So the third page is an infomercial.
It's.
My specialty is John Newton.
And so most of my books are related to him like that.
So the first one is wise counsel.
These are 83 letters that he wrote to one person.
Most of those were never published before.
I'm getting good reviews on that, that somebody wrote me just last week and said,
he's reading him is like having my own mentor.
So that's what it is.
And the second book is a great blessing to me.
It's somewhat related to what I'm going to be presenting here today because John
Newton grew up sort of independent of any kind of
denominational connections, theological connections.
He attended the Anglican Church, but he wasn't aware of what was going on
in the Great Awakening Evangelical Revival.
He was unaware of all those little nuances of ideas.
They always talk about disclaimers or not a disclaimer, but anyway, you have to give
full knowledge of who you are before you so you're, you know, oh, he's biased.
No wonder he liked that person.
Right.
You're, of course, aware that methodism in its earlier days was fairly united.
Came out of Oxford with the Methodist, that movement.
But then it did divide, and it divided.
You had the Armenian, the Wesleyan side, john and Charles others on that side.
That's your side.
And then on the other side, the other
branch was George Whitfield, lady Huntington and Howell Harris.
Howell Harris was the great Welsh evangelist.
So it divided, and it divided before Newton
was even exposed to any of those kinds of things.
And so if we want full disclosure, I'm on the Whitfield side.
But I do want to say that my great grandfather was a Free
Methodist licensed preacher in the Kingston area 100 years ago.
And I looked for an hour trying to find
the certificate that I have of where it's signed, where he is an official person.
So I thought I'd bring that in case you tried to throw me out.
Okay, here we go. Does it work?
No.
Okay.
At the top, I've given you a summary of some details of Newton's life.
He was born near or in London, England, 1725, age six.
He was an only child, age six.
His mother died, ages eleven to 17.
He was on the sea with his father, who was
a captain of a merchant marine ship in the Mediterranean.
70 to 18, he was press ganged, or as we learned this morning, he was impressed.
He was chosen, fixed.
He had to change his employment.
He was forced to serve the Navy.
That was a legal way of getting recruits on your Navy ship.
In ages 19 to 29, he was involved in the
slave trade, and during that time, he made four trips.
Then he was converted. Sort of.
The beginning of his conversion occurred
when he was 22 in a storm in the Atlantic off Newfoundland.
On their way back, he would write later on that.
He thought his conversion didn't really get clear until about six months later,
but it was in a storm, and he cried out to God.
That was this crisis moment.
After that, he made four trips on slave ships and three as a captain.
He was married to a girl called Mary, his
childhood sweetheart, at least teenage, anyway.
He called her Pauly.
That was a nickname for her.
Age 29, he had epileptic seizure.
He had to quit the sea.
So he didn't quit the sea because he was tired of the slave trade.
He quit to see because of a health issue.
He was unemployed for ten months.
And well, I'll get right into the story now as we follow along in the paper.
Now, what I'm going to be presenting to you is most of it is brand new.
Not that it's out of my head, but
ten years ago providentially, I would say I found or
located the missing middle diary of John Newton.
There were three that he wrote over his
lifespan, and the middle one went missing about 1860.
And so I found it providentially about ten
years ago, and I've always wanted to publish something from it.
So I started to work on that, and when I did, I thought, well, now, he says a lot
about Wesley in there, but I thought to give background a look at
the first diary, and there he talks about when he first met Whitfield.
So that's how that book emerged.
And now I'm three quarters of the way
through working on my manuscript for the relationship of Newton, the John Wesley.
It's largely the untold story, although some of his letters have been analyzed,
but a lot of material was unknown because they didn't have this diary.
So I was privileged to find it, and I'm
excited to share it with you, and particularly as it's coming from John
Newton, who, as I say, had adopted a Calvinistic position.
All right.
During his ten months of unemployment, he
and his wife Paul, he moved to the London area.
By this time, the Methodist movement had
divided into two branches, and I've already mentioned that.
And in London, largely through his interaction with
Calvinistic pastors and hearing the powerful preaching of Whitfield, that he
became a committed evangelical Calvinist as opposed to a higher Calvinist.
