John Newton (1725–1807) was born in London and at age eleven went to sea with his father, a shipmaster on the Mediterranean. Disregarding his mother’s prayer that he enter the ministry, he engaged in the lucrative but brutal African slave trade for a number of years. After his conversion he served in the Church of England as curate of Olney parish and later rector of St. Mary Woolnoth church in London. In addition to the words of “Amazing Grace,” he was a prolific songwriter whose other well-known hymns include “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds.”
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“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me…” So begins one of the most beloved hymns of all time. This is the autobiography of the man who penned those words. John Newton, the self-proclaimed “wretch,” w... SEE MORE