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Details
NEWTON, John (1725-1807). Autograph letter signed (‘J Newton’) to a ‘Miss Kenyon’ (‘Dear Madam’), Liverpool, 1 June 1767, enclosing an autograph manuscript hymn, ‘Tis past – the dreadful stormy night’.
Two pages, 260 x 195mm, (small repairs where split at folds), laid down, and one page, 195 x 165mm, (repaired hole at centre, not affecting legibility). [With:] another autograph letter signed, Hoxton, 16 August 1781, giving a character reference for a hopeful bridegroom, 1½ pages, 197 x 161mm, laid down.
John Newton offers spiritual guidance: a long exposition by Newton on the Christian faith and its personal significance for him written to an unidentified female correspondent and enclosing a hymn, ‘Tis past – the dreadful stormy night’. ‘We know by experience how little Reading and hearing & resolving can do for us, when the Lord is absent, & our hearts in a hard stupid frame. Alas! how can we render, unless we first receive! but O, when his spirit & power is with us what a delightful, surprizing change! then do things become new, hard things easy & out of weakness we are made strong! then our enemies attempt in vain to bind & ensnare us, he enables us to run thro their troops, to leap over their walls, to esteem their darts & swords as straw & rotten wood, & to go forth in his strength conquering & to conquer’.
Newton was ordained in 1764 and became a curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, where, in 1771, he began collaborating with the poet William Cowper on a volume that would be published in 1779 as ‘Olney Hymns’, including ‘Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken’ and ‘Amazing Grace’. The present hymn predates this collaboration, representing an early work of Newton’s.
Two pages, 260 x 195mm, (small repairs where split at folds), laid down, and one page, 195 x 165mm, (repaired hole at centre, not affecting legibility). [With:] another autograph letter signed, Hoxton, 16 August 1781, giving a character reference for a hopeful bridegroom, 1½ pages, 197 x 161mm, laid down.
John Newton offers spiritual guidance: a long exposition by Newton on the Christian faith and its personal significance for him written to an unidentified female correspondent and enclosing a hymn, ‘Tis past – the dreadful stormy night’. ‘We know by experience how little Reading and hearing & resolving can do for us, when the Lord is absent, & our hearts in a hard stupid frame. Alas! how can we render, unless we first receive! but O, when his spirit & power is with us what a delightful, surprizing change! then do things become new, hard things easy & out of weakness we are made strong! then our enemies attempt in vain to bind & ensnare us, he enables us to run thro their troops, to leap over their walls, to esteem their darts & swords as straw & rotten wood, & to go forth in his strength conquering & to conquer’.
Newton was ordained in 1764 and became a curate at Olney, Buckinghamshire, where, in 1771, he began collaborating with the poet William Cowper on a volume that would be published in 1779 as ‘Olney Hymns’, including ‘Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken’ and ‘Amazing Grace’. The present hymn predates this collaboration, representing an early work of Newton’s.
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