Christianity by William Wilberforce

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 12, 1858

Christianity.

By William Wilberforce

Religion may be considered as the implantation of a vigorous, active principle; it is seated in the heart, where its authority is recognized as supreme, whence by degrees it expells whatever is opposed to it, and where it gradually brings all the affections and desires under its complete control. But though the heart be its special residence, every endeavor and pursuit must acknowledge its presence, and whatever does not or will not or cannot receive its sacred stamp, is to be condemned, and is to be at once abstained from and abandoned. It is like the principle of vitality, which communicates its influence to the smallest and remotest fibers of the frame.

Christianity calls her professors to a state of diligence, watchfulness and active services. None have a right to be idle. Not to speak of that great work which we all have to accomplish, and surely the whole attention of a short and precarious life is not more than an eternal interest may well require, where is it that, in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate? Shall ambition and avarice never sleep. Shall they never want objects on which to fasten? Shall they be so observant to discover, so acute to discern, so eager, so patient to pursue, and shall the benevolence of Christians want employment?

Mankind are in general deplorably ignorant of their true state; and there are few who have any adequate conception of the real strength of the ties by which they are bound to the several objects of their attachment, or who are aware how small a share of their regard is possessed by those concerns on which it ought to be supremely fixed.

But God requires to set up his throne in the heart, and to reign in it without a rival; if he be kept out of his right it matters not by what competition. The result may be more avowed or more secret; it may be the treason of deliberate preference, or of inconsiderate levity. We may be the subjects of a more or of a less creditable master; we may be employed in services more gross or more refined: but whether the slaves of avarice, or sensuality, or dissipation, or sloth, or the votaries of ambition, of taste or of fashion; whether supremely governed by vanity and self-love, by the desire of literary fame or of military glory, we are alike estranged from the dominion of our rightful Sovereign.

He who bowed the knee to the god of medicine or of eloquence, was no less an idolater than the worshippers of the deified patrons of lewdness or of theft. In the several cases which we have here specified, the external acts indeed are different, but in principle the disaffection is the same; and we must prepare to meet the punishment of rebels on that tremendous day, when all false colors shall be done away, and there being no longer any room for the evasions of worldly sophistry, or the smooth plausibilities of worldly language, "That which is often highly esteemed among men, shall appear to have been abomination in the sight of God."

[Wilberforce.