Born: June 29, 1803, New London, Connecticut.
Died: May 14, 1868, Germantown, Pennsylvania.
At age 14, Brown was baptized at Hudson, New York. He attended Madison College (now Colgate University), graduating at the top of his class in 1823.
He was ordained at Buffalo, New York, in 1824, and the next year moved to Providence, Rhode Island to assist Dr. Gano, pastor of the First Baptist Church there. In 1827, he became pastor of the Baptist church in Malden, Massachusetts. In 1829, he moved to Exeter, New Hampshire, where he had accepted the pastorate of the Baptist church.
In 1838, he became associate professor of theology and pastoral relations at the New Hampton Literary and Theological Institution, New Hampton, New Hampshire.
In 1845, he became pastor of the Baptist church in Lexington, Virginia.
Due to ill health, he left pastoral duties in 1849, and became connected with the American Baptist Publication Society as editorial secretary. He edited The Christian Chronicle and The National Baptist.
While in Exeter, Brown edited his Encyclopædia of Religious Knowledge. It was published in Brattleborough, New Hampshire, in 1835, then republished in England.
Brown helped write the New Hampshire Confession of Faith in 1833, a more moderate expression of the Calvinistic Baptist beliefs that existed at the time, and was widely accepted in the northern United States.
At the time of his death, Brown was preparing a history of the Baptists.
Say, stranger, hast thou e’er in life been led,
By Pity’s impulse or Affection’s call,
To the sad chamber and the lonely bed,
O’er which Affliction spreads her sable pall;
Say, hast thou ever drank that cup of gall
Which sin has mingled for our wretched race,
What time the hand of stern disease doth fall
On one whom friendship, in its warm embrace,
Hath bound unto thy heart with each endearing grace?
Yes, thou hast gazed upon that well-known form,
Now slowly sinking in the arms of death!
Thou hast hung o’er, with fond affection warm,
That pale, cold brow! hast watched each gasp for breath,
And traced each change of hue that travelleth
O’er that dear cheek; and thrilled at every throe
Of thy beloved, Death’s fearful hand beneath,
And felt that there were depths in human woe
Beyond what others tell, beyond what others know.
But the dread moment came; and the faint breath
Ceased, and the hand thine own hand clasped, grew cold,
And all the fearful certainties of death
In one dread moment o’er thy spirit rolled;
And bitter tears bedewed the lifeless mould,
And earth seemed desolate in thy despair.
O, say what influence sweet thy heart consoled
In that deep agony? Faith’s holy prayer,
Lifting the heart to Heaven—and its Redeemer there!
This is thy triumph, Christianity!
And I, adoring, bow before the shrine
Of Him whose lovely image thou must be—
Thy nature proves thine origin divine!
O, let thy holy light around me shine,
While traversing earth’s darkling wilderness!
Then, though I suffer, I shall not repine,
But evermore the hand that chastens bless—
It is a Father’s hand of truth and tenderness,
John Newton Brown, 1821
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