John Newton (1725–1807) was an English evangelical preacher and writer. A repentant former slave ship captain and an abolitionist, he penned the famous hymn ‘Amazing Grace.’
Born in London, the son of a shipmaster, Newton sailed with his father for six years and engaged in the African slave trade for ten years. In 1748, he was converted to Christianity but still went on slave trading.
Newton became tide surveyor at Liverpool in 1755, but in 1764, he was offered the curacy of a church in Olney, Buckinghamshire, and took holy orders. The Authentic Narrative (1764) chronicled his life on the high seas and strengthened his religious faith entitled.
Newton renounced his vile life and became an evangelical minister in the Church of England and an abolitionist, famously writing, “Was blind but now I see.”
In 1779, Newton became a rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London. His prose works are little read, apart from the Remarkable Particulars in his own life. However, some of his Olney Hymns (1779) are still sung, including ‘Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat,’ ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds,’ ‘Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken,’ ‘One there is above all others’ and, most famous of all, ‘Amazing Grace.’
Newton also published the pamphlet Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade (1788,) in which he apologized for his part in the trade and then described what he had witnessed during his time as a slave trader.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by John Newton
If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer—His grace sufficient, His promises unchangeable.
—John Newton
Topics: God
One reason why women are forbidden to preach the gospel, is, that they would persuade without argument and reprove without giving offence.
—John Newton
Topics: Woman
My grand point in preaching is to break the hard heart, and to heal the broken one.
—John Newton
Topics: Preaching
The spirit of prayer is the fruit and token of the Spirit of adoption.
—John Newton
Topics: Prayer
We can easily manage, if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed for it.—But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow to the weight before we are required to bear it.
—John Newton
Topics: The Present, Worry, Live-now
Beyond our utmost wants His love and power can bless; To praying souls he always grants More than they can express.
—John Newton
Topics: Prayer
If two angels were sent down from heaven, one to conduct an empire, and the other to sweep a street, they would feel no inclination to change employments.
—John Newton
Topics: Contentment
The instinct of brutes and insects can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever living agent.
—John Newton
A soul disengaged from the world is a heavenly one; and then are we ready for heaven when our heart is there before us.
—John Newton
Topics: World
Religion is the best armor in the world, but the worst cloak.
—John Newton
Topics: Religion
The religion of some people is constrained, like the cold bath when used, not for pleasure, but from necessity for health, into which one goes with reluc tance, and is glad when able to get out.—But religion to the true believer is like water to a fish; it is his element; he lives in it, and could not live out of it.
—John Newton
Topics: Religion
If I ever reach heaven I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some had not thought to see there; second, to miss some I had expected to see here; and third, the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there.
—John Newton
Topics: Heaven
Though the island of Great Britain exhibits but a small spot upon the map of the globe, it makes a splendid appearance in the history of mankind, and for a long space has been signally under the protection of God and a seat of peace, liberty and truth.
—John Newton
My principal method for defeating error and heresy, is, by establishing the truth. One purposes to fill a bushel with tares; but if I can fill it first with wheat, I may defy his attempts.
—John Newton
Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark.
—John Newton
Topics: Zeal, Perseverance, Enthusiasm, Endurance, Resolve
So dress and conduct yourself so that people who have been in your company will not recall what you had on.
—John Newton
Topics: Fashion, Dress
Prayer is the great engine to overthrow and rout my spiritual enemies, the great means to procure the graces of which I stand in hourly need.
—John Newton
Topics: Prayer
I see in this world two heaps—one of happiness, and the other of misery. Now, if I can take but the smallest bit from the second, and add it to the first, I carry a point. I should be glad indeed to do great things; but I will not neglect such little ones as this.
—John Newton
Topics: Happiness
Experience is the Lord’s school, and they who are taught by Him usually learn by the mistakes they make that in themselves they have no wisdom; and by their slips and falls, that they have no strength.
—John Newton
Topics: Experience
Learning, though it is useful when we know how to make a right use of it, yet considered as in our own power, and to those who trust to it without seeking a superior guidance, is usually the source of perplexity, strife, skepticism, and infidelity. It is indeed, like a sword in a madman’s hands, which gives him the more opportunity of hurting himself than others.
—John Newton
Topics: Learning
The Christian ministry is the worst of all trades, but the best of all professions.
—John Newton
Topics: Preaching, Evangelism
When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Savior.—He is well taught who learns these two lessons.
—John Newton
Topics: Religion
Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end.
—John Newton
Topics: Evil, Evils
Trials are medicine which our gracious and wise physician prescribes, because we need them and he proportions the frequency and weight of them to what the case requires, let us trust in his skill and thank him for his prescription.
—John Newton
Topics: Trials
You are coming to a King, Large petitions with you bring For his grace and power are such None can ever ask too much.
—John Newton
Topics: Prayer
There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment, but there is no such a word in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments are to believers intimations of the way of God.
—John Newton
Topics: Faith, Disappointment
I read the newspapers to see how God governs the world.
—John Newton
There is a signature of wisdom and power impressed on the works of God, which evidently distinguishes them from the feeble imitations of men.—Not only the splendor of the sun, but the glimmering light of the glowworm, proclaims his glory.
—John Newton
Topics: Nature
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
John Wesley British Methodist Religious Leader
William Cowper English Anglican Poet
William Wilberforce English Social Reformer
Philip Doddridge English Nonconformist Religious Leader
John Henry Newman British Theologian, Poet
John Keble English Religious Leader
Isaac Watts English Hymn writer
Frederick William Faber British Hymn writer
Charles Spurgeon English Baptist Preacher
Christina Rossetti English Poet