On a Lord’s Day in 1784, John Newton climbed into the pulpit of St. Mary Woolnoth and preached a sermon from Isaiah 40:1–2 to his congregation in London. This was the first of what would be a fifty-sermon series through the Scriptures that had been used as the text for Handel’s oratorio called simply Messiah.[1]
1. This series has been republished in Volume 3 of The Works of John Newton by Banner of Truth Trust.
This sermon series followed the 1784 Commemoration of Handel during May and June of that year. The commemoration had become the talk of London, and Newton described “conversation in almost every company” as turning to “grand musical entertainments,” and the series of performances of Messiah at Westminster Abbey.[2]
2. John Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah: Fifty Expository Discourses, on the Series of Scriptural Passages, which Form the Subject of the Celebrated Oratorio of Handel, vol. 3 of The Works of John Newton (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 2015), 9.
Fearing that Christ had been overlooked, Newton sought to set forth the person and work of Christ in this series, and declared that his aim was to “exhibit the principle outlines of the Saviour’s character and mediation in a regular series of discourses; so as to form, if not a picture, at least a slight sketch, of those features of his glory and of his grace, which endear him to the hearts of his people.”[3]
3. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 9.
In what follows, this article will revisit the much-acclaimed performances of Handel’s Messiah in 1784 London and the controversy stirred up by the spectacle. These concerts provide a cautionary example of what happens when artists are glorified and Christ is overlooked. The irony of celebrating Messiah for the glory of man is palpable, but this same irony can be felt every Christmas in Christ-less celebrations, and Charles Shultz’s A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) captures this well. London does not have Charlie Brown to decry the commercialization of the Messiah, but Cowper and Newton denounce the misuse of Christ for entertainment. Linus is not there, but Newton opens his Bible to remind London to look to Jesus.
Revisiting the 1784 Commemoration of Handel
The centenary celebration of Handel’s birthday also marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of his death. Works of Handel were performed in London on May 26, 27, 29, and June 3 and 5 at the Pantheon theatre and also at Westminster Abbey.
This concert series was unprecedented in the planning and execution of large scale musical performances, with the largest concerts held at Westminster Abbey.[4] To accommodate this, an architect drew up plans for renovation that required royal approval. Staging was constructed that reached heights of forty feet to accommodate 522 orchestra and choir members, and a royal box was added for the king and his family.
4. Daniel O’Quinn,Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), 302–57. Project Muse, accessed November 30, 2024.
Concert tickets were priced at the extraordinary price of one golden guinea, and proceeds of the ticket sales went toward charities, much like the original debut of Messiah in Dublin. (For the curious reader, one of the surviving tickets to the May 29, 1784 performance of The Messiah is available for purchase at Whyte’s auction house.)
In the celebration, different works of Handel were showcased at each concert, and Messiah had multiple performances. The concert programs and notes from each day are recorded in Charles Burney’s chronicle of the event.[5]
5. Charles Burney, An Account of the Musical Performances in Westminster-Abbey, and the Pantheon, May 26th, 27th, 29th; and June the 3rd, and 5th, 1784 in Commemoration of Handel (London, 1785).
A Crowded Spectacle and Social Success
The fashion of attendees had to be constrained to maximize seating at Westminster. Directions were given that women were to wear “small hoops, if any” in their dresses. Similarly, women were not to be admitted to the concert with hats, so as not to obscure the view of the audience.[6]
6. Jenny Ruthven, “The Handel Commemoration 1784,” University of Southampton Special Collections (blog), June 1, 2018, accessed December 3, 2024.
Crowds gathered in the early morning hours outside the doors of Westminster to obtain good seating. Thousands pressed up to the building, causing great alarm as some were almost trampled while others threatened to break open the doors.[7] Once inside, Burney described the spectacle:
7. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 25.
The very filling the Abbey with such company, and the Orchestra with such performers, was a new, varied, and amusing spectacle, before the arrival of their Majesties and their beautiful offspring crowned the whole, and rendered the ensemble as enchanting to the eye, as such sublime Music, so exquisitely performed, must have been to every ear.[8]
8. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 73.
Praise of the commemoration was grandiose and effusive. Burney reported that “the art of which the rudiments accompany the commencements, and the refinements adorn the completion of civility, in which the inhabitants of the earth seek their first refuge from evil, and, perhaps, find the most elegant of their pleasures.”[9]
9. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 2.
