Joy in the battle

Abolition and the roots of public justice | John Piper

One of the most important and least known facts about the battle to abolish the slave trade in Britain 200 years ago is that it was sustained by a passion for the doctrine of justification by faith alone. William Wilberforce was a spiritually exuberant and doctrinally rigorous evangelical. He battled tirelessly in Parliament for the outlawing of the British slave trade. It was doctrine that nourished the joy that sustained the battle that ended the vicious trade.

The key to understanding Wilberforce is to read his own book, A Practical View of Christianity. There he argued that the fatal habit of his day was to separate Christian morals from Christian doctrines. His conviction was that there is "perfect harmony between the leading doctrines and the practical precepts of Christianity." He had seen the devastating effects of denying this: "The peculiar doctrines of Christianity went more and more out of sight, and . . . the moral system itself also began to wither and decay, being robbed of that which should have supplied it with life and nutriment." But Wilberforce knew that "the whole superstructure of Christian morals is grounded on their deep and ample basis."