As you would observe yesterday morning, I was
not able to complete what I had hoped
to say on John Newton, so I continue
this morning.
And I feel guilty in not having an
orderly layout of my material, but I am
consoled by one fact, and that is that
John Newton had this particular failure.
He was very much an extemporary creature, that
is to say, although he meditated upon his
subject, if he had any fault, and no
doubt it was quite a serious fault, he
did not lay out his material in an
orderly manner.
Well, I shall be following in his steps
in that regard.
I have reflected on what he would have
thought of such a gathering here this week,
and there are two thoughts which immediately come
to my mind.
He would have been immensely delighted.
One of his greatest pleasures was to spend
a great deal of time with young people
as one reads through his life.
This is recurring again and again.
With children, he was an expert in making
paper boats and Chinese junks.
He used to get little boys on his
knees and bounce them up and down to
a naval song, and then he would tell
them a sea yarn, and then when children
got older, he would spend much time with
them, speaking to them on spiritual things, and
particularly encouraging young men in the work of
the Christian ministry, so that there is no
question at all that he would have been
delighted to have been at such gatherings as
we have been having this week.
And then what would he have thought about
our speaking about him?
Well, there are some things that he would
certainly have thought about it, and I will
give you one quotation.
He was fond himself of reading biographies, and
one of the biographies of which he was
fond was the life of Philip Henry, the
Puritan pastor, the father of the famous Matthew
Henry.
But he had this to say about Philip
Henry's life.
If the lives of the two Henrys and
of other good men were written by inspired
men, you would not be so much discouraged
at reading them.
Depend upon it.
They saw as much reason to be ashamed
of themselves as we do.
To us they appear in their best clothes,
and we are told more of what the
Lord wrought for them than of the effects
of indwelling sin under which they groaned.
So he is saying that the difference between
biographies in church history and the biographies of
scripture is that in the biographies of Christian
men in history we tend to get the
external side of their life and not the
indwelling burden of sin about which they were
so conscious.
And then he's writing to a ministerial friend.
He says, if I should outlive you, and
I should have a call to write the
life of the Reverend Mr. Simmons of Bedford,
that's the man, I should perhaps find more
to say in your favour than you are
aware of.
And if you have the darker side known
as well as the brighter, and if you
would have the darker side known as well
as the brighter, then you must write it
yourself.
And one of the helpful things about John
Euston's life is that we find from his
letters and from his diary, which is quoted
in various books which I shall mention later,
we find that the man gives us a
very realistic view of what he was himself.
Listen to him at the age of 30.
Too often, he says, my mind is little
better than the wayside, a highway for carnal,
evil thoughts of every kind.
And then he says of a Sunday that
he had just spent, a dull, barren day
this proved to me.
Crowds of vain thoughts within me prevented my
hearing with any profit.
Then listen to him as an old man.
I find, he says, I find not one
corruption of my vile heart is dead, though
some seem now and then to sleep.
And then this last reflection on himself, which
he wrote in his old age.
It's in the form of a comment on
Paul's verse, by the grace of God I
am what I am.
First he says, I am not what I
ought to be.
Ah, how imperfect and deficient.
Second, I am not what I might be,
considering my privileges and opportunities.
Three, I am not what I wish to
be, God who knows my heart knows I
wish to be like him.
Fourth, I am not what I hope to
be, ere long to drop this clay tabernacle,
to be like him and to see him
as he is.
Fifth, I am not what I once was,
a child of sin and slave of the
devil.
Though not all these, not what I ought
to be, not what I might be, not
what I wish or hope to be, not
what I once was, I think I can
truly say with the apostle, by the grace
of God I am what I am.
So that he would have cautioned us, you
see, from taking from his life certain things
which might even prove a discouragement to ourselves.
When he was advanced in life and quite
a famous man, he said, when I am
tempted to think I am somebody, I mix
a little plantain sauce with my diet and
then I know what I am.
That will not mean anything to you until
I remind you that the name of the
part of Africa where he settled when he
was in that wretchedness for two years was
called the plantains.
