![]() Once he spent two years reading the Bible, meditating, fasting and praying and kept away from society in case he fell again, but it was just ‘works’. Newton wanted religion as a means of escaping hell, but he loved sin too much. He turned his mind towards religion three or four times before he was sixteen, but never with any lasting results. This again brought him to think about his soul - temporarily. There was an accident and his friend and some others were drowned. The hand of God seemed to be on him again when he agreed to join a friend on a visit to a man of war, but he was delayed for a few minutes and missed the trip. Every time he relapsed, he found himself going even deeper into sin. He often wrestled between sin and the conscience he had from his mother's teachings and prayers. This accident made him think about what would happen to him if he died, so he stopped his prolific swearing and bad behaviour for a while, but he was soon back to his old ways. For years it seems that the Lord had His hand of protection on Newton's life. He was thrown from a horse, falling only inches short of some stakes that would have impaled him. He made five voyages with his father up until 1742 when he was 17 years old.Īround the age of 12, Newton had his first brush with death. It must have been quite a shock for him to leave a loving mother for a distant and severe father. He did not receive much love from his father and stood in fear of him most of the time. Newton's father married again and he was sent off to boarding school in Essex for two years, before going to sea with his father who captained a merchant ship. ![]() Newton soon forgot the loving teaching of his mother slipping into foul language and bad behaviour. His mother was a strong Christian, a dissenter, and until Newton was seven years old she educated him well in matters of religion, but then she died. John Newton was born in Wapping, London on 24th July, 1725. Vicar, Hymn Writer, adventurer, reformer. JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807) - There is a film on his life under 'films' on this website.
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