A First Sermon

The first sermon delivered by the Rev. John Newton after his ordination as a minister was, by his own account, a failure.  Returning to Liverpool in early May, he was invited to preach in St. George’s Church, whose vicar had signed Newton’s testimonials for ordination.  The news that the city’s Tide Surveyor had become a clergyman helped to swell the congregation, but his sermon divided it: “Some were pleased but many disgusted.  I was thought too long, too loud, too much extempore,” he told Alexander Clunie.  Taking the criticisms he received to heart, Newton altered his style of pulpit oratory, with good effect.  The following Sunday, he not only attracted a large crowd, but pleased it, too.  “The Lord was very gracious to me at Liverpool,” he reported in his next letter to Clunie.  He enabled me to preach His truth before many thousands, I hope with some measure of faithfulness, I trust with some success and, in general, with much greater acceptance than I could have expected.”

From: John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace by Jonathan Aitken (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2007), pp. 179-180.

 

John Newton’s Sermons on Handel’s “Messiah”

My sermons on ”Messiah” (50 in number) are printed off and would have been abroad by this time if we had not to wait for an Index, which is not yet finished.  I suppose they will be published soon after Easter, in two volumes Octavo.  They will not be books for poor folks for, as they are principally designed for the lovers of sound music (who move, chiefly, in the line of genteel life), I thought it necessary to have them printed elegantly upon fine paper to induce such genteel people to read them.  And, though I hope they will deserve to be ranked among Gospel sermons, the manner of them is a little more remote from the beaten track and more accommodated to the taste of those for whom I design them than to that of the Olney lacemakers.  I hope you will not find cause to charge me with accommodating the truths of the Gospel to the taste of the carnal mind.  I hope I have been tolerably faithful in my way.  Yet, perhaps, they will not be thought quite systematical by those whose sentiments are determined by any system but that of the Bible.  I hope for a favourable judgement from candid and spiritual readers of all denominations, but do not expect to please the bigots of any party.  My subject is a noble one, and I trust the Lord put it in my heart to choose it, and did not leave me to prosecute it by my own light or in my own spirit. – letter from John Newton to John Ryland, Jr., dated March 31, 1786

From: Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letters to John Ryland, Jr., edited by Grant Gordon (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2009), p. 171.  Newton’s 50 sermons on Messiah were preached in 1784 and 1785, and was the most extensive series of sermons he ever published.  In his Works, they make up the entirety of Volume 4 (583 pages).

 

A Holy Woman

I have lost another of my people, a mother in our Israel, a person of much experience, eminent grace, wisdom, and usefulness.  She walked with God forty years.  She was one of the Lord’s poor, but her poverty was decent, sanctified, and honorable.  She lived respected, and her death is considered as a public loss.  It is a great loss to me.  I shall miss her advice and example, by which I have been often edified and animated.  But Jesus still lives.  Almost her last words were, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul.” – John Newton (1725-1807), in a letter dated February, 1774

 

Calvinism in the Doghouse

John Walsh has described the prejudice against Calvinism in the eighteenth century: “Calvinism had acquired deep psychological associations with the Civil War and Commonwealth, the antinomianism of sectaries, the dismemberment of the Church, the killing of the king.  These folk memories dogged it like a kind of political original sin.”  The Great Ejection of 1662 had removed Calvinism from the center to the margins of public life, and it remained the property largely of Dissent until rediscovered in the middle third of the eighteenth century by a number of evangelical Anglican divines.  While Calvinism never recovered the prominence it had had in public and religious discourse during the seventeenth century, there was, nevertheless, a significant return to Reformed theology in the context of the Evangelical Revival.  Although, in a few points, Newton’s experience differed from that of his theological peers, his journey to Calvinistic convictions provides a useful case study of some of the influences which contributed more widely to the contemporary resurgence of predestinarian theology.

From: John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition Between the Conversions of Wesley and Wilberforce by D. Bruce Hindmarsh; Oxford Theological Monographs series (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), pp. 49-50.

