JOHN

See also:

• NEWTON
• NEWTON, ALFRED (1829–1907)
• JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807)
• NEWTON, JOHN (1823-1895)
• NEWTON, SIR CHARLES THOMAS (1816-1894)
• NEWTON, SIR ISAAC (1642-1727)

NEWTON (1725-1807)  , English divine, was born in London on the 24th of July 1725 (O.S.) . His father, who for a long time was master of a ship in the Mediterranean trade, became in 1748 governor of York Fort, Hudson Bay, where he died in 1751 . The lad had little education and served on his father's ship from 1737 to 1742; shortly afterwards he was impressed on board a man-of-war, the " Harwich," where hewas made a midshipman . For an attempt to escape while his ship lay off Plymouth he was degraded, and treated with so much severity that he gladly exchanged into an African trader . He made many voyages as mate and then as master on slave-trading ships, devoting his leisure to the improvement of his education . The state of his health and perhaps a growing distaste for the slave trade led him to quit the sea in 1755, when he was appointed tide-surveyor at Liverpool . He began to study Greek and Hebrew, and in 1758 applied to the archbishop of York for ordination . This was refused him, but, having had the curacy of Olney offered to him in April 1764 he was ordained by the bishop of Lincoln . In October 1767 William Cowper settled in the parish . An intimate friendship sprang up between the two men, and they published together the Olney Hymns (1779) . In 1779 Newton left Olney to become rector of St Mary Woolnoth, London, where he laboured with unceasing diligence and great popularity till his death on the 31st of December 1807 . Like Cowper, Newton held Calvinistic views, although his evangelical fervour allied him closely with the sentiments of Wesley and the Methodists .

His fame rests on certain of the Olney Hymns (e.g . " Glorious things of Thee are spoken," " How sweet the name of Jesus sounds," " One there is above all others,") remarkable for vigour, simplicity and directness of devotional utterance . His

prose works include an Authentic Narrative of some Interesting and Remarkable Particulars in the Life of John Newton (1764), a volume of Sermons (1767), Omicron (a series of letters on religion, 1774), Review of Ecclesiastical History (1769) and Cardiphonia (1781) . This last was a further selection of religious correspondence, which did much to help the Evangelical revival . Thomas Scott, William Wilberforce, Charles Simeon, William Jay and Hannah More all came under his direct influence . His Letters to a Wife (1793) and Letters to Rev . W . Bull (posthumous, 1847) illustrate the frankness with which he exposed his most intimate personal experiences . A Life of Newton by Richard Cecil was prefixed to a collected edition. of his works (6 vols., 1808; vol . 1827) . See also T . Wright, The Town of Cowper .