16/08/2024
John Newton’s Love Letters
John Newton (1725–1807), writer of the song “Amazing Grace,” had a childhood friend named Mary Catlett. Their mothers were best friends but when Newton’s mother died when John was seven years old, he and Mary drifted away from each other. When Newton at 17, a veteran sailor at that point, laid eyes on the teenage Mary, who he had not seen in years—he was smitten. When Newton converted to Christ, the change to her childhood friend was apparent to Mary. They married on February 1, 1750.
While Newton was away as a captain of a ship and out to sea for many months, he wrote to Mary powerful love letters. Here are a few snippets of some of those letters:
“. . when I indulge myself with a particular thought of you, it usually carries me on farther, and brings me upon my knees to bless the Lord, for giving me such a treasure, and to pray for your peace and welfare . . . when I take up my pen, and begin to consider what I shall say, I am led to think of the goodness of God, who has made you mine, and given me a heart to value you. Thus my love to you, and my gratitude to him, cannot be separated. . . . All other love, that is not connected with a dependence on God, must be precarious. To this want, I attribute many unhappy marriages.”
__
“You will not be displeased with me for saying, that though you are dearer to me than the aggregate of all earthly comforts, I wish to limit my passion within those bounds which God has appointed. Our love to each other ought to lead us to love him supremely, who is the author and source of all the good we possess or hope for. It is to him we owe that happiness in a marriage state which so many seek in vain, some of whom set out with such hopes and prospects, that their disappointments can be deduced for no other cause, than having placed that high regard on a creature which is only due to the Creator. He therefore withholds his blessing (without which no union can subsist) and their expectations, of course, end in indifference . . .”
__
“. . . I consider our union as a peculiar effect and gift of an indulgent Providence, and therefore, as a talent to be improved to higher ends, to the promoting of his will and service upon earth. And to assisting each other to prepare for an eternal state, to which a few years at the farthest will introduce us. Were these points wholly neglected, however great our satisfaction might be for the present, it would be better never to have seen each other; since the time must come when, of all the endearments of our connection, nothing will remain, but the consciousness how greatly we were favored, and how we improved the favors we possessed . . .”
John and Mary Newton are buried together at Church of Saints Peter and Paul, Olney in Buckinghamshire, England.
https://www.facebook.com/church.history01
Source: Church history
