One of the best-known and best-loved hymns in the English language is “Amazing Grace!” It was written by John Newton who was born 300 years ago this month. The hymn is John Newton’s personal testimony: “Amazing grace! how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” The inscription on his gravestone reads; “John Newton once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.”

John’s father was a shipmaster. His mother Elizabeth was a godly woman who prayed that her son would become a minister of the gospel. She died before he was seven years old, knowing nothing of the hard years John would experience before her prayers were answered. John’s father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, so at the age of 11 John went to sea on board his father’s ship. In 1743 he was taken by the Press Gang and put on board HMS Harwich, a new 50-gun ship. When John tried to desert, he was recaptured and flogged. Later he joined a slaving ship bound for Sierra Leone and once there threw himself into a deeply sinful life and was virtually a slave until a friend of his father’s found him and brought him back to England.

When John was on a slave ship heading for Liverpool, a violent storm hit the ship and threatened to sink it off the west coast of Ireland. John realised he hadn’t asked God to forgive his many sins and that, if he perished, he would be lost eternally. He prayed to God and promised that if God brought him safely to land, he would commit the rest of his life to God. God heard his prayer and when John stepped ashore, he was a changed man – no longer an infidel but a Christian.

Later John was ordained as a minister in the Church of England and served parishes in Olney and London. John never forgot that God had had mercy on him. On his study wall he painted these words, “Remember that thou wast a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord thy God redeemed thee.” He encouraged and supported William Wilberforce in his successful campaign to abolish slavery. John died in 1807 and went to be with his Saviour in heaven. The last verse of “Amazing Grace” says, “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.” That really is “Amazing Grace!”