"He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord." Psalm 40:2, 32He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:2‑3).
While he was but a boy, John Newton, a wild English lad who hated restraint and longed for adventure, ran away from home. As the most likely means of "seeing the world," he engaged for service aboard a merchant ship. As part of its ungodly crew. John Newton soon forgot all the benefits of his earlier home life and conformed in every way to the rough licentiousness of his shipmates.
In the course of time John Newton, a victim of ship-wreck, was cast upon the coast of Africa. Here he was captured by a native tribe and sold to a negress. He sank so low that he lived on crumbs from her table and on wild yams dug at night. His clothing was reduced to a single shirt which he washed in the ocean. When he finally escaped, he lived the base life of the natives. It does not seem possible for a civilized man to have sunk so low.
But the saving grace of the Lord Jesus was presented to him through a missionary, and in childlike faith he looked to Him for the cleansing that only His precious blood can give. Then, even as wholeheartedly as he had served Satan, John Newton's one desire was to be out and out for the One who had so loved him and given Himself for him. He never tired of preaching the Gospel of His grace, but for himself he was content to take a low place.
In a churchyard in London there is an epitaph John Newton wrote for himself. It reads: "Sacred to the memory of John Newton, once a blasphemer and libertine and slave of slaves in Africa, but renewed, purified, pardoned and called to preach that Gospel which he labored to destroy.'
The influence of that life, once so low in sin, still goes on in. blessing to thousands through the many, beautiful hymns he wrote. Well known among them is one that was written in 1779:
"How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer's ear!
It soothes his sorrow, heals his wounds,
And drives away his fear.
"It makes the wounded spirit whole,
It calms the troubled breast;
'Tis manna to the hungry soul,
And to the weary rest.
"Blest name! the Rock on which we build,
Our shield and hiding-place;
Our never-failing treasury, filled
With boundless stores of grace."