In the closing years of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth century, there existed a coterie of well-to-do and educated men, living for the most part in Clapham, who, because of their Christian views and benevolent activities, were nicknamed the Clapham Sect. They were not a religious body, being mostly members of the Church of England. They seem to have stimulated each other to faith and good works. Prominent among them was William Wilberforce, a brief account of whose life will illustrate in a striking way how Christianity influenced the whole of society in the early days of this century and was the real motive power behind the amelioration of many gross evils prevalent at the time.
Wilberforce, the son of a wealthy merchant of Hull, was born in 1759. While touring Europe with Isaac Milner, an earnest Christian, who afterwards became Dean of Carlisle, he came under deep conviction of sin. After months of depression, he cried, “God be merciful to me a sinner” (Luke 18:1313And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. (Luke 18:13)). Having received the assurance in his soul of divine pardon, he felt he could do nothing but devote his life and energy to the One who loved him. This found expression in a solemn resolve to devote his life to the emancipation of the slaves. This awful traffic in flesh and blood had long preyed upon his mind, and now love to God led him to devote himself to the cause of the poor, downtrodden Negroes. The first result was the abolition of slave trading in 1807 under the British flag. For nearly fifty years he labored, and it was not till he lay on his deathbed that the message came that by Act of Parliament the slaves were freed. “Thank God,” cried the dying man, “thank God I have lived to see this day.” His labors in this cause were a thank offering for his own salvation.
Wilberforce was not simply a humanitarian or he could have no place in this history. Although he conceived it his duty to follow a parliamentary career, his outlook was unworldly. After his conversion, he had his name removed from all of his five clubs. Cards, dancing and such like amusements no longer appealed to him. “I think,” he wrote to his sister in 1787, “the tendency of the theater most pernicious.”
“How vain and foolish all the conversation of great dinners; nothing worth remembering. ... How ill suited is all this to me! How unnatural for one who professes himself a stranger and a pilgrim.” He seems to have continued to move in society because he hoped and believed he might help others and that he might use his influence to further the cause which now became a dominating motive in his life, the abolition of slavery. And he was still welcomed everywhere, in spite of his unworldliness, because of his graciousness and sincerity.
He was very concerned about the difficulty of providing sufficient Bibles. He had himself given money to purchase them for distribution. His diary records a meeting with a few friends at a breakfast table to discuss “Bible Society formation.” A little later, in 1804, the plan was launched. He was also one of the founders of the Church Missionary Society, first discussed in his room at Battersea in 1796 and founded in 1799, largely owing to his efforts.
In 1793 (the year the war with France broke out), he began to write a tract giving his own faith and outlook. It was entitled “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christianity in the Higher and Middle Classes of This Country Contrasted With Real Christianity.” It was a solemn appeal in many ways, as one sentence will show: “This present scene, with all its cares and all its gaieties, will soon be rolled away, and we must stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” He speaks of the “clear and decisive warning” in the Scriptures that “the wicked shall be turned into hell” (Psa. 9:1717The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God. (Psalm 9:17)). He reminds his readers that “all human distinctions will soon be done away, and the true followers of Christ will all, as children of the same Father, be alike admitted to the possession of the same heavenly inheritance.”
The printer was dubious about publishing it but offered to print five hundred copies. It made an instant appeal and was reprinted many times for the next forty years. It was also translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish and Dutch.
These earnest Christian men — mostly laymen — were zealous in promoting the cause of the gospel and relieving the necessities of the poor and oppressed by all the means in their power. Being men of wealth or influence, they had numerous contacts among the higher classes, but they did not always appreciate the need for keeping Christianity and the world apart. Many societies were formed in those days for laudable objects, and one result was that benevolent but unconverted men and women of the world joined in these activities. The scriptural injunction not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers was not heeded. Unbelievers could often take part in these activities by paying a small subscription and even sit on the committees. The Continental Bible Societies came, for a time, almost wholly into the hands of Socinians and Modernists. The British Society was also affected. Owing to this state of affairs, a new society called the Trinitarian Bible Society was formed, but a purging went on in the original society and the unsound elements were eliminated.