"FEW writers had as great an influence, direct and indirect, upon the religious spirit of the eighteenth century as William Law," wrote Professor J C Reid in an introduction to Law's most famous work, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Reid speaks of it as "one of the most important devotional books of post-Reformation England".
By the beginning of the nineteenth century at least twenty editions had appeared and the book is still in print today. In recent years, it has formed the basis for a series of radio talks broadcast by evangelicals in South East Asia.
Samuel Johnson was just one contemporary affected by the book. He describes taking it up sceptically but soon finding it "Quite an overmatch for me". It caused him to think earnestly of religion for the first time.
More significantly, it greatly influenced many used in the Evangelical Revival, so much so that Law has sometimes been referred to as "the father of Methodism" and his book as the first impulse to the revival.
This comes as a surprise when we realise that Law and his book were certainly not evangelical. John Wesley disagreed strongly with Law on many things but he continued to praise the Serious Call until the end of his life, calling it "a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equalled, either for beauty of expression or depth of thought". He had most of it republished and it was a set text at the Kingswood School.
Charles Wesley, who like John, consulted Law personally, was similarly impressed. Whitefield also, when he eventually found an affordable copy, declared how through it "God worked powerfully upon my soul, as he has since upon many others."
Henry Venn, Thomas Scott and other evangelicals were also influenced by it. One clergyman, in 1771, spoke of his parish being transformed after he presented copies to his parishioners.
The fourth son of a devout grocer, Law was born in King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, in 1686. After becoming a fellow at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, he became a deacon in 1711 and looked forward to the life of an academic and clergyman. However, in 1715, George I came to the throne and Law found himself unable to abjure the Stuarts and swear allegiance to the Hanoverian King. He threw in his lot with the nonjurors, originally a group of four hundred Anglican clergy who refused to swear allegiance to King William and Queen Mary in 1689. In their eyes the Stuarts were still the rightful heirs to the throne.
Action against these men was not over severe but they were deprived of their livings. Always few, they were conscientious and often able men who argued for the separation of church and state. Law knew that to identify with them would be costly and unpopular.
It is not known what Law did immediately after this but in 1723 he moved to Putney where he became a private tutor and chaplain in the house of Edward Gibbon, grandfather of the famous historian. The historian spoke later of Law as a "worthy and pious man who believed all that he professed, and practised all that he enjoined".
In 1727 he was ordained by a nonjuror Bishop and that same year used a gift to found a school for girls in his home town. In 1740 he returned home to live in the house inherited from his father. Here he led a secluded and ascetic life with a Miss Gibbon, aunt of the historian, and a Mrs Hutcheson, a wealthy widow.
Together they formed a charitable religious community that founded schools, libraries and an almshouse. They lived out much of what is found in A Serious Call.
This had been published in 1728. Two years previously the similar Treatise Upon Christian Perfection had appeared. His much later The Spirit of Prayer (1750) and The Spirit of Love (1752) are quite different works, being mystical in their tenor, under the influence of the unorthodox Lutheran, Jacob Boehme.
Law died, aged 75, in 1761. A Serious Call is High Anglican in flavour. It makes use of canonical hours, commends the cloistered life, encourages reverence for the Virgin Mary and commends the use of a crucifix. It has also been fairly accused of a Pelagian tendency, although it does acknowledge that "we cannot lift up a hand, or stir a foot, but by a power that is leant us from God".
By use of plain logic, deft caricature and powerful irony, it gives a sober call to holy living. It rejects the prevalent formalism and calls for dedication, discipline and devotion. It humbles pride and encourages devotion. It gives guidance on prayer, self-examination, meditation and preparation for death.
Peter Toon, after pointing out where it is wanting, says: "However, for what it sets out to do, it is a classic and still has the power to move any Christian reader to a greater devotion to the Lord Jesus."
With such statements as, "Christianity is a calling that puts an end to all other callings", "Nothing less has been required to take away the guilt of our sins than the sufferings and death of the Son of God", "Nothing makes us love a man like praying for him", we can understand how it was used of God to bring the early Methodists to conviction of sin. It was not enough, perhaps, to bring them to faith, but it did point them in the right direction.
We end with a longer quotation of one striking passage:
"The Son of God did not come from above to add an external form of worship to the several ways of life that are in the world, and so to leave people to live as they did before in such tempers and enjoyments as the spirit of the world approves. But as He came down from heaven, altogether divine and heavenly in His own nature, so it was to call mankind to a divine and heavenly life, to the highest change of their whole nature and temper; to be born again of the Holy Spirit; to walk in the wisdom and light and love of God; and to be like Him to the utmost of their power; to renounce all the most plausible ways of the world, whether of greatness, business or pleasure; to a mortification of their most agreeable passions. . . . This and this alone, is Christianity, an universal holiness in every part of life."
This article first appeared in The Evangelical Library Bulletin
