Intellectual Honesty

As a part of my morning devotions, I've been reading Amazing Grace, the biography of William Wilberforce by Eric Metaxas, which was loaned to me by Ed Gorman, a dear member of our congregation. The following passage from pp. 50-51 is a description of his conversation with Isaac Milner, a literal and intellectual giant of 18th century England who engaged Wilberforce persuasively from the perspective of his evangelical faith:

"Wilberforce was through his life possessed of a rare and bracing intellectual honesty. At Cambridge he had once been asked to sign his name assenting to the articles of the Church of England. This was viewed then as a formality, one of the college's ancient requirements for receiving one's degree; everyone simply signed the document and took their degree. But Wilberforce refused. He didn't at that time agree with the official tenets of the Anglican Church, or at least wasn't sure whether he did, and therefore couldn't bring himself to sign it, which delayed his degree for several years. In an age when, just as today, most people shrugged or winked their way through such hypocrisies, Wilberforce would not.
"But now his intellectual honesty would work in the other direction. With (Isaac) Milner as his interlocutor, he examined the same tenets of orthodox Christianity to which a few years before he couldn't give his assent. He seems to have wanted to know what was true, but until now had been unable to find out to his satisfaction. He knew that if he discovered a truth to his satisfaction he would have no choice but to embrace it and act upon it. Just as he wouldn't sign the paper assenting to beliefs he didn't hold, he knew that if he held a belief he would be obliged to act upon it, and not just in small and isolated instances, as with that signature, but in all of his life. He knew that the tiniest mustard seed can grow and grow and become a tree in which the birds of the air make their nests. Ideas have far-reaching consequences, and one must be ever so careful about what one allows to lodge in one's brain. Now, as the conversation with Milner continued, Wilberforce could almost see the birds of the air looking domestically in his direction."