A little plantain sauce was the memory of
that time of his utter wretchedness and bondage.
And when he remembered that, he says, he
knew what the grace of God was to
him.
Well, then we shall continue on our course
with John Newton.
And I had arrived at the point when
I had said that he became curate of
Olney in Buckinghamshire in the year 1764.
And somebody asked me since how it was
that a seafaring captain could, without going to
any universities, rather suddenly become the clergyman of
a parish church.
That, of course, is partly to do with
the utter confusion of the church position in
the 18th century.
You noticed I said that Newton was curate
of Olney.
The vicar of Olney lived miles away and
never even came near the parish.
Newton was never more than a curate.
And through the system of patronage which operated
by great men and patrons and so on,
livings were bought and sold and pluralities were
held.
A man might be vicar or rector of
several parishes at once.
The position was in general confusion.
Nevertheless, the bishops certainly stumbled at the extraordinary
idea of a seaman like Newton becoming a
minister of the gospel.
And particularly because he was branded as a
Methodist.
The Methodists were the followers of Whitefield and
Wesley, the men who preached the necessity of
the rebirth.
And that was sufficient stumbling block to the
bishops of that time.
But Newton had been studying.
He studied hard on board his ship when
he was captain.
He had his Latin books which he worked
at.
He studied the scriptures.
And as one looks at the earlier life
of Newton, we are reminded of how God
prepares us, each one, for the work which
he has for us to do.
It was not to be Newton's work to
be a great instructor of others in doctrine
and theology.
If that was to have been his work,
God would have prepared him in a different
way.
But as we noted yesterday, his work was
to be a counselor, a practical advisor, a
letter writer.
That was his great work.
And to prepare for that work, he needed
much time to meditate and to become a
letter writer.
And on those years away at sea, he
got his practice writing his letters to his
wife.
And if you can get hold of the
works of John Newton, you'll see that many,
many pages are taken up with his published
letters to his wife.
These were published after her death.
Not all were published, but many of them.
And you see, from the earliest days then
of his Christian experience, he was being led
and prepared for the particular work in which
he was to be of the greatest usefulness.
So by the study of Scripture and by
reading of other things, he was mentally, to
a considerable extent, prepared for the ministry.
And some indeed said that he was above
the average graduate of Oxford and Cambridge.
When it was through the intervention of Lord
Dartmouth that he was given the curacy of
Olney.
Let me just tell you one story which
Newton told, which illustrates in a rather humorous
way – I hope I can remember it
– how in those days one could arrive
at a position by not going through the
normal processes to arrive at it.
This man was a carpenter, of which Newton
speaks.
And in the course of his work as
a young man, he had certain employment in
the inns of court in London, and in
the temple.
He had to lay floorboards and do various
things.
And in the course of his carpentry work,
he noticed these unusual books in the library
on the work of law and so on.
He began to study them.
And so diligent was he in his studies,
along with his carpentry, that before very long,
Newton says, he became a barrister himself.
And then, believe it or not, he actually
became a high court judge.
Well, this was not viewed with favour by
all members of the legal profession.
And on one occasion, when this man had
ascended to the judge's bench, he reproved a
lawyer for the way in which he had
presented his case.
I think he was the counsel for the
defence.
And the judge told him that he had
not made his case plain.
He said, you've not even made it smooth.
This lawyer, resenting the comment, rose and said
he could not help that matter for he
was not bred as a carpenter.
And the judge, without losing any composure, replied
at once, that is quite evident, he said,
for had you been bred as a carpenter,
you would have been a carpenter still.
Well, that story illustrates that men did move
about in rather strange ways in the 18th
century, and also it gives you a little
of John Newton's humour.
And lest I forget to tell you, that
certainly was a characteristic of the man.
As we've often been reminded, and have commented
on even this week, a conversion does not
change a man's temperament.
John Newton's temperament was by temperament a rather
cheerful extrovert, and as a Christian he remained
so.