 

John Newton’s Humility

The Lord is pleased, in a measure, to show me the suitableness and necessity of a humble, dependent frame of heart, a ceasing from self, and a reliance upon Him in the due use of appointed means.  I am far from having attained, but I hope I am pressing, at least seeking after it.  I wish to speak the word simply and experimentally, and to be so engaged with the importance of the subject, the worth of souls, and the thought that I am speaking in the name and presence of the Most High God as that I might, if possible, forget everything else. – John Newton (1725-1807), from an undated letter

 

On Glorifying God

Whatever is from God has a sure tendency to ascribe glory to Him, to exclude boasting from the creature, to promote the love and practice of holiness, and increase our dependence upon His grace and faithfulness. – John Newton (1725-1807)

 

Newton’s Letters – 6

Let your backwardness to prayer and reading the Scriptures be ever so great, you must strive against it.  The backwardness, and the doubts you speak of are, partly, from your own evil heart but, perhaps chiefly, temptations of Satan.  He knows [that] if he can keep you from drawing water out of the wells of salvation, he will have much advantage.  My soul goes, often, mourning under the same complaints but, at times, the Lord gives me a little victory.  I hope He will overrule all our trials, to make us more humble and dependent and to give us tenderness of spirit towards the distressed.  The exercised and experienced Christian, by the knowledge he has gained of his own heart and the many difficulties he has had to struggle with, acquires a skill and compassion in dealing with others.  And, without such exercise, all our study, diligence, and gifts in other ways would leave us much at a loss in some of the most important parts of our calling. – To Mr. _____ (August 30, 1770)

 

Newton’s Letters – 5

I have procured Cennick’s sermons.  They are, in my judgment, sound and sweet.  O, that you and I had a double portion of that spirit and unction which is in them!  Come, let us not despair.  The fountain is as full and as free as ever – precious fountain, ever flowing with blood and water, milk and wine.  This is the stream that heals the wounded, refreshes the weary, satisfies the hungry, strengthens the weak, and confirms the strong.  It opens the eyes of the blind, softens the hearts of stone, teaches the dumb to speak, and enables the lame and paralytic to walk, to leap, to run, to fly, to mount up with eagle’s wings.  A taste of this stream raises earth to heaven and brings down heaven upon earth.  Nor is it a fountain, only.  It is a universal blessing and assumes a variety of shapes to suit itself to our wants.  It is a sun, a shield, a garment, a shade, a banner, a refuge.  It is bread, the true bread, the very staff of life.  It is life itself – immortal, eternal life! 

“The cross of Jesus Christ, my Lord/Is food and med’cine, shield and sword.”  Take that for your motto.  Wear it in your heart.  Keep it in your eye.  Have it often in your mouth, till you can find something better.  The cross of Christ is the tree of life and the tree of knowledge combined.  Blessed be God, there is neither prohibition nor flaming sword to keep us back, but it stands like a tree by the highway-side, which affords its shade to every passenger, without distinction.  Watch and pray.  We live in sifting times.  Error gains ground every day.  May the name and love of our Savior, Jesus, keep us and all His people!  Either write or come very soon to [me]. – To the Rev. Mr. ___ (January 10, 1760)

 

Newton’s Letters – 4

The Lord leads me, in the course of my preaching, to insist much on a life of communion with Himself and of the great design of the Gospel to render us conformable to Him in love; and, as by His mercy nothing appears in my outward conduct remarkably to contradict what I say, many who only can judge by what they see suppose I live a very happy life.  But, alas!  If they knew what passes in my heart, how dull my spirit is in secret, and how little I am myself affected by the glorious truths I propose to others, they would form a different judgment.  Could I be myself what I recommend to them, I should be happy, indeed.  Pray for me, my dear friend, that now the Lord is bringing forward the pleasing spring, He may favor me with a spring season in my soul for, indeed, I mourn under a long winter. – To the Rev. Mr. B. (March 14, 1775)

 

Newton’s Letters – 3

You surprise me when you tell me that the incident of my birthday was noticed by those I never saw.  Be so good as to return my thanks to my unknown friends, and tell them that I pray our common Lord and Savior to bless them abundantly.  His people, while here, are scattered abroad, separated by hills and rivers and, too often, by names and prejudices; but, by and bye, we shall all meet where we shall all know and acknowledge each other, and rejoice together forevermore.  I have, lately, read, with much pleasure and, I hope, with some profit, the history of the Greenland Mission.  Upon the whole, it is a glorious work.  None who love the Lord will refuse to say it is the finger of God, indeed.  For my own part, my soul rejoices in it; and I honor the instruments, as men who have hazarded their lives in an extraordinary manner for the sake of the Lord Jesus.  Sure I am, that none could have sustained such discouragements, at first, or have obtained such success, afterwards, unless the Lord had sent, supported, and owned them. – To Mrs. P. (1775)