m CORNELL UNIVERSLTY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Library BX5199 .L41 William l^w. nonjuror and.mYstic,,;,,,;;; a 3 1924 029 450 669 olin Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tile Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029450669 LIFE WILLIAM LAW. LONDON : PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET WILLIAM LAW, NONJUROR AND MYSTIC : AUTHOR OF 'A SERIOUS CALL TO A DEVOUT AND HOLY LIFE' &c. FORMERLY FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. A SKETCH of HIS LIFE, CHARACTER, and OPINIONS. BY J. H. OVERTON, M.A. VICAR OF LEGBOIJRNE, NON-RESIDENTIARY CANON OF LINCOLN CATHEDRAL ; FORMERLY SCHOLAR OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD ; AND JOINT-AUTHOR OF 'THE ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.' LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1881. All rights reserved. PREFACE. A. HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS have ekpsed since the death of Mr. Law ; but happily there are still living several of his name and lineage, without whose sanction and assistance this work could never have been written. I desire, therefore, to express my thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Law, of the Hall Yard, King's Cliffe, to Miss Law, also of King's Cliffe, and to Mr. Farmery Law, of Stamford, all lineal descendants of Mr. George Law, the eldest brother of the subject of the present biography ; to the Rev. Henry Law, Vicar of Clacton-on-Sea, a lineal descendant of Mr. Thomas Law, second brother of the same : in a word, to all the Law family, to whom I am indebted, not only for valuable information, but also for full permission to make use of all the private documents which bear upon my subject ; also to the Rev. Richard Massey, Curate in sole charge of King's Cliffe, who has helped me -in various ways in my researches at Cliffe; also to the Master (Dr. Phear) and the Librarian (Dr. Pearson) of Emmanuel College, Cambridge ; also to my late colleague, the Rev. Charles John Abbey, who might vi Preface. fairly have claimed my subject as his own, inasmuch as William Law fell mainly to his province in our joint work on the Eighteenth Century, but who, with the courtesy and generosity which he has always shown, at once gave up the subject to me when I told him that I desired to write upon it. I have referred in my foot-notes to the late Mr. Walton's ' Notes and Materials for an adequate Biography of the celebrated Divine, William Law,' whenever I have made use of that most industriously compiled work ; but my obligations to the writer are so great that they require a special acknowledgment. I am still more indebted to the Chetham Society, whose useful labours have rendered accessible our best sources of information respecting Mr. Law's per- sonal habits and conversation. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Introductory' i II. Law's Early Years 5 III. Law and the Bangorian Controversy . . .18 IV. The Fable of the Bees 31 v. 'The Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainments,' and ' Christian Perfection ' 37 VI. Law's Life at Putney 50 VII. The 'Serious Call' 98 VIII. The 'Case of Reason,' etc., against Tindal . . 120 IX. Law on the Roman Question 129 X. On Mysticism and Mystics 140 XI. On Jacob Behmen 179 XII. General Remarks on Mysticism 200 XIII. Law's Life at King's Cliffe 220 XIV. Law's Later Theology 248 XV. Law on the Sacraments 280 XVI. 'Answer to Dr. Trapp,' and 'Appeal to All that Doubt, etc' 293 viii Contents. CHAPTER PAGE XVII. 'The Spirit of Prayer' and 'The Spirit of Love' . 312 XVIII. Law on Warburton's ' Divine Legation ' . . . 323 XIX. Law as a Correspondent 334 XX. Law's Friends in his Later Years 350 XXI. Law's Opponents 376 XXII. Law on Systems Kindred to Mysticism . . . . 406 XXIII. Law's Last Work, and Death 430 INDEX 457 LI FE OF THE REV. WILLIAM LAW, MA. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. The name of William Law is so unfamiliar to the present generation that it may be necessary to give some reasons why his life should be written at all. That he was one of the ablest of theological writers in a period remarkably fertile in theological literature ; that he lived a pure and conscientious life of Christian self-denial, at a time of great spiritual deadness ; that he influenced the generation in which he lived, indirectly but very really, as much or more than any man of his day ; that his whole character, moral, intellectual, and social, was a singularly taking one ; that he was, in his later years, almost the only notable repre- sentative in England of a phase of Christianity which has attracted and helped to form many saintly characters ; — these, in themselves might be insufficient reasons for introducing an almost forgotten man of genius to a public which is perhaps already bewildered by the multitude of claimants upon its attention. ■ But the life and writings of William Law are of so striking and suggestive a character that they really ought B Introductory. not to be allowed to pass into oblivion. He would have been a remarkable man in any age, but he was doubly re- markable when we think of him as belonging to an age which took its philosophy from Locke, its theology from Tillotson, and its politics from Walpole : an age which had hardly any sympathy with any of the phases of his charac- ter. For he stood singularly apart from his contemporaries, though he influenced them so deeply. His Churchmanship differed from that of the typical Churchman of his day as light does from darkness ; it was not even like that of his non-juring contemporaries, who were as much concerned with politics as with theology. The life which he recom- mended in his practical treatises, and lived himself to the very letter, was about as different as one can conceive from the easy-going life of the eighteenth century ; while even those who were stirred to the inmost depths of their spiritual nature by the ' Serious Call,' did not, as a rule, become like-minded with the author. What in him took the form of a benevolent tranquillity, in them took the form of a benevolent activity. His later phase of so-called mysticism aroused, outside a very small coterie, an almost universal feeling of unmitigated disgust. In fact, Law was as one born out of due time ; he may be regarded as a relic of the past, or as an anticipation of the future, but of his own present he was an utterly abnormal specimen. To come across such a man in the midst of his surroundings is, to borrow the admirable simile of a writer of our own day,' like coming across an old Gothic cathedral with its air of calm grandeur and mellowed beauty in the midst of the staring red-brick buildings of a brand-new manufacturing town ; and, it may be added, the feeling with which he was re- garded by many of his contemporaries was something like that with which some nouveau riche might regard such a • Miss Julia Wedgwood. Introductory. building, grudging it the space it occupied, which, in his view, might be more advantageously occupied by a manu- factory or a Mechanics' Institute. The present work has been undertaken, partly because the writer thinks that such a character as that of William Law will find more sympathisers now than it did in his own day ; but chiefly because he believes that Law's life and writings possess more than a mere historical interest. Law anticipated many of the difficulties which weigh upon the minds of thoughtful people nowadays, and answered' them, if not always satisfactorily, yet always in a way that deserves and will command the most careful attention. And his character is just such a one as it is important in the interests of Christianity to bring into prominence. When ■ Christianity is represented by some as adapted only for minds of the second order (except for the temporal advan- tages it may bring), it will be well to call attention to one whose intellect was undeniably of the highest order, and whose intense conviction of the truth of Christianity was obviously stimulated by no interested motive. When re- ligion is assumed by others to be the special province of women and children, a Christian character of a singularly robust and masculine type may be a useful study. It is strange that no adequate biography of so eminent a man as Law should have been written in the generation after his death. But it is by no means to be regretted that none was written ; for it could hardly have failed to be un- satisfactory. Law was one of those men of strong opinions and independent character who call forth vehement sym- pathy and vehement antipathy. It would have been all but impossible for a contemporary, or one who was nearly a contemporary, to take a calm and dispassionate estimate of such a man. Even if the writer's own views were not distorted by prejudice on one side or the other, he would B 2 Introductory. have found it difficult to obtain sufficient information from unbiassed sources to enable him to form a fair estimate of the real value of the man and his work. The time has now arrived, however, when Law can be viewed in the dry light of history ; when we ought to be misled neither by the glamour with which his friends surrounded him, nor by the prejudices which prevented his opponents from doing him justice ; when, in short, we ought to be able to take him for what he was— a thorough man, full of human infirmities, but a grand specimen of humanity, and a noble monument of the power of divine grace in the soul. If the following sketch of one of the finest minds and most interesting characters of the eighteenth century fail to prove both at- tractive and instructive, the fault will lie, not in the subject, but in the biographer. Laws Parentage. CHAPTER II. law's early years. William Law was born, in 1686, at King's CHffe, a large village in the north of Northaniptonshire, about seven miles ifrom Stamford. His father, Thomas Law, was a grocer ; but his social standing was different from that of an ordi- nary village tradesman in the present day.* The Laws are a family of high respectability and of good means. We find the head of the family, so far back as three generations earlier than the subject of this biography, technically described as ' George Law, Gentleman.' Thomas Law married Margaret Farmery, a Lincolnshire lady. The name of Farmery was evidently much thought of in the Law family, for it reappears over and over again as a Christian name of various members. Eight sons and three daughters were the issue of this marriage, viz., George, Thomas, Giles, William, Nathaniel, Benjamin, Farmery, Christopher, Isabel, Margaret, and Ann. If there be any truth in the tradition that the ' Paternus ' of the ' Serious Call ' was William Law's own father, and the ' Eusebia ' his widowed mother, he must have been singularly blessed in his parents. At any rate, it is plain that they brought up their large family well, for none of them appear to have given their ' Professor Fowler, in his Life of Locke ('English Men of Letters') rightly remarks that there was not so marked a distinction between the lesser gentry and the tradesmen in the seventeenth century as there is at the present day. • His Early Piety. parents any trouble. William Law tells us himself that up to the time of his leaving Cambridge, he ' had hitherto en- joyed a large share of happiness,' and in a short account of his life prefixed to an American edition of the ' Serious Call ' we are told that ' his education and early years of his life were very serious.' That this was the case is evident from a document found among his papers in his own hand- writing, which is entitled ' Rules for my Future Conduct,' and which was probably drawn up by him on entering the University.' As these rules throw light upon his character in his youth they are worth quoting : — I. To fix it deep in my mind that I have but one business upon my hands^ — to seek for eternal happiness by doing the will of God. II. To examine everything that relates to me in this view, as it serves or obstructs this only end of life. III. To think nothing great or desirable because the world thinks it so ; but to form all my judgments of things from the infallible Word of God, and direct my life according to it IV. To avoid all concerns with the world, or the ways of it, but where religion requires. V. To remember frequently, and impress it upon my mind deeply, that no condition of this life is for enjoyment, but for trial ; and that every power, ability, or advantage we have, are all so many talents to be accounted for to the Judge of aU the world. VI. That the greatness of human nature consists in nothing else but in imitating the divine nature. That therefore all the great- ness of this world, which is not in good actions, is perfectly beside the point. VII. To remember, often and seriously, how much of time is inevitably thrown away, from which I can expect nothing but the charge of guilt ; and how little there may be to come, on which an eternity depends. VIII. To avoid all excess in eating and drinking. IX. To spend as little time as I possibly can among such persons as can receive no benefit from me nor I from them. ' See Notes, dfc, for a Biography of William Law, printed for private circulation. His Diligence at Cambridge. X. To be always fearful of letting my time slip away without some fruit. XI. To avoid all idleness. XII. To call to mind the presence of God whenever I find myself under any temptation to sin, and to have immediate recourse to prayer. XIII. To think humbly of myself, and with great charity of all others. XIV. To forbear from all evil speaking. XV. To think often of the life of Christ, and propose it as a pattern to myself. XVI. To pray privately thrice a day, besides my morning and evening prayers. XVII. To keep .from as much as I can without offence. XVIII. To spend some time in giving an account of the day, previous to evening prayer : How have I spent the day ? What sin have I committed ? What temptations have I withstood ? Have I performed all my duty ? With these excellent rules for his conduct, Law entered as a Sizar at Emnianuel College, Cambridge, in 1705. He took his B.A. degree in 1708, was elected Fellow of his College and received holy orders in 171 1, and took his M.A. in 17 1 2.' With his strong sense of duty, it is scarcely necessary to say that Law was a diligent student in his University days. He told his friend Dr. Byrom that ' he was very diligent in reading Horace &c. at Cambridge ; ' ^ and when Dr. Trap upbraided him for his want of taste for • his Virgil s, Horaces, and Terence's', he replied, ' I own when I was about eighteen, I was as fond of these books as the Doctor can well be now, and should then have been glad to have translated the Sublime Milton, if I had found myself able. But,' he adds, ' this ardour soon went off.' * ' The following is the register (not an original one) of Mr, Law's entry at Emmanuel, kindly supplied to me by the present librarian, Dr. Pearson ; 'June 7, I7QS. Lawe.Wm, S. (sizar). N. ton. Sqc; A,B. 1708, A.M. 1712; a celebrated enthusiast.' 2 Eyram's Journal, ii, 366, « Atpeal to all that Danbt S^'c, Law's ' Works, ' vol. vi. p. 318, His Studies. The only other allusion, so far as I am aware, which Law ever made to his early days in his printed works, occurs in the sanie treatise, where, referring to the bigotry of party spirit, he says : ' When I was a young scholar at the Univer- sity I heard a great religionist say in my father's house, that if he could believe the late King of France to be in heaven, he could not tell how to wish to go there himself This was exceeding shocking to all that heard it.' ' Besides the classics. Law appears to have studied philo- sophy and also the so-called mystic writers, of whom in later days he became so ardent an admirer.^ Law also possessed some knowledge of Hebrew, which he learnt at - the University ' from his Hebrew master, old Eagle,' ^ and his MSS. notes in the library at King's Cliife show that he had some knowledge of mathematics ; his acquaintance with the modern languages was probably made at a later date, with the exception of French, which he certainly learned in his youth. There is a tradition that he acted as curate of Fotheringhay for a short time, but there is no direct evidence of the fact ; while there is evidence that after his election to the Fellowship he resided at Cambridge and took pupils.