A Practical View of Christianity by William Wilberforce

Author:William Wilberforce
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Social Issues, Christian Life, Literature & the Arts, Christianity, Religion, General, Theology, History
ISBN: 9781598561227
Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers
Published: 2006-10-01T09:31:35+00:00

Section Six: Grand Defect—Neglect of the Peculiar Doctrines of Christianity

But the grand radical defect in the practical system of these nominal Christians, is their forgetfulness of all the peculiar doctrines of the Religion which they profess—the corruption of human nature—the atonement of the Savior—and the sanctifying influence of the Holy Spirit.

Here then we come again to the grand distinction between the Religion of Christ and that of the bulk of nominal Christians in the present day. The point is of the utmost practical importance, and we would therefore trace it into its actual effects.

There are, it is to be apprehended, not a few, who having been for some time hurried down the stream of dissipation in the indulgence of all their natural appetites, (except, perhaps, that they were restrained from very gross vice by a regard to character, or by the yet unsubdued voice of conscience) and who, having all the while thought little, or scarce at all, about Religion, “living,” to use the emphatical language of Scripture, “without God in the world” [Ephesians 2:12], become in some degree impressed with a sense of the infinite importance of Religion. A fit of sickness, perhaps, or the loss of some friend or much loved relative, or some other stroke of adverse fortune, damps their spirits, awakens them to a practical conviction of the precariousness of all human things, and turns them to seek for some more stable foundation of happiness than this world can afford. Looking into themselves ever so little, they become sensible that they must have offended God. They resolve accordingly to set about the work of reformation.—Here it is that we shall recognize the fatal effects of the prevailing ignorance of the real nature of Christianity, and the general forgetfulness of its grand peculiarities. These men wish to reform, but they know neither the real nature of their distemper nor its true remedy. They are aware, indeed, that they must “cease to do evil, and learn to do well” [Isaiah 1:16–17]; that they must relinquish their habits of vice, and attend more or less to the duties of Religion; but having no conception of the actual malignity [harm] of the disease under which they labor, or of the perfect cure which the Gospel has provided for it, or of the manner in which that cure is to be effected,

They do but skim and film the ulcerous place,

While rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen.

[—William Shakespeare]30

It often happens therefore but too naturally in this case, that where they do not soon desist from their attempt at reformation, and relapse into their old habits of sin; they take up with a partial and scanty amendment, and fondly flatter themselves that it is a thorough change. They now conceive that they have a right to take to themselves the comforts of Christianity. Not being able to raise their practice up to their standard of right, they lower their standard to their practice: they sit down for life contented with their present attainments,

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