Church loyalties

Wilberforce was a member of the Church of England, and thought it was the best system for preserving for the nation the biblical teaching as enshrined in the Thirty-nine Articles and the Liturgy. He was not at all narrow in his views, and occasionally attended William Jay's dissenting chapel at Bath while there to take the waters on account of his colitis. However, there were many seeking to prove he was a hypocrite, and disloyal to the Church of England, so he sometimes avoided going to hear his friend Jay, of whom he said 'Dear Jay, I love Jay!' He only once took communion at a Dissenting meeting, in Islington, but was severely censured by a Dr Gaskin, who stated grounds why he thought it was unlawful, from the claims of the Church, as in the 5th Book of Hooker [Richard Hooker 1554-1600, ‘Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity‘, in eight volumes]. The evangelical Anglican reformer and educationalist Hannah More was similarly denounced after partaking of the Lord's Supper at Jay's; she too desisted in future.

A month before Wilberforce died, his wife summoned Jay to come and say goodbye. 'Jay was shocked to see his deteriorated condition, but he chatted freely. He seized Jay's hand and thanked him for "keeping to the common, plain and important truths in which all Christians are nearly agreed. And I hope you will never leave the good old way. God bless you." '

‘No Calvinist'

He claimed to be no Calvinist, yet urged the claims of Calvinist clergy for bishoprics, and sat at Lock Chapel under Thomas Scott, 'one of the most determined Calvinists in England’. It was hard, loveless, hyper-Calvinism he was averse to. Thus he could tease Hannah More: 'Vile Calvinist you, my very blood rises at the sight of you’.

A conversationalist Although Wilberforce had strict Christian principles, he was no dour moralist. In fact, when Madame Germaine de Staël, the wealthy and clever French aristocrat met him at a dinner function, she later declared to Sir James Macintosh: 'Mr Wilberforce is the best converser I have met with in this country. I have always heard that he was the most religious, but I now find that he is the wittiest man in England.'

Mr Harford describes him thus: 'His manner and address … were marked by kindness and vivacity, and his style of conversation was brilliant and gay. His eyes, though small, and singularly set, beamed with the expression of acute intelligence, and of comprehension quick as lightning, blended with that of cordial kindness and warmth of heart.' But with such popularity there comes a temptation, and he was constantly checking his motives, and correcting himself lest he was merely seeking the good opinion of others.

Evangelising the upper classes

Wilberforce was burdened with the sadness from seeing so many of his friends amongst the upper classes either spiritually dead, or professing a form of religion yet having unchanged hearts. He was invited to many banquets, which he now regarded as generally a waste of time, yet would occasionally attend with the main purpose of presenting the gospel in conversation. To do this, before leaving his house he would devise some subjects to be used as 'launchers’. These were topics which would naturally lead on to a discussion of spiritual matters. However, something wider reaching was required, so he set about writing an evangelistic book. He found a quiet retreat at Yoxall Lodge, seat of the Rev Thomas Gisborne, an old university acquaintance, spending up to twelve hours per day studying facts about the Slave Trade and writing his book. He could be heard singing up to half a mile away when he took walks amongst the holly groves of Needlewood Forest.

Practical Christianity

He published in 1797 A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity; commonly abbreviated to Practical Christianity. He sent this to his friends and also arranged for a copy to reach the royal household. It was not a systematic theology, but a lengthy tract in a discursive style, and so much more accessible to the layman than the academic dry-as-dust pulpit prose currently in fashion. To those who believed they were Christians because they were born in a 'Christian' country, he wrote that real Christianity is '… a nature which we do not inherit, but into which we are to be created anew. To the undeserved grace of God, which is promised on our use of the appointed means, we must be indebted for the attainment of this nature; and, to acquire and make sure of it, is that great "work of our salvation," which we are commanded to "work out with fear and trembling" ' .

Again, people who realise they are just nominal Christians must 'lay afresh the whole foundation of their Religion.' They are to 'prostrate themselves before the Cross of Christ with humble penitence and deep self-abhorrence; solemnly resolving to forsake all their sins, but relying on the Grace of God alone for power to keep to their resolution. Thus … they will receive from above a new living principle of holiness. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. By grace ye are saved through faith, etc.’

Newton commented on the book: ‘I deem it the most valuable and important publication of the present age, especially as it is yours’. To another, Newton exclaimed, ‘Such a book by such a man, and at such a time!’ It would ‘…be read by persons in higher circles – who will neither hear what we can say, nor read what we may write’. In one of his quarterly letters to Wilberforce Newton later wrote: 'I have now read through with increasing satisfaction a third time. I have been near fifty years in the Lord's school … but still I had something to learn from your book.' It was translated into many languages, and Henry Martyn said in 1807, 'In India, Wilberforce is eagerly read’. Many were affected by it, and on his deathbed, the famous statesman Edmund Burke was said to have derived much comfort from it, commenting that if he lived he should thank Wilberforce for having sent such a book into the world.