Then, through his former employer, he obtained an important position in the
customs office, customs department in the Liverpool harbor.
So he moved back to Liverpool was the main harbor there, and there, as he had before,
he attended the Anglican churches in the town.
Especially for the sacrament, because it was usually expected, at times required,
that you would receive this sacrament at the Anglican or Episcopal or Church of
England church, if you're going to work in the government.
It was basically a requirement that way.
But he also started to attend, for the first time, a Calvinistic Baptist church
since he had become a Calvinist, a few weeks later, though, whitfield came to
town for the very first official time, and there he had the privilege of hearing
Whitfield preach nine times, and that's all included there in the book.
After Whitfield's visit, in addition to
attending the Anglican churches, there are three or four in the town, and the one
Baptist churches, which was sort of a high Calvinist hypertype, he began to also
attend a second Baptist church that was recommended by Whitfield.
He thought the other one was more
inclined, was closer to Whitfield's position.
And then he also started to attend, for the first time, generally on a regular
basis, the Methodist meeting house, where Whitfield had preached nine times.
Over the next four months, though, he became increasingly concerned about the
low spiritual condition in the town and its churches.
Therefore, he wrote to Whitfield and pled for him to return.
And if Whitfield could not come, he asked him to send some of his preachers.
And if they could not come, he asked him to pass on the request to John Wesley to
send some of his preachers to strengthen the Methodist congregation that was in
serious disruption and decline in the town.
Even Wesley had noticed that two years
prior on his visit to the town, where he made the comment that those in the
Methodist meeting house were, quote, dear lovers of controversy, end of quote.
In Newton's letter to Whitfield, he
expressed that he was quite pained over the quite over the poor quality of
preachers and preaching at the meeting house.
He lamented, they have the best house in the place, yet they will neither allow any
but their own people to preach in it, nor will they keep it supplied themselves.
So he asked Whitfield to pass on the
request to Wesley, set before him that's Wesley the importance of this great town,
and urge him to send such preachers here, if none may be omitted but of his own
sending, as have skill to divide the word of truth in a lively, affecting manner.
And they dwell upon the great essentials of the Gospel in the first place, to
inform the people of the truths in which all renewed Christians agree, before they
puzzle them with the points in which they differ.
The following year, and we're not too sure whether Whitfield ever got passed on the
request, but anyway, a year or so later, Wesley came to town.
So this was the first time that Newton had the opportunity of hearing Wesley.
He had read something of Wesley, but had
never heard him his first time as a Calvinist to hear John Wesley.
And during Newton's time there, wesley came on five different occasions.
And I give the listing of the there on the sheet.
Now, I find very interesting that
if you look in the handout now, what's in the box,
this is extracted from this many volume set of the works of John Wesley.
This is the this is the most recent one.
These are letters, but the earlier
volumes, volume 21, 22, 23, I think they have his journal.
And so what's in the box is what you have
in Wesley's journal, where you see the dots.
I simply eliminated other information about that event.
But you'll notice there that he leaves many things out.
Well, you didn't know they were left out until you read Newton's diary.
So I think Newton's diary adds a wonderful way of looking at what was going on.
At the same time,
I'm not too sure why Wesley included what he did and why he left some things out.
He gives a curious
interview on Thursday of the 28th about this person who beat his wife.
I'm not too sure why he included that.
Is he saying that that's an aberration or what?
But it's an unusual but it is of course I'm being sarcastic here, but it's helpful
that at least he spotted that and raised it.
But I find it interesting that there are many things that he doesn't mention.
He only mentions Newton once, and this is later on, during his first visit.
Wesley does not mention meeting Newton, but Newton mentions meeting him.
On Wednesday, Wesley had dinner with John
and his wife, and on Friday, Wesley and Peter Whitfield, he's mentioned there,
he's a Hebrew scholar, spent the afternoon with him.
And Newton commented that was a pleasant opportunity.
In fact, Wesley stayed till seven in the
evening and left to preach at 08:00 the next day.
Newton says he spent an hour or two with Mr.
Wesley.
And these were times, even the first visit
to the town, where there's a beginning of friendship between the two of them.
