Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce by John Piper & Jonathan Aitken

Author:John Piper & Jonathan Aitken
Language: eng
Format: mobi, azw3, epub, pdf
Tags: Non-Fiction, Inspirational, Biography, History
ISBN: 9781581348750
Publisher: Crossway
Published: 2006-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

AmazingGraceLWW.48754.i04.qxd 12/6/06 1:59 PM Page 43

A Multitude of Christlike Causes

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only of the clergy. In a chance meeting with James Boswell, Samuel Johnson’s biographer, he spent time into the night dealing with him about his soul, but seemed not to be able to get beyond some serious feelings.5 He grieved for his longtime unbelieving parliamentary friend Charles Fox and longed

“that I might be the instrument of bringing him to the knowledge of Christ!”6

He anonymously visited in prison a famous infidel named Richard Carlile who was imprisoned for his blasphemous writings. When Wilberforce took out a small Bible, Carlile said, “I wish to have nothing to do with that book; and you cannot wonder at this, for if that book be true, I am damned forever!” To which Wilberforce replied, “No, no, Mr. Carlile, according to that book, there is hope for all who will seek for mercy and forgiveness; for it assures us that God hath no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.”7

Missions and Mercy Across the Miles

His zeal for the gospel and his compassion for perishing people were extended from personal relationships at home to places as far away as India. On April 14, 1806, he wrote,

“Next to the Slave Trade, I have long thought our making no effort to introduce the blessings of religious and moral improvement among our subjects in the East, the greatest of our national crimes.”8 Seven years later “Wilberforce . . .

5 Ibid., 119.

6 Ibid., 205.

7 Ibid., 258.

8 Ibid., 235.

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