Green cloth binding with white titleplate and black title on the spine.

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In good condition. Light wear to extremities with minor scuffing to corners and edges.  Free of known marginalia. Binding intact. Please see the photos. Earlier printing. William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming an independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire.

Wilberforce’s classic work, A Practical View of Christianity, is concerned with convincing those who call themselves Christians to pursue “the real nature and principles of the religion which they profess.” Christianity is not a mere morality, to be held in private. Christianity is revelation from God, bringing new rights and correspondent duties. It is an entire way of life that requires diligence and study and that should affect every aspect of the Christian’s public and private life.

Every Christian library needs the classics—the timeless books that have spoken powerfully to generations of believers. 

Review: John Newton was Wilberforce’s spiritual mentor. Upon reading this book, Newton wrote to Wilberforce in these words: “One thing strikes me much, and excites my praise to the Lord on your behalf, that a gentleman in your line of life, harassed with a multiplicity of business and surrounded on all sides with snares, could venture to publish such a book, without fearing a retort either from the many friends or the many enemies amongst whom you have moved so many years. The power of the Lord in your favour seems to be little less remarkable than in the three young men who lived unhurt and unsinged in the midst of the fire, or of Daniel, who sat in peace in the den when surrounded by lions. It plainly shows that His grace is all-sufficient to keep us in any situation when His providence appoints us.” (p.288)

When I was reading this book, I wondered if our time would indeed afford his candidness on the subject. When I reached Appendix 2 at the end of the book (on the immediate reception of the book), I realised that Wilberforce was risking much ‘in point of fame at least’ in publishing this work even at his time. Newton showed his relief and his praise to the Lord for how well this work had been received which should not have been taken for granted but for God’s grace. Therefore we should appreciate it all the more when it was with great courage and care for his fellow countrymen that Wilberforce penned and published this work.

What he said was true but also pointed. The truth might not always be welcomed by those who needed to hear it. He moved in high circles in life and his work reflected what he observed in life. He therefore took on a huge risk of personal backlash. But he soldiered on as ‘an incontestable witness to the truth and power of the gospel’, and the Lord ‘has a gracious purpose to honour him as an instrument of reviving and strengthening the sense of real religion where it already is, and of communicating it where it is not.’ (p.285)

The key theme of this book is to trace the chief defects of the religious system of the bulk of professed Christians in the UK. This book was written in the second half of the 18th century, but you will be astonished how much it is still relevant to our time. It proves Wilberforce’s foresight as inspired by his close acquaintance with and his constant meditation upon God’s word, otherwise he would not be able to write a work like this one. His prediction for a country with decline morality and religion is spot on for us. At the time, he was urging all to rise up to arrest the trend. Three centuries on, the trend has gone worse in the direction of decline, making Wilberforce postulation sound like prophecy.

He distinguishes between nominal Christianity and real Christianity. He argues that in his time, the bulk of professed Christians belonged to the former without being ‘born-again’ and in turn without undergoing any transformation. Being a Christian country probably encouraged that. The fatal error committed by many and the society as a whole was to detach Christian morality from its peculiar doctrines which were its foundation. He spent a lot of time explaining why this was a fatal error. Here is a summary in his own words: ‘Towards the close of the last century, the divines of the established Church … began to run into a different error. They professed to make it their chief object to inculcate the moral and practical precepts of Christianity, which they conceived to have been before too much neglected; but without sufficiently maintaining, often even without justly laying the grand foundation of a sinner’s acceptance with God, or pointing out how the practical precepts of Christianity grow out of her peculiar doctrines, and are inseparably connected with them. By this fatal error, the very genius and essential nature of Christianity… no longer retained her peculiar characters, or produced that appropriate frame of Spirit by which her followers had been characterised…. Thus the peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of sight, and as might naturally have been expected, the moral system itself also began to wither and decay, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with life and nutriment.’ (p. 216)

To Wilberforce it is impossible to know real Christianity without knowing God’s word, because of its peculiar doctrines! ‘And why, it may be asked, are we in the pursuit alone to expect knowledge without inquiry, and success without endeavour? … Yet we expect to be Christian without labour, study, or inquiry. This is the more preposterous, because Christianity, being a revelation from God, and not the invention of man … containing also doctrines, and motives, and practical principles, and rules, peculiar to itself, and almost as new in their nature as supreme in their excellence, we cannot reasonably expect to become proficients in it by the accidental intercourses of life, as one might learn insensibly the maxims of worldly policy, or a scheme of mere morals.’ (p.6)

The main treatise in this book is the investigation of our sinful nature. It will help us reflect and examine our own hearts. As this nature is universal, it is as relevant now as before. Having pointed out the major defects of nominal Christianity, Wilberforce goes on to tell what real Christianity looks like. The more novel part of the book is the interaction of real Christianity and society. This shows the depth Wilberforce took issues in his thinking process and how actively he was constantly applying his faith in his daily encounters in life and events of his days. If anyone is interested in the current affairs and social development, these will be interesting insights to ponder. He also goes on to lay out the duties of Christians to one another and the wider society.

It is not an easy book to read through. The long sentences and complicated sentence structures mean that often I need to re-read. But still I have to score it with 5 stars because of how brilliant he pinpoints the issues, how eloquently and sincere he argues, and how universally applicable his observations are! For its timelessness, its impact upon the reader, and the truth that it illuminates, it is worth 5 stars! It should also be noted that this is an elegantly bound hard copy, sturdy, very portable, good size and good quality paper and print. I was pleasantly surprised!