The life of William Wilberforce / by his sons, Robert Isaac Wilberforce and Samuel Wilberforce ; abridged from the London edition by Caspar Morris.

  • Robert Isaac Wilberforce
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The life of William Wilberforce / by his sons, Robert Isaac Wilberforce and Samuel Wilberforce ; abridged from the London edition by Caspar Morris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    51/546
    Jan. 11th. To town and Woolnooth—after church, brought Mr. Newton down in chaise—dined and slept at Wimbledon —composure and happiness of a true Christian: he read the account of his poor niece's death, and shed tears of joy. 12th. Newton stayed—Thornton Astell surprised us together on the common in the evening. Expect to hear myself now universally given out to be a methodist: may God grant it may be said with truth. To his mother, who had been alarmed by some such ru- mour, he explained soon afterwards his real sentiments. It is not, believe me, to my own imagination, or to any system formed in my closet, that I look for my principles; it is to the very source to which you refer me, the Scriptures All that I contend for is, that we should really make this book the criterion of our opinions and actions, and not read it and then think that we do so of course; but if we do this, we must reckon on not finding ourselves able to comply with all those customs of the world, in which many who call themselves Christians are too apt to indulge without reflection: .... we must of course [therefore] be subject to the charge of ex- cess and singularity. But in what will this singularity con- sist 1 Not merely in indifferent things; no, in these our Saviour always conformed, and took occasion to check an unnecessary strictness into which he saw men were led by overstraining a good principle. In what then will these pe- culiarities appear 1 Take our great Master's own words ; « Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself.' It would be easy to dilate on this text; and I am afraid that we should find at the close of the discourse that the picture was very unlike the men of this world. 'But who is my neighbour?' Here, too, our Saviour has instructed us by the parable which follows. It is evident we are to consider our peculiar situations, and in these to do all the good we can. Some men are thrown into public, some have their lot in private life. These different states have their corresponding duties; and he whose destination is of the former sort, will do as ill to immure himself in solitude, as he who is only a village Hampden would, were he to head an army or address a senate. What I have said will, I hope, be sufficient to remove any apprehensions that I mean to shut myself up either in my closet in town, or in my hermi- tage in the country. No, my dear mother, in my circum- stances this would merit no better name than desertion; and
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3