He expressed his great debt to Emerson, whose serene and luminous spirit was so like his own. Emerson helped Newton to see life and believe in it, to fear God and not be afraid of Him.

Newton's first sermon as an ordained minister was based on the closing words of the eighth chapter of Romans: "I am persuaded ... that nothing in all creation shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." This theme was the keynote of his ministry -- the love of God as the origin and end of our life. Many years later, when he was asked to contribute to a symposium entitled "If I had only one sermon to prepare," he took the same text and pointed out that every preacher has only one sermon to preach, no matter how many texts or topics he may employ; this sermon is the truth nearest to his own heart, "his truth," the truth central to his faith, although he may use many variations and improvisations of emphasis and appeal.

In the diary Newton kept during his years as minister of the City Temple, published later under the title Preaching in London, there is an interesting entry in which Newton contrasts English with American preaching. "In intellectual average and moral passion there is little difference between English and American preaching, but the emphasis is different. The English preacher seeks to educate and edify his people in the fundamentals of their faith and duty; the American preacher is more intent upon the application of religion to the affairs of the moment. The Englishman goes to church, as to a house of ancient mystery, to forget the turmoil of the world, to be refreshed in spirit, to regain the great backgrounds of life, against which to see the problems of tomorrow. It has been said that the distinctive note of the American pulpit is vitality; of the English pulpit, serenity. In the one more activism, in the other more otherworldliness. Perhaps each has something to learn from the other."10

Newton was a conservative on most political, social and theological issues, but he had a desire to relate the Christian faith to the ills of man and society. He had compassion for the downtrodden and unbounding love and goodwill for all his fellow-workers of every creed. He sought not to tear down but to build up, not to divide but to harmonize and unite. He believed in personal piety and in social action. He was ecumenical in his approach, deploring the divisions among the denominations. He was impatient with sectarianism, finding it intolerably petty in face of the real facts of the Gospel and the world. He said that the new preaching is concerned "to poise its bright lance against the real enemies of Christ, the unutterable wickedness of war, the organized atheism of so much of our industrial order, and the stupid materialism which imperils its existence, no less than the security, of society. Against racial rancor, religious bigotry and blind greed, it aims its darts with the insight and passion of the prophets of old."11