It was his vow to be a cheerful
Christian, and God gave him much grace to
do that.
But besides being a cheerful Christian, he had
this considerable extent of humour.
He was once with a group of young
people.
As an old man he was sitting in
his chair, I think with his seaman's jacket
on.
He never wore the proper clerical dress.
And in his old age he became rather
stout and bald, and as they were talking
he gave a tremendous sneeze.
And there was a fly on his head
at the time, and the fly flew off.
And John Newton said, if that fly keeps
a diary, he'll say, today there was a
tremendous earthquake.
So there are many things like that in
Newton, and you can see why young people
enjoyed him, because he was full of this
kind of thing.
So then he went to Olney in 1764.
I'll come back to that.
Olney is a little town in Buckinghamshire.
If you went there today, you would hardly
find a soul walking on the main street.
It's a very quiet backwater.
But in those days it was a busy
town.
It was on the main coach route.
There were many public houses.
It had quite a considerable population.
It was a lace-making town.
There were over a thousand lace-makers in
Olney.
There was a great deal of poverty.
Lace-making was not a profitable industry in
the 1760s.
And John Newton found that he had come
to a parish which socially, and above all
spiritually, had great problems.
There had evidently been little gospel preaching there
for many long years.
He says how the children ran wild about
the streets.
One of the early funerals that he had
to take, the children accompanied the coffin to
the grave as though it was some kind
of pantomime.
He tells us of the bell ringers in
the town that used to get drunk.
And one night when they were drunk ringing
the bells, one of the bells fell down
and killed one of these drunken bell ringers.
There were many things like this which indicated
the necessity of a gospel ministry in Olney.
And Newton gave himself wholly to that work.
Before long the church was crowded.
In a little while they had to build
an extra gallery, or rather a gallery because
there was not one there before.
And the church ultimately could hold perhaps one
and a half thousand people.
So he gave his early years at Olney
solely, or almost entirely, to the work of
the parish and the building up of the
few believers which there were in Olney.
And the work was of course far too
much for him.
And in 1767 God sent him a great
friend and these two men worked together in
Olney for twelve years.
And the friend was William Cooper, a written
William Cowper, C-O-W-P-E-R,
but pronounced in those days Cooper.
And I must pause for a few moments
to tell you who Cooper was.
He was seven years younger than John Newton.
He was born in 1731, educated at Westminster
School in London, entered the temple to prepare
for a legal profession, and until about the
age of thirty had idled away about ten
or eleven years in legal studies without really
accomplishing anything.
Then in 1763 a relative of Cooper's offered
him the clerkship of the House of Lords.
This man had the office in his patronage
and he offered it to Cowper, Cooper.
Well, Cooper by temperament was highly nervous and
prone to melancholy.
No doubt it was a hereditary thing that
had run his family.
His mother had died when he was only
six years of age, like Newton.
He had an unhappy childhood and he was
a very sensitive, introspective young man.
And while he desperately needed a good job
the fact was that this post of clerkship
of the House of Lords necessitated some kind
of brief public examination at the bar of
the house.
And the prospect of such a public trial
completely unnerved him.
And by the end of 1763 Cowper had
had a serious mental breakdown, indeed so serious
that he had tried to kill himself, and
by the end of the year 1763 he
was completely insane.
He was taken then to a mental asylum
at St Albans under the care of a
Dr Nathaniel Cotton.
And it was there in the summer of
the following year, 1764, that sitting beside a
window, picking up a New Testament, he tells
us that his eyes fell on those verses
in the third chapter of the Epistle to
the Romans, whom God had set forth to
be a propitiation through faith in his blood.
The doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ
as the ground of our peace broke in
upon his soul, and he was filled with
peace and with wonder.
The hymn that we sang the other night
was Cowper's hymn, of course.
There is a fountain filled with blood drawn
from Emmanuel's veins.
Sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their
guilty stains.
And that was his experience in the summer
of 1764.
