Top 77 Quotes & Sayings by John Newton

We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.

A bowler can make or break a chap.

God works powerfully, but for the most part gently and gradually.

Many have puzzled themselves about the origin of evil. I am content to observe that there is evil, and that there is a way to escape from it, and with this I begin and end.

How many times has He delivered me! Yet, alas! How distrustful and ungrateful is my heart even until the present!

There is many a thing which the world calls disappointment; but there is no such thing in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments are to believers intimations of the will of God.

Amazing grace! how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, Was blind but now i see.

This is faith: a renouncing of everything we are apt to call our own and relying wholly upon the blood, righteousness and intercession of Jesus.

Assurance grows by repeated conflict, by our repeated experimental proof of the Lord's power and goodness to save; when we have been brought very low and helped, sorely wounded and healed, cast down and raised again, have given up all hope, and been suddenly snatched from danger, and placed in safety; and when these things have been repeated to us and in us a thousand times over, we begin to learn to trust simply to the word and power of God, beyond and against appearances: and this trust, when habitual and strong, bears the name of assurance; for even assurance has degrees.

If the Lord be with us, we have no cause of fear. His eye is upon us, His arm over us, His ear open to our prayer - His grace sufficient, His promise unchangeable.

If two angels were to receive at the same moment a commission from God, one to go down and rule earth’s grandest empire, the other to go and sweep the streets of its meanest village, it would be a matter of entire indifference to each which service fell to his lot, the post of ruler or the post of scavenger; for the joy of the angels lies only in obedience to God’s will, and with equal joy they would lift a Lazarus in his rags to Abraham’s bosom, or be a chariot of fire to carry an Elijah home.

The best advice I can give you: Look unto Jesus, beholding his beauty in the written word.

I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient! - I am not what I wish to be! I 'abhor what is evil,' and I would 'cleave to what is good!' - I am not what I hope to be! Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality: and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was - a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the Apostle, and acknowledge; By the grace of God, I am what I am!

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again. We shall meet with many passages which we can make little improvement of, but not so many in the second reading as in the first, and fewer in the third than in the second: provided we pray to him who has the keys to open our understandings, and to anoint our eyes with His spiritual ointment.

Not only the guilt, but the love of sin, and its dominion, are taken away, subdued by grace, and cordially renounced by the believing pardoned sinner.

Our work is great; our time is short; the consequences of our labors are infinite.

Faith upholds a Christian under all trials, by assuring him that every painful dispensation is under the direction of his Lord.

By one hour's intimate access to the throne of grace, where the Lord causes His glory to pass before the soul that seeks Him you may acquire more true spiritual knowledge and comfort than a day's or a week's converse with the best of men, or the most.

But by the grace of God I am what I am

Let me endeavor to lead you out of yourself: let me invite you to look unto Jesus.

There are many who stumble in the noon-day, not for want of light, but for want of eyes.

Every drop of rain hits its appointed target.

I am persuaded that love and humility are the highest attainments in the school of Christ and the brightest evidences that He is indeed our Master.

Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come; 'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.

Whoever is truly humbled — will not be easily angry, nor harsh or critical of others. He will be compassionate and tender to the infirmities of his fellow-sinners, knowing that if there is a difference — it is grace alone which has made it! He knows that he has the seeds of every evil in his own heart. And under all trials and afflictions — he will look to the hand of the Lord, and lay his mouth in the dust, acknowledging that he suffers much less than his iniquities have deserved.

When I was young, I was sure of many things; now there are only two things of which I am sure: one is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Christ is an all-sufficient Saviour. He is well-taught who learns these two lessons.

Christ has taken our nature into Heaven to represent us; and has left us on earth, with His nature, to represent Him.

Although my memory's fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.

If it were possible for me to alter any part of his plan, I could only spoil it.

God sometimes does His work with gentle drizzle, not storms.

How sweet the name of Jesus sounds In a believer's ear! It soothes his sorrows, heals his wounds, And drives away his fear.

My grand point in preaching is to break the hard heart, and to heal the broken one.

All shall work together for good; everything is needful that He sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds.

If our zeal is embittered by expressions of anger, invective, or scorn—we may think we are doing service of the cause of truth, when in reality we shall only bring it into discredit!

God often takes a course for accomplishing His purposes directly contrary to what our narrow views would prescribe. He brings a death upon our feelings, wishes, and prospects when He is about to give us the desire of our hearts.

The Christian must know that the season, measure, and continuance of his sufferings are appointed by Infinite Wisdom, and designed to work for his everlasting good; and that grace and strength shall be afforded him according to his need.

The Law was given by Moses; the moral law, to discover the extent and abounding sin; the ceremonial law, to point out, by typical sacrifices and ablutions, the way in which forgiveness was to be sought and obtained. But grace, to relieve us from the condemnation of the one, and truth answerable to the types and shadows of the other, came by Jesus Christ.

I look upon prayer-meetings as the most profitable exercises (excepting the public preaching) in which Christians can engage. They have a direct tendency to kill a worldly, trifling spirit, and to draw down a Divine blessing upon all our concerns, compose differences, and enkindle (at least maintain) the flames of Divine love amongst brethren.

"What Thou wilt, when Thou wilt, how Thou wilt." I had rather speak these three sentences from my heart in my mother tongue than be master of all the languages in Europe.

So dress and conduct yourself so that people who have been in your company will not recall what you had on.

We serve a gracious Master who knows how to overrule even our mistakes to his glory and our own advantage.

Experience is the Lord's school, and they who are taught by Him usually learn by the mistakes they make that in themselves they have no wisdom; and by their slips and falls, that they have no strength.

I once was lost, but now am found.

When people are right with God, they are apt to be hard on themselves and easy on other people. But when they are not right with God, they are easy on themselves and hard on others.

I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year to a great bundle of sticks, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are to carry tomorrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden to our load, before we are required to bear it.

May we sit at the foot of the cross; and there learn what sin has done, what justice has done, what love has done.

What will it profit a man if he gains his cause and silences his adversary if at the same time he loses that humble, tender frame of spirit in which the Lord delights, and to which the promise of his presence is made?

Time, by moments, steals away, First the hour, and then the day; Small the daily loss appears, Yet it soon amounts to years

I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon. (his last words)

I make it a rule of Christian duty never to go to a place where there is not room for my Master as well as myself.

Zeal without knowledge is like expedition to a man in the dark.

How Sweet the name of Jesus... the rock on which I build, my shield and hiding place, my never failing treasury, filled with boundless stores of grace.

A real friendship should not fade as time passes, and should not weaken because of space separation.

Thou art coming to a King, large petitions with thee bring, for His grace and power are such none can ever ask too much.

I endeavored to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. But it was a poor religion; so far as it prevailed, only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.

I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am

Though troubles assail And dangers affright, Though friends should all fail And foes all unite; Yet one thing secures us, Whatever betide, The scripture assures us, The Lord will provide.

I am a great Sinner and God is a great Savior

Whether men are pleased or not, we will, we must, worship the Lamb that was slain.

If we seem to get no good by attempting to draw near to Him, we may be sure we will get none by keeping away from Him.