And on the Sunday, which is not mentioned
here in the box, wesley also went to one of the other Anglican churches in the
town, and on that occasion Newton went with him.
So these are little bits and pieces of
things that he did that are not recorded in his journal.
Now, what I find very interesting and
helpful is that he gives significant detail about the preaching of Wesley.
If you look at the handout there, you'll see that first.
During that, I think it's eleven day
visit, the number of times he preached, he was averaging, I think it was two a day.
And the advantage of this is that Newton tells us on what Wesley preached,
and these are not included in any of the published sermons.
One might be the one on perfection, but it's quite different.
You can imagine he's a traveling preacher and that's how it went.
But I think it's quite fascinating that all this is included.
And all of his preaching, at least when he
was in Liverpool, was in the meeting house.
When Whitfield came, he preached the
meeting house plus out in the big park where 2000 people had gathered.
And during the five mission trips, newton heard Wesley preach at least 58 times.
And he took careful notes, and he gives
the text and the content, sometimes the outline, 53.
And so during this first visit, you can see that he preached 20 times.
Now in the handout, the dark copy.
Sorry that it's so dark,
but this is a photocopy of three quarters of the page of Newton's diary.
You notice that it's just packed.
He has trying to save paper, and it just flows right on, flows together.
And just amazing that he hears this sermon and goes home and records this thing.
It's quite phenomenal.
He really did have power of observation and excellent memory.
And so what you see on the and this is an extract now of that page.
And that's the sermon.
I've broken it up a little bit so you can
see more clearly the divisions and how it goes.
So I'm quite thrilled with the opportunity of sharing that in a published form.
And you notice what he says at the bottom of that event.
He says he concluded with a close and
lively application both to the saints and sinners.
And I put in italics sort of the comments, his own personal reflections.
He says, I went too much under the power
of prejudice and was justly punished with a hard, unfeeling heart.
He did pretty well to remember what he did,
but the discourse was very excellent and a desire thankfully and carefully to lay
hold of every opportunity of hearing of hearing him.
So it's really quite something that way.
I'll just quickly mention a couple other comments.
As the times went on, they grew closer and closer.
Now, it doesn't mean that he agreed with
everything Wesley was saying on the of the 14th sermon.
This was on justification Newton wrote here.
Indeed, we differed of sermon 19.
He said, it was, in my judgment, a good, suitable discourse, though perhaps he
carried the notion of falling away farther than it is necessary to agree with him.
All right, so what you're getting here is not writing down an addiction, all right?
He's a listener who's processing it.
So you're getting through his eyes and ears.
All right?
It's not a dictation, but it's amazing how clearly he follows it.
And then he will note, well, I differed over here, and he was able to distinguish
between what he was hearing and his own impression of it at different times.
Do you have any sense of whether he might have had some kind of a little notebook?
They don't really know.
He did know shorthand,
so he possibly did a little bit, but they didn't have laptops and things like this.
Yeah, they had a little booklet that this is probably what he did.
He he did on a couple occasions, he says,
I I was so busy today, I couldn't really get it down till now.
And so I'll just summarize.
So he's is he was being very as careful as he could to remember the actual thing.
And at the end of the final sermon that week.
He says, Newton kept the best wine.
No, Wesley kept the best wine till last.
And as he left town, Newton declared, now
I now a desire to bless God on his behalf that I have seen him and heard him.
The word, the preached word, has, I hope, done me good by his ministry.
And the remaining power of bigotry in me
has received a blow which I would hope will keep it low hereafter.
And he had learned a powerful lesson.
And he says, I would hope that since the Lord has taken so gracious in a favorable
way to correct my ignorance and presumption, I shall no more presume to
censure and judge without hearing or dare confine the spirit of the Lord to those
only who tally in all things with my sentiments.
And that was characteristic of his whole life.
And I want to skip a bit of time for some
questions here, so I'm going to skip a fair bit.
There was a fascinating piece on one time they were traveling.
Newton was walking along with Wesley and
two of the other itinerants to make a pastoral visit.
And on the way, Wesley was reading letters that he had received.
Some of them talked about the current events of the day.
And there were earthquakes and things like this.
And there's sort of signs of the times, talk and all of that.
