25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. 26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things – and the things that are not – to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God – that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’ 1 Corinthians 1:25-31
I was reading about the ‘Olney Hymns’ – a collection of hymns written by John Newton and William Cowper – and was led to refresh my mind on the lives of these two great hymn writers. The account of their lives put me in mind of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:25-31. Let me remind you briefly of the lives of these two men.
John Newton was born in 1725 and taught the Bible at an early age by his Christian mother, but she died of TB when he was only seven years old. From then on he was raised in his father’s image and, at the age of eleven, was taken on the first of six sea voyages with his father, a merchant navy captain. Newton lost his first job, in a merchant’s office, because of “unsettled behaviour and impatience of restraint” – a pattern that would persist for years. In his late teens he was at sea until he was press-ganged aboard the H.M.S. Harwich in 1744. He rebelled against the discipline of the Royal Navy and deserted. He was caught, put in irons, and flogged but eventually convinced his superiors to discharge him to a slaver ship. He remained arrogant and insubordinate, and he lived with moral abandon: “I sinned with a high hand,” he later wrote, “and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.”
He was then employed by a slave-trader named Clow who treated him very cruelly, leaving him in rags and begging for food. In 1747 he was transferred to the service of the captain on the Greyhound, a Liverpool ship, and on its homeward journey the ship encountered an enormous storm. Newton had been reading Thomas a Kempis’s ‘The Imitation of Christ’ and was struck by a line about the “uncertain continuance of life”. He also recalled the passage in Proverbs, “Because I have called and ye have refused, … I also will laugh at your calamity.” He converted during the storm, though he admitted later, “I cannot consider myself to have been a believer, in the full sense of the word.” Newton then served as a mate then as a captain of a number of slave ships, hoping as a Christian to restrain the worst excesses of the slave trade, “promoting the life of God in the soul” of both his crew and his African cargo.
After leaving the sea for an office job in 1755, Newton held Bible studies in his Liverpool home. Influenced by both the Wesleys and George Whitefield, he adopted mild Calvinist views and became increasingly disgusted with the slave trade and his role in it. He quit, was ordained into the Anglican ministry, and in 1764 took a parish in Olney in Buckinghamshire. (Brief biography from ‘Christianity Today’)
William Cowper was born in 1731 and, like Newton, his mother died when he was young – six years old. His mother’s death at such an early age troubled him deeply and he was mentally fragile throughout his life, suffering depression and attacks of near madness. His first period of depression came when the father of the cousin he wished to marry refused the marriage on the grounds that they were too closely related. Cowper found solace in evangelical Christianity and this helped in his recovery from some of the darker periods of his life. He trained for a career in law and in 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the House of Lords. However, to secure the position he needed to pass an examination and broke under the strain. As a result he experienced a period of depression and insanity during which he attempted suicide. After recovering, a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin invited him to stay with his family in Huntingdon and he continued to live with them when they moved home to Olney in Buckinghamshire in 1767. Cowper was a lover of literature from an early age and became a very gifted poet.
Now imagine this scenario: senior members of the clergy decide that they want some hymns composed that will still be inspiring and widely sung in 250 years’ time. The first and most important decision would be selecting the right hymn-writers. They would probably consult the senior English literature academics at the principle universities for their opinions on the best Christian poets of the day. From their recommendations they would form a shortlist of candidates. They would ensure that the selected writers could be relied upon produce hymns of excellent quality and produce them on time. Anyone with a dodgy past, skeletons in the cupboard or a history of indiscipline would be immediately discarded. Also, anyone plagued with physical or mental illness would not be considered on the grounds that they might jeopardise the time schedule. The selected writers would then be given a very detailed brief of the type of hymns required, the occasions for which they would be used and maybe even the Biblical texts that they should be based on. Many of the best poets would refuse the commission on the grounds that they would not have enough licence – they would be too confined by the brief. The selected hymn-writer(s) would probably be very competent but a safe bet to produce something of quality and bring it to the table on time.
