When good friends dream big for the gospel: Newton, Wilberforce & Johnson

Posted on March 5, 2017 
Filed under History

“In the mid-1780s John Newton, the celebrated slave-trader turned preacher, became re-acquainted with one William Wilberforce, a young MP who had recently become an Evangelical. It was the start of a remarkable partnership.

1786 saw their first great project. The British Government had announced plans to establish a convict colony at Botany Bay in New South Wales. Newton had been thinking about mission to ‘the South Seas’ for a long time. …”

– From The Australian Church Record – an edited extract from a paper by Craig Schwarze, first presented at the Moore College Library day in 2013.

Related:

Giving Thanks for John Newton.

(This painting of John Newton by John Russell hangs in the CMS building in Oxford. Photo © Marylynn Rouse / The John Newton Project, used with permission.)