Awhile before his death, John Newton sat with a brother minister at breakfast, followed with prayer and the reading of Scripture. Mr. Newton’s eye sight had almost failed him, making him unable to read. He sat and listened as his friend read the 15th chapter of I Corinthians. When the tenth verse was read, by the grace of God I am what I am, Mr. Newton began to speak. “I am not what I ought to be. Ah! How imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor what is evil, and would cleave to what is good. I am not what I hope to be soon. Soon, I shall put off mortality, all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say that I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan; and I can say heartily with the apostle, and acknowledge, by the grace of God I am what I am.” John Newton could say that with conviction and joy. When he was seven years old young Newton lost his mother; at the age of nine he went to sea with his father and learned the evils of a seaman’s life. Later he was forced into the Navy. He deserted and was afterwards apprehended, and severely punished. All this taking its toll on the young man greatly hardened his heart into infidelity. He then fell in with African slave traders. He went from bad to worse; he himself was sold as a slave. An African woman bought Newton and gloried in her power over him. She caged him like an animal. For his food she made him depend on the crust she tossed under the table. Ah, what degradation! And yet grace found him, and saved him, and made him one of the greatest preachers in all of England, and a writer of hymns that have stirred the hearts of men and women the world over. While working as a tide surveyor he studied for the ministry, and for the last 43 years of his life preached the gospel in Olney and London. At the age of 82 Mr. Newton said, “My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” No wonder he understood so well grace—the completely undeserved mercy and favor of God. While in England a few years back, visiting missionary friends, my wife and I paid a visit to Olney where Mr. Newton pastored and lived until his decease. Adjacent to the church building where he pastored is his gravesite and upon the tombstone his epitaph. “John Newton, Clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.”
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!
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