Childhood
John Newton's parents play a key role in his life. His mother was a devout Christian who introduced him to the faith that he would later reject. His father was a sea captain who patiently looked out for John even though John repeatedly took disastrous courses of action.
It is not that his father was an affectionate man. Captain John Newton was a strict disciplinarian. Newton's mother on the other hand was deeply adoring of their only child.
Newton's mother took great delight in educating the young John. However, she had poor health and died of consumption (TB) before his seventh birthday.
A school friend called Elizabeth Catlett (keep that name in mind as you read on) had come to visit John's mum before she died and persuaded her to go to Kent where the air was purer. John had been left behind to spare him the ordeal of watching her die.
John's father, Captain John Newton, had been away on a voyage at the time. He showed no emotion when he heard the news of his wife's death and would not allow the young John to weep. Captain John soon married again and so provided John with a step-mother.
John became an unloved stepson and endured a miserable time in a private boarding school until he was eleven.
John's education then stopped and his father took him on his ships for the next six years to teach him the ropes. John had no love for his strict and distant father. Captain John did not take his son on every voyage and when John was left at home to run wild with the village boys.
Divine 'coincidences'
Newton's life is characterised by many escapes that he puts down to the providential hand of God. For example, one one occasion the horse he was riding stumbled and he missed the jagged edge of the spikes from brushwood by a matter of inches. This led his to a short time of religious interest. On another occasion he was late to meet his friend to to take a boat to go and inspect a war ship and boat on which his friend was travelling turned above and his friend drowned. This deliverance led Newton to two years of religious interest.
Polly
A friend of John's father, Joseph Manesty, promised to make the young John a fortune. Young John was going to be given a job on a Jamaican plantation as an overseer of slaves. He could end up being a planter by the time he was thirty.
A few days before he was set to sail he received a letter from his mother's friend, Elizabeth Catlett (remember her?). The two women had actually plotted that John would marry Elizabeth's daughter, Polly (real name Mary). Elizabeth invited john to go and visit them.
John felt immediately at home with the Catletts. He especially took notice of Polly. She was no great beauty but he was drawn by her kindness and simplicity. He was seventeen and she was not yet fourteen. Within a few hours of her company he was head over heals in love. He stayed three weeks and missed his boat to Jamaica. His father was furious. For punishment his father sent him on a voyage as a common sailor.
On this voyage he had a dream which made an impression on him, and prompted him to seek virtue again. But his resolve only lasted a few weeks.
His father had managed to secure him an officer's role on another voyage. Again, before sailing he went to visit the Catletts. Again he overstayed and missed the boat.
On his next attempt to visit Polly he got press ganged (forcefully conscripted into the navy).
In the navy
One of the other sailors on the Naval ship was called Job Lewis (remember that name). Job was a religious man, but Newton set out to destroy his beliefs. At this stage Newton claimed to be an atheist, although secretly he doubted his atheism. Newton sought to harden his own heart against God.
While on leave the Catletts came to realise how irresponsible John was and forbade him from contacting Polly. Polly for her part had not encouraged him to pursue her.
On one occasion, Newton was sent ashore to get supplies. He deserted. Death was the penalty for desertion. However, the captain took mercy on him and he was not court marshalled. He was however, publicly stripped and whipped. His next voyage was to last five years, which caused him to despair as he assumed in that time Polly would get married.
Newton despised life and hated the captain with a murderous hatred. He felt suicidal and the thing that stopped him from taking his life was that Polly would not think well of him when he was dead.
Their navel boat came alongside another vessel and the captain commandeered two skilled hands from that boat into the navy. The Commodore of the of the other ship asked for replacements for these men. Newton begged to be exchanged and his captain, who was probably glad to see the back of him released Newton from the navy.
The slave trade
His new ship was involved in the slave trade. The captain knew Newton's father and offered him friendship and protection.
The slave route was a triangular voyage. Ships would travel from England with goods to trade for slaves in Africa. Then they would travel with slaves to the West Indies, where they sold the slaves and then travel home with a cargo of sugar and rum.
When they landed on the west coast of Africa, Newton spent six months travelling from river mouth to river mouth collecting slaves. It is a tragic fact that like other slavers Newton would have raped some of the female slaves.
Newton was arrogant and disrespectful. He used to make up songs mocking the captain. Only the captain's respect for his father stopped him punishing him. The first mate also hated Newton. As they were preparing for their journey to the West Indies, the captain died. This was trouble for Newton, as the first mate was now in charge and he did not know Newton's father. Newton knew that the first mate would seek to have him put back in the navy.