One correspondent recounted the event for the May 27 edition of The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, highlighting its grandeur: “Yesterday the grand festival in commemoration of the immortal Handel began. We cannot in any adequate terms describe the grandeur of the spectacle.” The report continued by way of comparison,
Habituated as we are to public exhibitions, and having had the opportunity of beholding whatever has engaged the attention of the Metropolis for many years, we may be allowed to speak from comparison. On experience, therefore, we say that so grand and beautiful a spectacle, with, at the same time, a feast so rich and perfect, has not been presented to the public eye within our memory. Before ten in the morning the appearance was numerous, and about half after eleven the immense space was crowded to overflowing. The number was not short of 4,000, the greatest part of which were ladies. Their Majesties arrived about a quarter past twelve. The Royal pair were accompanied by Prince Edward and the Princess Royal, who sat on the King’s right, the Princesses Augusta Sophia and Elizabeth on the Queen’s left hand. The Coronation Anthem was the first piece; it was selected as a Salutation. Our readers can imagine better than we can describe the fullness of a band of more than 500 instruments.[10]
10. The Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, Thursday 27 May 1784, [2]. Handel Reference Database, accessed November 30, 2024.
In reporting on a performance of The Messiah, Burney described seeing members of the audience and choir moved to tears. At the first performance of Messiah, the king wished to hear the Hallelujah Chorus a second time, so a message was relayed to the orchestra, and it was repeated. At the following concert, the king himself signaled the orchestra to repeat the chorus.
Count Benincafa of Venetia, in a June 7, 1784 letter, described the commemoration as “one of those events which every friend of humanity should reverence and exalt for the honor of mankind.”[11] E. D. Mackerness in his Social History of English Music described it as “the most important single event in the history of English music during the eighteenth century.”[12]
11. Burney, Account of the Musical Performances, 115.
12. E.D. Mackerness, A Social History of English Music (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1964), 127.
In addition to the social success of this event, the concert series served to bolster the prestige of King George III after he had suffered multiple political defeats, including his loss of the American colonies in 1783.[13]
13. For more on the political nature of this event, review William Weber, “The 1784 Handel Commemoration as Political Ritual” in the Journal of British Studies 28, no. 1 (1989): 43–69, and Daniel Quinn, Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).
Negative Criticism
Despite popular acclaim, some were appalled by the commemoration’s use of Westminster Abbey and the performances of Messiah. Westminster had been repurposed for the glory of man, and Handel’s Messiah and the Scripture texts therein had been misused to celebrate the genius of a composer. The St. James Chronicle was harsh in condemning the moral hypocrisy of the nation that exulted in Handel’s music and overlooked Christ:
Almost all the active Instruments of publick and private Vice were in our Eye when the Band broke out into—“Hallelujah! The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” And such a Scene would baffle the Skill of Homer; though the Finger of Heaven traces legibly the Characters of Iniquity on the human countenance. The Assent given to the Excellence of the Performances and the Resistance made to the terrifick Truth of the sublime Sentence, formed a mingled Expression more unpleasing and hateful than can be well imagined. This Circumstance has long induced us to avoid Oratorios, as they are performed exactly in the Manner of Parodies, to ridicule and insult the moral and religious Sentiments they were meant to promote; and it will make us deem the Commemoration of Handel as signal Proof of the musical Proficiency, and the abandoned Profligacy of the present Period.[14]
14. St. James Chronicle, 29 May–1 June 1784. Handel Reference Database, accessed November 30, 2024.
William Cowper, one of the most popular poets of his time, likewise denounced this event as sacrilegious in his poem “The Winter Walk at Noon” (1785). Cowper condemned the concert series as the praise of man, as the “commemoration-mad” thousands enjoyed the power of music, yet it was the “Messiah’s eulogy, for Handel’s sake.” They gave “the day to a musician’s praise,” and the Scriptures were abused to “buckram out the memory of a man.”[15]
15. William Cowper, The Task and Other Poems (London: Religious Tract Society, 1846), 129–30.
Cowper was a close friend of John Newton, and together they had collaborated in hymn writing which led to the publication of Olney Hymns in 1779. Their efforts in musical and lyrical composition for the church’s worship of Christ must be considered in their response to this event. Cowper vented his displeasure to Newton in a letter on June 21, 1794. He considered this event to be a profane glorification of man, and heaped scorn on London’s clergy for their participation, saying sarcastically that the bishops should have joined the performers to increase the entertainment of the audience.[16]
16. William Cowper, The Letters and Prose Writings of William Cowper, vol. 2, 1782-1786, ed. James King and Charles Ryskamp (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 254–56.
