This is a quote from Wilberforce's book referenced in the last post concerning the unwillingness of most Christians to study the Bible with intellectual rigor (i.e. - to love the Lord with all our minds):
"It were needless to multiply arguments in order to prove how criminal the voluntary ignorance of which we have been speaking must appear in the sight of God. It must be confessed by all who believe that we are accountable creatures, and to such only the writer is addressing himself, that we shall have to answer hereafter to the Almighty for all the means we have here enjoyed of improving ourselves, or of promoting the happiness of others. If, when summoned to give an account of our stewardship, we shall be called upon to answer for the use which we have made of our bodily organs, and of our means of relieving the wants of our fellow-creatures; how much more the the exercise of the nobler faculties of our nature, of invention, memory, and judgment, and for our employment of every instrument and opportunity of diligent application and serious reflection and honest decision! And to what subject might we in all reason be expected to apply more earnestly than to that wherein our own eternal interests are at issue? When God of his goodness hath vouchsafed to grant us such abundant means of instruction, in that which we are most concerned to know, how great must be the guilt, and how awful the punishment of voluntary ignorance!
"And why are we in this pursuit alone to expect knowledge without enquiry, and success without endeavor? The whole analogy of nature inculcates a different lesson; and our own judgments, in matters of temporal interest and worldly policy, confirm the truth of her suggestions. Bountiful as is the hand of Providence, its gifts are not so bestowed as to seduce us into indolence, but to rouse us to exertion; and no one expects to attain to the height of learning or arts or power or wealth or military glory, without vigorous resolution and strenuous diligence and steady perseverance. Yet we expect to be Christians without labour, study, or enquiry! This is the more preposterous, because Christianity, being a revelation from God, and not the invention of man, discovering to us new relations, with their correspondent duties, containing also doctrines, motives, and precepts peculiar to itself; we cannot reasonably expect to become proficients in it by the accidental intercourses of life, as might might learn insensibly the maxims of worldly policy or a scheme of mere morals."
(A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity, pp. 99-100)
Ouch.
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2 comments:
I, too, was inspired by Wilberforce and the recent movie, Amazing Grace. I also read "A Practical View . ." and thought it was wonderful. I may not be the perfect Christian, but I was very inspired. I marvelled at the fruits produced by this man, so I thought I should try to read and be influenced by whetever he wrote.
I understand this book is in the public domain, but hard to find free in the internet in an accessible and readable electronic form. I am therefore trying to make this book available free. I worked very hard on this, so donations are welcome, but more than anything else I just wanted people to read it. I like to read books on my PDA. I thought you and others might also appreciate a "searchable" electronic text.
I made links to download it in several formats at http://dougbuck.blogspot.com
3/28/07 entry.
I may have given the wrong URL for the free Wilberforce e-book, silly me:
It should be http://dougbuck.journalspace.com.
click here.
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