Newton asked a Mr. Clow, a trader based in Africa, to take him on. He was released by the new captain.
Captivity
Newton worked hard for Clow, but Clow had a woman who was an African princess named Pee-eye. She hated Newton from the start. When Newton feel sick, she took the opportunity to do him harm.
Newton could not travel with Clow because of his sickness, and once Clow was gone Pee-eye took charge. She had him moved to an empty slave shelter. Amazingly some of the slaves awaiting export gave him part of their meagre rations.
When Clow returned, Newton complained to him about what happened in front of Pee-eye. Clow did not believed Newton and now despised him.. Clow no longer trusted him and soon accused Newton of cheating him. He had newton chained like a slave.
The head slave put newton to planting a lime grove. Again, slaves risked their master's anger by secretly showing him kindness. A house slave would smuggle him left overs from the homestead. He also smuggled him him writing materials, and helped him smuggle letters to his father onto visiting ships. Newton also write to Polly.
One day Clow was strolling into the lime grove with Pee-Eye on his arm. He sarcastically said to Newton, 'who knows, but by the time these trees grow up and bear, you may go home to England, obtain the command of a ship, and return to reap the fruit of your labours?' He did not know that his words were prophetic!
The first change in Newton's fortune came when another trader got Clow to give him Newton. He was now decently fed and treated as a companion. Newton was now employed in the slave trader and stopped wanting to return to England, believing that Polly would never accept him. He now lived in luxury.
But one of his letters had reached his father and his father asked Joseph Manesty for help. Manesty had a ship called the Greyhound, not a slaver, going down the west coast of Africa. He told the captain to look out for John Newton.
Newton nearly avoided getting in contact with this ship but for another one of his divine 'coincidences'. The captain offered to take him home, but Newton refused the offer. So the captain made up a story that claimed that Newton had been left an income in a will. Newton didn't fully believe this, but but as he turned away he thought of Polly. The captain promised that he could lodge in his cabin and dine at his table.
This voyage would lead Newton to his conversion.
Conversion
Newton was a disruptive influence onboard the Greyhound. He often offended the captain with his bad language. He targeted anyone with Christian faith and ridiculed their beliefs. However, there was a few books on board, including a paraphrase of Thomas a Kempis's 'The Imitation of Christ.' Newton read this but scoffed at it.
However, everything changed for Newton when the Greyhound was caught up in a violent storm. The ship felt like it was sinking, and Newton went on deck to help. The captain shouted at him to fetch a knife and he turned to obey. Another man happened to go onto deck at that him and was swept into the sea. Had Newton not gone for the knife he would have died.
Newton helped at working the pumps. At nine o'clock in the morning, four hours after relentlessly pumping, he went to the captain to offer a suggestion. Newton then said, 'if this will not do, the Lord have mercy on us.' Instantly he was struck by his desire for God's mercy. But could there be mercy for one who out-swore his fellow sailors and ridiculed the very existence of God?
He went back to pumping and at noon could pump no more. The captain could see that he was exhausted and told him to steer the ship. He guided the ship for eleven hours, with only one break for food, until it was midnight. The morning showed that they had survived the storm but now their danger was starvation.
The ship's sails were in a bad way and they could only make slow progress. The ship's captain blamed their troubles on Newton saying that they had a Jonah onboard. The captain said openly to Newton, 'If I throw you overboard we shall be preserved from death, and not otherwise.'
They eventually landed in Derry. He wrote to his father asking for forgiveness. His father replied affectionately having believed that John had drowned.
A faltering beginning to the life of faith
On arrival home Joseph Manesty offered him command of a slave ship called the Brownlow. Newton declined, saying that he needed another voyage in which he could learn to obey and gain more experience. Newton was made first mate.
His father told John that he had visited the Catletts and that they had given their consent to him marrying Polly. He visited and requested that he be allowed write to her, but she declined this. She changed her mind, however.
On the outward journey John's new religious enthusiasm began to grow weak. When they collected the slaves lust took hold of him and he went down to the hold and raped one of the female slaves.
He visited Clow to trade and saw the limes he had planted in his chains, remembering Clow's sarcastic words. Tragically he looked on those African slaves who had treated him with pity with a sense of disdain.
Clow provided him with an African girl for his pleasure while he was on the coast. But Newton became suddenly ill with a fever that 'broke the fatal chain and once more brought me to myself.' In the face of death he cried out to God remembering the many ways that god had delivered him. He rose from his bed and crept to a remote part of the island, knelt upon the shore and found a new liberty to pray. Peace returned and from that hour his health returned so fast that he when he returned to the ship two days later he was well.
