Post by JEM on Apr 28, 2009 1:59:22 GMT
A BOY CALLED JOHN
John was born in London on July 24th 1725. His dad was a sailor, and his mother died when he was only 7.
He only had 2 years schooling. This was at Stratford, then in Essex, now a London suburb. He was sent to sea at the age of 11.
His early life according to his own account was dissolute and godless
Barely 20 he was flogged at the mast head for deserting the Navy
At the age of 22 he became the captain of a ship engaged in the slave trade between Britain, West Africa and the West Indies
At the age of 25 he went through a dramatic conversion to Christianity which appears to have started during a voyage across the Atlantic as he read the little book by Thomas a Kempis THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
A violent storm blew up, John spent 9 hours manning the pumps followed by 17 hours lashed to thw wheel while huge waves pounded over the ship
several times he found himself crying aloud to God for protection
The storm finally abated and John traced the beginning of his conversion to Christ and the evangelical faith, from his sense of deliverance after that terrible experience
John gave up the slave trade and the sea and worked for a time as a tide-waiter at Liverpool, where in his spare time he learned Hebrew and Greek in order to qualify for training for the ministry of the Church of England.
That training took him 9 years. He and became a friend of John Wesley and George Whitefield as leaders of the Evangelical Revival.
He was ordained in 1764 and John became curate at Olney in Buckinghamshire
There he collaborated with William Cowper the poet to produce a collection of evangelical hymns and John composed 228 of them including “Amazing Grace” “Glorious things of Thee are spoken” and “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”
John stayed at Olney for 16 years and then became Rector of St Mary Woolnoth and St Mary Woolchurch Haw, Lombard Street in London where he remained 27 years until he died aged 81..
His name was John Newton
Amazing Grace was published in the Olney Hymns a year before he moved to London
It reflects his own intense conversion experience and his profound sense that it was only the overwhelming grace of God which saved one as wretched as him from eternal d**nation
Some versions of the hymn include a verse he did not write
“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. “
The tune is an American folk melody Scottish in origin taken across the Atlantic by the early colonists in the 18th century.
It appeared in few English hymnals but was very popular in the USA where it is found early in all the hymnbooks of the main church denominations.
It really became popular here in the 1970’s after the tune was used by the Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards as a filler on their long playing record.
The tune was “Top of the Pops” for 9 weeks and remained high in the popular songs charts for months and many singers latched on to it to make discs.
Concerning the little book IMITATION OF CHRIST which helped John Newton come over to Christianity
This was the work of a man known to us as Thomas a Kempis, some 300 years earlier born in 1380 between the rivers Rhine and Meuse, 40 miles North West of Cologne who at the age of 13 left his home to become the member of an Order The Brotherhood of Common Life in Holland.
A brotherhood of pious men who withdrew from the corruption of those days to study while supporting themselves.
Tom’s brother John 15 years older, had joined this brother hood and went out from it to form new centres of learning it.. and wore himself out doing so, and Tom nursed him back from near death
John became an Augustinian Prior and at the age of 20 Thomas joined that Priory and became a priest at the age of 33. He stayed there 70 years, served twice as sub-prior and for a time as Treasurer of the Order but he spent most of his time as a scholar of the works of the 4th Century Fathers of the early Church. and of the Word of God in the Vulgate edition, the Latin of the ordinary people
He also spent much time hand copying Bibles before the arrival in Europe of printing. He died at the age of 91.
He wrote this little book in Latin in 1441
It has passed through over 6000 editions and been the means of many thousands of people becoming Christians,
################################################
John was born in London on July 24th 1725. His dad was a sailor, and his mother died when he was only 7.
He only had 2 years schooling. This was at Stratford, then in Essex, now a London suburb. He was sent to sea at the age of 11.
His early life according to his own account was dissolute and godless
Barely 20 he was flogged at the mast head for deserting the Navy
At the age of 22 he became the captain of a ship engaged in the slave trade between Britain, West Africa and the West Indies
At the age of 25 he went through a dramatic conversion to Christianity which appears to have started during a voyage across the Atlantic as he read the little book by Thomas a Kempis THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
A violent storm blew up, John spent 9 hours manning the pumps followed by 17 hours lashed to thw wheel while huge waves pounded over the ship
several times he found himself crying aloud to God for protection
The storm finally abated and John traced the beginning of his conversion to Christ and the evangelical faith, from his sense of deliverance after that terrible experience
John gave up the slave trade and the sea and worked for a time as a tide-waiter at Liverpool, where in his spare time he learned Hebrew and Greek in order to qualify for training for the ministry of the Church of England.
That training took him 9 years. He and became a friend of John Wesley and George Whitefield as leaders of the Evangelical Revival.
He was ordained in 1764 and John became curate at Olney in Buckinghamshire
There he collaborated with William Cowper the poet to produce a collection of evangelical hymns and John composed 228 of them including “Amazing Grace” “Glorious things of Thee are spoken” and “How sweet the name of Jesus sounds”
John stayed at Olney for 16 years and then became Rector of St Mary Woolnoth and St Mary Woolchurch Haw, Lombard Street in London where he remained 27 years until he died aged 81..
His name was John Newton
Amazing Grace was published in the Olney Hymns a year before he moved to London
It reflects his own intense conversion experience and his profound sense that it was only the overwhelming grace of God which saved one as wretched as him from eternal d**nation
Some versions of the hymn include a verse he did not write
“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. “
The tune is an American folk melody Scottish in origin taken across the Atlantic by the early colonists in the 18th century.
It appeared in few English hymnals but was very popular in the USA where it is found early in all the hymnbooks of the main church denominations.
It really became popular here in the 1970’s after the tune was used by the Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards as a filler on their long playing record.
The tune was “Top of the Pops” for 9 weeks and remained high in the popular songs charts for months and many singers latched on to it to make discs.
Concerning the little book IMITATION OF CHRIST which helped John Newton come over to Christianity
This was the work of a man known to us as Thomas a Kempis, some 300 years earlier born in 1380 between the rivers Rhine and Meuse, 40 miles North West of Cologne who at the age of 13 left his home to become the member of an Order The Brotherhood of Common Life in Holland.
A brotherhood of pious men who withdrew from the corruption of those days to study while supporting themselves.
Tom’s brother John 15 years older, had joined this brother hood and went out from it to form new centres of learning it.. and wore himself out doing so, and Tom nursed him back from near death
John became an Augustinian Prior and at the age of 20 Thomas joined that Priory and became a priest at the age of 33. He stayed there 70 years, served twice as sub-prior and for a time as Treasurer of the Order but he spent most of his time as a scholar of the works of the 4th Century Fathers of the early Church. and of the Word of God in the Vulgate edition, the Latin of the ordinary people
He also spent much time hand copying Bibles before the arrival in Europe of printing. He died at the age of 91.
He wrote this little book in Latin in 1441
It has passed through over 6000 editions and been the means of many thousands of people becoming Christians,
################################################