his profession of sailing and slave-trading
for a time, his life was transformed. He began a disciplined schedule of
Bible study, prayer, and Christian reading and tried to be a Christian
example to the sailors under his command. Philip Doddridge's The Rise
and Progress of Religion in the Soul provided much spiritual
comfort, and a fellow-Christian captain he met off the coast of Africa
guided Newton further in his Christian faith.
Newton left slave-trading and took the
job of tide surveyor at Liverpool, but he began to think he had been
called to the ministry. His mother's prayers for her son were answered,
and in 1764, at the age of thirty-nine, John Newton began forty-three
years of preaching the Gospel of Christ.
John and his beloved wife Mary (At the
end of his life John would write that their love "equaled all that the
writers of romance have imagined") moved to the little market town of
Olney. He spent his mornings in Bible study and his afternoons in
visiting his parishioners. There were regular Sunday morning and
afternoon services as well as meetings for children and young people.
There was also a Tuesday evening prayer meeting which was always well
attended.
The world's most
famous hymn
For the Sunday evening services, Newton often composed a hymn which
developed the lessons and Scripture for the evening. In 1779, two
hundred and eighty of these were collected and combined with sixty-eight
hymns by Newton's friend and parishioner, William Cowper, and published
as the Olney Hymns. The most famous of all the Olney Hymns,
"Faith's Review and Expectation," grew out of David's exclamation in I
Chronicles 17:16-17. We know it today as "Amazing Grace." Several other
of the Olney hymns by Newton continue in use today, including "How Sweet
the Name of Jesus Sounds," and "Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken."
Rector reveals evils
of slavery
In 1779 Newton left Olney to become rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in
London. His ministry included not only the London poor and the merchant
class but also the wealthy and influential. William Wilberforce, a
member of Parliament and a prime mover in the abolition of slavery, was
strongly influenced by John Newton's life and preaching. Newton's
Thoughts on the African Slave Trade, based on his own experiences as a
slave trader, was very important in securing British abolition of
slavery. Missionaries William Carey and Henry Martyn also gained
strength from Newton's counsel.
Newton lived to be eighty-two years
old and continued to preach and have an active ministry until beset by
fading health in the last two or three years of his life. Even then,
Newton never ceased to be amazed by God's grace and told his friends,
"My memory is nearly gone; but I remember two things: That I am a great
sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior."
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