I was reading that it was 266 years ago in 1748 that John Newton had his spiritual conversion. Newton’s biography makes for thrilling reading and I recommend that his story be read by everyone. I know it has been put on film on more than one occasion. Newton was a British seaman early in his life and many of his experiences were truly brutal ones. In 1743, while on his way to visit friends, Newton was captured and forced into service by his country’s Royal Navy. At one point Newton tried to desert and was punished in front of the 350 crewmen. Stripped to the waist, he took a flogging of eight dozen lashes. “I contemplated killing the captain and committing suicide by throwing myself overboard,“ Newton said. He soon was en route to India to be transferred to a slave ship bound for West Africa. The ship carried goods to Africa and traded them for slaves to be shipped to the colonies in the Caribbean and North America. Newton continued in the slave trade for several years, but one day would become a strong supporter of abolitionism, living to see Britains elimination of slavery in 1807. Newton gave his heart to God in 1748 on a voyage to England. His cargo-filled ship encountered a ruthless storm off the coast of Ireland and started to sink. He awoke in the middle of the night, he said, and as the ship filled with water he called out to God to save him. “The ship drifted to safety,” Newton said, “and this experience was the beginning of my conversion to Christianity. I began to read the Bible and avoided profanity, gambling and drinking. I was a new person.” In 1764 Newton was ordained as an Anglican clergyman and became a popular preacher of the gospel. Young churchmen and people struggling with faith sought his advice, including well-known social figures. In 1792 Newton was presented with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by Princeton University. He would die in London in 1807 at the age of 82. Drawing from personal experience, it was John Newton who penned in 1779 what has been called “the most recognizable song in the English-speaking world.” The hymn offers a valid message that forgiveness and redemption are possible in spite of sins, and that the soul of that man can be delivered from hopelessness via the grace of God: “Amazing grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found, Was blind but now I see.”
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 00:28:29 +0000
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