Of all the lessons that we could draw out of these truths, let me close with just one, and hope that you will make others to your own heart.

Since external conformity of unbelievers to God’s designs of justice and honesty does in one way delight the heart of God, it was right of William Wilberforce to devote 20 years of his life in Parliament to the abolition of English slave trading, even though the great majority of those merchants who gave up the trade did it under constraint and not for any holy reasons at all. It was the work of God’s grace that rid England of the barbarisms of the African slave trade. And therefore the Lord looked down with delight February 22, 1807, when the House of Commons passed the decisive bill.

He delighted most in the living power of holiness in the life of Wilberforce and Henry Thornton as they embraced one another and frolicked in the snow like schoolboys outside the chamber.

And, in a different and mysterious way, God also delighted in the shell of holiness that took shape in English society when it was purged of the slave trade once and for all. For he delights in the work of his hands.

John Wesley, the great evangelist, wrote to Wilberforce to strengthen his hand in God. He said,

Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils, but if God be for you who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? Oh, be not weary in well-doing.

There are battles to be fought today in America against manifold injustices and indecencies. May the Lord give us wisdom to know whether we are called to fight like Wesley or to fight like Wilberforce.

via The Pleasure of God in Public Justice – Desiring God.