Marriage
On return he asked Polly to marry him. She said, 'no'. She refused a second time but then changed her mind. He was so happy in marriage that he began to lose his ambition to serve God. Polly only had a polite religion. He knew that he would need to sail again in order to provide a living but was so desperate not to leave Polly that he bought tickets in the Lottery. He attempted to bribe God by saying that he would give a good portion of the money away. His adventure in gambling left him in debt.
The Christian slave trader
Newton had not yet seen how immoral the slave trade was. When he reached the African coast as captain of a ship he again looked at the lime grove he had planted and remembered his misery. He believed that it was love for Polly and not yet a desire to please God that stopped him from helping himself to female slaves. After fourteenth months he was reunited with Polly.
When time came to part again, Polly startled him by proposing that he pray aloud. His second journey as a captain lasted just over a year.
One further voyage would be his last.
Job Lewis, again
Before this last voyage he met Job Lewis (remember him). Newton offered him a berth. Newton wanted to win him back. However, he had reason to regret bringing Lewis. Lewis was profane. He now laboured to undermine Newton's faith. Lewis took over the captain of another vessel in Africa and died at sea, despairing but not repentant before God.
After this last voyage, Newton never left the shores of England again.
Settled on land
Newton was due to captain another ship but suffered a seizure before he could set sail. The doctors forbade him to sail. He became Surveyor of Tides (this involved inspecting ships, collecting excess duties and looking out for smuggled goods) shortly before his thirtieth birthday.
Polly could not join him in Liverpool having suffered ill health. However, she wrote and told him that she had prayed from the heart for the first time. They were soon living together. Their devotion to God led friends to suggest that he think of taking Holy Orders.
Olney
The Newton's settled in the parish of Olney, Buckinghamshire. Olney was a small market town. In addition to Sunday services he started a less formal weekday 'lecture' in an disused manor. Unlike many rural clergy of the time he visited those who were sick and regarded himself as their servant. He seldom wore clerical garb on weekdays, preferring his old sea jacket (neighbouring clergy wore clerical dress when riding with to hounds or shooting with their squires0.
He was not a particularly polished preacher. He used to say that the aim of preaching is 'to break a hard heart and to heal a broken heart.' The poet William Cowper came to Olney to be near Newton. They stimulated each other in hymn-writing and Newton cared for him during his terrifying mental breakdowns.
He wrote a hymn each week for the weekly lecture.
The Newtons could not have children but gladly adopted two of Polly's orphaned nieces. One niece, Eliza Cunningham, died after showing beautiful faith and character. The Newton's treated their servants as family.
He had intended to remain in Olney until he died. However, when things weren't going so well, he accepted a call to Saint Mary's Woolnoth in London. He was now in his mid-fifties.
London
He grew in his opposition to the slave trade. When the University of New Jersey awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Divinity, he refused to call himself D.D. saying that the coast of Africa had been his university and he would never accept any diploma, 'except from the poor blacks.'
Young William Wilberforce saw him as a father-figure.
Polly had never fully recovered from witnessing John's seizure in Liverpool and thinking he was going to die. She suffered nervous and physical disorders. In 1788, when she was fifty-eight, she was diagnosed with cancer. She spent her remaining fifteen months studying her Bible and her copy of Olney hymns. The Newtons had been married for nearly forty years when she died.
Newton insisted on preaching the next Sunday saying that, 'Doctor Pulpit is my best medicine.' He lived another seventeen years.
Polly's niece, Betsey Catlett stayed with Newton. However, she had a mental breakdown when he was seventy-five. She was taken to the Bedlam Hospital (Bethlehem Hospital). At this stage his eyesight was fading, but a maidservant would led him to the hospital each day where he would stand outside her window until he was told that she had waved her handkerchief at them. Thankfully she recovered and married.
He grew deaf and was almost totally blind as he approached eighty. His friends grew concerned as he began to be forgetful in the pulpit. When the suggested he stop preaching he replied, 'Shall an old African blasphemer stop while he can speak?'
He preached his last sermon in October 1806. During the sermon he forgot his train of thought and his curate had to get into the pulpit to remind him.
He lived to see Abolition.
Newton lingered on his death bed until four days before Christmas 1807. He quipped that he was 'packed and sealed and waiting to be delivered.' He whispered his last words to a friend, 'my memory is nearly gone. But I remember two things: that I am a great sinner and that Christ is a great saviour.'
No comments:
Post a Comment