He then had a problem what to do
with his life, because he was utterly wearied
of London, and he felt that he would
rather die than sin, and that the country
would be a far better place for him
spiritually.
He had a brother in Cambridge, who was
a Cambridge don, a clergyman, and also a
don in St Bennett's College.
So he decided that he would take up
lodgings in Huntingdon, which is a small town,
as you probably know, not many miles from
Cambridge.
So Cowper went to Huntingdon, went into lodgings,
and within a few months he was finding
himself excessively lonely.
He still had the joy of his salvation,
but he was beginning to become anxious, because
the truth was he knew no one in
Huntingdon, and while Cambridge was not so far
away, he could not be visiting his brother
seven days in the week.
And then one Sunday morning after service, he
met a young man in the churchyard by
the name of William Unwin.
And this young man had spotted him and
noticed he was obviously on his own, and
next Sunday asked him to come home with
him to dinner.
And this is what Cowper did.
And he not only came for dinner, but
he came to stay.
Within a few days he'd packed up all
his belongings and went to live with them.
And the family that he had come to
live with, the Unwins, were an interesting family.
The father was a clergyman who had a
living in, I think it was Norfolk, but
he did not reside there.
The mother, her name was Mary Unwin, considerably
younger than the father.
And then there were the two children.
One was William, who Cowper had met in
the churchyard.
William was twenty years old.
And then there was a daughter, Susanna, eighteen.
Well, Cowper lived with them for perhaps three
years until 1767.
And it was a, you might say, monastic
life.
They had prayers in the morning and worship.
They did their gardening.
Cowper had a little money invested or which
had come to him through the family.
He had no real need to work.
It was a very peaceful and indeed a
happy existence with walks in the afternoon and
tea on the lawn.
And so it seemed as though it would
go on forever.
Until one Sunday morning the father of the
family, Morley Unwin, arriving to take a service,
was thrown from his horse.
His skull was fractured and he died very
soon afterwards.
And at once the Unwins were, as it
were, left adrift in their spiritual connections.
Mary Unwin in particular, the mother, was a
very spiritually minded woman.
And their first concern was to find a
parish where they could be fed.
Well, it was just at this time that
Newton had heard of Unwin's death.
And although it was some miles away from
Olney he had called to extend his sympathy.
And there he was on the doorstep.
They'd never set eyes on him before.
Short-statured with his cheerful face.
They welcomed him in.
And within a matter of days it was
decided that the Unwins and Cowper would settle
at Olney.
So to Olney they went in the August
of 1767.
And William Cowper became the assistant to John
Newton.
They organised prayer meetings together.
They visited the poor.
They gave out food and clothes to those
who were impoverished and there were many such.
In the afternoons they went their walks together.
And then in 1769 they began writing hymns
together.
The Olney Hymns.
Now the purpose of the Olney Hymns was
perhaps primarily to convey instruction.
Newton was thinking of various ways to reach
the young people particularly of Olney.
Many of whom did not come to church
at all.
And he hit upon this expedient.
Lord Dartmouth had a house in Olney which
he never lived in.
And it was more or less empty most
of the year.
So Newton had permission to use one of
the large rooms in this house.
It was called the Great House.
And here he had a weekly prayer meeting.
And a weekly meeting for young people.
Which was, they were incorporated in the prayer
meeting I think one grew out of the
other.
And for these meetings they arranged that they
would write a hymn.
And Cowper wrote one of the first.
And the first meeting they had in the
Great House they had Cowper's hymn When Jesus,
where'er thy people meet There they behold
thy mercy seat.
One of his best known hymns.
And so the development of the Olney Hymns
was almost accidental.
It was certainly never intended to provide hymns
for the Christian church of all ages as
it has since tended to do.
There were about 300 Olney Hymns written.
We have been singing several of them this
week.
Approach my soul the mercy seat John Newton's
Come my soul my soup prepare Jesus loves
to answer prayer another of Newton's Glorious things
of thee are spoken.
