I knew the broad strokes of the life of Newton, but Jonathan Aitken’s, John Newton, is the first complete biography I have read on Newton. Newton is most famous in our era for writing the most revered hymn of the Church, Amazing Grace. He used, in the lyrics, the word wretch. He described himself as a wretch, even before his conversion. It is something of presumption that some editions of the hymn in current publications have edited out wretch for a less objectionable word for the unredeemed person. The hymn is his personal story. If there are those who wish to communicate a different approach to human life than that given by historical writers they should write their own lyrics. We do well to permit persons to say what they have to say, so to measure what we say. It is evasion, sometimes violation, to change what someone else has communicated. We acknowledge the route taken by Newton – from the guttermost to the uttermost. Newton was an intense wretch until changed by adopting the redemptive Christian context.
Newton became well known, and highly regarded in his lifetime, as an eminent preacher, and effective counselor to effective leaders in English history. He was highly regarded by Wesley and Whitefield, while Wilberforce carried the will of Parliament to end slavery and forming laws that supported freedom. – a movement that ultimately changed the world. Slavery was one of the ugliest sins of mankind, infecting all races and peoples – as slaves and as slave holders. Embarrassingly, this included devout Bible believers. However, it was the motivation of the directives of the Scripture that slavery was brought to head for those seeking government and human freedom that led to the end of the grisly business. John Newton was a key figure in applying that emancipation. His life, his preaching, his personal conduct was used with the force of his faith, his mind, his general conduct to make a difference – after his Christian conversion.
John Newton was born to a godly mother. Although she died when he was a lad, she instilled some Christian ideals into her son which would never leave him. He did become a wretch, and worse. He went to sea as a sailor, first mate, and captain, and ultimately transported slaves from Africa to the Americas. He was a foul mouthed sailor; took advantage of native women in Africa; split black men and women from their families; put captured black persons in conditions so that some died before he could have them sold; engaged drinking bouts that nearly cost him his life; and, fell into other dangers that awakened him to the realization that perhaps God was trying to save his life for purpose. In a long process that slowly moved him out of the most carnal life into the most devotional, to the point he yearned for ordination so that he might preach the gospel. He married a loving, faithful, somewhat frail wife and loved her deeply. Newton walked a humble way for years until accepted for ordination. He learned that humility was a basic principle desired of God in his servants. He never got over it. He was self-taught, and successfully, with a first rate mind that devoured the Scriptures, and the classics. He was about forty years of age when he was taken to qualify for the ministry and the pulpit. The last half of his life was a monumental contribution to the history of the church, preaching, and justice. He influenced the world. He became a gospel trophy.
It is interesting that he survived the in-fighting of the church, between the established Church of England, and the rising Methodists and Dissenters – even above the inner differences among the breakaway groups. The tensions were significant. He took his ordination seriously, and went on to achieve – a ministry of the gospel that impacted the Church of England as it did also the breakaway groups. Newton was one of those eminent preachers who made a difference, vital to history, for good – both in the world and in the kingdom of God. He was, in fact, just one of many before him, during his era, and to our time. Even church history reporting sometimes misses it. I was lifted in reading a history book that was critical of the church when, in the closing pages of the book, the author stated that with all of the errors and foibles of the church, the world would be in a greatly inferior state of nations and societies than we find them without the ministry that Christians and the church provided during the centuries. Historian Will Durant was often reminded of the factor in discussions with his colleague, his wife, Ariel Durant. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020