# “Know how to speak a word in season to them that are weary” by John Newton

- Link: https://tollelege.net/2026/04/09/know-how-to-speak-a-word-in-season-to-them-that-are-weary-by-john-newton/
- Published: 2026-04-09T19:30:00-05:00
- Author: tollelege

“The angel who appeared to Cornelius did not preach the Gospel to him, but directed
him to send for Peter. (**Acts 10:1-31**)

For though the glory and grace of the Saviour seems a fitter subject for an angel’s
powers than for the poor stammering tongues of sinful men, yet an angel could not
preach experimentally, nor describe the warfare between grace and sin from his own
feelings.

And if we could suppose a minister as full of comforts and as free from failings
as an angel, though he would be a good and happy man, I cannot conceive that he 
would be a good or useful preacher; for he would not know how to sympathize with
the weak and afflicted of the flock, or to comfort them under their difficulties
with the consolations wherewith he himself, in similar circumstances, had been comforted
of God!

It belongs to your calling of God as a minister, that you should have a taste of
the various spiritual trials which are incident to the Lord’s people, that thereby
you may possess the tongue of the learned, and know how to speak a word in season
to them that are weary; and it is likewise needful to keep you perpetually attentive
to that important admonition, ‘Without me ye can do nothing.’

Thus much considering you as a minister. But we may extend the subject so as to 
make it applicable to believers in general.

I would observe, therefore, that it is a sign of a sad declension, if one, who has
tasted that the Lord is gracious, should be capable of being fully satisfied with
anything short of the light of his countenance, which is better than life.

A resting in notions of Gospel truth, or in the recollection of past comforts, without
a continual thirst for fresh communications from the fountain of life, is, I am 
afraid, the canker which eats away the beauty and fruitfulness of many professors
in the present day; and which, if it does not prove them to be absolutely dead, 
is at least a sufficient evidence that they are lamentably sick.”

–John Newton, [_**Wise Counsel: John Newton’s Letters to John Ryland Jr., 2nd Edition,**_](https://amzn.to/3NS22o2)
Ed. Grant Gordon (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 2009/2026), 24-25.

[⌊Wise Counsel by John Newton⌉⌊Wise Counsel by John Newton⌉[

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