July 21, 2004

• John Newton

  “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. 1“

  John Newton was born in London July 24, 1725. At the age of eleven, after the death of his mother, he went to sea with his father, a merchant sea captain. At age 19, he became a sailor on a man o’ war, and deserted his company. He was captured, publicly flogged, and demoted from midshipman to common seaman. He was transferred into service on a slave ship, and then as a servant to a slave trader in Sierra Leone, where he was brutally abused. At age 23, he was found and rescued by one of his father’s colleagues, who managed to get him appointed as captain of his own slave ship.

  Newton plied in the slave trade for many years, and developed a reputation for profanity, coarseness, and debauchery which even shocked many a sailor, and led other sailors into unbelief. His mother had early taught him the Scriptures, but he had long since given up any religious convictions and rejected his mother’s teachings. He was known as “The Great Blasphemer.” However, on a homeward voyage, while he was attempting to steer the ship through a violent storm, he experienced what he was to refer to later as his “great deliverance.” He recorded in his journal that when all seemed lost and the ship would surely sink, he exclaimed, “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Later in his cabin he reflected on what he had said and began to believe that God had addressed him through the storm.2 For the rest of his life he observed the anniversary of May 10, 1748 as the day of his conversion, a day of humiliation in which he subjected his will to a higher power. 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. At the age of thirty-nine, John Newton began forty-three years of preaching the Gospel of Christ. John and his wife Mary moved to the little market town of Olney. He spent his mornings in Bible study and his afternoons in visiting his parishioners. 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. The most famous of his hymns is known today as “Amazing Grace.” Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound) That sav’d a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see. ’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, And grace my fears reliev’d; How precious did that grace appear, The hour I first believ’d! Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; ‘Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home. The Lord has promis’d good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease; I shall possess, within the veil, A life of joy and peace. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who call’d me here below, Will be forever mine. Newton’s Thoughts on the African Slave Trade, based on his own experiences as a slave trader, played a part in securing the British abolition of slavery. I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.3 Captain John Newton (1725-1807) References 1 From http://www.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps028.shtml 2 From http://www.anointedlinks.com/amazing_grace.html (“Amazing Grace: The Story of John Newton” by Al Rogers reprinted from the July-August 1996 issue of “Away Here in Texas”.) 3 Thank you to ServantsHeart for the John Newton quote.

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