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Affiliated with the
Cowper & Newton
Museum
Olney, England
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THE OLNEY
HYMNS BY JOHN NEWTON
By Rodney Canete
John Newton, born in 1725, was the primary author of
the Olney Hymns. At the early age of 11 his father was inculcating
into John the ways of a seafarer's life. Seven years later, John Newton was
pressed into the service of the Royal Navy. Soon after, he deserted the
Royal Navy and was traded onto a slave ship where he lived as close to a
slave's life as was possible for a white male of his era. Despite coming to
the understanding of a slave's dire situation, he still became the captain
of his own slave ship. Ultimately, he came to fully realize the inhumanity
of his actions and left his life as a slave ship captain to become ordained
as a priest for the Church of England in 1764. That same year he published
An Authentic Narrative which detailed his exploits commanding a slave
vessel.
In the preface to his most famous work, The Olney Hymns, Newton gave
an indication as to his motivation for its inception:
A desire
of promoting the faith and comfort of sincere Christians, though the
principal, was not the only motive to this undertaking. It was likewise
intended as a monument, to perpetuate the remembrance of an intimate and
endeared friendship. (a)
The friendship to which Newton refers is none other
than his fellow collaborator for the project, William Cowper.
The Olney Hymns are divided into three books:
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On Select Passages of Scripture
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On Occasional Subjects
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On the Rise, Progress, Changes and Comforts of the
Spiritual Life
Newton is very specific as to the function of Hymns'
contents by stating in the preface,
They
should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and for the use
of plain people. Perspicuity, simplicity and ease, should be chiefly
attended to; and the imagery and coloring of poetry, if admitted at all,
should be indulged very sparingly and with great judgement. (a2)
Book 1, On Select Passages of scripture, contains the largest amount
of material pertinent to biblical typology. Depiction of Old Testament
figures such as Abel hearken the prefiguring of the coming of Christ. In his
hymn for Cain and Abel the hymn states,
Of Abels,
whom the Cain's have kill'd
Thus JESUS fell - but oh! his blood
Far better things than Abel's cries;
Obtains his murd'rers peace with GOD,
And gains them mansions in the skies (3)
Other individuals include
Biblical Prophets such as Aaron serve as types to the anti-type of Christ:
The true Aaron -- "See Aaron, God's anointed
priest,
...Thro' him the eyeof faith describes
A greater Priest than he:
Thus JESUS pleads above the skies,
For you, my friends, and me. (22)
And yet, the types
contained within the The Olney Hymns are not just intimately
connected to the Bible. The biblical imagery resonates within such Victorian
masterpieces as Tennyson's In Memoriam and throughout the religious
poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like Tennyson, Newton portrays specific
images such as the image of the hand within several contexts. In one hymn,
Newton conveys the nurturing qualities of the hand, "'Tis thus our gracious
LORD provides,/Our comfort and our cares;/His own unerring hand provides,/
And gives us each our shares" (18). In yet another hymn, the hand serves as
portent of a future danger, " Belshazzar...saw a hand upon the wall/(and
trembled on his throne)/ Which wrote his sudden dreadfull fall/ In
characters unknown..." (84)
Other significant image seen throughout
In
Memoriam and the works of Hopkins (specifically his The
Wreck of the Deutschland) is that of the ship within a storm, "We may ,
like ships,/Be tempest tost/On perilous deeps/ But cannot be loft:/Tho'
Satan enrages,/ The wind and the tide,/ The promise engages,/ The LORD wil
provide" (40), Again on page 131, "We like the disciples, are toss'd/ By
storms on a perilous deep;/ But cannot be possibly lost,/For JESUS has
charge of the ship;/ Tho'billows and winds are enrag'd,/ And threaten to
make us their sport;/ This pilot his word has engag'd/To bring us, in saftey,
to port." The image of a ship first suffering the siege of a storm before
reaching more tranquil waters serves echoes such types as Abel and Aaron.
Though Book 2 & 3 are not as laden with
typological imagery as Book 1, this is not to say they are devoid of such
instances. In addition to their more Christian didactic and dogmatic tone,
with such hymns entitled, "Sacraments," "A Welcome to Christian Friends,"
"Cautions," and "To Sinners," there are other hymns permeated with
Biblical typology. The Hymn "The Rod of Moses" (page 182) continues
along a particularly common typological vein.
When Moses wav'd his mystic rod
What wonders foll'd while he spoke?
Firm as a wall the waters stood
Or gush'd in rivers from the rock
Although not as skilled in the act of writing,
despite the popularity of hymns such as "Amazing Grace," he cannot be
ignored as a valuable source of typological imagery and references for the
contemporaries of his time and for the scholars of today. He himself admits,
in the preface to the Hymns,
If the Lord, whom I serve, has
been pleased to favor me with that mediocrity of talent, which may qualify
me for usefulness to the weak and the poor of his flock, without quite
disguising persons of superior discernment, I have reason to be
satisfied....I hope most of these hymns, being the fruit and expression of
my own experiences, will coincide with the views of real Christians of all
denominations.
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