John Newton on Messiah
Newton was alarmed that Messiah had becomethe entertainment of the nation’s capital, and that celebration of Handel’s musical genius appeared to have eclipsed Christ. Instead of denouncing the event publicly, Newton sought to address this by preaching through the Scriptural texts used in The Messiah to set forth the person and work of Christ.
Without being theologically timid, Newton often declined to engage in the controversies of the day. As a result, he often received criticism for the fellowship that he enjoyed across denominational lines. On matters where he believed there was liberty of conscience, he would refuse to sway others to his point of view. Instead, his letters often cautioned others from having a censorious spirit, and he encouraged his friends to be charitable and exhibit humility and grace. With this in mind, Newton’s unhappiness at the commemoration of Handel was unique.
Newton judged Messiah to have been reduced to “one of the many fashionable amusements which mark the character of this age of dissipation,” and that it was “improper for a public entertainment.” In writing about the audience’s reception, Newton warned that “if the far greater part of the people who frequent the Oratorio, are evidently unaffected by the Redeemer’s love, and uninfluenced by his commands, I am afraid it is no better than a profanation of the name and truths of God, a crucifying the Son of God afresh.”[17]
17. Newton, “Sermon 50: The Universal Chorus,” Messiah, 436.
Newton’s ire was not toward Handel or his oratorio The Messiah, but toward the issues surrounding it. Worship services at Westminster had been canceled in preparation for the concerts. Handel was received by the masses and celebrated, while Christ and his worship were neglected and rejected. In his 4th sermon, he declares,
Mr. Handel . . . has been commemorated and praised, many years after his death, in a place professedly devoted to the praise and worship of God; yea, (if I am not misinformed), the stated worship of God, in that place, was suspended for a considerable time that it might be duly prepared for the commemoration of Mr. Handel. But alas! How few are disposed to praise and commemorate MESSIAH himself! The same great truths, divested of the music, when delivered from the pulpit, are heard by many admirers of the oratorio with indifference, too often with contempt.[18]
18. Newton, “Sermon 4: The Lord Coming to His Temple,” Messiah, 40.
In addition to this, though the concerts raised funds for the poor, the concerts served the wealthy. “The gratification of the great, the wealthy and the gay was chiefly consulted in the late exhibitions in Westminster Abbey.”[19] Expensive ticket pricing made Christthe subject of entertainment for those with financial means. If this event was deemed to be worship instead of entertainment, then the church would be guilty of excluding the poor (cf. Jas. 2:1–7). In critiquing the cost of attending the event, Newton observed that the shepherds in Bethlehem “were honoured with the first information of the birth of Messiah,” and “enjoyed at free cost a much more sublime and delightful entertainment” in the chorus of the angels.[20]
19. Newton, “Sermon 10: The Angel’s Message and Song,” Messiah, 94.
20. Newton, “Sermon 10: The Angel’s Message and Song,” Messiah, 94.
In speaking to those who had not been able to afford or attend Messiah, Newton encouraged them to look to the greater pleasure that is readily available to them in Christ and his Word. “True Christians, without the assistance of either vocal or instrumental music, may find greater pleasure in the humble contemplation on the words of the Messiah, than they can derive from the utmost efforts of musical genius.”[21]
21. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10.
Newton challenged concert goers to examine their hearts and consider whether they were captivated by the great truths of Christ, or whether they were only captivated by the music.[22] Newton was gravely concerned for those who delighted in Handel’s music of Messiah, but were blind to the truths set before them in the oratorio. Newton cautioned the unbelieving hearers, proclaiming their sinful condition and state under the judgment of God, and their need for salvation. If they had ears to hear, the truth contained in the lyrics could be the very salvation of their souls. Instead, they “have neither found, nor expected, nor desired to find, any comfort from the words.”[23]
22. Newton, “Sermon 2: The Harbinger,” Messiah, 29
23. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 19.
