William Wilberforce called him my favorite poet. Now you would think Wilberforce was talking about

John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, and that mentor in Wilberforce's life, but he wasn't.

He was talking about John Newton's him writing colleague

William Cooper. Now the first thing we need to say about Cooper is how to

pronounce his last name. It's not pronounced like it looks, it's spelled COWP-W-P-E-R, but it's William Cooper.

He was born in 1731. His father was actually one of King George II's chaplains. His mother was related to John

Dunn, the poet. And at one point in his life, Cooper is going to say, there is in me I believe more of the done than of the

Cooper. Well if William Wilberforce is a judge calling him his favorite poet

then Cooper was right in that assessment and we have the poet

done inside of Cooper. At just the age of six, Williams' mother died. He was sent

off to a boarding school. This was not a good

experience for him. He was treated badly there, ostracized. It was a difficult

time for him. Finally he was able to leave there. By the time he was 18 he became an apprentice in order to become a lawyer.

He spent the next decade in training for that and he was about to be examined for his position

in law and it was at that time and he had significant difficulties,

had been battling depression and it was just at this time that he had a mental breakdown.

He was sent into a mental hospital in those days they were called

Asylums. Well one day at the asylum

Cooper found a Bible on a bench and he opened it up and he read it. He turned to the account of Lazarus being raised from the dead and he said this showed him the mercy of the savior.

He then knew he had to go to Romans and so he turned to Romans 325 and there he read

Whom God put forward as a propetiation by his blood to be received by faith, this was to show God's righteousness.

It was upon reading this verse that Cooper says he was immediately converted.

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