Tuesday, January 25, 2011

His Love to Us Passes Knowledge

A portion of a letter by John Newton to his beloved wife, Mary. They were married for 40 years and loved each other dearly. He feared at times that he sinned in idolizing her. This letter was written when she was away from him for a short while. It conveys his deep love for her but acknowledges their need to love above all others, the Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them so very much. The letter was written July 12, 1764.

I am well, and as comfortably settled as I can desire, during your absence. I feel the want of your company, but hope to bear it without anxiety. I cannot wish to love you less; I hope it is impossible. But I wish for us both, that our regard may be sanctified, and kept in due subordination. While I rejoice, that we are so happily sensible of what we owe to each other, I have cause to mourn that our love to him should be so faint and disproportionate. His love to us passes knowledge. He loved us, when we were enemies, with a love, expensive and interesting, beyond expression; a love, that exposed him to ignominy and torture, that cost him his blood and his life; a love, that makes over to those who believe in him, all the riches of grace and glory.

The Works of John Newton, volume 5, first printed in 1820, reprinted by the Banner of Truth Trust, 1985, p. 543. Logos Bible Software has recently incorporated Newton's works in their vast electronic library.

2 comments:

Dianna Wood said...

What a wonderful blog!

As a note of encouragement regarding technology. Prior to marrying my husband (who lived in North Carolina; I in California) we exchanged emails for a year and a half. I copied over the emails, chronologically, into a Word document, printed them out, and spiral bound them. The first volume, which covered a period of only one month, contained over 800 pages. There will be at least 20 volumes of that size, once the project is complete.

These volumes are one of the sweetest treasures that we have. Some of our emails even contained excerpts from some letters written by Spurgeon, Newton, Edwards, and McCheyne; because we would often share excerpts from what we were reading at the time, via emails.

Of course we also sent "real", hand written letters, on occassion (smiling)

Grace to You and thank you for your wonderful blog!

Dianna Wood

Dean Olive said...

Thank you for sharing your story. That's a good way to make emails count - save them, put them in chronological order, and print them.
May the Lord richly bless you and yours.