The Truly Christian Life
Chapter Four
A Serious Cau To a DEvout AND Hoy LIFE
The Profound Influence of This Book
Biographical Notes
1. RELIGIoUS INDIFFERENCE OF THE TIMES 2. Law's Lire anp OuTLooK
3. A Cuotce DictaTeD By CONSCIENCE 4. ""A MASTER OF ENGLISH PROSE"
Part I
The Truly Christian Life
CHRISTIANS NECESSARILY DIFFERENT Hoty Livinc SERIOUS INTENTIONS A Happy Lire Money AND TIME, A STEWARDSHIP
A Serious Call Needed Today
Part II
Instructions on Prayer—Hours and Topics
EarLy Morninc—PRAISE AND ADORATION Nine O'cLock—HvuMILITY
TWELVE O'cLOCK—LOVE AND INTERCESSION THREE O'cLockK—Doine Gop's WILL Six O'cLocK—SELF-EXAMINATION AND REPENTANCE Bep TimE—CoMMITMENT To Gop
NANO pwnd
Conclusion
What youth attending a national or international Christian student conference the first half of this century did not hear John R. Mott (Methodist layman and Christian statesman) stress the importance of daily devotions? Invariably followed the recommendation that every young person read William 'Law's A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy
Life, which, Dr. Mott testified, influenced him to give his life to the cause of Christ.
J.B.
Chapter four
A SERIOUS Call to a
OEVOUT and holy life
the Influence of this Book
Few English books of devotion have exercised so great an influence as this enthusiastic appeal, with which in 1729 William Law broke in upon the religious apathy of the eighteenth century.1
Of special interest to Methodists should be the facts that Law was at one time John Wesley's spiritual adviser and that Wesley said that it was Law's book that convinced him "of the impossibility of being half a Christian," while "Charles Wesley is said, at one time, to have meditated on his writings 'day and night.' "'* This influence on the Wesleys, however, was far more than personal in its outreach. In fact, one biographer goes so far as to say that Mr. Law '"'by his excellent pen'"* did more than any other person to promote the great religious revival that gave Methodism its birth.
1F, W. Drake, Masters of the Spiritual Life (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1916), p. 134. Used by permission.
2Ibid., p. 145. 3Arthur W. Hopkinson, About William Law (London: Society for Propagation of Christian Knowledge, 1948), p. 124. Used by permission.
4R. Newton Flew, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology (London: Oxford University Press, 1934), p. 314. Used by permission.
cAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
Aldous Huxley refers to William Law as the "most surprising product of the English 18th century'' and adds this interesting comment: How very odd our educational system is! Students of English literature are forced to read the graceful journalism of Steele and Addison, are expected to know all about the minor novels of Defoe and the tiny eloquences of Matthew Prior. But they can pass all their examinations summa cum laude without having so much as looked into the writings of a man who was not only a master of English prose, but also one of the most interesting thinkers of his period and one of the most endearingly saintly figures in the whole history of Anglicanism.®
Another who was extravagant in his testimony as to the effect of the book upon his own life was Samuel Johnson, who confessed, ''I took up Law's Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life expecting to find it a dull book (as such books generally are) and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an overmatch for me.'® He adds that after reading the book he began for the first time to take religion seriously. That is just what William Law wanted—that people should take religion seriously. His purpose was not so much to convert the sinner as to fan into a flame that tiny "spark of piety'' that might be latent in the hearts of lukewarm and indifferent Christians. Perhaps that is why in this our own
SAldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New York: Harper & Bros., 1945), p. 177. Used by permission.
8J. V. Moldenhawer, Introduction to A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, by William Law (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1948), p. xv. Used by permission. "Henri Talon, William Law—A Study in Literary Craftsmanship (New York: Harper & Bros., 1949), p. 30. Used by permission.
cA SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE
day, characterized by Frank Laubach as a period of world-wide "'spiritual depression—in power, in faith, in prayer, and in love,'* an effort is being made to bring this time-honored classic from its hiding place on the book shelves of saints and scholars to the ordinary people of our workaday world. .
BloGRaphical Notes
RELIGIOUS INdIffeRENcE Of TIMES
William Law came into the world in a century that was lacking in religious fervor and power. The laity as a whole was not openly antagonistic, though some definitely scorned religion. The majority, perhaps, made of it simply a matter of convenience for this world and a means of gaining a desired reward in the next.
This unhappy combination of religious indifference on the part of the people and spiritual lethargy among the clergy resulted in a situation which some writers felt was decidedly hopeless. William Law came upon the scene to declare in no uncertain terms that Christianity was the most real and worth-while thing in the world; moreover, that it did not have to be proved, as some had asserted, but rather that it had to be lived! law's life ano Outlook
The fourth of eleven children, Law was born in 1686, in the small and secluded village of King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, England. His father was a merchant and 8Frank C. Laubach, A Call to Spiritual Advance (Cincinnati: Woman's Division of Christian Service, 1952), p. 4.
eAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
from all accounts a fine and worthy man. Some writers think that William Law's PATERNUS, in A Serious Call, was an attempted likeness of his own father, Thomas Law, while EuseBIA was a similar effort to portray his mother.