* Law's tenure of his Fellowship, however, was not des- tined to be of long duration. It is well known that the last four years of Queen Anne's reign (17 10-17 14) were marked by a vigorous revival of those doctrines which had led many conscientious men twenty years earlier to demur to the Revolution Settlement. The old watchwords of ' Appeal to all that Doubt &'c., Law's ' Works, ' vol. vi. p. 278. •" See Byrom's Journal, vol. i. part i. p. 23, which shows Law's early acquaintance with the mystic philosopher Malebranche. ' Ibid, for January 31, 1730. • Ibid. Letter from John Byrom to Mrs. Byrom, vol. i. part ii. p 512 ' I was to-day, -writes Byrom, ' to call on Dr. Rjchardson, the clergyman ■ be was pupil to Mr. Law at Cambridge.' ' His Tripos Speech. ' divine, hereditary, indefeasible right,' ' passive obedience/ and ' non-resistance,' began again to be heard. The logical result of such doctrines was, of course, antagonistic to the Protestant succession ; but all those who held them were not prepared to follow out their principles to the logical result. There were undoubtedly many, who, without ^oing the whole length of the Vicar of Bray, were- inclined to adopt the policy of a contemporary ballad : — We moderate men do our judgment suspend For God only knows where these matters will end. For Sal'sbury, Burnett, and Kennet White show That as the times vary so principles go : And twenty years hence, for aught you or I know, 'Twill be Hoadly the high and Sacheverell the low.' William Law, however, was not one of these ' moderate men, whose principles went as the times varied,' and, as he was the last man in the world to conceal his principles, they brought him into trouble. In the first mention which Byrom, in his amusing 'Journal,' makes of his future mentor, he tells us, 'there is one Law, a M.A.and Fellow of Em- manuel, has" this last week been degraded to a Soph., for a speech that he spoke on a public occasion, reflecting, as is reported, on the Government. All I could learn of the .matter is of some queries that he asked the lads in the middle, of his speech, to such effect as these, viz. : Whether good and evil be obnoxious to revolution ? Whether, when the earth interposes between the sun and the moon, the moon may be said to advocate herself .? Whether, when the children of Israel had made the golden calf the object of their worship, they ought to keep to their God de facto, or return to their God dejure ? and such like. He is much blamed by some and defended by others ; has the character of a vain, conceited fellow.' ' Byrom wrote this, April 27, > Quoted in Mr. Wordsworth's interesting work on University Life in the Eighteenth Century, p. 34- 2 Byrom's yournal, vol. i. part ii. p. 20, 21. lo His ' Degradation^ 17 1 3, to his 'honoured mother, dear brother, and sisters,' and three days later, repeating to another correspondent the story of Law, he added, ' On account of a speech that he made at the Trypos, a public meeting of the University.' The account of Byrom (who is generally pretty accurate) is confirmed by the following entry in the annals of the Tripos speeches : 'April 17, 17 13, Mr. Will. Law was suspended for " his speech in the public schooles at the latter act." ' ' This same event is evidently alluded to by Hearne, though the news appears to have been somewhat late in reaching him, for it is dated July 30, 1713 : ' One Mr. Lawes, A.M., of Cambridge, was lately degraded by the means of Dr. Adams, head of King's College, who complained to the present lord-treasurer (who was zealous for his degradation) upon account of some queries in his speech called tripos speech, such as, Whether the sun shines when it is in an eclipse .' Whether a controverted son be not better than a controverted successor } Whether a dubious successor be not in danger of being set aside ? With other things of the same nature,'^ Soon after his ' degradation ' Law preached the one and only sermon of his which is still extant. As the single specimen we possess of his pulpit powers, it is worthy of attention, but for this reason only. The sermon itself is in no way remarkable. Many a pulpit rang with the same sentiments on the same day. It is simply an energetic and vehement defence of the Peace of Utrecht which the Tory Government had lately concluded, and is about as unspiritual a composition as one can well conceive ; in fact, there is not one word of what we should call religion in it from beginning to end. It is entitled, ' A Sermon preach'd at Hazelingfield in the county of Cambridge, on Tuesday, ' See Wordsworth's Unwemiy life in the Eighieei^k Century, p. 231. ' Hearne's Diary, i, 38?. His Sermon on the Peace of Utrecht. i i July 7, 17 1 3, being the day appointed by Her Majesty's Royal Proclamation for Public Thanksgiving for Her Majesty's General Peace, by W. Law, M.A., Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.' The text is Titus iii. i, and prefixed to the printed sermon is this very suggestive motto : ' A modest man would never meddle with another's business ; a prudent man would never interpose in things above his reach ; but least of all would any loyal subject entrench upon Caesar's rights ' (Mr. Chiswell's Sermon at Hertford Assizes). The sermon is mainly directed against those audacious Whigs who ventured to find fault with ' a Peace which nothing but the most consummate wisdom and la- borious care, blessed with Providence, could have procured us,' instead of * giving God thanks and praise for as glorious an affair as ever befel these nations.' ' Man,' says the preacher, ' is equally averse to the government of God and his vicegerents. Our duty to government in most cases must be active, but in all passive.' He divides his subject into four heads : ' (i) That every good Christian and loyal subject must have a care of examining too nicely the affairs of his Prince. (2) That if a wise man was pretty sure that some parts of the Public Administration would admit of better management, yet should he be very careful how he expressed such sentiments ; and in such cases never suffer the wisdom or care of government to be common topicks of Reflexion. (3) The Reason why this Duty is now so much transgressed by us. (4) The application to the Happy Occasion.' The sermon reminds one of the strain in which Queen Elizabeth used to address her Parliaments. We are to ' have a care of examining too nicely the affairs of our Prince, (i) because of the danger of becoming too wise in our own conceits to be thankful, (2) because of our ignorance, (3) because of our passions, (4) because of our party spirit.' Then follows some violent abuse of those who railed at the ministry : 1 2 He becomes a Nonjttror. ' Men are resty and unruly, bold and disloyal in their ex- pressions.' They ' condemn an authority that has no su- perior but that of Heaven.' It is 'hard to say whether this practice be more common or more abominable.' The ' meanest Mechanick pretends to be wiser than his Governor and censure the Proceeding of Crown'd Heads.' Then comes what in this day we should consider fulsome praise of the Queen for her fostering care as a nursing mother of the Church. ' Whilst the State thrives and triumphs under her Protection how does our Church rejoyce in her -true De- fender, whilst she sees her faithful sons encouraged to be good, whilst to defend her rights is to secure Anna's favour ; whilst she sees the Princely heart eager in the cause of God, firm to the Faith as the undaunted martyr's, zealous in devotion, and both in Principle and Practice unchange- ably good,' Then the preacher apostrophises her : ' Thou great, dear offspring of great Charles, how do his Royal Virtues shine in thee ! Glorious in every excellence that can grace a Christian, adorn Government, and bless a na- tion ! Shame that we should murmur ! Let us cast out this evil spirit of discontent, and be thankful to the best of Queens for this happy and honourable Peace !' After some further diatribes against ' our rude, disloyal behaviour to Government,' the preacher concludes by urging his hearers to ' profess' with boldness those good old principles of our Religion, concerning the Divinity of our Sovereign's au- thority and the absolute passive obedience we owe to her.' This sort of language was common enough at the time when it was uttered, but within a few months of the preach- ing of the sermon ' the best of Queens ' was no more. And then how were such extravagant assertions of the divine right and so forth to be reconciled with the recognition of a Sovereign who had obviously no other than a Parliament tary title to the vacant, throne .? Law hesitated not one His Letter to his Brother on the Oath. \ 3 moment in answering the question. The two positions were absolutely irreconcileable. His intellect was far too clear- sighted to be satisfied with the flimsy arguments which many of the late assertors of the old High Church doc- trines adopted to justify their adherence to the new dynasty ; and his moral sense was far too acute to allow him to adopt a course in which his conscience would be sacrificed to his interest. He at once determined to refuse the oaths of allegiance to the new Government and abjuration of the so- called Pretender.' The letter which he wrote to his elder brother George announcing his determination is very characteristic, and therefore worth quoting : ' Dear Brother, — If your affairs will permit you to peruse the intent of this letter, you will oblige the affectionate writer. I have sent my mother such news as I am afraid she will be too much concerned at, which is the only trouble for what I have done. I beg of you, therefore, to relieve her from such thoughts, and contribute what you can to satisfy her about my affairs. It is a business that I know you love, and therefore don't doubt -but you will engage in it. My pro- spect, indeed, is melancholy enough, but had I done what was required of me to avoid it, I should have thought my condition much worse. 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 misfortunes. As to the multitude of swearers, that • There is, of course, a marked distinction between the oath of allegiance and the oath of abjuration. Many persons could have conscientiously taken the former who could not with any consistency take the latter ; that is, they could tolerate the king de facto without altering their opinion as to who was •the king de jure. I doubt, however, whether Law would have been among the number ; his sensitiveness of conscience was almost morbid, and even if the very unnecessary and injudicious oath of abjuration of the Pretender had not teen imposed, the mere fact that he tacitly abjured his right by recognis- ing: King George as his sovereign would probably have been sufficient to deter Law from doing so ; at the same time an expression in his letter to his brother 'Indicates that the abjuration oath was his great Vroj;. 14 His Letter to his Brother. has no influence upon me ; their reasons are only to be considered, and everyone knows no good on^s can be given for people swearing the direct contrary to what they believe. Would my conscience have permitted me to have done •this, I should stick at nothing where my interest was con- cerned, for what can be more heinously wicked than heattily to wish the success of a person upon the account of his right, and at the same time in the most solemn manner, in the presence of God, and as you hope for mercy, swear that he has no right at all ? If any hardships of our own, or the example of almost all people can persuade us to such practice, we have only the happiness to be in the broad way. I expected to have had a greater share of worldly ad- vantages than what I am now likely to enjoy ; but am fully persuaded, that if I am not happier for this trial it will be my own fault. Had I brought myself into troubles by my own folly, they would have been very trying, but I thank God I can think of these without dejection. Your kindness for me, may perhaps incline you to wish I had done other- wise ; but as I think I have consulted my best interest by what I have done, I hope, upon second thoughts, you will think so too. I have hitherto enjoyed a large share of happiness ; and if the time to come be not so pleasant, the niemory of what is past shall make me thankful. Our lot is fallen in an age that will not be without more trials than this, God's judgments seem' now to be upon us, and I pray God they may have their proper effect. I am heartily glad your education does not expose you to the same hardships that mine does, that ydu may provide for your family with- out expense of conscience, or at least what you think so ; for whether you are of the same opinion with me or not, I know not. I shall conclude as I began, with desiring you to say as many comfortable things as you can to my m other, and persuade her to think with satisfaction upon yohn Byrom on the Oath. 15 that condition, which upon my account gives me no un- easiness, which will much oblige your affectionate brother, W. Law.' It is curious to contrjist this letter with one on the same subject from Law's future friend and disciple, John Byrom. Byrom, too, was a strong Tory and High Churchman, and ' would sooner have had a drawn battle or a lost one in Flanders, than have heard of the preferment of a man of Mr. Hoadley's principles.' He, too, had strong Jacobite tendencies. But, then, there was a Trinity Fellowship in prospect to weigh down the balance on the other side. ' Thursday,' he writes, ' we buried Dr. Smith, one of our Seniors, so now we have three Fellowships. But this oath- I am not satisfied so well as to take it, nor am I verily per- suaded of its being unlawful. It has always been the cus- tom of nations to set aside those whom it was not found for the good of the public to reign. Is it not the opinion of present nations ? Why do they make kings of Sicily &c., and order people to change their masters &c. .' And may I not rely on the judgment of thousands, thousands of good, pious, learned men for its being a lawful oath } It is very hard — everything so orderly settled in regard to posterity, and all must be undone for the sake of a man who has a disputed title to his birth and right too. I saw a book in our library the other day where the Pretender's birth is made very suspicious, and all your affidavits, allegations, &c., made nothing of. I suppose you have seen the book, what say you to it .' The Commons, I see, have taken the abjuration oath &c. ; how is it likely this young fellow should ever come among us .? The Queen and Parliament have settled the succession in a Protestant family, and made what provision they can for our religion and liberties, and why must we not be content t though, for what I hear, few are otherwise. Our Dr. Bentley has been at London, and 1 6 Laws Prospects as a Nonjtiror. he says everybody is for the succession.' ' A year later, the .good man's mind is not yet quite made up, but it is evi- dently becoming so. ' The abjuration oath,' he writes to the same correspondent,^ ' hath not been put to us yet, nor do I know when it will be ; nobody of our year scruples it, and, indeed, in the sense they say they shall take it, I could. One says he can do it and like the Pretender never the worse ; another, that it only means that he won't plot to bring him in, he doesn't trouble his head about him &c. You know my opinion, that I am not clearly convinced that it is lawful, nor that it is unlawful ; sometimes I think one thing, and sometimes another;' but what he thought finally it is not very difficult to anticipate. It was well for Byrom's prospects that his friendship with Law did not commence till many years later. One can fancy what havoc the latter would have made of the scraps of argument which Byrom adduces with transparent simplicity for the course he meant to adopt But to return to Law. How his letter was received in Northamptonshire is not known. His mother, for whom he showed so touching and tender a concern, had not long lost her husband, whose epitaph is still to be read on a monument in the chancel of King's Cliffe church : ' Here lye the dear Remains of Thomas Law, lately Grocer in this Parish : a kind, careful, industrious Father of a large Family ; a tender and affectionate Husband ; a true and faithful Friend ; and a peaceable honest Neighbour ; who deceased on the tenth day of October, Anno Dei 17 14. " And now. Lord, what is my hope .' Truly my hope is even in Thee." ' There is no reason for thinking that the widowed mother had cause for anxiety about any of her children ; but she would naturally look upon William as the pride and hope of the family. A brilliant career ' Byrom's ytf«?7ja/, vol. i. part i. p. 25. 2 Ibid. -f. 31. Law Simply Obeyed his Conscience. 17 seemed to be open to the able young fellow of Emmanuel, and it must have been a disappointment to her to feel that all hopes of that seemed at an end. Law's prospects as a nonjuror were dreary enough. He had not even the poor satisfaction of being able to join heart and soul with the active opponents of the new regime ; for he had no mind to meddle with politics. It was a matter of indifference to him, personally, whether King James or King George were sitting dn the throne ; ^ he simply obeyed his conscience, and was prepared to take the consequences, whatever they might be. ' Not but that Law's sjrmpathies were to the end of his life with the exiled Stuarts. Among other interesting memorials of her great relative in the possession of Miss Sarah Law, is a pincushion with this inscription on one side, 'Down with the Rump' ; and on the other, 'God save K.J. P. C. D. H.', that is, King James, Prince Charles, Duke Henry.' See also Byrom^s Journal for July 27, 1739, vol. ii. (parti.) 259. 1 8 Lam's Life after the Loss of his Fellowship. CHAPTER III. LAW AND THE BANGORIAN CONTROVERSY. There is a tradition that, after the resignation of his fellowship, Law was a curate in London under the famous preacher Dr. Heylin, Rector of S. Mary-le-Strand, Vicar of Sunbury, and Prebendary of S. Paul's. Law himself, a few months before his death, alluded incidentally, in the course of conversation, to a time when he was ' curate in London.' ^ Byrom twice ^ mentions the report ; once on the authority of a Mr. Rivington, who, however, threw discredit upon the whole story by adding the very improbable piece of gossip that Law was then ' a gay parson, and that Dr. Heylin said his book (' The Serious Call ') would have been better if he had travelled that way himself A Mrs. Collier also told Byrom that ' Mr. Law was a great beau, would have fine linen, was very sweet upon the ladies, and had made one believe that he would marry her ; that he made his great change in the year 1720 ; that he wore a wig again.'