The Works of John Newton, vol. 5
Overview
This volume contains three tracts, seven lengthy sermons, and the letters Newton wrote to his wife while he was at sea from 1750 to 1754, and while he traveled in England from 1755 to 1785. Topics include words of encouragement to a minister of an independent church, words of advice for academic preparation for ministry, and sermons on Ephesians, Jeremiah, 1 Thessalonians, Proverbs, and other texts.
- Text from the 1820 Hamilton, Adams & Co. edition—which also underlies the 1985 Banner of Truth reprint
- All Scripture references linked to the Bibles in your library
Top Highlights
“My first maxim is, That none but He who made the world can make a minister of the Gospel.” (Page 62)
“No force but that of the Gospel is sufficient to remove the mountainous load of guilt from an awakened conscience, to calm the violence of tumultuous passions, to raise an earthly soul, from grovelling in the mire of sensuality or avarice, to a spiritual and divine life, a life of communion with God. No system but the Gospel can communicate motives, encouragements, and prospects, sufficient to withstand and counteract all the snares and temptations with which the spirit of this world, by its frowns or its smiles, will endeavour either to intimidate or to bribe us from the path of duty.” (Pages 198–199)
In few writers are Christian doctrine, experience, and practice more happily balanced than in the author of these letters, and few write with more simplicity, piety, and force.
—Charles Spurgeon
Grace, like water, always flows downward, to the lowest place. I know no one who embodies this principle better than John Newton . . .
—Philip Yancey, author, Grace Notes
I keep John Newton on my selectest shelf of spiritual books . . .
—Alexander Whyte, Professor of New Testament, New College, 1909
He moved in the lowest and vilest circles and sank to the depths of vice, and yet there emerges from this stormy story a man who not only commands the affection of any humane soul, but who showed himself then and afterwards capable of the highest Christian graces.
—Erik Routley, pastor and hymn writer
- Title: The Works of John Newton, vol. 5
- Author: John Newton
- Publisher: Hamilton, Adams & Co.
- Publication Date: 1820
- Pages: 644
John Newton was born on July 24, 1725, and attended a boarding school in Stratford in Essex, during his childhood years. In 1736, Newton joined the merchant marine, and in March 1744, he set out on the HMS Harwich. His attempted desertion from the royal navy in 1745 led to a severe punishment. Newton was stripped of his rank, and transferred to a slave trading ship in 1748. In 1748, Newton was nearly shipwrecked. The storm initiated a crisis of faith in Newton’s life, and marked the first point of Newton’s conversion. He continued in the slave trade, however, until 1754.
In 1755, Newton returned to England permanently, and began studying the Bible and learning the ancient languages. He became a lay preacher, and was eventually ordained in the Church of England in 1764. He served for many years at the church in Olney in Buckinghamshire, where he became a well-known and much-respected preacher. In 1779, Newton became the rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, and in the 1780s and 1790s, a prominent leader in the evangelical movement in England. He was also influential in the lives of William Wilberforce and other leaders of the abolitionist movement. Newton died in 1807.