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[1] Besides appearing in almost all church hymnals, "'Amazing Grace' has been adapted by scores of performers, from country music to gospel to folk singers. . . . Judy Collins sings in St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University, and talks about how this song carried her through the depths of her alcoholism. Jessye Norman sends 'Amazing Grace' soaring across the footlights at Manhattan Center stage. While in Nashville, Johnny Cash visits a prison and talks about the hymn's impact on prisoners. The folk singer, Jean Ritchie, shares a reunion of her extended family in Kentucky where everyone rejoices together. 'Amazing Grace' is also featured in the repertory of the Boys Choir of Harlem, which performs the hymn in both New York and Japan" (http://www.wlu.ca/mtr/MediaCollection/A/v1396.htm [Accessed 1-26-2001]).

[2] Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), p. 123.

[3] Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, p. 107.

[4] Ibid., p. 90.

[5] Ibid., p. 2.

[6] Ibid., p. 6.

[7] Ibid., p. 9.

[8] Ibid., p. 12.

[9] Ibid., p.10.

[10] Ibid., p. 16.

[11] Ibid., p. 78.

[12] See below, note 26.

[13] D. Bruce Hindmarsh, John Newton and the English Evangelical Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), p. 13.

[14] Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, p. 25.

[15] Ibid., p. 26.

[16] Ibid., p. 28.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., p. 32.

[19] Ibid., pp. 32-33.

[20] Ibid., p. 33.

[21] John Newton, "Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade," in The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol. 6 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1985), p. 123

[22] D. Bruce Hindmarsh, "'I Am a Sort of Middle-Man'": The Politically Correct Evangelicalism of John Newton," in Amazing Grace: Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States, ed. by George Rawlyk and Mark Noll (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), p. 32.

[23] Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, p. 50. Later in his ministry, Newton counseled a younger minister, "The original Scriptures well deserve your pains, and will richly repay them" (The Works of the Rev. John Newton, Vol.1., p. 143). Concerning the early years of studying the languages he says, "You must not think that I have attained, were ever aimed at, a critical skill in any of these: . . . In the Hebrew, I can read the Historical Books and Psalms with tolerable ease; but, in the Prophetical and difficult parts, I am frequently obliged to have recourse to lexicons, etc. However, I know so much as to be able, with such helps as are at hand, to judge for myself the meaning of any passage I have occasion to consult" (Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, pp. 49-50).

[24] Ibid., p. 50.

[25] D. Bruce Hindmarsh, "'I Am a Sort of Middle-Man,'" p. 42.

[26] Richard Cecil, Memoirs of the Rev. John Newton, p. 88.