1782 July 11

 

My dear Madam,
 
I begin my letter Wednesday 10 June, at five minutes before eight in the evening, how the date will be when I come to subscribe my name at the bottom I know not. You have lately been an eye-witness, that I have not much time at my own command.
 
We thank you for your two letters – it gave us great pleasure to hear that the Lord led you and your fellow travellers home in safety; and that you found Mr Gardiner and your family well. In many families a month’s absence from home, has given room for very painful changes to take place. I would be thankful that you and yours were preserved to meet in peace.
 
Molly Armstrong [1] arrived in good health at the appointed time, though not a little wearied with her journey – but when she had breakfasted and taken a nap she was recruited. I saw Mrs Beardmore [2] on Monday, she says she is pleased with her, and hopes she will do very well. She found her mistress in great trouble – a sweet little boy about seven years old was very ill, and is since dead. [3] He was an only son – but his mother is a Christian indeed, and the Lord is with her. When I saw her on Monday evening, she reminded me of the title of a good old Puritan book, The mute Christian under the smarting rod. [4] That title suited her as well as the book. The child was then alive and that was all. Indeed the Lord sweetened the affliction marvellously. The child was not only patient but happy in its illness, perfectly satisfied with the prospect of death, and spoke with the most simple confidence of going to heaven, as to its home. And she herself, notwithstanding a mother’s feelings, could tell me that her consolations were greater than she could express. So we see in the case of others, that if the Lord be with us, we need not be anxious about futurity. Imagination itself cannot paint a probable scene so dark, but if it was actually to be realised, he can gild the gloom with the light of his countenance. Happy they who know him, and who have committed themselves and their all to him – their strength shall surely be according to their day and he will be their stronghold in the time of affliction.
 
We thought ourselves very happy in being favoured with so much of your company, and in the little testimonies we could offer of our sincere regard; and if the Lord was pleased to make anything I said, either in or out of the pulpit acceptable or useful to you, we know to whom the praise is due. He can work by the weakest instrument, and an Apostle could do nothing without him. The regard you are pleased to express for me, for his sake, is an honour and a comfort which I greatly prize, and it gives me great pleasure to hope you will always afford me a place in your friendship and in your prayers.
 
It is probable you will not always have the same comfortable frame as you were favoured with most of the time you were in London. Changes and conflicts are to be looked for. We live in an enemy’s land at present, and he is fertile in stratagems against us. However he would not be permitted to trouble us, if there was not a need be for it. The idea of victory implies fighting – we are renewed but in part, and the evil within us, and occasions frequently arising from without us, will give us repeated proof that we are weak and dependent creatures, that we need continual support and multiplied forgiveness. But by these exercises the Lord maintains in those whom he favours, a humble and contrite spirit; and while they are kept low in themselves they are safe, and in the midst of war possess at the bottom a stable peace. There are seasons of refreshment from the Lord, yet they are but seasons. Bunyan calls them Golden hours [5] – Golden indeed for their value, one of them is worth more than a thousand of the world’s hours, but they are only hours, seldom of very long continuance. But when we have not sunshine, we may be thankful for daylight. In this I hope you will always walk; you are called to live by faith and not by sense – to rejoice not in your frames but in the Lord, to be strong not in the grace you have received, but in the fullness of grace which is in him. The Lord has been training and preparing you for this more advanced state of the Christian life, and now I hope he has entered you upon it. The great secret, and what should be the constant object of our prayers, is to have our wills united to his – to be enabled simply to commit ourselves into his hands, and to entrust our spiritual and temporal concernments entirely to his management, to believe everything in the course of our daily walk is needful that he appoints, and nothing necessary that he sees fit to withhold. We are sick – he is the Physician. We need not be afraid of his prescriptions, for he is infinitely wise, and loves us better than we do ourselves. The more we desire our peace from the sole consideration of him, his person, love, life, death and intercession, abstracted from the thought of what we are, or what we are not, the more solid and abiding it will prove. And then while we hold it as a fundamental, unquestionable truth, not to be debated, that we are his, and he is ours, we may scrutinise our hearts, and lament our shortcomings and defilements as much as we please, the more so the better. But when we know his name, and yield ourselves to him, our weakness and our vileness have nothing to do either with our acceptance or our perseverance, which depend wholly upon his power, grace and faithfulness.
 
