Let’s be honest, one of the attractive features of this book is its length. It’s short. It’s only 76 pages. I managed to get through it in two grande lattes in the Balham Starbucks!

And it’s available for a little over £4 from Amazon. Though the postage costs means that you’re better of popping into your local Christian bookshop.

But neither the length nor the price of a book should be the touchstone of a book’s value. We shouldn’t just read books because they’re cheap and brief! Not unless we want to remain stunted in our Christian growth. So let me try and persuade you to read this book by giving you a flavour of its contents and a critique of its style.

Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced Conservative Minister and now committed Christian man, has written the foreword. In it he says,

‘John Piper’s succinct and superbly perceptive study of William Wilberforce deserves to become an acclaimed best seller, for it not only tells the story of a great man’s life - it also tells us how to understand the ultimate source of his greatness and happiness. Moreover, that understanding goes far deeper than the abolitionist achievements for which Wilberforce is honoured, astounding though they were. William Wilberforce’s secret, as revealed in this book, was that he made the journey from self-centredness, achievement-centredness, and political-centredness to God-centredness. And he made it with Christlike joy’. p17, Amazing Grace in the life of William Wilberforce

Aitken is right on the money. This book is not simply the celebration of a great man but a reminder that a lively Christian faith made Wilberforce the man he was.

The book consists of six main chapters and an introduction.

Wilberforce was engaged in the battle against slavery for over 46 years. That’s an extraordinary length of time to singlemindedly pursue an apparently impossible goal. And so in the introduction Piper begins by explaining that the impetus for Wilberforce’s endurance was his conviction of foundational biblical doctrines. This is not simply Piper’s personal opinion but instead is deduced from a careful reading of Wilberforce’s own thoughts in his book ‘A Practical View of Christianity’. And so, in Parliament his political enterprise was driven not by a desire for re-election but for the spiritual reformation of a nation. As Piper writes, ‘He believed with all his heart that new affections for God were the key to new morals and lasting political reformation’. And so he was not a political pragmatist but a deeply convinced Christian man.

In Chapter 1 Piper rehearses Wilberforce’s early life and in particular his conversion. He became acquainted with evangelicalism via his childhood Aunt with whom he was sent to stay after the death of his Father. He was converted to Christianity out of nominal church allegiance through an ex-school Housemaster and friend, Isaac Milner. His conversion came about through reading and discussing with Milner the ideas raised in Philip Doddridge’s ‘The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul’. For Wilberforce It was not a straightforward decision to become a Christian. He was tormented by the implications for his political life. By this time he had formed a great friendship with William Pitt, who would shortly go on to become the Prime Minister. Pitt told Wilberforce that if he became an evangelical, as opposed to a nominal churchman, he would ‘render your talents useless both to yourself and mankind’. That’s like Gordon Brown taking you to the pub and talking you out of becoming a Christian! Following what he described as his ‘great change’ Wilberforce acquired a new resolve to learn the faith. In the months of recess from Parliament he would study nine or ten hours a day, giving himself to recovering the lost ground from a wasted past.

Wilberforce wrote the following in his diary on October 28, 1787

‘God Almighty has set before me two great Objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation of Manners’ [by which he meant morality].

It would become for him his lifelong work. And so in Chapter 2 Piper takes up this aspect of his life. It soon becomes readily apparent that the abolition of the slave trade required irrepressible determination. Wilberforce faced personal, political and economic opposition. The British economy benefited hugely from the plantations in the West Indies which were manned by African slaves. There would be global political ramifications if Britain unilaterally outlawed slavery. There were many personal vested interests in the slave trade. Wilberforce not only had to cope with the painful desertion of friends but his life was threatened on more than one occasion. The victory came at 4 am on February 24, 1807. At one point, Piper writes,

the House rose almost to a man and turned towards Wilberforce in a burst of Parliamentary cheers. Suddenly, above the roar of ‘Hear, hear,’ and quite out of order, three hurrahs echoed and echoed while he sat, head bowed, tears streaming down his face’. p38 Amazing Grace

He responded by turning to his best friend, Henry Thornton and asked, ‘Well, Henry, what shall we abolish next?’