And then Cowper's perhaps are even more beautiful
some of them certainly in their poetic rendering
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders
to perform is one of Cowper's.
And so is the other Cowper's testimony Heart
my soul it is the Lord His thy
saviour hear his word Jesus speaks and speaks
to thee Say poor sinner loves thou me.
Well these and many many others they wrote
together for this little meeting in the Great
House.
It was not until many years later that
the hymns were published in 1779 and when
they were published it was first agreed that
a thousand copies would be printed.
Then the figure was increased to two thousand
but those hymns have been printed by the
million of course since that date and upon
that fact John Newton would have been altogether
astonished.
If you want to know my favourite of
all those hymns it would be Newton's How
sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a
believer's ear.
Well this was the origin of the only
hymns.
Their work went on together Cowper and Newton's
until the year 1773.
On the morning of January the 2nd at
the beginning of the year Newton was woken
early and hastened over to the house of
his friend Cowper who had had another seemingly
complete nervous breakdown.
If you go to Albany today you can
see these two houses the vicarage where Newton
lived and then behind the vicarage is a
garden there was an orchard and the other
side of the orchard is the house called
Orchard Side and in Orchard Side Cowper lived
with the Unwins and they just had a
path through from one back garden to the
other and the two houses you might say
were almost joined.
Mary Unwin, the widow was a very close
friend of John Newton's Mary.
These two Marys would sit sewing together in
the evening while the men would talk or
read a book.
John Newton liked to read or rather Cowper
liked to read books like Captain Cook's Narrative
for Anson's Voyages Round the World and as
he did so Newton would begin to talk
about Africa and so on and then Newton
liked to learn more about the classics and
so Cowper who was a classical scholar of
great ability he would perhaps be reading Homer
or something like that and expounding it to
Newton Newton would be puffing at his pipe
and this had gone on this had gone
on happily for some while and then Cowper
had this further breakdown and I don't intend
to stop to talk very much on that
in the next issue of the Banner of
Truth magazine in September if you see that
magazine I have an extensive article there on
Cowper's nervous breakdown and his affliction.
The fact of the matter was in a
few words that Cowper had this constitutional tendency
and it reasserted itself even in him as
a Christian and until the end of his
life he had great struggles with despair, with
despair sometimes the heavens were utterly black he
felt that God had cast him off forever
at other times hope was stirred within his
heart but it is a sad story and
the truth is that Cowper never recovered the
extent of spiritual joy that he had in
those seven years after his conversion the latter
part of his life was spiritually a great
struggle but he became a man of great
usefulness everybody knows or ought to know of
William Cowper the poet John Gilpin was a
citizen and then he goes on about John
Gilpin's ride you remember how the horse ran
away and so on well that was one
of his better known poems but he wrote
many poems The Tusk and I can't give
them to you they're not much read these
days but we must remember that in the
18th century there was a great fashion for
poetry and Cowper was raised up as a
Christian poet and people by the thousand read
his poems and in these poems he inculcated
Christian truth spoke on the Sabbath, on the
law of God he condemned faithless ministers and
these poems had tremendous influence upon the state
of England and they resulted really from his
nervous breakdown because when he recovered he found
he needed some relaxation and his relaxation was
partly carpentry and partly gardening but then partly
poetry because of his spiritual depression he could
not write any more hymns he didn't feel
that he was able to he didn't have
enough assurance himself but he wrote these wider
poems and certainly under the hand of God
they had a great influence now I must
say a few words about that romance which
you were so interested in yesterday with his
wife Mary where are my notes on this?