And this is the Newton's diary. Mr.
Wesley read a letter he received but
yesterday from London giving an account of the words of a young man who has been for
some a young woman who has been, for some time in an extraordinary way.
The purport or the substance of her
message is that woe is beginning, or in a matter, begun.
She said, There are many papists in England who are contriving a massacre, but
will not be able to affect anything till after the King's death.
She further said that the time of Mr.
Wesley's removal is at hand, that it will
be by suffering, and that very probably he will return to London no more.
But of this she's not positive.
When Newton and his itinerant sailed off to Dublin.
At the end of that time, Newton writes, I
felt something sorrowful chiefly for the message from the London, which, if it
should prove true, makes me fear I shall see his face no more.
So I have a lot of other quotes from those events, but I want to get to maybe
something that you might be very interested in.
And that is exactly how they related.
After all these different visits and
interaction with him, they continued to correspond.
We have five letters of Newton and five letters of Whitfield.
Now, they're not overlapping, so you're not getting an interchange.
There are gaps, so you sort of have to figure that out.
But in these letters, two differences
emerged, and each one of them, each side pressed for their own position.
Newton defended the Calvinistic view of imputed righteousness, that one is
declared righteous as a declaration, whereas Wesley saw this as dangerous
because he was convinced it would lead to careless living.
If you're totally right with God, well, you don't obey any motivation.
The other doctrine was the doctrine of perfection.
Wesley pressed for instantaneous and at times entire sanctification,
whereas Newton saw sanctification as gradual and progressive.
Though it's interesting that earlier,
because of his interaction with the Methodist let's call him the Wesleyan
Methodist, he began first he didn't like the idea of perfection perfectionism.
And then he began to think, well, it might be something to this.
So this is what he writes.
This is 1762.
About this time I begin to alter my
sentiments in some measure about a point much disputed the doctrine of perfection.
Indeed, I cannot approve of the
explications and pretensions some have given, nor do I think perfection, strictly
speaking, attainable in this mortal state or compatible with it.
But I begin to think that some who are reproached and misunderstood upon this
account do indeed experience much power and peace beyond what I've known.
And I believe I have done wrong to limit the Lord.
And instead of disputing now I would turn
to Him and by earnest prayer and treat Him to set me at liberty also and give me a
larger measure of what his promises encourage me to expect.
So he did that.
Though he came back three or four months
later, he had been away, and he had reversed his opinion,
he says, upon and what he did, and he wrote this change of opinion.
He went back to the diary, the note in the
margin not much room in the margin four months earlier.
And he wrote in the margin these words in
bold print upon farther or further reflection and observation.
That's a key piece here.
I must fear that what there is good in this matter is mixed with much evil.
Enthusiasm is breaking in like a flood.
And if those of you understood that there
was that happening also down in the London area, and he never forgot that.
He never forgot what he saw because he was living in the towns.
And so 25 years later, he says, there was
a woman he remembers way back, there was a woman in Liverpool when I lived there, who
was so perfect that she declared she tried to sin but could not.
About the year 1773, this strange doctrine spread like wildfire in Mr.
Wesley societies, and there are several persons improved or set upon it.
They said he gives some examples.
They said that death was the wages of sin, but as they were perfect freed from sin,
they took it into their heads that would never die, he says.
Others I have known.
This is not just he's heard about.
He probably heard about what was going down going on in the London area, he says.
Others I have known who thought themselves too good to repeat the Lord's Prayer.
Forgive us our trespasses, for they
supposed they had no trespasses to be forgiven.
Yes, and some thought themselves too perfect to need intercession of Christ.
So that was the extremes that he was experiencing, and that's what he says.
And there are a couple of other examples
of that, but I want to just end with a couple of points here.
Newton, though he disagreed with Wesley on a couple of those theological
issues, he was also quick to defend the Wesley and the Methodist.
He writes to a fellow Calvinist, a pastor, there is much to be lamented.
He's speaking as a Calvinist here.
There is much to be lamented in Mr.
Wesley's scheme, but he is not an enemy of the gospel.
I mean, some were saying it,
though very dark, with respect to some glorious truths.
He meant glorious Calvinistic truths. Right.