We send our love to your two friends. I am concerned for Miss Forsaith, [6] but I trust she is in safe hands. I observe such temptations and real though imaginary distresses as you speak of, are usually connected with what (as a veil for our ignorance) we call nervous cases. Lowness of spirits and darkness of apprehensions, seem to be both causes and effects which mutually produce and increase each other, but though these things for the time present are not joyous but grievous, the Lord often makes them salutary, and works by them as means to draw the heart nearer to himself, to wean it from the world, and to make his salvation more desirable and precious. And when he pleases he can calm the tempest, and say to the troubled soul, peace. Please to desire her from me to read Isaiah chapter 12 verse one [7] which I hope will be in good time fulfilled to her, as likewise Isaiah 61:3. [8] And the many comfortable promises in the 54th chapter which are made to those who are afflicted and tossed with tempests.
 
My Dear desires me to thank you for the ham. We both of us beg to be affectionately remembered to Mr Gardiner; we shall hope to see him whenever he comes to town. I love to hear from you and to write to you, but must beg your patience if I am not so punctual and speedy a correspondent as I would wish to be. I will write when I can – and often think of you whether I write or not. If anything in your letters should require an immediate answer I will endeavour to be as speedy as possible – otherwise if I sometimes delay, I hope you will impute it to [lack] of time, and not to any abatement of the regard with which I subscribe myself,
Your most affectionate and obliged servant,
John Newton
 
Hoxton 11 July 82

[to]
Mrs Gardiner
Sleaford
Lincolnshire
 
[Written on the back: published in “L'Observateur Chrétien” Isle of Jersey September 1833]

Endnotes:
 
 [1] A Mary Armstrong, daughter of William Armstrong, was baptised in Sleaford on 13 June 1763.
[2] Possibly Mary Beardmore (1759-1809), buried in the Beardmore Family Vault Wesley’s Chapel, City Road, wife of Joseph Beardmore (1747-1829), hosier of 38 Milk Street, London.
[3] Possibly Joseph Beardmore (1777?-1782), son of the above parents named in Fn 2, who was buried in Bunhill Fields (opposite Wesley’s Chapel) on 12 July 1782.
[4] Thomas Brooks, The Mute Christian under the Smarting Rod (London: 1659).
[5] John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress (London: 1678) – referring to sins vanquished in the golden hours spent at the foot of the Cross. See also Newton’s hymn on 1 Kings 3:5, Olney Hymns, Book 1, Hymn 32, ‘Ask what I shall give you’, v5:
    And dost thou say, “Ask what thou wilt?”
    Lord, I would seize the golden hour;
    I pray to be released from guilt,
    And freed from sin and Satan’s pow’r.

Also Book 3, Hymn 27, ‘Bitter and sweet’, v4
    But when Christ, my Lord and Friend,
    Is pleased to show his pow’r;
    All at once my troubles end,
    And I’ve a golden hour:
    Then I see his smiling face,
    Feel the pledge of joys to come;
    Often, Lord, repeat this grace
    Till thou shalt call me home.
[6] Probably Elizabeth Forsaith (1750-1825) of Sleaford, whose brother Robert Forsaith (1749-1797) was on the brink of being discharged from assisting at the Old Meeting House in Norwich for apparently causing a schism. Her father died in 1751 and her mother had remarried. Elizabeth had recently inherited her estate.
[7] Isaiah 12:1 And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me.
[8] Isaiah 61:3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

Acknowledgements:
Morgan Museum and Library MA 733.15

18/05/2026