* All this, however, is mere gossip, unworthy of a moment's serious consideration. It is quite . possible that Law's serious impressions may have been deepened about the year 1720 ; but that he was ever other than a grave, con- scientious. God-fearing man is highly improbable. It is also reported that he was offered several pieces of valuable preferment by, or through the instrumentality of, ' See the Memoirs of the Life, Death, Burial, and Wonderful Writings of Jacob Behmen, now first done at large into English ^^c, by Francis Okely. Northampton, 1780. 2 Journal, Dec. 29, 1734, and Sept. 1739. ^ Ibid. Jan. 3, 1731. His ' Letters to the BisJwp of Bangor! 19 his friend Dr. Sherlock ; but how this could be, it is not easy to see. Of course, if Law persisted in refusing the paths, he could not have held any preferment ; and Dr. Sherlock, then Dean of Chichester, if he knew Law's cha- racter at all, must have been aware that he might as well try to persuade his cathedral to walk into the sea, as try to persuade Law to change his convictions or to sacrifice them to his interests. The only evidence of Law's having officiated in church at all after he became a nonjuror is a notice in the ' Preacher's Assistant ' that he published a single sermon in 17 18 on the text i Cor.,xii. 3 ; ^ but this sermon does not appear to be extant. Law, however, was certainly not idle. In 171 7 he wrote his ' Three Letters to the Bishop of Bangor,' which raised him at once to the very highest rank of writers in contro- versial divinity. The appearance of so powerful an ally was warmly and quickly welcomed by the High Church party. Mr. Pyle tells us he wrote against Law because ' his was thought to be the strongest and most impartial piece that has appeared against his Lordship.' ^ Law's friend. Dean Sherlock, himself one of the most clear-headed and power- ful writers of the time, declared that * Mr. Law was a writer so considerable that he knew but one good reason why his Lordship did not answer him.' * Some years later, Mr. ' ^es. Preacher' s Assistant, vol. ii. 1737. '^ See a Vindication of the Bishop of Bangor in answer to W. Law, by T. Pyle, Lecturer of Lynn Regis, 1718. 'Mr. Law's performance,' writes Mr. Pyle, ' has been so much approved of by the rest, and particularly by Dr. Snape ' — Dr. Snape being himself, it need hardly be said, one of the foremost opponents of Bishop Hoadly. ' Quoted in A Full Examination of Several Important Points relating to Church Authority, &--c., by Gilbert Burnet, 17 18. See also Hoadly's Works, ii. 694-5, where the bishop gives his reasons to Dr. Sherlock for not answer- ing Law ; but promises that, if the dean will ' publicly own any one of Mr. Law's main principles,' he will reply to him. This was a severe home-thrust ; for Hoadly knew that Sherlock was not prepared to identify himself with Law, whose uncompromising character was not of the stuff of which bishops were 20 Merits of the Three Letters. Jones of Nayland, himself an able advocate of High Church principles in their older and nobler sense^ charac- terised Law's ' Three Letters ' as ' incomparable for truth of argument, brightness of wit, and purity of English.' ' Later still, Dean Hook singled out these alone among all the voluminous literature oh the subject, as ' perhaps the most important of the works produced by the Bangorian controversy ; ' and added, ' Law's " Letters " have never been answered, and may indeed be regarded as unanswer- able.' 2 Bishop Ewing thinks that the ' Letters to Hoadly may fairly be put on a level with the " Lettres Provinciales " of Blaise Pascal, both displaying equal power, wit, and learning.' 3 Mr. F. D. Maurice is of opinion that 'the " Letters '' show that Law had the powers and temptations of a singularly able controversialist.' * One of the chief among the many merits of these fine pieces of composition is that they always keep close to the true point at issue.* As a rule, the writers on both sides in the tedious but very important Bangorian controversy show a constant tendency to fly off at a tangent to all sorts of irrelevant questions. This Law never does. Whether Bishop Hoadly was justified or not in having a converted Jesuit as tutor in his family ; whether he did or did not interpolate some modifying epithets in his printed sermon which were not in the original MS. ; whether Sher- lock had or had not once preached the same doctrines as made in the eighteenth century. Though I do not agree with Bishop Hoadly's principles, I admit that he was a very able controversialist, and not afraid of iany antagonist. ' See The Scholar Armed. 2 Church Dictionary. Art. ' Bangorian Controversy.' ' Present-Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology. ' F. D. Maurice's Introduction to ' Remarks on the Fable of the Bees,' p. xi. 1844. '' This is noticed by Mr. Leslie Stephen in his interesting account of Law. See English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, ii. p, 161. First Letter to Bishop Hoadly. 2 1 Hoadly ; whether occasional conformity ought or ought not to be allowed ; whether the Test and Corporation Acts ought or ought not to be repealed ; — these, and other more or less irrelevant points were discussed in many an angry pamphlet and letter. But Law, in his attack upon the bishop, always keeps to the main point, often hitting a hard, but never a foul, blow ; never losing sight of his character as a Christian and a gentleman. The one question which really required an answer was whether Bishop Hoadly's assertions did or did not tend to impair the nature of the Church in which he held high office, considered as a spiritual society. Law contends that they did, and drives his arguments home with crushing force. He begins by pointing out that the freethinkers, who made no secret of their desire to dissolve the Church, did, as a matter of fact, regard the bishop as their ally, simply because they thought he agreed with them on this point. And had they not good grounds for so thinking } ' Your Lordship is ours,' says Law, ' as you fill a bishopric ; but we are at a loss to discover what other interest we have in your Lordship.' Did not the Bishop plainly intimate that if a man were only not a hypocrite, it was no matter what religion he was of } Did he not ridicule the ' vain words of regular and uninterrupted succession ' as ' niceties, trifles, and dreams ' .'' And what was this but saying in effect that no kind of ordination was of any moment } for, if ordina- tion was not regular, or derived from those who had autho- rity from Christ to ordain, what was the use of it .' ' Your Lordship's servant might ordain and baptize to as much purpose as your Lordship. You have left us neither priests, nor sacraments, nor Church ; and what has your Lordship given us in the room of all these advantages .' Why, only sincerity. This is the great universal atonement for all ; 2 2 Second Letter to Bishop Hoadly. this is that which, according to your Lordship, will help us to the communion of saints hereafter, though we are in communion with anybody or nobody here.' If a private person were to pretend to choose a Lord Chancellor, would it not be an absurdity ? But was it more absurd to com- mission a person to act, sign, and seal in the king's name than in the name of Christ ? If there were no uninter- rupted succession, then there were no authorised ministers from Christ ; if no such ministers, then no Christian sacra"^ ments ; if no Christian sacraments, then no Christian cove- nant, of which the sacraments were the visible seals. The bishop affirmed that when he said Christ had left no authority behind him he meant no absolute authority. But Law shows that his reasons are equally against any degree of authority. 'Absolute authority the bishop de- nies, and at the same time makes that which is not absolute nothing at all.' But it was quite possible that an authority might be real without being absolute : the sacraments were real means of grace, though conditional ; a limited monarchy was real, though not absolute. The first letter ends with a stricture on the bishop's definition of prayer as ' a calm and undisturbed address to God.' ' In his second letter. Law strives to prove that the bishop's notions of benediction, absolution, and Church com- munion were destructive of every institution of the Christian ' There is a very amusing squib directed against this definition, entitled ' The Tower of Babel : an Anti-Heroic Poem, Humbly Dedicated to the B— — p of B r,' 1718. It commences : ' I must with decent Pride confess I've christen'd Prayer a calm address, And likewise added undisturb'd, For why should gentle steeds be curb'd ? A mind that keeps the Balance even, And hangs well-pois'd 'twixt Earth and Heaven — What should molest its ease and quiet, Or set its passions in a riot ?' Second Letter to Bishop Hoadly. 2 3 religion. If, as the bishop said, 'to expect the grace of God from any hands but His own was to affront Him,' how could the bishop confirm ? When he did so, he ought to warn the candidates that he was only acting according to a custom which had long prevailed against common sense, but that they must not imagine that there was anything in the action more than an useless, empty ceremony. How could he ordain .'' How could he consecrate the elements in the Lord's Supper "i After quoting several texts which speak of grace conferred through the Apostles' hands. Law asks with fine irony, ' Do we not plainly want new Scrip- tures .' Must we not give up the apostles as furious High Church prelates, who aspired to presumptuous claims, and talked of conferring the graces of God by their own hands } ' What a superstitious custom it must be to send for a clergyman before death, if there is no difference between sacerdotal prayers and those of a nurse ! Eliphaz should have argued that it was a weak and senseless thing, and an affront to God, to think that he could not be blessed with- out the prayer of Job ! Abimelech should have rejected the prayer of Abraham as a mere essay of prophet-craft ! It was as absurd for the human hands of Moses or Aaron, or the priests of the sons of Levi, to bless, as for those of the Christian clergy ! After having shown that the clergy were as truly Christ's successors as the apostles were, and that none can despise them but those who despise Him that sent them, Law contends with great energy against the notion that this doctrine ought to terrify the consciences of the laity, or to bring ' the profane scandal of priestcraft upon the clergy.' ' The clergy,' it was said, ' were only men.' Yes, and the prophets were only men, biit they insisted upon the authority of their mission. Was it more strange that God should use the weakness of men than that He should use 24 Second Letter to Bishop Hoadly. common bread and wine, and common water, as instru- ments for conveying His grace ? Can God consecrate inanimate things to spiritual purposes, and make them the means of eternal happiness ? And is man the only- creature that He cannot make subservient to His de- signs ? If it is reasonable to despise the ministry and benedictions of men, because they are men like ourselves, it is surely as reasonable to despise the sprinkling of water, a creature below us, a senseless and inanimate creature. Naaman the Syrian was, on that principle, a wise man when he took the water of Jordan to be only water, as the bishop justly observed that a clergyman was only a man. Law then shows that the order of the clergy stood on exactly the same footing as the Sacraments and the Scrip- tures, and that the uncertainty about the succession of the clergy was not greater than about the genuineness of the : Scriptures. Both rested upon the same historical evidence. It was said that there is no mention of the apostolical suc- cession in Scripture. But the doctrine upon which it is founded plainly made it unnecessary to mention it. Was it needful for the Scriptures to tell us, that if we take our Bible from any false copy it is not the Word of God 1 Why, then, need they tell us that if we are ordained by usurping false pretenders to ordination, nor deriving their authority to that end from the apostles, we are no priests > As a true priest cannot benefit us by administering a false sacrament, so a true sacrament is nothing when it is administered by a false, uncommissioned minister. So, the apostolical benediction pronounced by a priest is not a bare act of charity— one Christian praying for another ; but it is the work of a person commissioned by God to bless in His name. Law then shows that it is no injury to the laity to assert Second Letter to Bishop tiaadtyi 25 these claims, ' for/ he says, ' if we are right, they will re- ceive the benefit ; if wrong, we shall bear the punishment.' But into what perplexity did the bishop's notions lead the laity ! If a layman should pretend to ordain clergymen in the diocese of Bangor, what could its bishop say ? He could be answered in his own words ; and this was the confusidn which the bishop was charged with introducing into the Church. ' The bishop's objection' that an authoritative absolution must be infallible, might, says Law, be applied with equal force against the administration of the Sacraments, and indeed against the whole Christian religion. As for the clergy claiming such absolving power as to set themselves above God, the bishop might as well have argued against worshipping the sun, for who ever taught that any set of men could absolutely bless or withhold a blessing inde- pendent of God ? But is the prerogative of God impaired because His own institutions are obeyed .? In a word, the clergy are only entrusted with a conditional power, and every means of grace is conditional. Law then touches upon the crucial text on the Power of the Keys. The bishop had suggested that it might possibly refer only to the power of inflicting and curing diseases. On this principle, replies Law, the text must be explained thus : ' Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will • build my church ' — that is, a peculiar society of healthful persons — ' and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it ' • — that is, they shall always be in a state of health. . ' What- soever thou shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven' — that is, on whomsoever thou shall inflict leprosy, for in- stance, on earth, shall be a leper in heaven ; and so forth. ' Then follow some strictures upon a passage in which the bishop ran perilously near to denying the Divinity of Christ, and justifying the charge of Socinianism so fre- quently brought against him. ' Your lordship,' says Law, 26 Second Letter to Bishop Hoadly, ' has rejected all Church authority, and despised the pre- tended power of the clergy, for this reason : because Christ is the sole King, sole Lawgiver, and Judge in His King- dom. But, it seems your lordship, notwithstanding, thinks it now time to depose Him.' Law next makes merry over an objection of Hoadly's against the necessity of Church communion^ because it puts the conscientious objector into a dilemma. ' Does it prove,' he says, ' that Christianity is not necessary because the conscientious Jew may think it is not so ? It may as well prove that the moon is no larger than a man's head, because an honest, ignorant countryman may think it no larger. This is a new-invented engine for the destruction of the Church, that if we have but an erroneous conscience the whole Christian dispensation is cancelled.' The letter ends with a refutation of the old charges of Popery and priestcraft — charges which never failed to tell in those excited times when the Protestant succession was' hardly yet secured. But Law was not a man to be frightened by bugbears. ' If,' he says boldly, ' this doctrine is Popish simply because the Papists hold it as well as us, we own the charge, and are not for being such true Protest tants as to give up the Apostles' Creed, or lay aside the sacraments because they are received by the Church of Rome.' And ' if it be a breach upon the layman's liberty, it is only upon such as think the Commandments a burden.' It is difficult to realise now the courage it would require then to utter such matter-of-course sentiments. To this letter Law added a postscript, answering some objections which the bishop had raised against his first letter, and unfolding at greater length some of the argu- ments which have already been referred to. The first of these was that the doctrine of an uninterrupted succession is not mentioned in Scripture ; neither, replies Law, is it Third Letter to Bishop Hoadly. 27 expressly stated there that the Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation, nor that the Sacraments are to be continued in every age of the Church, nor that we are to observe the Lord's Day. But the succession is founded on Scripture, and assferted by the voice of tradition in all ages of the Church. The same Scriptures which made it necessary that Timothy should be sent to Ephesus to ordain priests, because the priests who were there could not ordain, made it equally necessary that Timothy's sue cessors should be the only ordainers. Nor is the Divirie Right of Episcopacy founded merely on an apostolical practice which may or may not be binding. It is the nature of the Christian priesthood that it can only be con- tinued in that method which God has appointed for its continuance ; and that method is episcopacy. To the ob- jection which has always been the strongest that has been ■or can be urged against the doctrine, viz., that the un- interrupted succession is so uncertain, that, if it be ;necessary, no man can say if he be in the Church or not. Law's reply is very powerful; It is, he says, a matter of fact, founded on historical evidence, just like Christianity itself, just like the truths of Scripture. And this very doctrine that none but episcopal succession is valid in every age has been a constant guard upon the succession. It was morally im^ possible to forge orders or steal a bishopric in any one given age. This is the one reason, and an absolutely sufficient reason, why we believe the Scriptures cannot have been corrupted. Law's third letter, which is by far the longest of the three, is a reply to the bishop's answer to the representation of the Committee of Convocation. The bishop explained that his description of the Church which had given so much offence applied ' not to a church but to the invisible. Church of Christ.