they married as I told you in the
year 1750 and they were given 40 years
of happiness together on the 25th anniversary of
their wedding John Newton wrote this is the
25th anniversary that great hinge our marriage upon
which all the leading events of my life
were to turn we are still preserved to
each other forward with health, peace and with
abundance of earthly blessings oh for more thankful
hearts then he says my love was grown
pretty tall when I married you and it
has been growing ever since it was once
an acorn but it has now spread branches
and a deep root like an old oak
and then later on he writes to her
when she was absent no time in your
absence passes so pleasantly as when I am
thinking of you writing to you or hearing
from you I mean this with proper limitation
dear as you are to my heart you
were not, you could not be crucified for
me nor do I live and move and
have my being in you but in Jesus
may he be our supreme Lord our chief
beloved and may his grace teach us to
love each other in him and then we
shall not exceed and that is connected with
the verse that we sung in that earlier
hymn when one there is above all others
well deserves the name of friend his is
love beyond the brothers costly, free and knows
no end as I've read Newton there is
only one point at which he had a
real disagreement with his wife and I must
give it to you because it illustrates a
very important side of John Newton's character he
was a man of truly Catholic spirit that
is to say when he saw the image
of the Lord Jesus and where he believed
that men loved the gospel then he made
his business to stand with them and to
hold such fellowship with them as he could
now after he had been in Albany a
little while the Baptist brethren began to grow
in numbers and they even had the temerity
to hold a meeting on the same night
as they met in the great house for
their prayer meeting and Mrs Newton was very
upset at this no doubt feeling that her
husband's position was in some ways reflected upon
and we read therefore in one of her
personal letters when she was away from home
she wrote to John Newton he had evidently
been telling her what he had been doing
and he had been at one of the
Baptist meetings and having fellowship with these brethren
and she wrote back I do not care
about your going to hear the Baptist though
I am very glad you did not dine
with them now this is what he writes
back he says I hope you will not
be angry with me for daily praying to
the Lord to deliver you from a spirit
with respect to the Baptist which I am
sure is not pleasing to him and which
I am persuaded hurts you it likewise has
often grieved me and then he says we
must try to bear with each other upon
this point till the Lord gives us to
be of one mind about it and when
he does I think the change will be
in you laughter this is quite a
nice squabble that goes on for a few
pages and obviously there was more to it
but in reality it was a very under
the hand of God it was a matter
of great seriousness because Newton developed friendships in
the Midlands and the men who became his
close friends amongst the Baptists were men who
were to be used to the establishing of
the Gospel in that great continent in the
Far East John Ryland Jr of Northampton Baptist
pastor there the son of the quaint old
John Ryland William Carey who was baptized by
Ryland and others these were the men who
were much younger than Newton but who gained
so much from him and had Newton followed
his wife's counsel these men would have been
deprived of one of the great influences upon
their early life let me just give you
a quote which is typical of Newton's pastoral
counseling.
He's writing to one of these Baptist ministers,
John Ryland and John Ryland was the opposite
to Newton in his temperament he was always
prone to see the dark side of something
and to worry excessively about things and Newton
was the opposite quite easy going and sometimes
almost too cheerful well, Newton writes to him
the ship was safe when Christ was in
her though he was really asleep at present
I can tell you good news, though you
know it he is wide awake and his
eyes are in every place you and I
if we could be pounded together might perhaps
make two tolerable ones you are too anxious
and I am too easy in some respects
indeed I cannot be too easy when I
have a right thought that all is safe
in his hands but if your anxiety makes
you pray and my composure makes me careless
you have certainly the best of it what
Mr. Martin was bringing to us the other
evening on the necessity of making friendship with
unconverted people is very much illustrated in Newton.
When he got to Albany he found that
amongst the neighbouring clergy there was perhaps no
one who was really preaching the gospel and
while he did not in any sense open
his pulpit or his spiritual ministry to friendships
with these men, he did seek to befriend
them as individuals he felt they were in
utter ignorance there was a nearby clergyman not
long after he had gone to Albany who
was drunk one night and in his drunken
stupor he had set fire to curtains and
burnt himself to death and evangelicals were shocked
and horrified that a clergyman should die in
such a condition but Newton felt nothing but
profound compassion he said that he had been
in such a condition often and yet God
had not taken him away in his sins
and he went out of his way to
befriend them.
