John Newton's Letters
To a friend, on his recovery from illness
Dear Sir,
I suppose you will receive many congratulations on your recovery from your
late dangerous illness; most of them perhaps more sprightly and better
turned, but none, I persuade myself, more sincere and affectionate than
mine. I beg you would prepare yourself by this good opinion of me, before
you read further; and let the reality of my regard excuse what you may
dislike in my manner of expressing it.
When a person is returned from a doubtful distant voyage,
we are naturally led to inquire into the incidents he has met with, and the
discoveries he has made. Indulge me in a curiosity of this kind, especially
as my affection gives me an interest and concern in the event. You have
been, my friend, upon the brink, the very edge, of an eternal state; but God
has restored you back to the world again. Did you meet with, or have you
brought back, nothing new? Did nothing occur to stop or turn your usual
train of thought? Were your apprehensions of invisible things exactly the
same in the height of your sickness, when you were cut off from the world
and all its engagements—as when you were in perfect health, and in the
highest enjoyment of your own inclinations?
If you answer me, "Yes, all things are just the same as
formerly, the difference between sickness and health only excepted;" I am at
a loss how to reply. I can only sigh and wonder; sigh, that it should be
thus with any, that it should be thus with you whom I dearly love; and
wonder, since this unhappy case, strange as it seems in one view, is yet so
frequent, why it not was always thus with myself; for long and often it was
just so. Many a time, when sickness had brought me, as we say, to death's
door, I was as easy and insensible as the sailor, who, in the height of a
storm, would presume to sleep upon the top of the mast, quite regardless
that the next tossing wave might plunge him into the raging ocean, beyond
all possibility of relief. But at length a day came, which, though the most
terrible day I ever saw, I can now look back upon with thankfulness and
pleasure: I say, the time came, when, in such a helpless extremity, and
under the expectation of immediate death, it pleased God to remove the veil
from my eyes, and I saw things in some measure as they really were.
Imagine with yourself, a person trembling upon the brink
of a dreadful precipice; with a powerful and inexorable enemy eager to push
him down, and an assemblage of all that is horrible waiting at the bottom
for his fall. Even this will give you but a faint representation of the
state of my mind at that time. Believe me, it was not a whim or a dream,
which changed my sentiments and conduct—but a powerful conviction, which
will not admit the least doubt; an evidence which, like that I have of my
own existence, I cannot call in question without contradicting all my
senses. And though my case was in some respects uncommon, yet something like
it is known by one and another every day: and I have myself conversed with
many, who, after a course of years spent in defending Deistical principles,
or indulging libertine practices, when they have thought themselves
confirmed in their schemes by the cool assent of what they then deemed
impartial reason, have been like me brought to glory in the cross of
Christ, and to live by that faith which they had before slighted and
opposed.
By these instances, I know that nothing is too hard for
the Almighty. The same power which humbled me, can undoubtedly bring down
the most haughty infidel upon earth. And as I likewise knew, that, to show
his power, he is often pleased to make use of weak instruments, I am
encouraged, notwithstanding the apparent difficulty of succeeding, to warn
those over whom friendship or affection gives me any influence, of the evil
and the danger of a course of life formed upon the prevailing maxims of the
world. So far as I neglect this, I am unfaithful in my professions both to
God and man.
I shall not at present trouble you in an argumentative
way. If by dint of reasoning I could effect some change in your notions, my
arguments, unless applied by a Superior Power, would still leave your heart
unchanged and untouched. A man may give his assent to the Gospel, and be
able to defend it against others, and yet not have his own spirit truly
influenced by it. This thought I shall leave with you, that if your
philosophy be not true to a demonstration, it must necessarily be false; for
the outcome is too important to make a doubt on the dangerous side
tolerable. If the Christian could possibly be mistaken, he is still upon
equal terms with those who pronounce him to be so; but if the Deist be wrong
(that is, if we Christians are in the right), the consequence to him must be
unavoidable and intolerable. This, you will say, is a trite argument: I own
it; but, beaten as it is, it will never be worn out or answered.
Permit me to remind you, that the points in debate
between us are already settled in themselves, and that our talking cannot
alter or affect the nature of things; for they will be as they are, whatever
apprehensions we may form of them: and remember likewise, that we must all,
each one for himself, experience on which side the truth lies. I used a
wrong word when I spoke of your recovery; my dear friend, look upon
it only as a reprieve; for you carry the sentence of death about with
you still; and unless you should be cut off (which God of his mercy forbid!)
by a sudden stroke, you will as surely lie upon a death-bed; as you have
been now raised from a bed of sickness. And remember likewise (how can I
bear to write it!) that, should you neglect my admonitions, they will,
notwithstanding, have an effect upon you, though not such an effect as I
could wish: they will render you more inexcusable.
I have delivered my own soul by faithfully warning you:
but if you will not examine the matter with that seriousness it calls for;
if you will not look up to God, the Creator of your body, and the Preserver
of your spirit, for direction and assistance how to please him; if you will
have your reading and conversation only on one side of the question; if you
determine to let afflictions and dangers, mercies and deliverances, all pass
without reflection and improvement; if you will spend your life as though
you thought you were sent into the world only to eat, sleep, and play, and,
after a course of years, be extinguished like the snuff of a candle; why,
then, you must abide the consequences. But assuredly, sooner or later, God
will meet you. My hearty daily prayer is, that it may be in a way of mercy,
and that you may be added to the number of the trophies of his invincible
grace.