In chapter 3 Piper maintains that Wilberforce was neither a one issue man nor a man with merely an agenda for social justice. He was involved in a wide range of inititiatives that sought both the physical and spiritual good of others. Piper writes,

‘It was the very diversity of the needs and criems and injustices that confirmed his evangelical conviction that one must finally deal with the root of all these ills if one is to have a lasting and broad influence for good’. p42 Amazing Grace.

One thing the forthcoming film, ‘Amazing Grace’, neglects to emphasize is what Piper calls his ’steady relational ministry … seeking to win his unbelieving colleagues to personal faith in Jesus Christ’. His passion for unbelievers is evidenced by his conversations with friends and also his support of overseas Christian missionary activity.

Chapter 4 is an extended treatment of Wilberforce’s extraordinary perseverance. Though his Parliamentary Bills were often defeated he never was. Throughout his life Wilberforce faced four major obstacles. He endured political opposition, personal slander, family troubles and personal illness. He was often maligned and criticised for his high moral stance on various issues. He dealt with the dejection and depression of his wife, Barbara, the death of his 22 year old daughter and the desertion of his three sons from evangelical biblical faith into high church anglicanism. And he perservered despite his bad eyesight, ulcerated bowels, dependence on opium and the development of a curvature of the spine.

Piper argues in Chapter 5 that the root of Wilberforce’s endurance was not simply the cameraderie of his friends but his joy in Christ. On the occasion of Wilberforce’s death, Piper records, a man called Joseph Brown spoke in St Paul’s Church Middlesex and said of him,

He was also a most cheerful Christian. His harp appeared always to be in tune; no ‘gloomy atmosphere of a melancholy morsoeness’ surrounded him; his sun appeared to be always shining: hence he was remarkably fond of singing hymns, both in family prayer and when alone. He would say, ‘A Christian should have joy and peace in believing [Romans 15:13]: It is his duty to abound in praise’. p58 Amazing Grace

We might expect, given Piper’s obsession with ‘Christian Hedonism’, that he’d find this in Wilberforce’s life! He writes,

‘So for Wilberforce, joy was both a means of survival and perseverance on the one hand, and a deep act of sumission, obedience and worship on the other hand. Joy in Christ was commanded, And joy in Christ was the only way to flourish fruitfully through decades of temporary defeat’. p63 Amazing Grace

But Piper hasn’t imposed it. It’s all over Wilberforce’s writings as he demonstrates. But this was a joy for which Wilberforce had to labour and strive when troubled by personal struggles and by disappointments at his own failures. This perpsective on Wilberforce’s life is perhaps the greatest contribution of the book. I found myself returning to it and spontaneously asking the Lord for the same joy that enlivened and sustained Wilberforce.

Piper concludes his book in Chapter 6 by establishing that the source of Wilberforce’s joy in Christ came from the ‘great doctrines of the Bible’. Wilberforce expressed it in this way,

If we would … rejoice in Christ as triumphantly as the first Christians did; we must learn, like them to repose our enture trust in him and to adopt the language of the apostle, ‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ’ [Galatians 6:14], ‘who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’ [1 Corinthians 1:30]’

Obviously one of the great doctrines that Wilberforce so loved was the redemptive sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Wilberforce knew that the lack of spiritual affections and appetite for spiritual reformation could be attributed to the widespread influence of a spiritually destitute church and therefore widespread nominal Christianity. He knew that social reformation would only come only through personal reformation and that personal reformation would only come through the gospel of Christ. That’s why he wrote his book. He makes clear the role of justification in stimulating sanctification when he writes,

‘The true Christian … knows therefore that this holiness is not to precede his reconciliation to God, and be its cause; but to follow it, and be its effect. That, in short, it is by faith in Christ only that he is to be justified in the sight of God’. A Practical View of Christianity

This is a great little book because as Aitken says in the foreward, ‘the reader is also given a profoundly perceptive picture of how Wilberforce lived his life spiritually, from the inside’. You could pay a lot more and have to plough through more pages and still not find a book that’ll instruct you as much in the joys of knowing and serving Christ as Piper’s does.