The Quaker pastor approached William Hone (1780-1842), the skeptic, and asked him if he had ever “attentively” read the New Testament. Hone’s answer, and the subsequent conversation recorded by the pastor’s son, uncovered a problem rampant in nineteenth-century England and today, hypocrisy:

[M]y father asked Hone if he had ever attentively read the New Testament? Hone said he had, but confessed he might have done so with a mind prejudiced against its doctrine by the manifest hypocrisy of many who made great parade of reverence for its authority. My father affectionately pressed him to read it through once again, remembering that the hypocrisy of those who bore the name of Christians, or even their wickedness, could not be held by any sensible man as an argument against that truth.1

Hone made a name for himself by criticizing those “who made great parade” of the Bible’s authority but whose own lives showed little holiness. In December 1817, the government tried Hone three times after he published parodies of the Church of England Catechism, Litany, and the Athanasian Creed. Hone insisted he did not intend to ridicule the Bible but “his Majesty’s Ministers” whose corruption deserved derision. Hone escaped conviction, became a popular hero, and three years later published the Apocryphal New Testament, a collection of non-canonical texts from the early Church. In the introduction he defended Arius and rejected the notion that the Holy Spirit gave God’s Word to the Church.2

Hone spent some of the best years of his life as a religious skeptic—pointing out hypocrites and allowing their insincerity to eat away at his soul. He rejected corporate Christianity and boiled down the faith to a list of unsatisfying rules: “There was a glimmer of light in my head, but no warmth in my heart. I conceived I could be quite religious enough at home on Sunday . . . It was a maxim with me that ‘Conduct is Worship,’ and to do what is right is all that God requires.”3 Then, in broke the gospel. On New Year’s Day, 1832, Hone experienced an evangelical conversion. What happened?

Criticism levied against his Apocryphal New Testament led him to a more careful reading of the genuine New Testament. By one account, after perusing a biblical text he remarked to himself, “[T]here is more in one verse here than in a whole page of the Greek Philosophers.”4 According to historian Timothy Larsen, Hone had “a fresh encounter with the person and teachings of Jesus.”5

The Spirit of God finally broke the grip of hypocrisy. During a sermon by missionary John Campbell, Hone became convinced of Christ’s divinity. Then, Congregationalist pastor Thomas Binney, on January 1, 1832, called Hone to repentance and faith: “Through the Minister, Mr. Binney, a startling summons was delivered to me in the course of the sermon, and I came away with my mind disturbed, but deeply solemnized . . . it pleased God to break down my self-will, and enable me to surrender my heart to Him.”6

In short, Hone may still have been surrounded by hypocrites, but God’s Word—read, preached, and anointed by the Holy Spirit—led him to think less about the sin of others and more about his own sin. For the remaining ten years of his life, by all accounts Hone persevered in the faith, and on his birthday, two years after his conversion, he wrote a poem giving God the glory for his change of heart: “To scorn Thy Word, or aid Thy foes, / Is quelled, my God, by Thee!”7
Footnotes:
1

Timothy Larsen, Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford: Oxford University, 2006), 45. William Houghton argued the Victorians of nineteenth-century England would have pled guilty to one vice: hypocrisy. “Conformity, moral pretension, and evasion—those are the hallmarks of Victorian hypocrisy.” See Walter E. Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870 (New Haven: Yale University, 1957), 394-395. Perhaps such an admission is understandable. English Christians of this era were known for attacking the ills—and sins—of society. See “What Shall Be Done about the Condition of England,” in Herbert Schlossberg, The Silent Revolution and the Making of Victorian England (Columbus: Ohio State University, 2000), 156. However, as Christians transformed the country in the name of God, their own lives received greater scrutiny.
2

Larsen, 37.
3

Ibid., 34.
4

Quoted in ibid., 44.
5

Ibid. Careful reading also encouraged Hone to rethink his rejection of Christianity. The Lord particularly used Remains by Richard Cecil (1748-1810), which included a biography of the evangelical pastor. Cecil grew up in a Christian family before becoming, in later life, an “apostle of infidelity.” However, Cecil did not remain lost. He struggled with mind and heart to apprehend the truths of Christianity, and his story proved compelling for Hone. Ibid., 45-46.
6

Ibid., 47.
7

Ibid., 48.

article adopted from Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located on Rt. 40 across from the Principio Health Center.