William Law was no more of a weakling physically than he was intellectually or spiritually. Looking at him through the eyes of various authors, we see a tall, keeneyed and broad-shouldered man, a bit inclined to plumpness. In mental strength he towered above most of his contemporaries, and like many other men of that caliber was "often impatient of foolishness' yet exercised "more than exemplary patience towards persons. . . ."® Because of his plain-spoken manner, and the fact that the very nature of his message called for strong and almost harsh words, he was by some considered grim and unfriendly. He fits best, perhaps, in the category of those whose admirers are many but whose friends are few—a status that evidently satisfied him, for it is said that "he found his own company his best company, and craved no other."*® The thing that recommends him most highly as the author of a book dealing with life on the superlatively high level set forth in A Serious Call is that there is no doubt as to his own sincerity and singleness of purpose, and that as he wrote, so he lived. Here was a man who really "treated God seriously." The highest compliment that one could hope for was paid to him after his death which occurred in 1761, by Edward Gibbon. The historian said, "He left the reputation of a ®Moldenhawer, op. cit., p. xxiii. 10Hopkinson, op. cit., p. 11.
cA SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE
worthy and pious man, who believed all that he professed and practised all that he enjoined.'"** And Gibbon had opportunity to know, since Law was for some years a tutor in his father's home.
Interested from early life in education and religion, William Law went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he obtained a sizarship (comparable to our scholarship) in 1705. Ordination as a deacon and election to the position of fellow of his college followed in due time, and it seemed that he was well on his way to success in a life for which he was eminently fitted— that of a ''studious, celibate. . college don." But, in the words of Talon, "Providence would have it otherwise." . a CHOICE OICTAtEd BY CONSCIENCE
A new monarch, George I, came to the throne of England. Because of the relationship between Church and State, there arose the question of the oath of allegiance to the new dynasty. William Law was not the only churchman who had to face this issue and make a decision. His choice, conscientiously made, automatically placed him in a group known as the "nonjurors," briefly and aptly described by Hopkinson as "men swayed by conscience, who disqualified themselves for public and official positions, and were content to serve God and their neighbour in obscurity,""* rather than swear allegiance to a ruling house which they considered usurpers. The exacting nature of his conscience is further re-
11Drake, op. cit., p. 142. 12Talon, op. cit., p. 3. 13Hopkinson, op. cit., p. 11.
eAN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
vealed in a letter which he wrote to his brother, George, about this time: My prospect, indeed. . .is melancholy enough. . . .The benefits of my education seem partly at an end, but that same education had been more miserably lost if I had not learnt to fear something more than misfortune.'*
For fourteen years following this decision, William Law lived in the home of Mr. Edward Gibbon at Putney, as a tutor to his son who later became the father of the historian already mentioned. It was in this rather circumscribed life, then, that Law found his great opportunity. The quiet and seclusion gave him what he needed, and as a result he no doubt reached more people with his message than if he had remained in the field of his original choice.
God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. . . .15
William Law did not simply drift into his life work. Numerous books and treatises came from his ready pen, but it is with A Serious Call, considered by many his master work, that we are now concerned. law's style —"a master Of English prose"
To make his points clear, Law draws for his readers the character sketches for which he has become famous, and which Hopkinson compares with the parables of J. H. Overton, William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1881), p. 13. Used by permission.
William Cowper (see The Methodist Hymnal, No. 68).
cA SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE
Jesus, calling them "hypodermic needles of truth," adding that they will never be forgotten so long as English literature survives. Of course, all these characters are fictitious. Yet every sincere reader will feel as he gazes upon the infirmities and inconsistencies of William Law's make-believe characters that he is in the position of a man walking (so he thinks) toward another man, and, suddenly finding himself face to face with himself in a mirror, realizes "Thou art the man' (II Sam. iz), The question has been asked, Why is it that William Law speaks so often from a negative point of view? Why does he so persistently show up the inconsistencies and weaknesses of his characters rather than the strong points and commendable virtues, which to some extent they must have had? One answer could be that he felt that by so doing he might help his readers avoid acquiting some of these very undesirable characteristics. He himself says, "...as we best learn the nature of things by looking at that which is contrary to them; so perhaps we best apprehend the excellency of wisdom by contemplating the wild extravagance of folly." Another and different reason has been given by J. V. Moldenhawer in his Introduction to A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, published by The Westminster Press. He says: Law was heartily sick of the whole lot of these pleasant-mannered, self-satisfied, and half-empty Christians. He had had all he could bear of these various examples of half-hearted loyalty that he proceeded to draw in a whole series of painfully accurate portraits of typical eighteenth century Church members. And the astonishing fact is that these unflattering likenesses have never be-
«AN INTRODUCTION TO FIVE SPIRITUAL CLASSICS
come "dated." With changes of only a word or two in each, these "'characters'' slip into place in the twentieth century without splitting a single seam of their perfectly fitting garments.'®
Repetition of words and phrases as well as of thought strikes the reader immediately. To some, this redundance is annoying; others revel in the ''solemn and yet pressing rhythm''*' and detect in it the urgency of Law's message. It is because he is so in earnest, and so eager for his readers to find "the way" that he says the same thing over and over, and yet over again.
The forthright manner in which he expresses his truth is tempered by such an abundance of keen wit to liven up his words of weighty wisdom that some who have opened A Serious Call from a sense of duty have found themselves reading on in sheer enjoyment.
ParT [| the truly Christian life A one-sentence summary of the message of this book might well find expression in a slight paraphrase of Romans 12:1: "I beseech you therefore. . that ye present your...{all} a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service'; or in that companion passage from I Corinthians, which is closely akin in thought if not in form: '""Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God" (I Cor. 10:31). With William Law there was no compromise, no equivocation, no deviation from the 16Moldenhawer, op. cit., pp. xvi-xvii. 17Talon, op. cit., p. 24. ued