Let hearts and tongues unite,
And loud thanksgivings raise:
'Tis duty, mingled with delight,
To sing the Saviour's praise.
To him we owe our breath,
He took us from the womb,
Which else had shut us up in death,
And prov'd an early tomb.
When on the breast we hung,
Our help was in the Lord;
'Twas he first taught our infant tongue
To form the lisping word.
When in our blood we lay,
He would not let us die,
Because his love had fix'd a day
To bring salvation nigh.
In childhood and in youth,
His eye was on us still:
Though strangers to his love and truth,
And prone to cross his will.
And since his name we knew,
How gracious has he been:
What dangers has he led us through,
What mercies have we seen!
Now through another year,
Supported by his care,
We raise our Ebenezer here,
"The Lord has help'd thus far."
Our lot in future years
Unable to foresee,
He kindly, to prevent our fears,
Says, "Leave it all to me."
Yea, Lord, we wish to cast
Our cares upon thy breast!
Help us to praise thee for the past,
And trust thee for the rest.
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He was a strong support of the Evangelicals in the Church of England, and was a friend of the dissenting clergy as well as of the ministry of his own church.
He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace".
John Henry Newton was an English Anglican clergyman and former slave-ship captain. He was the author of many hymns, including "Amazing Grace".
Sailing back to England in 1748 aboard the merchant ship, he experienced a spiritual conversion in the Greyhound, which was hauling a load of beeswax and dyer's wood. The ship encountered a severe storm off the coast of Donegal and almost sank. Newton awoke in the middle of the night and finally called out to God as the ship filled with water. It was this experience which he later marked as the beginnings of his conversion to evangelical Christianity. As the ship sailed home, Newton began to read the Bible and other religious literature. By the time he reached Britain, he had accepted the doctrines of Evangelical Christianity.
He became well-known as an evangelical lay minister, and applied for the Anglican priesthood in 1757, although it was more than seven years before he was eventually accepted and ordained into the Church of England.
Newton joined English abolitionist William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade, and lived to see the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807.