^' This explanation called forth some'of the most '28 Third Letter to Bishop Hoadly, brilliant specimens of Law's irony. He does not, of course, deny that there is an invisible church, or ' a number of beings in covenant with God, who are not to be seen by human eyes ; ' but, he says, you might as well call ■ all the number of people who believe in Christ and observe His institutions the invisible church as call them the order of angels or the church of seraphims. The acts which prove people Christians are visible. Our Lord, when He com- pared the Kingdom of Heaven to a net, which gathered fish of every kind, to the marriage of the king's son where the guests were good and bad, spoke of the Church as visi- ble ; and He never gave a hint that He founded two uni- versal churches on earth — one visible, the other invisible. How could the bishop think it possible that the com- mittee could imagine him capable of hurting an invisible church .'' They might as well think him capable of arrest- ing a party of spirits. But they did think his description of a church ' which was the only true account of Christ's Church in the mouth of a Christian ' was directly opposed to the description of the Church given by Our Saviour, and was ih disparagement of the 19th Article of the Church of England. The bishop says not, because he is only speak- ing of the invisible church. Supposing, then, anyone should affirm that there is a sincere, invisible Bishop of Bangor, who is the only true Bishop of Bangor in the mouth of a Christian, would Dr. Hoadly think this no contradiction to his right as bishop ? Again : Bishop Hoadly plainly set up his invisible church against outward and visible ordinances. But out- ward ordinances were as necessary to make men true Christians as outward acts of love were to make them charitable. In short, the world is divided upon the subject whether it be as safe to be in one external visible com- munion as in another, and the bishop comes in to end the Third Letter to Bishop Hoadly. 29 . controversy. How ? By skipping over the whole ques- tion, and laying down a description of the universal Church ! He had been as well employed in painting spirits or weighing thoughts. The bishop thinks the main question is, whether this description is true and just. Supposing he had been describing an invisible king to the people of Great Britain, would the main question amongst the Lords and Commons be, whether he had hit off the description well .'' No ; it would be, to what ends and purposes he had set up such a king, and whether the subjects of Great Britain might leave their visible, and pay only an internal allegiance to his invisible king. It was the same with the Church. He might erect as many churches as he pleased, if he only did it for speculative amusement, and to try his abilities in drawing ; but if it was to destroy the distinction between the Church and the Conventicle, they could no more admire the beauty and justness of his fine description than he would admire a just description of an invisible diocese. Here was a visible bishop at a visible court solemnly preaching in defence of a church which can neither be defended nor injured. Though it was as invisible as the centre of the earth, and as much out of reach as the stars, he was pathetically preaching and .publishing volumes, lest this invisible church, which no one knew where to find, should be run away with 1 With the same Christian zealj he might at some other solemn occasion appear in the cause of the winds, desiring that they might rise and blow where they listed. If the Committee had so far forgotten the visible church of which they were members as to have engaged with him about his invisible church, the dispute would have been to as much purpose as a tryal in West- minster Hall about the philosopher's stone. It was very hard that when the bishop had an invisible church ready for them, they should have gone off to an article of th? 30 Third Letter to Bishop Hoadly. Church of England which describes only an old-fashioned visible church, as churches went in the apostles' days! But, in point of fact, the Church of Christ was as truly a visible, external society as any civil or secular society in the world, and was no more distinguished from such societies by the invisibility than by the youth or age of its members. The bishop founded his arguments on the saying of Our Lord : ' My kingdom is not of this world ; ' which does not describe what His kingdom is, but what it is not. It was simply an answer to the question whether Christ was the temporal King of the Jews. Does it follow that because He was not, therefore His kingdom was invisible? Christ told His disciples that they were not of this world ; is that an argument that they immediately became invisible ? In a word, all the doctrines which the bishop founded on this little negative text had no more relation to it than if he had deduced them from the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis. In the next chapter Law shows that the bishop's objec- tion to Church authority would be equally applicablp to all authority in the world— to that of a prince over his subjects, a father over his children, or a master over his servants ; and, what is very rare in his writings, hints at his own position as a nonjuror, turning against the bishop his ' Defence of Resistance.' It is not necessary to follow Law in his defence of excommunication, or of the advantages of external com- munion, pr on the true value of sincerity, and the true extent of private judgment, or on the reconcilement of his doctrines with the principles of the Reformation. The specimens already given will, it is hoped, be suf- ficient to show that these three brilliant and well-argued letters were fully deserving of all the praise that they received.. MandevilUs Fable of the Bees. 3 1 CHAPTER IV. THE FABLE OF THE BEES. In 1723 Law published another controversial piece which fully sustained the reputation he had won by his ' Three Letters.' The circumstances which called it forth were these. In 1 7 14, Dr. Bernard Mandeville, a physician, published a short doggerel poem, entitled ' The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves turned Honest,' in which he described a hive of bees who grew wealthy and great by the prevalence of fraud and luxury ; but having by common consent agreed to turn honest, lost thereby all their greatness and wealth. The moral is — T' enjoy the world's conveniences. Be famed in war, yet live- in ease. Without great vices is a vain Eutopia seated in the brain; Fraud, luxury, and pride must live, While we the benefit receive. The theory is a sufficiently startling one as it stands ; but, by way of improving matters, the author, nine years later, republished the poem with long explanatory riotes^ giving the full interpretation of the parable, under the title of the ' Fable of the Beesj or, Private Vices, Public Benefits.' Matideville's work was a sort of caricature, or reductio ad ahsttmdum, of the. doctrines of those ethical philosophers who taught the mprality of consequences, as opposed to the morality of principles. It was the extreme reaction against the doctrine of Lord Shaftesbury, who took the nobler. 32 Law's * Remarks on the Fable of the Bees! view of ethics, but stated it in a rhapsodical, overstrained fashion, which had the appearance of unreality. Taken by itself, Mandeville's so-called poem might have passed for a rather flippant and eccentric brochure, hardly worthy of serious notice. But Law, who never made an attack without very strong cause, perceived that it har- monised too well with the prevalent looseness both of sentiment and practice to be innocuous ; and therefore, in the very year of its appearance (1723), he published his '^ Jlemarks. on the Fable of the Bees ' — the most caustic of all his writings. It is hardly more than a pamphlet, but it is a perfect gem in its way, exhibiting in miniature all the characteristic excellences of the writer — a thorough percep- tion of the true point at issue, and a close, adherence to it, a train of reasoning in which it -would be hard to find a single flaw, a brilliant wit, and a pure and nervous style. Whether the bees, thriving by their fraud, and ruined by turning honest, do or do not give a correct representation of human society — in other words, whether honesty is or is not the best policy — this is a question which Law does not care to discuss. Good Bishop Berkeley might think it worth while to enter into elaborate details to show, for example, that more malt was brought into the market to satisfy the demands of the sober than of the drunken.' But Law saw there was a deeper fallacy underlying Mandeville's para- doxes. If man was what Mandeville represented him to be — if virtue was, in its origin, what Mandeville said it was — it really made very little matter how masses of men throve best in society. That man w^s only an animal, and that morality was only an imposture— these were the prin- cipal doctrines which Mandeville, ' with more than fanatic zeal,' recommended to his readers ; and on these points ■ See Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, Dialogues I. and II. ; also ' Intro- duction' to Remarks on the Fable^ of the Bees, hy F, D,. Maurice, .p. x. ' Remarks on the Fable of the Bees! 33 Law is ready to join issue with him. ' I believe man,' said Mandeville, ' besides skin, flesh, bones, &c., that are obvious to the eye, to be a compound of various passions ; that all of them, as they are provoked and come uppermost, govern him by turns, whether he will or no.' ' The definition/ replied Law, with crushing force, ' is too general, because it seems to suit a Wolf or a Bear as exactly as yourself or a Grecian philosopher.' But, according to his definition, how could Mandeville say that he believed anything, unless believing could be said to be a passion, or some faculty of the skin or bones ? ' If,' proceeds Law, with a severity which, under the circumstances, was not undeserved, ' you would prove yourself to be no more than a brute or an animal, how much of your life you need alter I cannot tell ; but at least you must forbear writing against virtue, for no mere animal ever hated it' ' The province,' he says, ' which you have chosen for yourself is to deliver man from the encroachments of virtue and to replace him in the rights and privileges of Brutality ; to recall him from the giddy heights of rational dignity and angelic likeness to go to grass or wallow in the mire.' As a contrast to this grovelling view of human nature. Law quotes with fine effect, 'And God said. Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,' and dwells in an elevated strain, which no one knew better than he how to sustain, on the ' decla- ration of the dignity of man's nature, made long before any of your sagacious moralists had a meeting.' ' ' This allusion to the ' sagacious moralists ' refers to a passage in the Fable of the Bees in which the author says, ' Sagacious moralists draw men lilce angels in hopes that the pride, at least of some, will put them upon copying after the beautiful originals, which they are represented to be ; ' upon which Law remarks, ' I am loth to charge you with sagacity, because I would not accuse you falsely ; but if this remark is well made, I can help you to another full as just : viz. ' That sagacious advocates for immorality draw men like brutes in hopes that the depravity at least of some will put them upon copying after the base originals, which they are represented to be.' D 34 The Origin of Moral Virtue. Mandeville had given a sort of apologetic explanation, saying that in his inquiry into the origin of moral virtue, he was not speaking of Jews or Christians, but of man in a state of nature. But this is a distinction which Law will not for a moment allow. He maintains — and with perfect truth — that the origin of morality was the same to Jew, Christian, or heathen, that man in a state of nature was not savage and brutal, and that making the training of such supposed savage creatures a true account of the origin of morality was like making the history of cur- ing people in Bedlam a true account of the origin of reason. Besides, Mandeville's own conduct was utterly inconsistent with his explanation. All the observations which he made upon human nature, on which his origin of moral virtue was founded, were only so many observations upon the manners of all orders of Christians. And yet he, good man, is not talking about Christians ! He applies his definition of man as a vile animal to ' himself and his cour- teous reader.' Are he and his courteous readers, then, all savages in a state of nature 'i After having shown with admirable irony that Mande- ville's account of the origin of virtue might be applied with equal force to the origin of the erect posture of man. Law proceeds to unfold in grave and dignified language the true origin of virtue. ' In one sense it had no origin — that is, there never was a time when it began to be — but it was as much without beginning as truth and goodness, which are in their natures as eternal as God. But moral virtue, if considered as the object of man's knowledge, began with the first man, and was as natural to him as it was natural to man to think and perceive or feel the difference between pleasure and pain. The reasonableness and fitness of actions themselves is a law to rational beings ; nay, it is a law to which even the Divine Nature is subject, for God is John Sterling's Admiration of the ^Remarks' 35 necessarily good and just, from the excellence of justice and goodness ; and it is the will of God that makes moral vir- tue our law, and obliges us to act reasonably. Here, Sir, is the noble and divine origin of moral virtue ; it is founded in the immutable relations of things, in the perfections and attributes of God, not in the pride of man or the craft of cunning politicians. Away, then, with your idle and pro- phane fancies about the origin of moral virtue ! For once, turn your eyes towards Heaven, and dare but own a just and good God, and then you have owned the true origin of religion and moral virtue.' The transition from the sarcasms with which the section commences to the grave and elevated tone in which it closes is very striking. One can quite understand the enthusiasm with which John Sterling speaks of ' the first section of Law's remarks as one of the most remarkable philosophical essays he had ever seen in English.' Now this section,' he. adds, ' has all the highest beauty of his (Law's) polemical compositions, and a weight of pithy right reason, such as fills one's heart with joy. I have never seen, in our lan- guage, the elementary grounds of a rational ideal philo- sophy, as opposed to empiricism, stated with nearly the same clearness, simplicity, and force.' In the second section Law answers with convincing force the objection to the reality of virtue on the ground that what has the appearance of virtue proceeds from some blind impulse ; in the third he returns to his satirical tone and cuts up in his most slashing style Mandeville's assertion that there was no greater certainty in morals than in matters of taste. The next two sections deal with the immortality of the soul and the nature of hope ; the sixth and last com- ments on a defence which Mandeville had piit forth and in ' Letter from John Sterling to F. D. Maurice, quoted in Maurice's ' Intro- duction' to the Remarks on the Fable of the Bees. D 2 36 Design of the Fable of the Bees. which he had the audacity to affirm that the ' Fable of the Bees ' was ' designed for the entertainment of people of probity and virtue, and was a book of severe and exalted morality ! ' 'I should,' exclaims Law, with pardonable indignation, ' have thought him in as sober a way if he had said that the author was a seraphim, and that he was never any nearer the earth than the fixed stars ! He now talks of diverting persons of probity and virtue, having in his book declared that he had never been able to find such a person in existence ; he now talks of morality, having then declared the moral virtues were all a cheat ; he now talks of recommending goodness, having then made the diiiference between good and evil as fanciful as the difference between a tulip and an auricula 1 ' Attached to the ' Remarks ' is a postscript attacking Mr. Bayle's assertion that religious opinions and beliefs had no influence at all upon men's actions. Law on Stage Entertainments. 