A Practical View of Christianity

Full Title: A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity

Author: William Wilberforce

Published: 1797

Link to free  Kindle edition

I can’t actually remember why I began to read this book. I had been listening to John Piper’s biographical sermon  on William Wilberforce but specifically why I chose to make the effort to read this book eludes me. However, this book is a gem hidden behind the veneer of a title it takes several minutes to take in! There are few Kindle books I have read in which I have highlighted more passages.

So what’s this book about: William Wilberforce, the famous parliamentarian and abolitionist, is writing to the church of his day which is in a poor state. A deism has crept in, and the gospel is no longer preached. People everywhere are living under the assumption that a good life is all that God requires of them and with no clear Christian teaching, the younger generations are increasingly seeing the church as irrelevant. It is into this situation that Wilberforce writes, exhorting the people to return to Christ. Despite the passage of 200 years the similarities with the church in the UK today are clear.

I would strongly recommend this book to anyone for its acute diagnosis of the troubles in the church in Wilberforce’s day and the clear parallels between his solutions and what we need to be preaching to a 21st Century audience. This book as stood the test of time as, although it is deeply rooted in the context of the late 18th Century, the broad scope of Wilberforce’s writing ensures it remains relevant to all readers. Some sections do deal with specifics in a way which I found hard to relate to, but it was worth all the effort necessary to plough through as Wilberforce’s writing is full of brilliant analogies and intimate descriptions of the real Christian’s relationship with God.

This has become my go to book when I am bored or just want to read a few encouraging paragraphs. I have spend many commutes just reading through and rejoicing in the many highlighted sections of this book. I have left my favourite quotation until the end of this post as it is lengthy but if you don’t mind reading in a dated style of English please read this book. It has been the source of much comfort and a timely reminder of the duty to grow in ‘all holiness’ for me.

Favourite quotation: (Context: Wilberforce is describing the true nature of holiness)

But while the servants of Christ continue in this life, glorious as is the issue of their labours, they receive but too many humiliating memorials of their remaining imperfections, and daily find reason to confess, that they cannot do the things that they would.. Their determination, however, is still unshaken, and it is the fixed desire of their hearts to improve in all holiness – and this, let it be observed, on many accounts. Various passions concur to push them forward; they are urged on by the dread of failure, in this arduous but necessary work; they trust not, where their all is at stake, to lively emotions, or to internal impressions however warm; the example of Christ is their pattern, the word of God is their rule; there they read that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” It is the description of real Christians, that “they are gradually changed into the image of their Divine Master;” and they dare not allow themselves to believe their title is sure, except so far as they can discern in themselves the growing traces of this blessed resemblance.

It is not merely however the fear of misery, and the desire of happiness, by which they are actuated in their endeavours to excel in all holiness; they love is for its own sake: nor is it solely by the sense of self-interest… that they are influenced in their determination to obey the will, and to cultivate the favour of God. This determination has its foundations indeed in a deep and humiliating sense of his exalted Majesty and infinite power, and of their own extreme inferiority and littleness, attended with a settled conviction of its being their duty as his creatures, to submit in all things to the will of their great Creator. But these awful impressions are relieved and ennobled by an admiring sense of the infinite perfections and infinite amiableness of the Divine Character; animated by a confiding through humble hope of his fatherly kindness and protection; and quickened by the grateful recollection of immense and continually increasing obligations. This is the Christian love of God! A love compounded of admiration, of preference, of hope, of trust, of joy; chastised by reverential awe, and wakeful with continual gratitude.’