Okay, the title is anachronistic, but John Newton’s letter certainly applies well to the ubiquitous contention and outrage fostered on social among those claiming to follow Christ. His letter was actually titled, “On Controversy”.
John Newton (1725-1807) is perhaps most known for his beloved hymn Amazing Grace. However, the former slave ship captain turned preacher and fierce opponent of slavery’s greatest gift to the evangelical church, which may be his pastoral letters. According to JI Packer, “John Newton was the friendliest, wisest, humblest and least pushy of all the eighteenth-century evangelical leaders, and was perhaps the greatest pastoral letter-writer of all time.” [1]
His letters are marked by raw honesty and possess theological depth presented in direct, clear, simple language. However, the most striking feature of Newton’s letters is his ability to address every issue through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. His letters are always dripping with Christ-centered wisdom and grace.
Ours is an age marked by deep cultural division and hostility toward our perceived cultural opponents on every issue. It is easy to get disheartened amidst constant rancor. As I often do, my thoughts about faithfully following Christ in an age of controversy led me to John Newton seeking guidance. Below are some excerpts from Newton’s pastoral letter titled, On Controversy (I added the headings):
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Dear Sir,
For method sake, I may reduce my advice to three heads, respecting your opponent, the public, and yourself.
Your Opponent
Pray for your opponent
• As to your opponent, I wish, that, before you set pen to paper against him, and during the whole time you are preparing your answer, you may commend him by earnest prayer to the Lord’s teaching and blessing. This practice will have a direct tendency to conciliate your heart to love and pity him; and such a disposition will have a good influence upon every page you write.
Deal gently with a fellow believer
• If you account him a believer, though greatly mistaken in the subject of debate between you, the words of David to Joab, concerning Absalom, are very applicable: “Deal gently with him for my sake.” The Lord loves him and bears with him; therefore you must not despise him, or treat him harshly. The Lord bears with you likewise, and expects that you should shew tenderness to others, from a sense of the much forgiveness you need yourself. In a little while you will meet in heaven; he will then be dearer to you than the nearest friend you have upon earth is to you now. Anticipate that period in your thoughts; and though you may find it necessary to oppose his errors, view him personally as a kindred soul, with whom you are to be happy in Christ forever.
More compassion than anger if you deem the opponent an unbeliever
But if you look upon him as an unconverted person, in a state of enmity against God and his grace, (a supposition which, without good evidence, you should be very unwilling to admit,) he is a more proper object of your compassion than of your anger. Alas! “he knows not what he does.” But you know who has made you to differ. If God, in his sovereign pleasure, had so appointed, you might have been as he is now; and he, instead of you, might have been set for the defense of the Gospel. You were both equally blind by nature. If you attend to this, you will not reproach or hate him, because the Lord has been pleased to open your eyes, and not his.
The Public
Those who differ are incompetent judges of doctrine, but the can see humility and love
These are very incompetent judges of doctrines; but they can form a tolerable judgment of a writer’s spirit. They know that meekness, humility, and love, are the characteristics of a Christian temper; and though they affect to treat the doctrines of grace as mere notions and speculations, which, supposing they adopted them, would have no salutary influence upon their conduct; yet from us, who profess these principles, they always expect such dispositions as correspond with the precepts of the Gospel.
Those who agree with you should see the law of kindness as well as truth you engage controversy
You may be instrumental to their edification, if the law of kindness as well as of truth regulates your pen, otherwise you may do them harm. There is a principle of self, which disposes us to despise those who differ from us; and we are often under its influence, when we think we are only shewing a becoming zeal in the cause of God.
Show those who agree with you a head and heart transformed by free grace
Whatever it be that makes us trust in ourselves that we are comparatively wise or good, so as to treat those with contempt who do not subscribe to our doctrines, or follow our party, is a proof and fruit of a self-righteous spirit. Self-righteousness can feed upon doctrines, as well as upon works; and a man may have the heart of a Pharisee, while his head is stored with orthodox notions of the unworthiness of the creature and the riches of free grace.
Yourself
Beware of developing self-importance, an angry contentious spirit, and giving yourself to secondary matters
If ever such defenses were seasonable and expedient, they appear to be so in our day, when errors abound on all sides, and every truth of the Gospel is either directly denied, or grossly misrepresented. And yet we find but very few writers of controversy who have not been manifestly hurt by it. Either they grow in a sense of their own importance, or imbibe an angry contentious spirit, or they insensibly withdraw their attention from those things which are the food and immediate support of the life of faith and spend their time and strength upon matters which at most are but of a secondary value. This shows, that, if the service is honorable, it is dangerous.
Make sure it remains His cause and not your own
Your aim, I doubt not, is good; but you have need to watch and pray, for you will find Satan at your right hand to resist you: he will try to debase your views; and though you set out in defense of the cause of God, if you are not continually looking to the Lord to keep you, it may become your own cause, and awaken in you those tempers which are inconsistent with true peace of mind, and will surely obstruct communion with God.
Be about the Gospel, not the empty applause of onlookers
If we act in a wrong spirit, we shall bring little glory to God, do little good to our fellow-creatures, and procure neither honor nor comfort to ourselves. If you can be content with shewing your wit, and gaining the laugh on your side, you have an easy task; but I hope you have a far nobler aim, and that, sensible of the solemn importance of Gospel truths, and the compassion due to the souls of men, you would rather be a means of removing prejudices in a single instance, than obtain the empty applause of thousands.[2]
[1] John Piper, “Foreword,” in Newton on the Christian Life: To Live Is Christ, ed. Stephen J. Nichols and Justin Taylor, Theologians on the Christian Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 15.
[2] John Newton, Richard Cecil, The Works of the John Newton, vol. 1 (London: Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1824), 268–274.