37 CHAPTER V. ' THE UNLAWFULNESS OF STAGE ENTERTAINMENTS,' AND 'CHRISTIAN PERFECTION.' Law wrote two more works before he emerged from his obscurity. The first is a tract entitled ' The Absolute Un- lawfulness of Stage Entertainments fully Demonstrated.' It is decidedly the weakest of all his writings, and most of his admirers will regret that he ever published it. Regarded merely as a composition, it is very inferior to his usual standard. Unlike himself, he gives way to passion and seems quite to lose all self-control ; unlike himself, he indulges in the most violent abuse ; and unlike himself he lays himself open to the most crushing retorts. He makes no distinction whatever between the use and abuse of such entertainments. ' The stage is not here condemned, as some other diversions, because they are dangerous, and likely to be occasions of sin, but it is condemned as drunk- enness, and lewdness, as lying and profaneness are to be condemned, not as things that may only be the occasion of sin, but such as are in their own nature grossly sinful. You go to hear a play : I tell you that you go to hear ribaldry and profaneness ; that you entertain your mind with extravagant thoughts, wild rants, blasphemous speeches, wanton amours, profane jests, 2.n6i impure passions^ ^ It has been said that Law was never worsted in argu- ment, and, as a rule, the statement is true ; but every rule • p. 5 38 yohn Dennis' Reply to Law. has its exceptions. Law measured his strength with some of the very ablest men of his day, with men like Hoadly and Warburton and Tindal and Wesley ; and it may safely be said that he never came forth from the contest defeated. But, absurd as it may sound, it is perfectly true that what neither Hoadly nor Warburton nor Tindal nor Wesley could do, that was done by — John Dennis ! In the con- troversy between Law and Dennis, the latter assuredly has the advantage. ' Plays,' wrote Law, ' are contrary to Scrip- ture, as the devil is to God, as the worship of images is to the second commandment.' To this Dennis gave the ob- vious and unanswerable retort that ' when S. Paul was at Athens, the very source of dramatick poetry, he said a great deal publickly against the idolatry of the Athenians, but not one word against their stage. At Corinth he said as little against theirs. He quoted on one occasion an Athe- nian dramatick poet, and on others Aratus and Epimenides. He was educated in all the learning of the Grecians, and could not but have read their dramatic poems ; and yet so far from speaking a word against them, he makes use of them for the instruction and conversion of mankind.' ' Dennis again convicts Law of something very like dis- ingenuousness in quoting Archbishop Tillotson's strictures against plays as they were then ordered, but omitting to add the Archbishop's qualification that ' plays might be so framed and governed by such rules as not only to be inno- cent and diverting, but instructive and useful.' It was the whole purport of Law's treatise to show that this was im- possible. It is really painful to quote the unmeasured abuse which he pours not only upon the entertainment itself but upon all who took part in it ; but it is the duty ' The Stage defended from Scripture, reason, experience, and the common sense of mankind for 2000 years, .... occasioned by Mr. Laiifs Pamphlet. By Mr. Dennis, 1726. Law's Violence against the Stage. 39 of a faithful biographer not to shrink from admitting the weaknesses of his subject. ' Perhaps,' writes Law, ' you had rather see your son chained to a galley, or your daughter driving a plough than getting their bread on the stage, by administering in so. scandalous a manner to the vices and corrupt pleasures of the world ! The business of the player is not a more christian employment than that of robbers ! There is as much justice and tenderness in telling every player that his employment is abominably sinful as in telling the same to a thief! ' ' The playhouse, not only when some very profane play is on the stage, but in its daily common entertainments, is as certainly the house of the devil as the church is the house of God.' ' Can pious per- sons tell you of any one play for this forty or fifty years that has been free from wild rant, immodest passions, and profane language } ' ' To suppose an innocent play is like supposing innocent lust, sober rant, or harmless profane- ness.' ' The stage never has one innocent play ; not one can be produced that ever you saw acted in either house, but what abounds with thoughts, passions, and language, contrary to religion ! This is true of the stage in its best state, when some admired tragedy is upon it.' When it is remembered that such a play, for example, as Addison's ' Cato ' had, within Law's lifetime been acted with immense success, and that Shakespeare's tragedies, though not so popular as they deserved to be, must have been perfectly well known to him, one can scarcely conceive how he could stigmatise all plays in such a sweeping tone of condemnation.' His scurrilous abuse of players, too, ' It is interesting to contrast the views of the master with those of one of his most distinguished disciples on this point. John Wesley, after condemn- ing, as well he might, the barbarous amusements of bear-baiting, cock-fight- ing, &c., adds, ' It seems a great deal more may be said in defence of seeing a serious tragedy. I could not do it with a clear conscience ; at least not in an English theatre, the sink of all profaneness and debauchery, but possibly 40 Corrupt State of the Stage. was surely as uncharitable as it was unauthorised, and fully justifies Dennis's remark that the pamphlet was written in • downright anti-Christian language.' It was a sad pity that Dennis, having so strong a case, should have spoiled it by having recourse to the ad captan- dum argument that Law wrote in the interests of Jacobi- tism. Law had no such object in view ; he wrote in per- fect sincerity and honesty, and if he had followed the example of the Archbishop whom he quoted, he might have written with telling effect. For the state of the stage was .deplorably bad. If the efforts of Collier and others had done a little to purify it from the utter degradation into which it had fallen after the Restoration, it still was so corrupt that even a worldly man like John, Lord Hervey, was fain to confess that the law (passed ten years after Law's pamphlet was written) requiring plays to be licensed by the Lord Chamberlain was needed.' But Law spoiled the effect which no one better than he could have produced by his unreasonable violence ; and it is to be feared that there is some truth in Dennis's remark that the ' wild enthu- siasm of Law's pamphlet would afford matter of scorn and laughter to infidels and freethinkers, and render our most sacred religion still more contemptible among them ! ' Those who had read none of Law's writings except this others can.' Law, in point of fact, was far more of a Puritan, High Church- man though he was, than any of the Methodists or Evangelicals were; in some points, indeed, as, for instance, that of clerical celibacy, he recommended and practised an asceticism which the Puritans never did ; and, singularly unlike them, he almost absolutely condemned all wars and all oaths. On the point of plays he was thoroughly at one with the ' Histriomastix ' of- the preceding century. ' Lord Hervey's Memoirs, ii. 341. David Hume, also, who will hardly be accused of Puritanism, writing a few years later, speaks of the English stage being put to shame by a neighbour which has never been considered a model of purity. ' The English are become sensible of the scandalous licen- tiousness of their stage from the example of the French decency and morals.' —Essay on the ' Rise of the Arts and Sciences,' Essays, iii. 135. ' Christian Per/ectiofi.' 41 pamphlet, might really say of him as one of his antago- nists on this question did : ' I never read a more unfair reasoner. He begs the question. He is a madman who rails at theatres till he foams again.' ' But we shall do Law more justice if we remember that in this pamphlet he was really unworthy of himself ; and we may close this painful account of what one cannot but call his escapade, with the judicious remark of Gibbon : ' His discourse on the abso- lute unlawfulness of stage entertainments is sometimes quoted for a ridiculous intemperance of sentiment and language ; . . . . but these sallies must not extinguish the praise v/hich is due to Mr. William Law as a wit and a scholar ; ' ^ and we may add what the historian does not add, ' as a most powerful advocate of the Christian cause and a noble example of the Christian life.' Law himself thought his remarks upon the stage so important that he transferred them almost word for word to the pages of his ' Christian Perfection,' the first of his great. practical treatises, which was published in the same year as the Tract on the Stage (1726). The merits of this treatise have been somewhat thrown into the shade by the still greater reputation of its imme- diate successor, ' The Serious Call.' But the ' Serious Call ' is, perhaps, the only work of the kind published in the eighteenth century to which the ' Christian Perfection ' is inferior. By ' Christian perfection ' Law did not exactly mean what became soon afterwards the source of such fierce dispute between the Wesley and Whitefield sections of the ' Law Outlawed; or, a Short Reply to Mr. Law's Long Declamation against the Stage, wherein the wild rant, blind passion, and false reasoning of that piping-hot Pharisee are made apparent to the meanest capacity. By Mrs. S. O. , 1726. ' Autobiography. Misc. Works, i. 1$. 42 ' Christian Perfection! Methodists. Intending the work to be exclusively what he termed it, ' a practical treatise,' he carefully avoided all nice points of doctrine, and defined ' Christian perfections' at the outset, in a way to which no one who accepted Christianity at all could take exception : ' viz. as ' the right performance of our necessary duties ; ' it is ' such as men in cloysters and religious retirements cannot add more, and, at the same time, such as Christians in all states of the world must not be content with less.' In his ' Christian Perfection ' Law takes a very gloomy view of life — far gloomier than he took in his later works. The body we are in is ' a mere sepulchre of the soul ; ' the world '-but the remains of a drowned world — a mere wil- derness, a vale of misery, where vice and madness, dreams and shadows, variously please, agitate, and torment the short, miserable lives of men.' ' The sole end of Chris- tianity is to separate us from the world, to deliver us from the slavery of our own natures and unite us to God.' This life is ' a state of darkness, because it clouds and covers all the true appearances of things ; and what are called worldly advantages no more constitute the state of human life than rich coffins or beautiful monuments constitute the state of the dead.' ' The vigour of our blood, the gaiety of our spirits, and the enjoyment of sensible pleasures, though the allowed signs of living men, are often undeniable proofs of dead Christians.' ' Christianity buries our bodies, burns the present world, triumphs over death by a general resur- rection, and opens all into an eternal state.' ' There is nothing that deserves a serious thought but how to get out of the world and make it a right passage to our eternal state.' ' It is the same vanity to project for happiness on earth as to propose a happiness in the moon. Christianity, ' So far as it went, that is. The Evangelicals would, of course, complain of it, as being very inadequate, as savouring more of the law than the gospel. ' Christian Perfection' 43 or the Kingdom "of Heaven, has no other interests in this world than as it takes its members out of it ; and when the number of the elect is complete, this world will be con- sumed with fire, as having no other reason for its existence than the furnishing members for that blessed society which is to last for ever.' ' Every condition in the world is equally trifling and fit to be neglected for the sake of the one thing needful.' Such being Law's theory of life, it naturally follows that he should recommend a course of severe austerity. Our cares and our pleasures are to be strictly limited to the necessities of nature. ' Self-denial and self-persecution are even more necessary now than they were in the first days of Christianity, when there was persecution from without.' ' There is no other lawful way of employing our wealth (beyond our bare necessities) than in the assistance of the poor.' ' Suffering is to be sought, to pay some of the debt due to sin.' ' The word of Christ, " deny himself" points to a suffering and self-denial which the Christian is to in- flict upon himself. He must, in his degree, recommend himself to the favour of God on the same account and for the same reasons that the sufferings of Christ procured peace and reconciliation. Repentance is a hearty sorrow for sin ; and sorrow is a pain or punishment which we are obliged to raise to as high a degree as we can, that we may be fitter objects of God's pardon.' ' , Law reminds us that he wrote in the eighteenth cen- tury by going on to prove the reasonableness of his views ; for ' reasonableness ' was the very keynote of the theology of the period, and the writer who did not pay his homage to it would have had little chance of being listened to. He shows that while self-abasement is strictly according to ' It is hardly necessary to remark how very inadequate and erroneous many of these sentiments would seem to the later evangelical school. 44 ' Christian Perfection' reason, ' pride is the most unreasonable thing in the world — as unreasonable as the madman who fancies himself to be a king, and the straw to which he is chained to be a throne of state. Self-denial is no more unreasonable than if a person who was to walk upon a rope across some great river was bid to deny himself the pleasure of walking in silver shoes, or the advantage of fishing by the way. In both cases the self-denial is reasonable, as commanding him to love things that will do him good, or to avoid things that are hurtful.' Law then descends into details ; and, first of all, insists strongly upon the duty of fasting, devoting no less than twenty-five pages to the subject. Almost every ill temper, every hindrance to virtue, every clog in our way of piety, and the strength of every temptation, chiefly arises from the state of our bodies. If S. Paul thought his own salva- tion in danger without this subjection of his own body, how shall we, who are born in the dregs of time, think it safe to feed and indulge in ease and plenty } Then idleness, ambition, and worldly occupations are dealt with in the same spirit, in connection with self-denial. In this part of his work Law begins the plan, which he elaborated more carefully and in greater fulness in the ' Serious Call,' of illustrating his meaning by imaginary characters. Philo, who thinks all time to be lost that is not spent in the search of shells, urns, inscriptions, and broken pieces of pavement ; Patronus, who never goes to the sacrament, but will go forty miles to see a fine altar- piece ; who goes to church when there is a new tune to be heard, but never had any more serious thoughts about salvation than about flying ; Eusebius, who would be wholly taken up in the cure of souls, but that he is busy in studying' the old grammarians, and would fain reconcile some differences amongst them before he dies ; Lucia, who ' Christian Perfection' 45 must be the same sparkling creature in the church as she is in the playhouse ; Publius, who died with little or no religion through a constant fear of popery ; Siccus, who might have been a religious man, but that he thought building was the chief happiness of a rational creature ; who is all the week among dirt and mortar, and stays at home on Sundays to view his contrivances, and who will die more contentedly if his death does not happen while some wall is in building ; — are all admirable touches, com- bining the sparkling wit of Addison and a little of the cynicism of Swift with an intense earnestness of Christian . conviction which is all Law's own. Law next dwells largely upon the baneful effects of idle and unprofitable conversation— a favourite topic with him, for of all things he disliked ' a talkative spirit ; ' and he then condemns sweepingly the reading of ' all corrupt, impertinent, and unedifying books,' and especially books of plays. But he does not sufficiently distinguish between books which are, to say the least, harmless, if not instruc- tive, and those which are positively noxious. It is true that the majority of works of imagination, which, in Law's day, mostly took the dramatic form, were utterly abomin- able, and unfit reading for any Christian ; but it is unlike Law's usual acumen to argue from what was obviously only the abuse of a thing against the use of it. And the worst of such wholesale, indiscriminate censure is, that it tends to aggravate the very evil which it deplores. When all writers who appeal to the imagination are thus put under one general ban, they naturally become reckless, and thus one important element of the human mind has poison, not food, administered to it. The next chapter, on the constant state of devotion to which Christians are called, is full of beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed. We are here reminded that we are 46 Defects of the ' Christian Perfection! still under the guidance of the High Churchman, for we are told that ' we are most of all to desire those prayers which are offered up at "the altar where the Body and Blood of Christ are joined with them.' ' The connection between self-denial and prayer is well worked out. His arguments also against short prayers are ingenious and unanswerable ; but, as this subject is more fully dealt with in ' The Serious Call,' it is not necessary to say more of it here. Nor need we dwell on the arguments adduced to show that Christians are required absolutely and in the minutest particulars to imitate the life and example of Christ. The subject is a well-worn one, but, like almost every subject which Law touches upon, it is presented to us by him in a forcible and original manner. In the last chapter he gives a summary of the whole treatise ; and concludes with a persuasive exhortation to all to aim at nothing short of this Christian perfection. As, above all things, it is desired to be perfectly fair, it is necessary to notice some of the defects of the ' Christian perfection.' I. In this work Law begins that crusade against all kinds of human learning which henceforth almost amounted to a life-long craze with him. The most illiterate of Methodist preachers did not express a more sublime con- tempt of mental culture than this refined and cultured scholar. Every employment which is not of a directly religious tendency is contemptible in his eyes. ' If a man,' he says, ' asks why he should labour to be the first mathe- matician, orator, or statesman, the answer is easily given, because of the fame and honour of such a distinction.' The answer may be easily given, but it is by no means a conclusive or satisfactory answer. Law altogether ignores the higher and less selfish motives which surely may ' Christian Perfection, Works, vol. iii. c. xii.p. 367. Defects of the ' Christian Perfection! 