The Hymns of John Newton

John Newton’s writings were a blessing to many people, including William Wilberforce, who was instrumental in the abolition of slavery in England.  Wilberforce heard Newton preach and enjoyed his personal counsel on many occasions.  William Cowper, who composed God Moves in a Mysterious Way and other notable hymns, lived with Newton and his wife when he suffered from deep depression in 1773.  Cowper and Newton composed hymns together, often to confirm a passage of Scripture that had been selected for a sermon.  Thus Newton’s most influential work was written in December 1772.  He composed his great hymn “Amazing Grace” to accompany a sermon he was to preach on King David’s amazement over God’s promises (1 Chronicles 17:16-17).  Newton wrote 281 hymns, twenty of which are well known.  Many of his hymns remind us that Christians are still poor, weak sinners, utterly dependent on Christ alone.  Comparing the content of Newton’s hymns with recent ones, Iain Murray writes, “A consideration of this penitential note in Newton’s hymnody must lead one to reflect on what is too commonly absent from numbers of the songs substituted for hymns in worship today.  It is not simply that certain words are omitted; the whole ethos is different.  Too often the emphasis is on the worshipper’s devotion, ‘I will praise’; ‘I will exalt’; ‘I will love ‘, etc.”  Murray concludes, “Professing Christian worship that omits humility and self-abasement would have been incomprehensible to Newton.  His best hymns are always striking a note that is the opposite of self-confidence.”  I am convinced that the primary reason contemporary worship songs are so shallow in this regard is the widespread acceptance of modern theories of “self-esteem.”  The psychology of self-esteem considers humble expressions of sorrow over sin as evidence of mental illness.  Mourning over personal moral failure is now regarded as morbidly introspective.  The notion that you should not entertain any negative or self-abasing thoughts about yourself is utterly unbiblical and harmful.