Grace College - Heritage Yearbook (Winona Lake, IN)

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‘Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me ...” These words are John New- ton’s personal testimony, a piece of his spiritual autobiography, a re- flection of his own triumphant ex- perience of the gospel. He truly felt he was a new man in Christ, and it was God’s grace — free, unmer- ited, and unlimited — that was re- sponsible for the miraculous change that had been wrought in his life. This original thrill was nev- er lost. Thus he penned the hymn “Amazing Grace.” John Newton was the son of a master-mariner. By the age of elev- en, he himself was a sailor on one of his father’s ships. A self- educated man, he taught himself Latin, studied Euclid, and read Thomas a Kempis works. But life was not to be easy for John New- ton. He lost his ship twice, once while a midshipman in the navy. Each time he was publicly flogged and de graded, for this was a serious offence. This triggered a series of events that left him captain of a slave ship. By his own admission, he lived a godless life. He was an infidel. But then God’s amazing grace wrought a change in his life, a complete reversal. At the age of forty, he left the sea and became an evangelical clergyman. He minis- tered in England for the next forty- three years, leaving an impact in many lives. John Newton has said that there were two things he could never forget — that he was a great sinner and Jesus Christ is a great Saviour. Amazing Grace... John Newton, Clerk, Once an infidel and libertime; A servant of slaves in Africa: Was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Preserved, restored, pardoned, And appointed to preach the Faith He had long laboured to destroy. Near sixteen years at Olney in Bucks, And twenty-seven years in this Church. Inscription in Church of St. Mary Woolnoth, City of London I Corinthians 15:10 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” (ASV)

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Absohlely wash BND sponsored By Grace cach reli