A GREAT BLESSING TO ME
John Newton Encounters George Whitefield
By Grant Gordon
Christian Focus. 220 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 781 917 152
This book shows how John Newton was inspired by George Whitefield at a key stage in his life. Much of the content is related in their own words from their diaries and correspondence. The final chapters summarise Whitefield’s influence on Newton and compare their similarities and differences.
In an easy-reading style, Grant Gordon first gives a brief background to their lives up to 1755, when Newton was thriving on his first taste of evangelical teaching and fellowship. He seized the opportunity to ‘strike while the iron is hot’, travelling to London to hear Whitefield, ‘that I might judge and speak of him from my own knowledge’. They had a few very brief meetings. Newton heard as many sermons as he could. ‘Never before had I such an idea and foretaste of the business of heaven!’ he exclaimed.
Whitefield’s sermons
Grant Gordon gives a full transcript of Newton’s diary for this period and also when the two men met again later in Liverpool, with more leisure for ‘close conversation’. Newton included detailed observations on Whitefield’s sermons.
The next chapters deal with Newton’s growing sense of a call to pastoral ministry, and his struggles until he was finally ordained curate-in-charge at Olney (a town where Whitefield had often ministered). Newton begged Whitefield to visit. ‘Gladly shall I come whenever bodily strength will allow’, replied Whitefield, ‘to join my testimony with yours in Olney pulpit, that God is love.’ However, it was not to be.
On learning of Whitefield’s death in 1770, Newton preached a funeral sermon for his friend, declaring: ‘He was much beloved at Olney, and had been a great blessing to me.’
Reading of the interaction between these two men of such significant influence, when our church today so badly needs a similar evangelical revival, is likely to be ‘a great blessing’ to you!
