John Newton: Frustrated Christians
In this fourth letter to a nobleman friend, Newton continues to share insights into the Christian life. It is encouraging to hear someone as loved and respected as John Newton speak with honesty about the battles of the Christian life. He talks here of a problem felt by all Christians—the gap between the will to do good and the seeming inability to do it. It makes me thankful that some things never change, and that we can benefit from his counsel as much as the first recipient of his letter.
February 1772
My Lord,
I’ve been sitting here about fifteen minutes with my pen in my hand and my finger on my upper lip, trying to figure out how to begin my letter. It would take more than this sheet of paper to tell you all of the confused, incoherent thoughts that have passed through my mind during that time. But if I had tried to write them all down, I would have exhausted your patience and even your kindness to me as a writer. Eventually my indecision reminded me of the words of Paul, “Ye cannot do the things that ye would" (Gal. 5:17).
This is a humbling but true account of a Christian's attainments in the present life, and the words apply to the strongest and the weakest believers. The weakest Christian need not say less, and the strongest will hardly venture to say more. The Lord has given his people both a desire and a will to aim at great things—without these, they would not be worthy of the name of Christians. But they cannot do as they wish: their best desires are weak and ineffective. God, who gives them the will, also gives them some ability to perform their desires; this keeps them from being completely ineffective. Yet in comparison to what they aim for, their results are next to nothing.
This leaves Christians with great reasons to be thankful for the desire that God has given them and for the extent to which he allows those desires to be accomplished. But they have just as much reason to be ashamed and humbled from the knowledge of their ongoing defects and the sin that is mixed in with their best endeavors. It would be easy to make out a long list of specific things that a believer would do if he could, but in which (from beginning to end) he finds a shameful inability. Allow me to mention a few of these things. I will have no need to copy them down from a book, since they are always fresh in my mind.
A Christian desires to enjoy God in prayer. He knows that prayer is his duty, but he also judges it to be his greatest honor and privilege. He is so confident of this that he recommends it to others and tells them how amazing it is that God—who humbles himself just to behold the things that are in heaven—would stoop even lower so that his ear can hear the petitions of sinful worms upon earth. He tells his friends to expect great pleasure in waiting on the Lord— “By prayer, you have the freedom to cast all your cares upon the one who cares for you. At the throne of grace, where the Lord makes his glory to pass in front of the one who seeks him, you can acquire more spiritual knowledge and comfort in an hour than by a day or a week's conversation with the best of men, or by the diligent study of many books." But alas! how seldom can this same Christian do as he desires? How often he finds this privilege to be just a task that he would be glad to find an excuse for. So often, the greatest pleasure he finds in it is merely the joy that comes from feeling he has completed an assignment. While he has been drawing near to God with his lips, his heart was far from him. Surely this is not doing what a Christian desires! To borrow the expression of an old woman, it is like he is dragged before God like a slave and later comes away like a thief.
We could say the same thing about reading Scripture. A Christian may believe it to be the Word of God—he admires the wisdom and grace of the doctrines, the beauty of the precepts, the richness of the promises. So, with David, he considers it preferable to great treasures of gold and silver and sweeter than honey or the honeycomb. Yet even while he thinks this way, and desires that Scripture may dwell in him richly and be his meditation by day and by night, he cannot do as he desires. It will require some resolution to persist in reading just a portion of it every day, and even then his heart is often less engaged with it than if he were reading a pamphlet. Here again his privilege frequently dwindles into a task. His appetite is impaired, leaving him little relish for the food of his soul.
A Christian might also want to have adoring and ongoing thoughts of the person and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is truly glad of situations that bring thoughts of his Savior into his mind. With these views, in spite of all discouragement, he perseveres in his attempts to pray and read and take part in the ordinances. Yet he still cannot do as he would. He might successfully show gratitude to his fellow creatures, but he will confess that he is mournfully ungrateful and insensitive to his best Friend and Benefactor. Oh, what trifles are able to shut Him out of our thoughts. Christ, the very one beloved by our souls, who loved us and gave himself for us, and whom we have deliberately chosen as our highest good and portion. What can make up for the loss that we suffer here? Yet surely, if we could set him always before us, we would do so. His love would be the delightful theme of our hearts “From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve"
But though we aim at this good, evil is present with us. We find that we are only partially renewed, and still need to pray that the Lord would keep his promise to take away the heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh.
A Christian desires to cheerfully submit to the various workings of a sovereign God. He believes that all events are under the direction of infinite wisdom and goodness, and will eventually turn out for the glory of God and the good of those who fear him. He doesn't doubt that all the hairs of his head are numbered, and that the blessings that he possesses were given to him and kept for him by the generosity and special favor of the Lord whom he serves. He believes that both comforts and afflictions do not spring out of the ground but are the fruits and signs of God's love. He knows that whenever there is a season of heaviness, there is a “need-be" that has allowed it.
He trusts these principles as much as what he sees with his eyes; sometimes he feels them so strongly that he is convinced they will carry him through the most severe trials. But often, when he aims to apply these principles in a time of present distress, he cannot do what he would. He feels a law in his members, warring against the law in his mind. In spite of his clearest convictions, and looking only with his eyes at the situation, he is ready to complain, murmur, and despair. Alas! how vain mankind is even in his best estate. How much weakness and inconsistency exists even in those whose hearts are right with the Lord! We have so many reasons to confess that we are unworthy, unprofitable servants.
If paper and time allowed, I could keep these scenarios going. But thanks be to God that we are not under the law but under grace, and even these distressing effects of the remnants of indwelling sin are overruled for good. These experiences wean the believer off of himself and teach him to value God more highly and to rely on Christ—Christ, who has been appointed to us by God as our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. The more vile we are in our own eyes, the more precious he will be to us; and a deep-rooted sense of the evil of our hearts is necessary to remove all grounds for boasting, and to make us willing to give all the glory of our salvation where it belongs
Again, a sense of these evils will (when hardly anything else will do it) reconcile us to the thought of dying. In fact, it will make us long to depart so that we might sin no more. We have come to realize that depravity is so deeply rooted in our nature that (like a leper's house) all the fabric must be torn down before we can be freed from its defilement. Then, and not till then, we will be completely able to do righteous things that we desire to do. When we see Jesus, we will be transformed into his image, and be done with sin and sorrow forever.