Newton understood that music has an indelible influence upon human emotions, but the power of music was powerless to change the heart of sinful man:
However great the power of music may be . . . it cannot soften and change the hard heart, it cannot bend the obdurate will of man. If all the people who successively hear the Messiah, who are struck and astonished for the moment by this chorus [The Hallelujah Chorus] in particular, were to bring away with them an abiding sense of the importance of the sentiment it contains, the nation would soon wear a new face. But do the professed lovers of sacred music in this enlightened age live as if they really believed that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth?[24]
24. Newton, “Sermon 36: The Lord Reigneth,” Messiah, 304–05.
If Messiah was truly performed and heard in worship to Christ, Newton wrote that such an experience might be one of the greatest enjoyments a believer might have before heaven. It’s hard to imagine a greater commendation of Handel’s oratorio than this.
If it could be reasonably hoped that the performers and the company assembled to hear the music, or the greater part, or even a very considerable part of them, were capable of entering into the spirit of the subject; I will readily allow that the Messiah, executed in so masterly a manner, by persons whose hearts, as well as their voices and instruments, were tuned to the Redeemer’s praise; accompanied by the grateful emotions of an audience duly affected with a sense of their obligations to his love; might afford one of the highest and noblest gratifications, of which we are capable in the present life.[25]
25. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 9–10.
Glory to Christ Over All
Handel’s Messiah, and truly, all sacred music, should be heard with hearts that are seeking to receive the great truths of God and respond with praise to the glory of Christ. The composer must not eclipse the subject of the oratorio. The worship of the church must set forth Christ over all. The glory of Christ must be preeminent above all composers, musicians, singers, and kings in the hearts of the congregation.
And so, in his sermon series, Newton set forth Christ, the subject of Handel’s Messiah, with the aim that his hearers would know Christ above all.
MESSIAH, the great subject of the Oratorio, is the leading and principle subject of every sermon. His person, grace, and glory; his matchless love to sinners; his humiliation, sufferings, and death; his ability and willingness to save to the uttermost; his kingdom, and the present and future happiness of his willing people, are severally considered, according to the order suggested by the series of texts. Nearly connected with these topics, are the doctrines of the fall, and depravity of man, the agency of the Holy Spirit, and the nature and necessity of regeneration, and of that holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.[26]
26. Newton, Preface, Messiah, 7.
It is a profane thing when the glory that is due to Christ is given to those who are below him. So it is when a congregation glories in the musical genius of the songwriter or performer, instead of in the Lord. And so it is, every year at Advent, when an unbelieving world glories in the celebration of Christmas without looking to Christ. Toward that end, as you celebrate this Advent season, and as you read Christ Over All’s content this December, our prayer is that you will turn your eyes to behold Christ, and that nothing would obscure your view of him.
In 2010 and 2014, excerpts from John Newton’s sermons were added to performances of Messiah. One such performance was held at Gloucester Cathedral in 2010. These sermon excerpts were provided to briefly expound the Scriptures in introductions to each song.[27] While we can learn no posthumous opinion from Newton on such happenings, I think it safe to assume that he would be perplexed and yet thankful that his words would be used to prompt the hearers of The Messiah to listen beyond the music and to behold the Lamb of God.
27. Marylynn Rouse, “Newton Script to Interweave with Part 2 of Handel’s Messiah,” The John Newton Project (blog), December 22, 2015.
Though one may rightly enjoy Handel’s music, we do well to receive Newton’s counsel and look to greater glories that are freely available in God himself, and the inexhaustible joys that are revealed in his Word.
There is no harmony to a heaven-born soul like that which is the result of the combination and coincidence of all the Divine attributes and perfections, manifested in the work of redemption; mercy and truth meeting together, inflexible righteousness corresponding with the peace of offenders, God glorious, and sinners saved.
There is no melody upon earth to be compared with the voice of the blood of Jesus speaking peace to a guilty conscience, or with the voice of the Holy Spirit applying the promises to the heart, and sweetly inspiring a temper of confidence and adoption.
These are joys which the world can neither give nor take away, which never pall upon the mind by continuance or repetition; the sense of them is always new, the recollection of them is always pleasant. Nor do they only satisfy, but sanctify the soul. They strengthen faith, animate hope, add fervency to love, and both dispose and enable the Christian to run in all the paths of holy obedience with an enlarged heart.[28]
28. Newton, “Sermon 1: The Consolation,” Messiah, 10–11.
Amen. May the Lord so work in our hearts this Advent season, and may we rejoice to behold the glory and grace of the Messiah!