47 stimulate the nobler kind of men to follow such pursuits. What ! had Newton, when he was engrossed with his mathematics and astronomy, no higher object than fame ? Is not truth of all kinds a worthy object of pursuit ? Was it no advantage to mankind to know the true nature of the glorious work of the Creator ? When Demosthenes was stirring the hearts of his countrymen in behalf of their native country, was he actuated by no higher motive than a love of fame ? Is there no such thing as a pure, disin- terested patriotism ? Had such statesmen as the two Pitts and Burke no higher object than the gratification of their own personal vanity ? ' This tendency in Law is noticeable on account of the widespread and by no means wholly beneficial effects which it produced. It was obviously a convenient doctrine for those who could never have distinguished themselves to hold that all such distinction is contemptible. The aliena- tion of Christianity from mental culture is a most disastrous thing. Law himself, indeed, by a happy inconsistency; was saved from the extravagances which the strict applica- tion of his own principles is apt to engender. Though he abused scholarship, he always wrote as a well-read scholar. 2. The ' Christian Perfection ' is a somewhat melan- choly book : the brighter side of Christianity is certainly not brought out into full relief ; Law's own character was, particularly at this period, of the stern, austere type, and his book reflects his character. These defects, however, will be more fully considered in connection with ' The Serious Call.' 3. Once more. Law himself was the most unselfish ' It is only fair, however, to add that the politicians of Law's day were, as a rule, very different from the Pitts and the Burkes. Disinterested patriotism was quite at a discount in the age of the Walpoles and Pelhams. 48 Testimonies to the Value of the Work. of men, and yet there is some ground for the charge that this book advocated too much a selfish religion. You are to aim at Christian perfection because it is your only chance of happiness here and hereafter. It is true that the means by which this end is to be attained are the very reverse of selfish. Self-denial and mortification are of the essence of his scheme ; but it is mortification and denial of the lower self for the advantage of the higher. Beyond the actual requirements of nature, the rich are to spend nothing upon themselves, but give all to the poor. Is this selfishness } In one sense, no ; but in another, possibly, yes. If the poor are regarded simply as a sort of ' spiritual plate-powder for polishing up our own souls ' (to use a rather flippant but very forcible expression of a writer of our own day), there may lurk selfishness even in this apparently most unselfish rule. It must be added that nothing was further from Law's thoughts than selfishness ; but that is not to the point. In spite, however, of these blemishes, the ' Christian Perfection ' is a great work — a noble protest against the prevalent irreligion ; and the practical good which it effected far overbalanced the possible harm which a misuse of some of its sentiments may to a slight extent have caused. Weighty testimony to the beneficial effects which it produced might be multiplied to an almost indefinite extent. A few of the most striking evidences must here suffice. The saintly Bishop Wilson says of it : ' Law's " Christian Perfection " fell into my hands by providence ; and after reading it over and over, I recommended it so heartily to a friend of mine near London, that he procured eighteen copies for each of our parochial libraries ; I have recommended it to my clergy after the most affecting manner, as the likeliest way to bring them to a most serious Influence of ' Christian Perfection! 49 temper.' The elder Venn (his biographer tells us) tried to realise Law's ' Christian Perfection.' John Wesley, who was himself deeply impressed by the work, informs us that all the Methodists were greatly profited by it.^ Bishop Home (says Bishop Ewing) either copied, or was sufficiently con- versant with the ' Christian Perfection ' to quote from memory whole passages from it in his sermon ' On the Duty of Self-denial.' ' And, not to weary the reader, it may suffice to quote one more very practical illustration of the influence which the ' Christian Perfection ' exercised. Shortly after its publication, it is reported that as Law was standing in his publisher's shop, in London, a stranger, after inquiring whether his name was the Rev. Mr. Law, placed in his hands a letter, which, on being opened, was found to contain a banknote for 1,000/., sent, it is presumed, by some anonymous writer who was impressed with his- practical treatise. It is rumoured that with this money Law founded part of the school which still exists in his native village. ' Letter from Bishop Wilson to Lady Elizabeth Hastings, dated Warring- ton, September 13, 1729. 2 Wesley's ' Sermons,' vol. iii. p. 228 ; Sermon CVII. on ' God's Vineyard.' ^Present-Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology, p. 13. 5© Law at Putney. CHAPTER VI. LAW AT PUTNEY. After a period of about ten years' occultation, which Law probably spent in London, and, as we may gather from an incidental notice, in somewhat straitened circum- stances,' he emerges from his obscurity and appears before us in very distinct individuality henceforth to the end of his life — thirty-four years later. It is said to have been about the year 1727 when he became an inmate of the family of Mr. Gibbon, grandfather of the historian, at Putney, acting in the capacity of tutor to his only son, Edward. The story of the life at Putney is immortalised in perhaps the most finished piece of literary biography in the English language — Gibbon's ' Memoirs of My Life and Writings.' Mr. Gibbon, the master of the house, had been ' The incidental notice is in a pamphlet entitled, ' An Account of all the Considerable Pamphlets that have been published on either side in the present controversy between the Bishop of Bangor and others to the end of the year 1718, with occasional observations on them by Philagnostes Criticus, 1719.' The writer has a very strong bias in favour of Bishop Hoadly, and against Law. After vehemently condemning Law's letters, be writes, ' There has been for some time advertised a " Reply to the Bishop of Bangor's Answer to the Repre- sentation" by Law, to be published by subscription, and the following right zealous and orthodox divines of the Church of England, Dr. Pelling, Dr. Fiddes, Dr. Astry, and Mr. Thorold, have charitably taken the trouble of soUiciting [sic) and receiving subscriptions for this great nonjuring defender of the rights of the clergy.' I think that slight as this notice is, we may certainly gather from it that Law was at the time in straitened circumstances ; other- wise, with his independent character, he would never have allowed such an arrangement. Tutor to Gibbon, Father of the Historian. 5 1 one of the directors of the disastrous South Sea Company ; and, when the bubble burst, he lost, not only his fortune, but also, like the rest of the directors, to a great extent his reputation. He appears, however, to have been an ex- cellent man of business, and to have succeeded in a com- paratively short time both in repairing his shattered fortune and in re-establishing his good name ; so that at the time when Law became a member of his household he was again a reputable and wealthy man. ' He had realised a very con- siderable property in Sussex, Hampshire, Buckinghamshire, and the New River Company ; and had acquired a spacious house with gardens and lands at Putney, in Surry, where he resided in decent hospitality,' ' In this ' spacious house ' we find Law comfortably located, certainly not later than 1727, and possibly much earlier. In fact, I am by no means sure that a considerable portion of the time during which we seem to have lost sight of Law may not have been passed in Mr. Gibbon's family. Gibbon the historian is provokingly vague on the subject, but his account will at least admit of such an explanation. ' A parent,' he writes, ' is most attentive to supply in hif children the deficiencies of which he is conscious in himself ; my grand- father's knowledge was derived from a strong understand- ing,, and the experience of the ways of men ; but my father enjoyed the benefits of a liberal education as a scholar and a gentleman. At Westminster School, and afterwards at Emanuel College, in Cambridge, he passed through a regular course of academical discipline, and the care of his learning and morals was entrusted to his private tutor, the same Mr. William Law,' ^ Now, as Mr. Edward Gibbon (Law's pupil) was born in 1707, he would be twenty years old at the time when Law is reported to have entered the family ; > Gibbon's 'Miscellaneous Works,' vol. i. p. 13. Memoirs of my Life and Writings. ' ^*«^- '• 'S- E 2 Character of old Mr. Gibbon. and as it was evidently intended that he should be tutor at Putney as well as at Cambridge, it seems highly pro- bable that he commenced his labours before his pupil had reached so ripe an age. The reasons which induced Mr. Gibbon to select Law as a tutor for his son are ob- vious. Though not actually a Jacobite, Mr. Gibbon, like many other country gentlemen, had probably in his heart of hearts a strong sympathy with the cause of the exiled Stuarts. He was a staunch Tory, and had been one of the Commissioners of Customs under the famous Tory Ministry during the last four years of Queen Anne. He had acquitted himself so well in this post that, as his grandson proudly informs us, ' Lord Bolingbroke had been heard to declare that he had never conversed with a man who more clearly understood the commerce and finances of England.' He had, as we have seen, suffered severely under the Whig Ministry which succeeded with the accession of George I., and was always an implacable opponent of Sir Robert Walpole. The prot^gd oi Boling- broke and the foe of Walpole could hardly be without Jacobite proclivities ; and thus the fact that William Law was a nonjuror would be a strong recommendation rather than a hindrance to the favour of Mr. Gibbon. Like many other shrewd but self-educated men, he probably valued the benefits of education all the more because he had felt the want of it in his own person. A man of the attain- ments and abilities of Mr. Law was not to be met with every day ; and his sturdy, independent, masculine cha- racter, his intense piety without a scrap of cant about it, and his evident firmness, which Mr. Gibbon no doubt felt that his son required in a tutor, would all commend him to his employer. The office of half-tutor, half-chaplain and companion, in a gentleman's family was a very common resource for the nonjurors. Lord Macaulay's description of the Law accompanies his Pupil to Cambridge. 5 3 degeneracy into which many of them fell is well known. Whether it be in the main true or not need not here be discussed ; but it is quite clear that it would not apply to William Law. He, at any rate, was in no danger of ' sink- ing into a servile, sensual, drowsy parasite.' He never set himself ' to discover the weak side of every character, to flatter every passion and prejudice, to sow discord and jealousy where love and confidence ought to exist, to watch the moment of indiscreet openness for the purpose of ex- tracting secrets important to the prosperity and honour of families,' &c.' From his general character we might as- sume with perfect certainty that he belonged to neither of these classes ; but, apart from this, we have the express testimony of his pupil's son, who certainly would not be prejudiced in favour of a man holding the views that Law did. ' In our family,' writes the historian, ' he (Law) had left the reputation of a worthy and pious man, who be- lieved all that he professed, and practised all that he en- joined.' ^ In 1727 Law accompanied his pupil to Emmanuel Col- lege, Cambridge,^ and thus once again, under very different circumstances, entered within the walls from which he had been excluded eleven years before for conscience' sake. It would be interesting to know Law's feelings and behaviour on his return to a society of which he had once been a distinguished member. Most men look back to their old college days with affectionate regard. But we have no record whatever of Law's sentiments on this point. The ' Serious Call ' was probably written, in part at least, at Cambridge, but no allusion of any kind to the University is found in that great work ; and beyond a few scattered ' Macaulay's History of England, vol. ii. chap. xiv. p. IIO. '^ Gibbon's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. p. 14. ' The register of Mr. Gibbon's entry at Emmanuel is as follows : ' July 10, 1727, Gibbon, Edw., F.C. [Fellow Commoner], Alderman of London.' 54 Feeble Character of Law's Pupil. hints, to be noticed presently, Law's second stay at Emmanuel is a perfect blank to us. Of Law's pupil little need be said. It would seem as if in the family of Gibbon force of character, like the gout in some families, passed over a generation. It is seen in a very remarkable degree in the grandfather and the grand- son. The stout old gentleman who repaired a shattered for- tune and an almost shattered reputation, and who earned the complimentary remark of Lord Bolingbroke, was certainly not deficient in moral and intellectual vigour ; still less was the great historian. But the second Gibbon, boy and man, was a vague, purposeless, uninteresting character. His son, indeed, always spoke of him and treated him with affection and respect, and when he died paid a pious tribute to his ' graceful person, polite address, gentle manners, and unaf- fected cheerfulness, which recommended him to the favour of every company.' But he is obliged to acknowledge his father's weakness and inconstancy. To fritter away his time when he was a youth, and his money when he grew to be a man, seems to have been his habit. Such a character was not likely to commend itself to a man like the elder Gibbon. On one occasion Law had to interpose his good offices to prevent the old gentleman from turning his son out of doors ; and at his death Mr. Gibbon enriched his two daughters at the expense of his son, because, the his- torian tells us, he did not altogether approve of the latter's marriage, but probably in part also because, as a man of business, he knew ihat money would be thrown away upon so feeble a character. It may be that Law was not exactly the man to draw out the latent faculties of a youth like Gibbon ; at any rate he did not succeed in doing so. One can hardly help speculating what might have been the result if Law's pupil had been the grandson instead of the son. There certainly were some very noble elements Law and Gibbon the Historian. 