One man who he befriended was a clergyman
by the name of Thomas Scott now Scott
was quite a scholar and loved an argument
and he knew that Newton was an evangelical
Methodist and time hung heavily on his hands
so he entered into a correspondence with Newton
and you must read that correspondence for yourself
it was printed later in a book in
which Scott gave his testimony to how he
was converted from being a rationalist he became
an evangelical Christian let me just mention this
Scott was very prejudiced against Newton until one
evening he had a report from one of
his parishioners about one of his members who
was very ill and Scott perhaps had seen
this person once or twice but that night
he heard that John Newton had come all
the way from Olney to visit this person
Newton knew that nobody would be dealing with
them about their souls now Scott was moved
by that fact that this man sincerely was
seeking people's spiritual good that helped him to
listen to Newton well Scott was then converted
but what happened after his conversion?
well he also began to preach the gospel
and one of the young men who came
often to hear him preach was William Carey
William Carey was born in Paulus Puri in
the Midlands was a non-conformist was a
Baptist as you know but not having much
teaching he came to hear Scott and many
years later in India Carey said how much
he owed to the ministry of this man
it all began because Newton befriended him it's
an illustration, a very striking one I think
of what we were considering the other evening
well Newton remained at Olney until the year
1780 and then he moved to London his
last years at Olney were rather difficult and
sad partly because of Cooper's illness partly because
there was a spiritual decline in the church
which he couldn't rightly account for the services
were not so well attended there seemed to
be less spirit of prayer I think that
is something which has been true in the
ministry of many famous ministers people become accustomed
to a gift of God they know the
man so well that they cease perhaps to
regard him as they ought as a messenger
of God and it may well be too
that Newton had a weakness in regard to
his strong points, you know our strong points
can very easily be our weakest points in
this way John Newton's gift was a great
gentleness and tenderness he felt so deeply his
own wretchedness as a sinner that he was
very very tender in dealing with others but
his gentleness sometimes seems to have been well
almost a softness there was the old woman
who said to him when she was very
ill she said oh she said you often
spoke to me of Christ but you never
warned me of my danger plainly enough and
that does seem to represent a certain weakness
in Newton and then as I mentioned at
the outset he had this habit of extemporary
preaching there is just one point the only
one I know in which a minister should
not follow John Newton and it was this
he had a struggle to know how to
preach.
The first time he preached in Yorkshire going
back now many years he preached without any
notes at all and he got to his
first point in the sermon, a few minutes
on the first point second point and his
mind was a complete blank and he sat
down in great confusion.
The second time he preached he had a
complete manuscript and he followed each line and
he said he dare not lift his eyes
from the line because he would never find
it again then he was depressed for days
and he came to the conclusion that the
only way he could preach would be out
of a warm heart.
So he threw away all his notes and
he meditated on his subject and while that
is good for occasional preaching and for itinerant
preaching perhaps, when one is preaching for twelve,
sixteen years to the same people you can
easily see what happens when a minister does
that.
He goes over and over the same ground
and I think that probably happened in Newton's
case.
Well he was called to London and about
he said writing to a friend, to make
a connection with one Mary Woolnoth, which I
hope will be for life.
And Mary Woolnoth of course was the name
of the parish church, St. Mary Woolnoth in
the city of London.
His coming to London at that time was
under the hand of God, the means of
strengthening and bringing forward the whole evangelical witness.
One of the men that came to hear
John Newton preach was William Wilberforce, great parliamentary
leader as he was to become.
Wilberforce was converted, if I remember rightly, by
the reading of Philip Doddridge's Rise and Progress
of Religion in the Soul.
But it wasn't until he talked with Newton
and others that he was given that boldness
and resolution which came to mark his life.
As a leader in Parliament he gave himself
to every cause which furthered the Kingdom of
God.
He went up himself to Liverpool.
He looked into the slave trade.
He infuriated the merchants.
You may have read how on one occasion
as Wilberforce was standing by the dock and
the water beside him in Liverpool, it was
an attempt to push him over into the
sea.
Wilberforce became a great Christian leader.
And he did what Cooper had done in
another way.
