John Newton's Letters
Views of Divine truth
June 23, 1775
Dear Sir,
I hope that the Lord will make you comfortable and useful in your present
rank as a curate. Advancement is not necessary, either to our peace
or usefulness. We may live and die contentedly, without the honors and
emoluments which aspiring men thirst after, if God is pleased to honor us
with a dispensation to preach his Gospel, and to crown our endeavors with a
blessing. He who wins souls is wise; wise in the choice of the highest end
he can propose to himself in this life; wise in the improvement of the only
means by which this desirable end can be attained.
Wherever we cast our eyes, the bulk of the people are
ignorant, immoral, careless. They live without God in the world; they are
neither awed by his authority, nor affected by his goodness, nor enabled to
trust to his promises, nor disposed to aim at his glory. If, perhaps, they
have a serious interval, or some comparative sobriety of character, they
ground their hopes upon their own doings, endeavors, or purposes; and
treat the inexpressible love of God revealed in Christ, and the Gospel
method of salvation by faith in his name, with neglect, often with contempt.
They have preachers, whom perhaps they hear with some
pleasure, because they neither alarm their consciences by insisting on the
spirituality and sanction of the Divine Law, nor offend their pride by
publishing the humiliating doctrines of that Gospel, which is the power of
God through faith unto salvation. Therefore what they do speak, they speak
in vain; the world grows worse and worse under their instructions;
infidelity and profligacy abound more and more. For God will own no other
doctrine but what the Apostle calls the truth as it is in Jesus; that
doctrine which drives the sinner from all his vain pleas, and points out the
Lord Jesus Christ as the only ground of hope, the supreme object of desire,
as appointed of God to be wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and
redemption, to all who believe in his name.
When ministers themselves are convinced of sin, and feel
the necessity of an almighty Savior, they presently account their former
gain but loss; and determine, with the Apostle, to know nothing but Jesus
Christ, and him crucified. In proportion as they do this, they are sure to
be wondered at, laughed at, and railed at, if the providence of God, and the
constitution of their country, secure them from severer treatment. But they
have this invaluable compensation, that they no longer speak without effect.
In a greater or less degree, a change takes place in their hearers—the blind
receive their sight, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed; sinners are
turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God; sinful
practices are forsaken; and a new course of life in the converts, evidences
that they have not followed cunningly devised fables, nor taken up with
uncertain notions—but that God has indeed quickened them by his Spirit, and
given them an understanding to know him who is true.
The preachers, likewise, while they attempt to teach
others, are taught themselves: a blessing descends upon their studies and
labors, upon their perusal of the Scripture, upon their attention to what
passes within them and around them; the events of every day contribute to
throw light upon the Word of God; their views of Divine truth grow more
enlarged, connected, and comprehensive; many difficulties, which perplexed
them at their first setting out, trouble them no more; the God whom they
serve, and on whom they wait, reveals to them those great things, which,
though plainly expressed in the letter of the Scripture, cannot be
understood and realized without Divine teaching; 1Co. 2:9-15. Thus they go
on from strength to strength, hard things become easy, and a Divine light
shines upon their paths. Opposition from men perhaps may increase—they may
be represented as those who turn the world upside down; the cry "troublers"
will be raised against them; the gates of the temple of preferment will be
seldom open to them; but they will have the unspeakable consolation of
applying to themselves those lively words of the Apostle, "As unknown, and
yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not
killed; As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich;
as having nothing, and yet possessing all things." 2 Co. 6:10.
It is the strain of evident sincerity which runs through
your letters, that gives me a pleasing confidence the Lord is with you. An
unselfish desire of knowing the truth, with a willingness to follow it
through all disadvantages, is a preparation of the heart which only God can
give. He has directed you to the right method—searching the Scripture, with
prayer. Go on, and may his blessing attend you. You may see, from what I
have written above, what is the desire of my heart for you. But I am not
impatient. Follow your heavenly Leader, and in his own time and manner He
will make your way plain. I have traveled the path before you. I see what
you yet want; I cannot impart it to you—but He can, and I trust He will. It
will rejoice my soul to be any way assistant to you; but I am afraid! should
not afford you much, either profit or satisfaction, by entering upon a dry
defense of creeds and articles.
The truths of Scripture are not like mathematical
theorems, which present exactly the same ideas to every person who
understands the terms. The Word of God is compared to a mirror, 2Co. 3:18;
but it is a mirror in which—the longer we look, the more we see! The view
will be still growing upon us, and still we shall see but in part
while on this side eternity. When our Lord pronounced Peter blessed,
declaring he had learned that which flesh and blood could not have taught
him—yet Peter was at that time much in the dark. The sufferings and death of
Jesus, though the only and necessary means of his salvation, were an offense
to him. But he lived to glory in, what he once could not bear to hear of.
Peter had received grace to love the Lord Jesus, to follow him, to venture
all and to forsake all for him—these first good dispositions were of God,
and they led to further advances.
So it is still. By nature, SELF rules in the
heart. When this idol is brought low, and we are truly willing to be the
Lord's, and to apply to Him for strength and direction, that we may serve
Him—the good work is begun. For it is a truth that holds universally and
without exception, "a man can receive nothing except it be given him from
God." The Lord first finds us when we are thinking of something else (Isa.
65:1), and then we begin to seek him in good earnest, and he has promised to
be found of us. People may, by industry and natural abilities, make
themselves masters of the external evidences of Christianity, and have much
to say for and against different schemes and systems of sentiments; but all
this while the heart remains untouched.
True religion is not a science of the head—so much
as an inward and heart-felt perception, which casts down imaginations, and
everything that exalts itself in the mind, and brings every thought into a
sweet and willing subjection to Christ by faith. Here the learned have no
real advantage above the ignorant; both see when the eyes of the
understanding are enlightened; until then, both are equally blind. And
the first lesson in the school of Christ—is to become a little child,
sitting simply at his feet, that we may be made wise unto salvation.
I was not only prevented beginning my letter as soon as I
wished—but have been unusually interrupted since I began it. Often, as soon
as I could well take the pen in hand, I have been called away to attend
company and intervening business. Though I persuade myself, after what I
have formerly said, you will put a favorable construction upon my delay—yet
it has given me some pain. I set a great value upon your offer of
friendship, which I trust will not be interrupted, on either side, by the
freedom with which we mutually express our difference of sentiments, when we
are constrained to differ. You please me with entrusting me with the first
rough draught of your thoughts; and you may easily perceive by my manner of
writing, that I place equal confidence in your candor. I shall be glad to
exchange letters as often as it suits us, without constraint, ceremony, or
apology—and may He who is always present with our hearts make our
correspondence useful. I pray God to be your sun and shield, your light and
strength, to guide you with his eye, to comfort you with his gracious
presence in your own soul, and to make you a happy instrument of comforting
many!