LETTER of the Rev. John Newton to the Rev. Thomas Jones.—Dear Sir, A concern for the perplexity you have met with, from objections which have been made against some expressions in my printed sermons; and in general against exhorting sinners to believe in Jesus, engages me to write immediately, otherwise I should have waited a little longer, for we are now on the point of removing to the vicarage, and I believe this will be the last letter I shall write from the old house. I shall chiefly confine myself at present to the subject you propose.
In the first place, I beg you to be on your guard against a reasoning spirit. Search the Scriptures, and where you can find a plain rule or warrant for any practice, go boldly on; and be not discouraged because you may not be clearly able to answer or reconcile every difficulty that may either occur to your own mind, or be put in your way by others. Our hearts are very dark and narrow, and the very root of all apostacy is a proud disposition to question the necessity or propriety of divine appointments. But the childlike simplicity of faith, is to follow God without reasoning; taking it for granted a thing must be right if He directs it, and charging all seeming inconsistencies to the account of your own ignorance.
I suppose the people that trouble you upon this head are two sorts: first, those who preach upon Arminian principles, and suppose a free will in man, in a greater or less degree, to turn to God when the gospel is proposed. These, if you speak to sinners at large, though they will approve of your doing so, will take occasion, perhaps to charge you with acting in contradiction to your own principles . . . If I had a proper call, I would undertake to prove, that to exhort and deal plainly with sinners, to stir them up to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay
hold of eternal life, is an attempt not reconcilable to sober reason upon any other grounds than those doctrines which we are called Calvinists for holding; and that all the absurdities which are charged upon us, as consequences of what we teach, are indeed truly chargeable upon those who differ from us in these points . . . As to myself, if I was not a Calvinist, I think I should have no more hope of success in preaching to men, than to horses or cows.
But these objections are more frequently urged by Calvinists themselves; many of them, I doubt not, good men, but betrayed into a curiosity of spirit, which often makes their ministry (if ministers) dry and inefficacious and their conversation sour and unsavoury . . .
I advise you to keep close to the Bible and prayer; bring your difficulties to the Lord, and intreat Him to give you, and maintain in you, a single spirit. Search the Scripture. How did Paul deal with Simon Magus? We have no right to think worse of any who can hear us, than the apostle did of him. He seemed almost to think his case desperate, and yet he advised him to repentance and prayer. Examine the same apostle’s discourse Acts iii. and the close of St. Paul’s sermon, Acts xiii. The power is all of God; the means are likewise of His appointment; and He always is pleased to work by such means as may show the power of His. What was Moses’ rod in itself, or the trumpets that threw down Jericho? What influence could the pool of Siloam have, that the eyes of the blind man, by washing in it, should be opened? or what could Ezekiel’s feeble breath contribute to the making the dry bones live? All these means were exceedingly disproportionate to the effect, but He who ordered them to be used accompanied them with His power. Yet if Moses had gone without His rod, if Joshua had slighted the ram’s horns, if the prophet had thought it foolishness to speak to dry bones, or the blind man refused to wash his eyes, nothing could have been done. The same holds good in the present subject: I do not reason, expostulate, and persuade sinners, because I think I can prevail with them, but because the Lord hath commanded it. He directs me to address them as reasonable creatures; to take them by every handle; to speak to their consciences; to tell them of the terrors of the Lord, and of His tender mercies; to argue with them what good they find in sin; whether they do not need a Saviour; to put them in mind of death, judgment and eternity, etc. When I have done all, I know it is to little purpose, except the Lord speaks to their hearts; and this to His own, and at His own time, I am sure He will, because He has promised it in Is. lv. 10, 11; Matt. xxviii. 20. Indeed I have heard expressions in the warmth of delivery, which I could not wholly approve, and therefore do not imitate. But in general, I see no preaching made very useful for the gathering of souls, where poor sinners are shut out of the discourse. I think one of the closest and most moving addresses to sinners I ever met with, is in Dr. Owen’s Exposition of the 130th Psalm (in my edition, from p. 243 to 276). If you get it and examine it, I think you will find it all agreeable to Scripture; and he was a steady deep-sighted Calvinist. I wish you to study it well, and make it your pattern. He handles the same point likewise in other places and shows the weakness of the exceptions taken somewhere at large, but I cannot just now find the passage. Many think themselves quite right, because they have not had their thoughts
exercised at large, but confined themselves to one track. There are extremes in everything. I pray God to show you the golden mean.
I am, etc.—John Newton.