listen to Amazing grace MIDI
One Sunday in 1966 during the Earls Court crusade in London, we were driving between speaking engagements in the university towns of Oxford and Cambridge. Suddenly I noticed that we were passing through the village of Olney and I remarked to my wife, "There's a famous church and graveyard here. Let's stop to visit them."
Riding through the Olney village square, we passed the former home of William Cowper. It is now a museum that houses the personal effects of that great English poet, to whom we are indebted for classic poetry as well as for some of our finest hymns. This village is also famous as the place where the Shrove Tuesday pancake races originated.
The Olney parish church of Saints Peter and Paul was built in the fourteenth century, but much of the original beauty and dignity remains. In the corner of the churchyard, almost overgrown with tall grass, we found what we were looking for--a large tombstone with these words inscribed:
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 preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.
Newton was the son of a sea captain who was engaged in the Mediterranean trade. His mother died when he was six, and after only two years of formal schooling he joined his father's ship at the age of eleven. His early life was one of immorality, debauchery and failure. He was rejected by his father, in trouble with all his employers, and finally jailed and degraded. In later years he served on slave ships, where he so incurred the hatred of his employer's negro wife that he became virtually a "slave of slaves."
This miserable seaman was brought to his senses by reading Thomas A Kempis's book, Imitation of Christ. His actual conversion was the result of a violent storm in which he almost lost his life. At the age of thirty-nine, John Newton became a minister and gave the rest of his life to serving God in the church. During the fifteen years he was the pastor at Olney, he wrote many hymns. Together with William Cowper, he published a hymnal which was widely used in Anglican churches.
It seems to me that "Amazing Grace" is really Newton's own testimony of his conversion and of his life as a Christian. He might have begun the hymn with the first stanza of another of his poems, "He Died for Me," but these words have somehow dropped out of use:
In evil long I took delight,
Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight,
And stopped my wild career.
"God's grace" has been defined as "His undeserved favor." It was this grace that reached out to John Newton. When he learned that Christ loved him and had died for him, he was amazed. It was this grace which made him conscious that he was a sinner ("grace taught my heart to fear") and then assured him that his sins were forgiven ("grace my fears relieved"). So it is with all of us. We are all "great sinners" not only because of transgressions committed, but also because we fall short of God's standard for our lives. And this "amazing grace" is available to all of us.
As Christian believers we continue to experience God's undeserved love and favor throughout all of life. Every day He forgives our shortcomings, if we confess them. Every day He supplies all our needs.
John Newton never ceased to marvel at God's mercy and grace that had been granted to him. Over the mantelpiece in the Olney vicarage he had placed an inscription which still remains:
Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou has been honourable (Isa. 43:4). But thou shalt remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee (Deut. 15:15).
He never forgot the sea. Late in life, when he was pastor of St. Mary, Woolnoth in London, Newton entered the pulpit in the uniform of a sailor, with a Bible in one hand and a hymnbook in the other. His mind was failing then, and he sometimes had to be reminded what he was preaching about. When someone suggested that he should retire, he replied, "What, shall the old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?" On another occasion, he said, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Saviour."
They tell us that the last stanza of this song was not written by John Newton. But I think he would agree that it is a fitting climax to his testimony. After he--and we--have been in heaven for ten thousand years worshipping our Lord, we will still have endless time to sing of His amazing grace!
Amazing grace! how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
When we've been there ten thousand years,
When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we first begun.
John Newton, 1-3 (1725-1807)
John Newton, 1-3 (1725-1807)
John P. Rees, 4 (ascribed) (1828-1900)