William Wilberforce

Guard Against All Worldly Distractions – William Wilberforce

To so please God, it is also essential to guard against all the distractions of worldly cares. It needs the cultivation of heavenly-mindedness and a spirit of continual prayer. It requires you to watch incessantly over the workings of your own deceitful heart.

– William Wilberforce –
from Real Christianity, 1797

Joy in Work – William Wilberforce

The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour’s sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible.

And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing influence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well.

– William Wilberforce –

The Point the Whole of Christianity Turns – William Wilberforce

This is the cardinal point on which the whole of Christianity turns. “Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). The nature of that holiness which the true Christian seeks to possess is none other than the restoration of the image of God in his soul. Obtaining it depends entirely on the operation of God’s Holy Spirit.

The true Christian knows therefore that this holiness does not precede his reconciliation with God, and then be its cause. But he has to follow, and be its effect. In short, it is by faith in Christ alone, faith marked by repentance of sin.

– William Wilberforce –
from his book Real Christianity, 1797

It Never Can Be Mastered Without Diligent Effort – William Wilberforce

No one expects to reach the heights of success in education, the arts, finance or athletics without a great deal of hard work and perseverance. We often use the expression “You have to really want it!” Growing in our faith requires the same. Christianity is based on a revelation from God that is filled with information that the natural mind could never have imagined. The wealth of this knowledge will never be mastered without diligent effort.

– William Wilberforce –

March 16, 2015

Read the Bible, read the Bible! Let no religious book take its place. Through all my perplexities and distresses, I seldom read any other book, and I as rarely felt the want of any other.

– William Wilberforce –

February 18, 2015

Christianity especially has always thrived under persecution. For at such times it has no lukewarm professors. The Christian is then reminded that his Master’s kingdom is not of this world. When all on earth looks black, he looks up to heaven for consolation. Then he sees himself as a pilgrim and a stranger. For it is then as in the hour of death that he will examine well his foundations and cleave to the fundamentals.

But when religion is in a state of quiet and prosperity, the opposite effect tends to take place. The soldiers of the church militant will then tend to forget they are at war. Their ardor slackens and their zeal languishes. John Owen has made an apt comparison: Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country. It is gradually assimilated in feature, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.

 – William Wilberforce –
from the book Real Christianity, 1797

October 6, 2011

If to be feeling alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.

– William Wilberforce –