“Be content with being a learner in the school of Christ for some years. The delay will not be lost time.
You will be so much the more acquainted with the Gospel, with your own heart, and with human nature.
The last is a necessary branch of a minister’s knowledge, and can only be acquired by comparing what passes within us, and around us, with what we read in the Word of God.
I am glad to find you have a distaste both for Arminian and Antinomian doctrines. But let not the mistakes of others sit too heavy upon you.
Be thankful for the grace that has made you to differ.
Be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.
But beware of engaging in disputes, without evident necessity, and some probable hope of usefulness.
They tend to eat out the life and savor of religion, and to make the soul lean and dry.
Where God has begun a real work of grace, incidental mistakes will be lessened by time and experience.
Where He has not, it is of little signification what sentiments people hold, or whether they call themselves Arminians or Calvinists.
Yours,
John Newton
March 7, 1765”
–John Newton, The Works of John Newton, Volume 2 (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1988), 2: 47.