55 in the character of the historian ; but, so far as Christianity was concerned, he never had a fair chance. His experiences at Magdalen College, Oxford, were not likely to give him a very exalted opinion of the established religion. M. Pavilliard, the worthy Swiss pastor who was employed to win him back from Romanism, though a man of respect- able abilities and attainments, was not a strong enough man to deal with such a mind as Gibbon's. And, so far as is known, Gibbon never was brought into contact with sufficiently powerful Christian influences until he had drifted away from the Christian faith. What the influence of a Christian of real genius, as well as of intense earnestness and blameless- life, like Law, might have done for him, can of course only be a matter of conjecture. On the one hand. Gibbon had little of what the Germans call ' reli- giositat ' in his composition, and it is therefore quite pos- sible that the austere and uncompromising character of Law's religion might only have precipitated the catastrophe which subsequently befel his faith. But then, on the other hand, if Gibbon had not a very strong sense of piety, he had a very keen relish for intellectual questions connected with Christianity ; from his earliest youth he had always a hankering after religious controversy ; and his enthusiastic exclamation- in describing his conversion to Romanism through the instrumentality of Bossuet, ' Surely I fell by a noble hand,' &c., shows what a hold a powerful controver- sialist could gain upon his mind. No man living was more competent to gain this hold than Law ; one can fancy into what ribbons he could have torn the arguments which Gibbon's boyish mind loved to frame. Gibbon's own account of the curious sort of arithmetical process . by which he was reconverted from Romanism, while it shows the interest he took in such questions, shows also how crude and unformed his views were. As one reads the 56 Law never associated with his Equals. sad story of what a Christian cannot help calling the wreck of a noble character, one is tempted to cry 'exoriare aliquis ' to lead this great but erring spirit from darkness into light. And the ' aliquis ' was at hand in the honoured friend and spiritual director of the family, William Law. Nor would the advantages of such a connexion as we have imagined between these two great men have been all on one side. It was distinctly a misfortune to Law that he never came into close personal relationship, except upon paper, with a man of real genius. John Wesley was the nearest approach to such a man who knew Law in- timately ; but Wesley's genius was, as we shall see pre- sently, not at all of the kind which Law was likely to appreciate. As a rule, Law was a very Saul among his Christian brethren, intellectually taller by the head and shoulders than any of them. At no period of his life, so far as we know, did he make any friends who could con- verse with him on at all equal terms. He was invariably the oracle of his company, and oracles are not wont to be contradicted. This manifest superiority to his surround- ings rather tended to encourage a certain peremptoriness of tone and abruptness of manner which were natural to him. Had he been brought into that intimate relationship which subsists between a conscientious tutor and an intelli- gent pupil, with a young man of the calibre of Gibbon, and continued the intimacy when the relationship ceased, the result might have been beneficial to him. Such, however, was not his good fortune ; his lot was cast with the feeble father, not with the strong son. Law's pupil quitted the University without taking a de- gree, and commenced his travels, leaving his tutor behind him in the ' spacious house ' at Putney. The historian cannot resist a sneer at this arrangement. ' The mind of a saint is above or below the present world, and while the Law failed to mould his PupiCs Character. 57 pupil proceeded on his travels, the tutor remained at Put- ney ; ' but he does Law the justice to add, ' the much honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family ;' and at a later period he acknowledges his obligations to the tutor for ' some valuable editions of the classics and the fathers, the choice, as it should seem, of Mr. Law.' These he found in his father's study at Buriton, which was also ' stuffed with much trash of the last age, with much High Church divinity and politics, which have long since gone to their proper place ' ; — possibly this ' High Church divinity and politics,' which he is pleased to call trash, may also have been the choice of Mr. Law. Not a trace, how- ever, of the influence of Mr. Law can be found in his pupil's character and after career. It is difficult to con- ceive a greater difference than between the life of Mr. Gibbon and the ideal life sketched by Law in the ' Serious Call ' at the very time when Gibbon was under his charge. Law did not succeed in making his pupil even tolerant of Jacobitism ; for Gibbon the historian tells us of a certain unhappy Mr. John Kirkby, ' who exercised about eighteen months the office of my domestic tutor ; ' and adds, ' His learning and virtue introduced him to my father, and at Putney he might have found at least a temporary shelter, had not an act of indiscretion again driven him into the world. One day, reading prayers in the parish church, he most unluckily forgot the name of King George ; his patron, a loyal subject, dismissed him with some reluctance, and a decent reward.' Well might the pupil of Mr. Law show 'some reluctance' in punishing a man for doing inadvertently what his tutor had no doubt always done deliberately ! Law's life at Putney, which lasted at least twelve years, was by no means an inactive or useless one. Besides being busy with his pen during this period, he acted as a 58 Law's Fitness for Office of Spiritual Director. sort of spiritual director, not only to the family of the house, but also to a coterie of earnest men who, in that time of spiritual torpor, both inside and outside the national church, might well require some more religious guidance than either church or conventicle could supply them with. The widespread and profound impression which Law's two practical treatises had produced, caused him to be greatly sought after as a kind of ductor dubitantium. In many respects he was admirably adapted for the office. In the first place, he was always accessible. He appears to have had what in this day we should call the ' run of the house ' at Putney, with full liberty to receive his friends there, as well as to correspond with them, as often as he chose. Nothing can better illustrate the force of Law's character than this curious arrangement. When we remember that too many domestic chaplains, especially nonjurors, held a very subordinate, not to say degrading, position at this period, when we bear in mind that the master of the house was evidently a strong-willed old gentleman, and one more- over whose pursuits and habits were not of the kind which le?id a man to do homage to a scholar and a divine simply as such ; when we further take into account that, from a worldly point of view, the obligations were entirely on one side, we shall see what a strong man Law must have been, to have become, as he obviously did, complete master of the situation. But the power he obtained he never abused ; he employed it, as was his invariable way, for no selfish purposes, but for the spiritual good of all who came within its sphere. Again, oracle as Law was, he never expressed himself oracularly. You might disagree with him, but you could not mistake what he meant. Neither could you doubt the thorough genuineness of the man. He varied his opinions not unfrequently, and his disciples must have found some Law, Wesley, and Dr. yohnson compared. 59 difficulty in keeping pace with his various changes ; but from first to last he was manifestly desirous only to dis- cover the truth and to glorify the God of truth. Perhaps, too, he was all the more calculated to fascinate, because there was always a certain amount of fear mingled with the love which his disciples bore him. His natural temper was cheerful and very kindly ; but there was an asperity of manner, a curtness of expression, an impatience of everything that appeared to him absurd and unreason- able, — and he had a wonderfully keen perception of what was absurd and unreasonable, — which made most men with whom he came into contact rather afraid of him. Indeed, if this natural asperity had not been softened by Divine grace, he would have been, in spite of his greatness and goodness, a somewhat repelling man. Even as it was, he was rather a Gamaliel to be looked up to by a select few than a friend to be loved by a large number. If we compare him with two of his contemporaries, who in many respects greatly resembled him — John Wesley and Dr. Johnson— we shall at once see the difference. All three were good Christians, of a very different type indeed, and by no means reaching the same spiritual standard, but all genuine in their way. All three exercised a vast in- fluence for good in their generation. They were, each of them, the centre of a circle of admiring disciples. There were many personal characteristics common to the three. A certain massiveness and strength of character, a rather grim sense of humour, a real benevolence of nature concealed under an external roughness which made them feared at least as much as loved — these belong to all. But Johnson and Wesley are still household words in the mouth of every educated Englishman ; Law is almost forgotten. And yet in their many excellences Law was fully equal to the other two ; while in point of purely intellectual power 6o Law's want of Sympathy with his Generation. he was, I venture to think, superior to both. Johnson and Wesley could no more have written such powerful works as Law wrote than they could have won Marlborough's victories. This seems a bold assertion, but let any one compare the still extant works of the three, and he can hardly fail to admit its truth. In what single work of either Johnson's or Wesley's is there the same originality of thought, elegance of diction, or force of argument, which are to be found in almost every one of Law's works .' Of course, it may be said that neither Wesley's nor Johnson's reputation rests on his literary merit ; the former having immortalised himself as a practical worker, the latter as a conversationalist. Still, the literary work of both has survived ; while, in one sense. Law was as truly a prac- tical worker as Wesley ; and, from the scattered hints which yet remain to us, we may gather that, like Johnson, he had very remarkable conversational powers. The secret of their success and of his comparative failure probably lies in the fact that they both possessed bonds of sympathy with their fellow men which Law never possessed. Both Wesley and Johnson were thorough eighteenth century men ; Law was a sort of lusus naturce in his day. Of course, the oblivion into which he has fallen is partly owing to the fact of his having in his later years adopted a set of very unpopular opinions. But with his force of intellect. Law might surely to a great extent have overcome this un- popularity, if he had possessed that sympathy with his age which both the others did. Johnson, in spite of his rug- gedness, was full of bonhomie ; he took a broader view of life than Law did ; he thought the world was to be leavened, not renounced, by the Christian ; and thus he was able to extend his influence over a far wider area during his life- time, and to leave works behind him which would be read by a far wider class of readers after his death than Law Laws Disciples — yohn Byrom. 6i did. Wesley, again, in spite of much that has been said to the contrary, was in reality a thoroughly genial man. He, too, took ji broader view of life than Law did ; and, more- over, he possessed a wonderful faculty of organising and governing masses of men, of which Law was quite destitute. Hence it happened that he who was really the ablest of these three good Christians is much the least known of the three. But all this time we are leaving Law at Putney, the centre of a very small circle of admirers, who looked up to him as their ' guide, philosopher, and friend.' A brief de- scription of some of the more prominent members of this circle will enable us better to understand the great central figure round which they were grouped. First in order of intimacy, if not of merit, comes John Byrom. In common gratitude we are bound to place him first on the list, because it is to him that we are indebted more than to any man, except Law himself, for the mate- rials which enable us to estimate Law's character. It seems to have been the fashion for the gods of the eighteenth century to have had each his flamen. As Addison had his Steele, Warburton his Hurd, Johnson his Boswell, so Law had his Byrom. John Byrom had considerable merits, both as a man and an author ; but there is a certain absurdity about him in both capacities which rather mars them. Like Law, he was, though the son of a tradesman, the scion of an old and honourable family ; and, like Law, he had the benefit of a liberal education. He was a Fellow of Trinity, Cambridge, at the same time that Law was Fellow of Emmanuel ; but they do not seem to have become personally acquainted at the University ; and, as we have already seen, the reports which Byrom then heard of his future mentor did not at all impress him in his favour. At the early age of twenty- 62 Byrom's ' Colin and Phoebe.' three, Byrom wrote a pastoral entitled ' Colin and Phoebe,' or, as he generally terms it, from its first line : ' My time, O ye Muses, &c.,' which had the honour of being inserted in the eighth volume of the ' Spectator,' with the compli- mentary remark of the editor, ' It is so original, that I do not much doubt it will divert my readers.' ' It is a divert- ing little piece, prettily conceived and smoothly written, equal, in fact, to the best pastorals of Shenstone or Philips, and nearly equal to those of Gay ; but what would Law have said if his pupil had been guilty of perpetrating this amatory trifle in later years ? The history of this pastoral gives us so curious a glimpse into the way in which matters were managed at the Universities in the eighteenth century, that it is worth noticing. The ' Phoebe ' of the poem was Joanna, daughter of the famous Dr. Bentley, then Master of Trinity ; and young Byrom immortalised her, not because he wished to win her affections, but because he desired to secure her father's interest for the fellowship for which' he was a candidate. It is satisfactory to be able to add that the ingenious plan was successful ; for through Dr. Bent- ley's influence he was elected. However, this kind of trifling was soon ended. Phcebe married a bishop,^ and Colin, under the tuition of his ' Master Law,' ' sang after- wards in a very different strain ; but to the last he seems to ' spectator, vol. viii. No. 603. Byrom also wrote Nos. 586, 587, 597, the former under the pseudonym of 'John Shadow.' ' Dr. Dennison Cumberland, afterwards Bishop of Clonfert in Killaloe. ' Byrom always called Law ' his master, ' and explained what he meant by so doing, mm-e suo, in rhyme. O how much better he from whom I draw, Though deep yet clear, his system — ' Master Law,' Master I call him ; not that I incline To pin my faith on any one divine. But man or woman, whosoe'er he be That speaks true doctrine, is a pope to me. Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple. Byrom and Law like yohnson and Boswell. 63 have been proud of ' My time, O ye Muses, &c.,' and to have considered it as his chef-d'auvre. We have already seen that Byrom, like Law, was attached to the exiled Stuarts ; but he had not, like Law, the courage of his opinions. Still, their political sympa- thies were, no doubt, a bond of union between them. But there were other bonds stronger than this. Byrom resided for a time in France, and there met with Malebranche's ' Search after Truth,' and some of the works of Madame Antonia Bourignon. Both these authors fascinated him extremely, and of course prepared the way for those mystic views which, under the direction of Law, he afterwards ardently embraced. It is from Byrom's private journal that we derive our best information about Law at Putney. His accounts of his continual meetings with Law, and the reports of the conversations between them are most interesting and amusing, perhaps none the less so for being mixed up in a rather bewildering way with the minutest details about the writer's own habits and tastes. In fact, they are so good that it is provoking that they were not made still better by being worked up into a regular life of his friend, instead of appearing as mere disjointed fragments. Byrom might perhaps have done for Law what Boswell did for Johnson. There is a very curious resemblance between the relations of the two men to their respective heroes. Both not only received with perfect complacency the snubs which their patrons were continually administering to them, but also chronicled those snubs with the utmost simplicity. Both were rewarded by the great men with compliments and ex- pressions of love and esteem. Both fought their principals' battles with more than their principals' ardour. But, as Law was a more strictly religious man than Johnson,' so ' Dr. Johnson's attitude towards Christianity is very happily hit off by Mr. Leslie Stephen. ' Johnson, as we know him, was a man of the world, though 64 Byrom and Law. Byrom was a more reputable man than Boswell. We hear of no such escapades on the part of Byrom as those which Boswell naively reports about himself Still, Byrom was as much more lax than Law as Boswell was than Johnson. His journal indicates a curious conflict between the Church and the world on the part of the writer. One finds such odd medleys as these : 'April 4, 1735. Captain Mainwaring, from Chester, called, and we drank a bottle of old hock, 30 years old, and talked about religion and Mr. Law. 'Jan. 31st, 1730. Supper at Mitre with Chilton, Hough, &c. ; talked about Hebrew points, happiness, Mr. Law, stage plays ; we paid 2s. ; I had two bottles — too much for a defender of Law to drink.' ' Rose at 10 o'clock, rose at 9.30, rose at 11,' are entries of constant occurrence, in utter defiance of Law's rule that early rising was almost essen- tial to the Christian character. This, however, is anticipating. The first entry in the journal which indicates any intimacy between Byrom and his mentor is dated March 1729. On February 15 of the same year he records ' Bought Law's " Serious Call " of Rivington.' Three days later he writes to Phcebe Byrom, ' I have bought Mr. Law's book since I came to town, but have had no time to read him yet. I find the young folks of my acquaintance think Mr. Law an impracticable, strange, whimsical writer, but I am not convinced by their reasons. Yesterday, Mr. Mildmay bought it because I said so much of it ; he is a very pretty young gentleman. But, for Mr. Law and Christian religion, and such things, they are mightily out of fashion at present.' About a fortnight afterwards we find that Byrom had made time not only to read Mr. Law's book, but also, after his wont, to turn a a religious man of the world. He represents the secular rather than the eccle- siastical type.' — Johnson ('English Men of Letters '), p. 10, Law most decidedly represents the ecclesiastical. Byrom visits Law at Ptttney. 