If ever a man understood grace — the undeserved, unearned mercy and favor of God — it was John Newton. After several voyages across the Atlantic, aboard sailing ships packed with terrified human beings, bound to one another and soon to be bound for life to slave owners, he experienced the impact of God’s grace, became an evangelical Christian minister, and spent the rest of his life striving to repay God’s grace by preaching about the opposite of slavery: freedom through salvation.
Newton’s salvation came about after he himself experienced slavery. Left ashore on Africa’s west coast by a slave ship because he was, in his own words, “an infidel and libertine,” he was purchased by a slave dealer, and like fellow prisoners, was humiliated and tortured. An English sea captain, asked by Newton’s father to search for his son, rescued him.
During the voyage to England, a severe storm struck, and the ship, rapidly filling with water, began sinking. Awakened by the furious tempest, Newton begged God to save the vessel. Miraculously, floating cargo stopped up the entrance to the hold, and the ship, bereft of rudder and sails, drifted aimlessly before being sighted by another ship.
After reaching his native soil in 1750, he became an ordained Church of England priest. So popular were his sermons at churches where he officiated that annexes were built to accommodate the growing number of lost souls yearning to hear him preach. Writing his own epitaph, he acknowledged this gift from his Maker: “John Newton, once an infidel and libertine … was, by the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”
So great was Newton’s guilt for having dealt in slave trading that he refused to speak of it for over thirty years. Then he published “Thoughts Upon The Slave Trade,” that opened with “ … a confession, which comes too late. It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.”
In this pamphlet, Newton described the horrific loss of life during the Middle Voyages, passages from Africa to the New World, which could last as long as six months: “I believe, upon an average … one fourth of the whole purchase may be allotted to the article of mortality: that is, if the English ships purchase sixty thousand slaves … the annual loss of lives cannot be much less than fifteen thousand.”
John Newton might have passed on into historical obscurity had it not been for his inimitable ability to compose hymns. Even though he wrote “Amazing Grace” almost two and a half centuries ago, its power to remind human beings that they are broken and hopeless without God’s grace has not weakened, but grown stronger over time.
In its opening lines, Newton speaks for all believers: “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me….”
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
