- Published: November 13, 2022
- Updated: November 13, 2022
- University / College: Cardiff University
- Level: Masters
- Language: English
- Downloads: 13
Song Amazing Grace History Amazing Grace is a hymn song that was composed as the John Newton’s spiritual autobiography. John Newton was born in 1725, in Wapping in England a place near Thames (Jeffrey, 2008). Johns father was a shipping merchant who a Catholic and had some sympathies of Protestant, but his mother was an ardent independent unaffiliated to the Anglican Church. His mother intended wanted John to become a clergyman, but she succumbed to death out of tuberculosis when the he was just six. The other years John stayed with his emotional distant stepmother as his father was busy doing business in the sea. John spent some other time in a boarding school where he was mistreated and at eleven he joined his dad is shipping as an apprentice. At his youth, Newton started a pattern that brought him close to death, where he examined his relationship with God then he reverted to bad habits.
Newton denounced his faith after an influence from his shipmate. Newton became very notorious while working on the ship and he went to be at loggerheads with ship captain. He was enslaved and was deported to work in farm plantation in Sierra Leone where he was saved after his father intervened. As he was shipped back to Europe, a strong storm swept the ship where he asked God to have mercy with them though he never imagined whether he was worth the grace that the Lord extended to him. He was not convinced whether God was real or just a myth (Deconinck – Brossard, 2010). After he had come to his, he understood that God had started to work with him. Newton entered the slavery trade and married Polly at the age of thirty, where he found it hard to leave her at the start of each trip.
Analysis
Newton, while working in Liverpool he started to learn theology where due to his devotion he was encouraged to be the priest, but the Bishop refused alleging that he had no university degree. However, the actual reason was that he was more affiliated to Methodist and evangelism. He continued his devotion, and he wrote his experiences in his conversion and slave trade. Newton started preaching to people about his experiences though most of them were illiterate. He wrote some hymns where his Amazing Grace was become so popular in evangelism in England for many years.
The hymn has the theme of faith in salvation, Jesus love and the wonderful Gods grace. John Newton reflects on his experiences of the sinful person and the grace that the Lord His God extended to him. The first stanza can be portrayed as John’s realization of his participation in the slavery trade was his wretchedness and represented an excellent understanding of his motivation (Lewis, 2013). The amazing grace can be interpreted as an instant release of enormous energy in exclamation. The song also shows the greatness of God and His mercifulness to all people without regard to their earlier deeds. The hymn illustrates that sinners are blinded by the sin, and once they are saved, they can see.
References
Deconinck – Brossard, F. (2010). Amazing Grace, How Sweet the Hymn. XVII-XVIII. Revue De La Social Dudes Anglo-Americans Des Xviii ET XVIIIe Sickles, 2(1), 85-103.
Jeffrey, D. (2008). Amazing Grace in John Newton, Slave Ship Captain, Hymn-Writer and Abolitionist by William E. Phipps: Macon, Mercer University Press, 2001. 270 pp. $35. 00. Theology Today, 60(2), 268-270.
Lewis, K. (2013). Americas Heirloom Comfort Song: ” Amazing Grace”. Implicit Religion, 16(3).