I have, however, the most satisfactory evidence that the Lord works by him and
his brethren, and in midst of all the chaff of opinions which he too earnestly
contends for, he has a sincere dis aim to the glory of God and the good of soils.
Some of his preachers and people I know to be excellent persons,
though there are too many ranked under his banner who do him little honor,
but rather cause the ways of truth to be evil spoken of.
He didn't count, discount everybody, but he was able to separate,
and even Wesley recognized that Newton had a healer of breaches.
That's how he described Newton.
And in fact, on one occasion, he asked Newton to intervene and to speak to those
people in the ways that you can to those people that I don't have access to.
And that was very helpful.
And at the same time, though, he could challenge his own Calvinist people.
This is what he said to John Rylan, and that's the book over there.
Rylan had he's only 18, and he published a 200 or so page book of poems.
Poems.
They were long, long deals, and they're mostly anti Armenian stuff.
All right?
And he was coming from a high Calvinist type of home, but Newton was sort of a
father figure to this young lad and felt, oh, I don't like what I read here.
And so he took the risk and wrote to young
Rylan, who was 18, newton writes, you say, this, obviously
was a quote from the and was a quote from the preface.
I aimed to displease the Armenians, end of quote.
I had rather you had aimed to be useful to them than despite than to displease them.
There are many Armenians who are so although he'd say only for lack of clear
light, they fear the Lord and walk humbly and walk humbly before him.
Now, these should not be displeased by endeavoring to declare the truth as you
are in terms the most offensive to them we can find, but rather we should seek out
the softest and most winning way of encountering their prejudices.
Otherwise we make a parade and grow big with our sense of wisdom and importance.
But we shall do little good.
Our Lord, you know, taught that his
disciples, as they were able to bear it, he didn't aim to displease them.
You will say, perhaps say a humble Armenian.
Surely that is impossible.
He says, I believe it's not more impossible to find a humbler Armenian than
a proud, self sufficient Calvinist because he felt the doctrines.
If you really understand it from a Calvinist perspective where God is doing
most of the work, who are you to make you're so great?
That's sort of the idea there.
Let's end with the last two letters of Wesley to Newton.
To hear their perspective about each other.
Wesley acknowledged to Newton that when
they first met, they did not have full agreement doctrinally.
But that did not hinder their fellow
relationship because they each saw each other's brothers as brothers in Christ.
He says this quote upon this ground of
friendship, brothers in Christ commence the acquaintance.
Perhaps I might say more the friendship between you and me.
We both knew there was a difference in our
opinions and consequently in our expressions.
But notwithstanding this, we tasted each
other's spirits and often took sweet counsel together.
The last letter, and I only found this
last year the last letter of Wesley to Newton.
And that's probably going to be published in the next volume of letters.
But of not enough of this disputing, all I
desire is that we may walk according to the 13th, chapter one corinthians, which
surely difference of opinion need not hinder.
Certainly I believe some of your opinions
to be just as wrong as you believe mine to be.
But this does not prevent my loving you
yay and seriously thinking of you, thinking you are much holier than me.
That's the last word I can find of Wesley to Newton.
The last one is John Newton's comment about Wesley and the Wesleyans.
And this is 25 years later.
This is 1789.
He writes this person, who later on in the letter he does
work on the issue of perfectionism, how we want to describe it.
But at the beginning, this is how he introduces that letter.
I hope I am no party man, a denominational man.
I know there are many excellent people and some judicial useful preachers in Mr.
Wesley's Wesley's connection.
And I would yea and I do rejoice in the
good which the Lord is pleased to do among them.
Armenians, as they are called, who love
the Savior and by him walk according to the rule of the gospel and overcome the
world, are no less dear to me than Calvinist.
And I find persons of this character agree
with me in experience, though they differ from me in expression.
Beautifully put, I think.
And perhaps some hold religious hold some religious sentiments which I deem
erroneous I mean, they both said that about each other.
But whoever he says but whoever does the will of God, I would say, is the say.
The same is my brother and my sister and my mother.
And that was written a year after
John Newton served as one of the pallbearers to Charles Wesley.
And that was after Charles Wesley request.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you so much.
Wonderful.