The poem thus roots us in the fallen earthly order but promises us the best that can be imagined. Set over against this lower world of unideal experience is an upper world of ideal experience, portrayed with words like grace, found, good, hope, shield and portion, joy and peace, shining as the sun. The vocabulary continually keeps this world of decay and misery alive in our awareness, with words like wretch, lost, blind, dangers, toils, snares, fail, cease, dissolve like snow, and refuse to shine. One is a world of sin and fallenness-not just spiritually in a sinner’s personal life, but in the whole earthly order.
Literary scholar Leland Ryken penned this assessment of the hymn:Īt the level of imagery, the poem is built around a great contrast that puts two worlds on a collision course.
The final two stanzas look forward to the writer’s ultimate journey to an eternal “life of joy and peace,” to be in the presence of his God. Newton’s scripture reference, 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, poses the question from King David, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?” This is reflected in the hymn when the writer speaks of being a “wretch,” “lost,” and “blind,” yet delivered “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” The agency of that deliverance? “’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far.” Newton lived those words in very real ways. 1), titled “Faith’s review and expectation,” with the scripture reference of 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, given in six stanzas of four lines, without music. The hymn was first published in Olney Hymns (1779 | Fig. I hardly feel any stronger proof of remaining depravity than in my having so faint a sense of the Amazing Grace that snatched me from ruin, that pardoned such enormous sins, preserved my life when I stood upon the brink of eternity and could only be preserved by miracle, and changed a disposition which seemed so incurably obstinate and given up to horrid wickedness. surely no one could be a greater libertine in principle or practice, more abandoned or more daring than I. Yea few us but resisted his calls, and when he knocked at the door of our hearts endeavoured to shut him out till he overcame us by the power of his grace.Ī few years later, Newton referenced this amazing grace in a letter to John Thornton, 12 Sept. His mercy came to us not only undeserved but undesired. Instead of desiring the Lord's help, we breathed a spirit of defiance against him. We had not so much a desire of deliverance. His sermon notes, held at the Lambeth Palace Library (MS 2940), read: “Amazing grace” seems to have been written in connection with a sermon he delivered on New Years Day, 1773, based on 1 Chronicles 17:16–17. Newton was appointed to the church at Olney in 1764. In spite of his spiritual renewal on that ship, he continued in the slave trade until 1753, when a serious downturn in his health provoked him to give up his seafaring and enter the ministry. Nonetheless, his journey from ocean to Olney was much longer than a singular voyage. This near-catastrophe led to a spiritual awakening that he remembered the rest of his life.
Amazing grace writer john newton series#
The story of “Amazing grace” often includes the story of John Newton’s seafaring life and the brutal storm he survived on 21 March 1748, a story Newton recounted in a series of letters, published as An Authentic Narrative of Some Remarkable and Interesting Particulars in the Life of (1st ed., 1764), especially letters VII and VIII.
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