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Affiliated with the
Cowper & Newton
Museum
Olney, England
Cowper & Newton Museum
website
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Born: July 24, 1725,
London, England.
Died: December 21, 1807, London, England.
Buried: Originally at St. Mary Woolnoth Church, Lombard Street,
London. In 1893, John Newton and his wife Mary were reinterred in the
southeast corner of the graveyard at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church,
Ol-ney.
Newton's mother died when he was seven years
old. At age 11, with but two years schooling and only a rudimentary
knowledge of Latin, John went to sea with his father. His life at sea was
filled with wonderful escapes, vivid dreams, and a sailor's recklessness.
He grew into a godless and abandoned man. He was once flogged as a
deserter from the navy, and for fifteen months lived, half starved and ill
treated, as a slave in Africa.
A chance reading of Thomas à Kempis sowed
the seed of his conversion. It was accelerated by a night spent steering a
waterlogged ship in the face of apparent death. He was then 23 years old.
Over the next six years, during which he commanded a slave ship, his faith
matured. He spent the next nine years mostly in Liverpool, studying Hebrew
and Greek and mingling with Whitefield, Wesley, and the Nonconformists. He
was eventually ordained, and became curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, in
1764. It was at Olney that he formed a life long friendship with William Cowper and produced the Olney Hymns.
A marble plaque at St. Mary
Woolnoth carried the epitaph which Newton himself wrote:
 "JOHN NEWTON, Clerk
Once an infidel and
libertine
A servant of slaves in
Africa,
Was, by the rich mercy
of
our Lord and Saviour
JESUS CHRIST,
restored, pardoned, and
appointed to preach
the Gospel which he had
long laboured to destroy.
He ministered,
Near sixteen years in
Olney, in Bucks,
And twenty eight years in
this Church."
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Read about the
Olney Hymns by John Newton.
Related website:
www.cyberhymnal.org
Recommended reading:
■
D. Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition
(Grand Rapids, 1996).
■
Richard Arnold (ed.), English Hymns of the Eighteenth Century: An
Anthology (New York, 1991).
■
James King, William Cowper (Durham, NC, 1986).
Learn more about John Newton through these articles:
John Newton (1725-1807)
See Christian History Issue 81 (Vol. XXIII, No.1) Spring 2004, entirely
dedicated to the person and work of John Newton:
www.christianhistory.net
www.ccel.org/n/newton/
www.cyberhymnal.org/bio/n./e/newton_j.htm
"Amazing Grace: The Story of John Newton"
www.flash.net/~gaylon/jnewton.htm
www.joyfulheart.com/misc/jnewton.htm
"John Newton: from hellion to hymn writer"
www.gospelcom.net/chi/GLIMPSEF/Glimpses/glmps028.shtml
Sermons and Letters of John Newton
www.puritansermons.com/newton
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