1635 WILLIAM WILBERFORCE. Personal Copy of Treatise on Beauty & Usefulness of the Sabbath.

A wonderful and personally meaningful volume from the personal library of abolitionist, William Wilberforce.  William Wilberforce considered the disciple and gift of a weekly Sabbath as the great delight and safeguard of the genuinely Christian life. He was, especially when young, deeply tempted to ambition and reputation; but, says he, “Blessed be to God for the day of rest and religious occupation wherein earthly things assume their true size and ambition is stunted.” Elsewhere he says: "O what a blessing is Sunday, interposed between the waves of worldly business like the divine path of the Israelites through the sea! There is nothing in which I would advise you to be more strictly conscientious than in keeping the Sabbath day holy. I can truly declare that to me the Sabbath has been invaluable." In his most influential written work, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System, from beginning to end, he insists the degradation of Sabbath is one of the primary causes of the s