The Works of John Newton, vol. 3
Overview
This volume contains Newton’s work on church history. For Newton, this begins in the timeless wisdom and goodness of God, and is revealed in the person of Christ. To understand Jesus, then, is critical for understanding ecclesiastical history. In addition to his exposition of the life of Jesus, Newton also provides a history of the church from the ascension to the end of the first century, including the life of Paul, and the early identification of heresies and false teachers.
The second half of this volume includes hundreds of John Newton’s hymns from his sixteen year pastorate at Olney in Buckinghamshire.
- 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
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. 3
- Author: John Newton
- Publisher: Hamilton, Adams & Co.
- Publication Date: 1820
- Pages: 679
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.