Praise God that he doesn’t work that way. When God wanted some inspiring hymns that would have a message that would be relevant for hundreds of years he chose two most unlikely hymn-writers. John Newton, until his conversion, could not hold down a job – he was arrogant, impatient and lacking in discipline. If that wasn’t enough, his morals were of the lowest and he sought to bring others down to his level. William Cowper was a very accomplished poet, but throughout his life had been mentally fragile. He suffered many bouts of depression and was close to insanity on a number of occasions. His evangelical Christianity helped him recover from these dark episodes.
This is the situation: John Newton became the parish priest of Olney in 1764, in 1767 William Cowper moves into the parish and in 1769 Newton starts a weekly Thursday night prayer service. He sets a goal of writing a new hymn for each service and encourages Cowper to write hymns himself. The world would say that churning out hymns in conveyor belt style is a recipe for mediocrity – they would be sung on Thursday night and never heard of again. Not so! The hymns were of the highest quality, founded on scripture and written for everyone to understand. Newton specified that: “They should be Hymns, not Odes, if designed for public worship, and for the use of plain people”. In the original published edition of ‘Olney Hymns’ in 1779 there were 348 hymns of which Cowper wrote 66 and the rest by Newton. Many of these hymns are still sung today and a few are among our most popular hymns.
Among the hymns written by John Newton are:
‘Amazing Grace’
‘Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, city of our God!’
‘Come my soul, thy suit prepare: Jesus loves to answer prayer;’
‘Great Shepherd of thy people, hear, thy presence now display’
And one of my favourites – ‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds in a believer’s ear.’
‘May the grace of Christ our Saviour’
‘Approach, my soul, the mercy-seat, where Jesus answers prayer’
‘Quiet, Lord, my forward heart; make me teachable and mild’
Among William Cowper’s hymns are:
‘God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform’
‘Sometimes a light surprises the Christian while he sings’
‘Hark, my soul, it is the Lord; ‘Tis my Saviour, hear his word’
‘O for a closer walk with God’
‘Jesus, where’er thy people meet, there they behold thy mercy-seat’
‘God of our life to Thee we call, afflicted at Thy feet we fall’
‘What various hindrances we meet in coming to the Mercy-seat’
‘There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins’
We see a number of hymns here that are still regularly sung in churches today and it is because they were written to be understood by everyone. There are many Olney hymns that are no longer sung today but it is worth reading them just for the Gospel truth that is in them – we don’t need music because they read well on their own. Let me start you off by recommending that you Google, ‘Zaccheus climbed the tree Olney Hymn’ and you will see the Gospel message as clearly in that hymn as you know it today.
God does not call the obvious people to do his work – think of David and Goliath. If you feel that God is calling you but you do not feel you have the background, qualifications, strength or someone is putting you off, listen to the Holy Spirit and, if God has a particular work for you, he will open doors and equip you for the job. I wrote devotions on Mary Slessor and Maud Kells, who achieved great things as missionaries in Africa: neither thought they were strong enough for the job when compared to other missionaries but God met their every need. I suggest that neither John Newton nor William Cowper envisaged that any of their hymns would still be sung in 250 years’ time, let alone be in the ‘Songs of Praise’ top ten in 2020 (‘Amazing Grace’). Christianity is strong today because men and women over the course of two thousand years have stepped out in faith and obeyed the call of God. It may be helping in the kitchen, cleaning toilets, starting a ministry or even entering church leadership but trust in the Lord and he will provide. We must remember that there are many more who have not had an encounter with Jesus Christ than those of us who are believers and the church needs people in many different roles.
Don’t believe me? In December 1996 I obeyed the call of God and, with some temerity, offered to take on the job of creating an administration office at Newtown Pentecostal Church (now Hope Church). I had many doubts about my ability and so did Alan Hewitt, the Senior Pastor, but he agreed to take a chance on me for a six-month probation period. I had minimal experience with computers and had been with the Pentecostal Church only a year – I had been 50 years in the Anglican Church – I had a lot to learn! When I retired 10½ years later I could not believe the skills that God had equipped me with in that time. As William Cowper put it – ‘God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform’.
Every blessing
Paul Beesley
Julia Rees says
Thank you Paul. God bless you for taking the time to share those stories with us. How very encouraging they were.