Marriage

The year 1797 was also the year of his marriage to Barbara Spooner. On 23 April he wrote: 'I believe her to be a real Christian, affectionate, sensible, rational in habits, moderate in desires and pursuits; capable of bearing prosperity without intoxication, and adversity without repining . If I have been precipitate, forgive me, O God. But if as I trust we shall both love and serve Thee, Thou wilt bless us according to Thy sure word of promise’. They were married after a courtship of six weeks; he was 38, she was twenty, and provided him with four sons and two daughters.

Family prayers

He regularly led morning and evening family prayers, attended also by his fourteen servants. In the morning, he read sequentially a portion of the Scriptures, 'always with affectionate earnestness, and an extraordinary knowledge of God's Word’. Henry Martyn observed on a visit in 1804, 'At evening worship Mr Wilberforce expounded sacred Scripture with plainness, and prayed in the midst of his large household’. He loved the Scriptures, and sought to memorise them so that they would be of help during his daily commuting to work: 'Walked from Hyde Park Corner, repeating the 119th Psalm, in great comfort’. He sometimes used a technical artifice to aid his memory, such as Feinagle's system. Feinagle delivered lectures on memory to fashionable audiences in 1809-10. In his system the memory of dates consisted in changing the figures in the date to corresponding letters which were formed into a word linked to the subject.

Sundays were special for worship and soul-searching, also as a time to come apart from the world. On a Sunday in 1801 he records: 'Blessed be God for this day of rest and religious occupation, wherein earthly things assume their true size and comparative insignificance; ambition is stunted, and I hope my affections in some degree rise to things above’.

Philanthropy

Wilberforce was always sympathetic to the needs of others, but never more so than following his conversion, when he would regularly give away a quarter to one third of his income. This was spread widely over any needy person he was personally made aware of, rescuing several from bankruptcy and prison, sponsoring the education of poor children, and helping to found and support the British and Foreign Bible Society. In 1801 he spent £3000 more than his income because he gave away £3173 to relieve those affected by the distress of the times, such as those in the manufacturing districts of the West Riding. To imagine the amount in today's money, one has to multiply by at least 100 times. He was possessed by a spirit of benevolence, so that upon moving house to Kensington Gore he remarked, 'I am almost uneasy about my house and furniture, lest I am spending too much money upon it, so as to curtail my charities’. He sat loose to the things of this world, and maintained his cheerfulness in adversity at the end of his life, when after spending all his resources on funding his eldest son's doomed dairy business, he had to sell up and live alternately with two of his other sons: 'What more could any man wish at the close of his life, than to be attended by his own children, and his own wife, and all treating him with such uniform kindness and affection’.

Visiting the sick

He always took care in visiting any sick person in the house or neighbourhood in which he was staying. On one occasion he visited a poor sick woman in the village (Paul's Cray), '… and began to speak to her of the love of God, which should dwell in his children's hearts. "If you submit to your illness, and give up your will to God's will; if you seek to listen to his voice in this affliction, if you are patient under your sufferings, and gentle to those about you, this will indeed be a proof of love to God. And then think of the happy consequence. He will come and abide with you, and bring such peace and joy into your heart, as none else can bestow." That night he recorded: 'It has been one of the happiest days I ever spent’.

Hope in death

On 30 December 1821 Barbara, his eldest daughter, died. In January he wrote: 'The pain of our late trial has been abundantly mitigated by the assured persuasion that she is gone to a better world. Naturally of a very timid spirit, [she] was able to pray that her parents might be supported under the privation they were about to suffer. I am almost bound in gratitude to the Giver of all good to call in my friends to rejoice with me over such an instance of Divine goodness, and the consciousness of our dear child's being safe is a cordial of inestimable efficacy.' Thus, at this critical moment, he found the comfort of a loving God far exceeded anything his wealth could have bought. Wilberforce's favourite poet, William Cowper, summarises his course of life and eternal hope in the verse: ‘My soul rejoices to pursue The steps of Him I love, Till glory breaks upon my view, In brighter worlds above.’ In his own last distress he was comforted by being told he had his feet on the Rock. He replied meekly, 'I do not venture to speak so positively; but I hope I have.' Does the reader have this same hope and comfort founded in the unmerited love of Christ our Redeemer?

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