He spoke to the higher society, not by
poetry but by a book.
He wrote a book titled Evading Mere Practical
View of Christianity.
Was that it?
Something like that?
A very famous book.
And one of the people whose conversion was
connected with that book was none other than
Thomas Chalmers who was converted in Scotland about
the year 1810.
Became the leader of the evangelicals in the
Church of Scotland.
So Wilberforce was one of the men who
was so influenced by John Newton.
Now our time is really gone and there
are certainly one or two things which I
had wanted to give to you.
I certainly must give you his last words
before his death.
I have told you that he lived to
be a very old man.
83 years of age.
His wife died about 13 years before him.
As he was awaiting his death he said,
I am like a person going a journey
in a stagecoach who expects its arrival every
hour and is frequently looking out of the
window for it.
And then with his old touch of humour
he said, when somebody asked him how he
was, I am packed and sealed and waiting
for the post.
William Jay visited him near the close.
He was hardly able to speak.
He however said to William Jay, my memory
is nearly gone, but I remember two things.
That I am a great sinner and that
Christ is a great saviour.
And when he was turned 80 his friends
were really concerned about his preaching because with
memory almost gone he would stand in the
pulpit desperately short sighted.
He couldn't have even seen notes if he
wanted to then.
And he had a servant who stood behind
him who would try to prompt him where
he got completely, as it were astray in
his drift.
And one of his best younger friends, Richard
Cecil, pleaded with him to lay aside this
particular aspect of his ministry.
There was no need for him to continue
to preach at Newton in indignation.
He said, what?
Shall the old African blasphemer stop while he
can speak?
Shall he stop while he can speak?
There's one point upon which I find Newton
especially helpful and upon this point I will
close.
It's on the connection between faith and our
feelings, our enjoyment, our conscious pleasure in communion
with Christ, the joy of the Christian life.
Now, as a young Christian John Newton had
that overflowing joy.
But as he went on he learned that
God had other things to teach him.
This is what he says in one place.
Through divine grace I have been led to
live above and beyond my frames that is
my emotional states to live upon the everlasting
righteousness of my dear redeemer.
To which my best obedience can add no
value and from which all my infirmities can
take nothing away.
So these things that is his inward problems,
though they take from my pleasure have no
considerable effect upon my peace.
And that's an important distinction.
Our peace and our pleasure are not the
same.
Then he says in another letter, he said
when I was writing from this desk yesterday
I had a beautiful prospect of the Isle
of White.
I am looking today through the same window
and I can see nothing.
But I do not suppose the Isle of
White is sunk because I cannot see it.
I consider that this is a thick rainy
morning and I expect when the weather clears
up the island will be visible again.
Thus it is he says with respect to
many great truths which you and I have
seen with the eye of our minds there
may be returns of dark and misty hours
when we can hardly perceive them.
But these should not put us on questioning
whether we ever saw them at all.
Faith he says, faith and obedience are like
the road we travel.
The frames and feelings of our spirits are
like the weather.
Though the weather may often change the road,
faith and obedience is always same.
And they who travel upon it will renew
their strength as they go on and at
length surely arrive at the end of their
journey and possess the promised land.
Well if you read this little paperback of
Newton's letters, letters of John Newton, you will
find a great deal of that practical wisdom.
Just a word on the books on Newton.
Best biography is by Josiah Bull, written a
hundred years ago, Josiah Bull.
There is a modern biography by Bernard Martin
which gives you a little more facts, but
spiritually it's not nearly so helpful as Josiah
Bull.
Then there are those books on Newton which
are semi-fictitious.
You may have read some of them.
These are the historically more valuable ones.
His works were printed in six volumes.
And then there was a one volume edition.
And the one volume edition is more valuable
in one respect.
Its print is much smaller of course, but
it has the authentic narrative in, which the
six volume edition doesn't have.
And I think that if you search second
-hand bookshops for John Newton's works you should
find them without very great difficulty because so
many editions were printed.
We'll stop at that point.