65 passage of it into rhyme. On March 4, 1729,13 the first recorded interview between Law and his future disciple, which is well worth quoting in full. Byrom writes : ' We,' (i.e. himself and the ' pretty young gentleman ' mentioned in the last entry) ' went to the Bull Inn, Putney, and sent to Mr. Law that we should wait on him in the afternoon ; it was then near two o'clock ; while we were eating a mutton chop Mr. Law came to us, and we went with him to Mr. Gibbon's, where we walked in the gardens and upstairs into some rooms, the library, and then we sat in a parlour below with Mr. Law and young G., who left us after a little while over a bottle of French wine. We talked about F. Malebranche much ; Mr. Law said he owed it to him that he kept his act at Cambridge upon " Omnia videmus in Deo ; " that meeting with the . book w^ithout any recom- mendation of it, he found all other books were trifling to this ! Nay, so far does he admire the author, that if he knew anybody who had conversed with him much he would go to Paris on purpose to talk with him. I told him I would go with him. We talked about his book, and I made some of the common objections I repeated the verses about the Pond to him ' and Mildmay, and they laughed, and Mr. Law said he must have a copy of them, and desired I would not put the whole book into verse, for then it would not sell in prose — so the good man can joke ! ' After a few more observations not worth repeating, Byrom concludes, ' He lent me the Eloge upon Father Malebranche, and said he would find me out at London ; we left directions where we both lived. He brought us to the water-side, &c.' ' The verses about the ' Pond ' were a poetical version of the capital story in the ' Serious Call ' of the man who spent his life in getting from all sources water to fill his pond, and, when it was filled, drowned himself in it. Wrenched from its context, as it appears in Byrom's poemi, the story seems absurdly extravagant ; introduced as it is by Law in the ' Serious Call,' it is an admir- able one ; to say nothing of the superiority of Law's prose over Byrom's verse. F 66 Byrom visits Law at Cambridge. This interview between Law and Byrom evidently ended to the satisfaction of both, and from that time sprang up an odd intimacy between these two good men who were in most respects singularly unlike one another. We next find them both at Cambridge — Law in his capacity of tutor or governor to young Mr. Gibbon, Byrom apparently on an expedition after pupils for a new system of shorthand which he had invented, and by teaching which he at this time mainly supported himself and his family. He was par- ticularly anxious to secure Gibbon on account of his con- nexion with Law, but found him a difficult pupil to catch, and not a very satisfactory one when caught. Thus, we find him writing to Mrs. Byrom: 'Jan. 30, 1730. Going to Emmanuel I had a mind not to miss a gentleman or two whom I like, and especially had a desire to enter Mr. Law's pupil, but question now whether I shall, because he is always saying he will learn, but not to me, or else I would fain have him for his tutor's sake.' The shy bird, however, was caught, for within a few days we have the entry : 'Mr. Gibbon had appointed to come and begin shorthand, which he did. Mr. . Gibbon, of Emmanuel (Mr. Law's pupil), began Candlemas Day, 1730.' The pupil was not an apt one, but Byrom was more than repaid by the approbation of his tutor. At the second lesson, he finds that ' Gibbon, who had been " playing," he said, at quad- rille [what did Mr. Law say to that ?] had writ a little, but very ill, for he makes his letters wretchedly, but reads pretty well. Mr. Law came in while we were at it, and sat with us, and I ran over the theory of it with him, and he took it immediately and seemed much pleased with it ; said he had never so good a notion of it before, that it was of great use and well contrived, that he was much tempted to learn it ; I exhorted him to try ; he said the theory of it he saw plainly, and I could say nothing of it, but he would Byrom teaches Law's Pupil Shorthand. 6 7 allow all the fine things that could be said ; I was much pleased that it pleased a man for whom I have a great veneration ; he said I should have more pains with Mr. G., because he wrote a very bad hand ; he asked me if I smoked, but I said " No, not alone ; " we had a bottle of wine ; he drank none, I think, I two or three glasses ; . . . appointed to call to-morrow Mr. Law made Mr. Gibbon go to the porter's with me to let me out.' On the morrow, Byrom found 'Mr. Gibbon had done nothing.' ' What a pity,' he adds, ' he should be so slow, for Law's sake.' There was a reward, however, in store for him. The next day, ' going to Emmanuel, I met Mr. Gibbon and Bridg- man, so appointed to-morrow. N.B. — Bridgman said that he had been with Law, who had commended our short- hand much, was glad that Gibbon had learned it, and said that it was THE SHORTHAND.' Gibbon, however, would not learn it ; it was impossible to fix the volatile pupil. One day, Byrom ' went to Gibbon, but Law said he was gone to the Westminster Club ; ' on another, ' went to Gibbon's, but he was gone to Huntingdon, Law said ; ' on another, ' went to Emmanuel, Gibbon was in the Combination, Law sent for him,' and so forth. Trifling as these details are in themselves, they are well worth noting as illustrative not only of the character of Law's pupil, but also to a certain extent of Law's own capacity for the office of tutor. He and Gibbon were evidently in no way congenial spirits, and Law appears to have had little or no influence over his pupil. One can well understand, therefore, why, when the Cambridge career was over, the pupil should have gone forth on his travels alone, and the tutor have been left be- hind at Putney, where there were others who appreciated him better, and where he found more congenial and useful occupation than managing a dull, vacillating young man. The only other allusion in Byrom's journal to Law's un.satis-- 68 Law and Dr. Bentley. factory pupil occurs thirteen years later, when Byrom, who was rather given to asking awkward questions, asked Law ' about the story of his setting young Gibbon and his father at odds about his smoking ; ' to which Law replied ' that he had never spoken to him in his life about it ; that he had . reconciled them when he was turned out of doors.' In March 1731 we haye an entry in Byrom's journal which is provoking on account of its brevity. ' Met Dr. Bentley in the park, and Mr. Abbot, and we had talk about Mr. Law, charity, and religion.' Mr. Abbot was an Em- manuel man and doubtless knew Law well ; but as he was in no way remarkable, there would have been no particular interest in hearing what he had to say about Law. But one would have liked to know what the greatest scholar and critic of his age thought of the only man who had shown himself capable of writing a piece of slashing con- troversial divinity equal to his own immortal 'Remarks on a Discourse of Freethinking ; ' for I have no hesita- tion in saying that Law in his ' Remarks on the Fable of . the Bees ' as completely annihilated Mandeville as ' Phile- leutherus Lipsiensis' annihilated Collins. In May of the same year, Byrom gives his wife a pretty picture of a somewhat unwonted scene for Law to figure in. ' I told Phoebe,' he writes, ' how Mr. Houghton, Lloyd, Chaddock, and I and Mr. Law came in a boat from Put- ney to London, and what kind of conversation we had ; when I asked him first what he thought of Mrs. Bourignon, he said he wished he could think like her, by which thou mayst guess that he and I should not much disagree about matters. Our young brethren were mightily pleased with him, as anybody must have been, and have seen by the instance of a happy poor man that true happiness is not of this world's growth. I wish thou hadst been there and Josiah, &c. I think you would all have liked him, for all he Law's Conversations with Byrom. 69 is such an unfashionable fellow— perhaps for that reason among others. Passing over such unimportant notices as — ' I met Mr. Law in the street to-day and had a great deal of talk with him. I wish thou [Mrs. Byrom] hadst been with us ; ' ' Put on a shirt to go to Mr. Law ; ' — which are of constant occur- rence, we come to a long entry which is singularly interest- ing as illustrative of Mr. Law's opinions at this period on a variety of subjects 'expressed with all the frankness which a man uses when he pours out his soul to a confidential friend. It will be remembered that Byrom before his acquaintance with Law had been much fascinated with the writings of Madame Bourignon ; to wean him from his excessive attachment to this interesting, pious, but wildly extravagant writer was evidently one of the objects of Law's remarks. The sort of half-fear, half-love with which Byrom was beginning to regard Law ; the touching naivete with which he records the severe rebukes which he submis- sively received from his mentor ; the austere views which mysticism had not yet toned down in the author of the ' Serious Call ; ' and, finally, the utter want in Law of that power of influencing the lower classes which his fellow- reformer John Wesley possessed in so remarkable a degree ; — all this is very vividly illustrated in the following entry : 'June 7, 1735. I went to Putney afoot, and walked past the house and into a field'— evidently because he could not yet summon up courage to meet the great man ' — 'and about three inquired for Mr. Law, and Miss Gibbon came to me and went with me into the garden, and brought me to him, ' This is clear from what goes before. ' Having,' he tells us, ' put on my boots and coat and trunk -hose, and gone up to shave and powder, ... I went to Putney, where I light at the King's Kxmi. in Fulhara, and stayed there till two o'clock, it being near one when I came.' Having fortified his courage with ' four Brentford rolls and half a pint of cider,' he went ' to Putney afoot,' as recorded above. ^o Law's Conversations with Byrom. walking by the green grass by a canal ; he asked if I had dined ? I said Yes ; and after salutation and a turn or two ; " Well, what do you say ? " to which I answered that I had a great many things to say, but I dare not. It was not long before Mrs. Bourignon became the subject of his discourse, and he said much about her and against her ; seemed to think she had great assistance from the Spirit of God, but questioned much if she did not mix her own as Luther did ; said that he had locked her up that Miss Gibbon might not find her among his books, that he had not met with anybody fit to read her, and mentioned her saying that there were no Christians but herself; and, above all, her rendering the necessity of Christ's death needless, which was the very foundation of all Christianity ; and that she would puzzle any man what to do, and that she thought the world would be at an end. He mentioned Mr. John Walker some time in the afternoon, that he had left his father because he could not comply, and yet he heard since that he went to assemblies, which was impossi- ble for a true Christian to be persuaded to do ; mentioned one that came to ask about some indifferent matter his advice, and he heard that since he was going to join holy orders and matrimony together ; I suppose he meant Houghton. He said that Taulerus had all that was good in Mrs. Bourignon, but yet the humblest man alive. Upon my asking if Rusbrochius ' was the first of those writers, he said, " You ask an absurd question. Excuse me," says he, " for being so free ; " that there never was an age since Christianity but there had been of those writers. Men- tioned H. Suso's three rules for possessing money : first, to take necessaries only ; second, to impart to any Christian that wanted ; thirdly, if lost, not to be at all concerned ; and • For an account of Rusbrochius, Taulerus, Suso, and Madame Bourignon, see infra. Law's Conversations with Byrom. 7 1 this Suso did not know where to hide himself for humility. He said that the bottom of all was that this world was a prison into which we were fallen, that we had nothing to do but to get out of it, that we had no misery but what was in it, that to be freed from it was all that we wanted, that this was the true foundation of all ; that if he was to preach, he would tell the people that he had nothing to tell them but this, that once knowing this they knew enough and had a light that would set everything in a true view ; that the philosophers Epictetus, Socrates, had, by the grace of God and their own search, observed that this world could not be what God made it. He said that there was a neces- sity for everyone to feel the torment of sin ; that it was necessary for them to die in this manner and to descend into hell with Christ, and so to rise again with Him ; that every one must pass through this fiery trial in this world or another. He said I must tell the people to whom I had recom- mended Mrs. Bourignon that I meant only to recommend what she had said about renouncing the world, and not any speculations ; that it was wrong to have too many spiritual books, that the first time a man was touched by the reading of any book that was the time to fall in with grace, that it passed into mere reading instead of practice else ; that if we received benefit from reading a book, the last person we ought to say so to should be the author, who might receive harm from it, and be tempted to take a satisfaction in it which he ought not ; that a man suffering ought to abandon himself to God and rejoice " Gloria Patri," that some justice was done to God by his suffering ; there was such music in " Our Father which art in heaven, hal- lowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done." He said what little difference there was between a king upon a throne and a king in a play, between calling a man a lord in earnest and in jest. That he had reason 7 2 Laws Conversational Powers. to remember Dr. Richardson, his pupil, whom he called Richards, but was not sure that his father was minister of Putney, I think ; that the preachers durst not speak upon the subject of the cross ; that we do not know what our Lord suffered, that the sacrifice of His human body was the least thing in it. There were two men drawing the rolling- stone, and he said how fine it would be if they would learn piety, but they would not be taught ; that Mr. Gibbon's other daughter was married ; that it was such an absurdity to come to the communion with patches or paint, which no Christian would have bore formerly.' No one who is acquainted with Mr. Law's writings can doubt for one moment that we have in this queer, dis- jointed, fragmentary report a very faithful reproduction of his conversation. Not only are the sentiments his exactly, but, making allowance for its dilution in its pas- sage through Byrom's mind, we have also Law's style — its curtness, its raciness, its keenness, and its vigour. It gives one the impression that Law was a good talker, as well as a good writer ; and, as Byrom gives us the only materials we possess for judging of Law's powers in this department, as well as of Law's mode of life at Putney, there is hardly need to apologise for transcrib- ing the accounts of other interviews between the two friends. On Wednesday, April 13, 1737, Byrom writes : ' I went to Mr. Gibbon's, where the dinner was just going up. Mr. Law was in the dining-parlour by himself I went in and came out again ; and, upon Miss Gibbon telling me that it was he, I went in again ; and he said, " Are you but just come in } " and I sat down by the fire, and they came in to dinner ; and, being asked, I excused myself, and said that I had dined, and Mr. Gibbon saying " Where ? " I said, ' On the other side of the bridge." He asked, among. Laws Conversations with Byrom. 73 other questions, how shorthand went on, and I said that more persons were desirous to learn. After dinner I sat to the table, and drank a few glasses of champagne. Mr. Law eat of the soup, beef, &c., and drank two glasses of red wine — one, Church and King ; the other. All Friends. Mr. Gibbon fell asleep He (Mr. Law) read over Slater's catalogue, and not one book could he find that he wanted. His grace before meat the same as ours ; and that after not much different, ending with God bless the Church and King. He asked me if I cared to walk out in the afternoon, and we did ; and when we were out he said. Well, have you made any more Quakers } And we went up to the high walk, when we soon fell a-talking about Mr. Walker, and how it was all owing to Mrs. Bourignon,' who was all delusion, which he argued much about, as if it was the chief topic that he intended upon at that time, and mentioned a manuscript of Freyer's wherein it was said that he had sent her forty-five contradictions extracted from her works. He said that she was peevish, fretful, and plainly against the sacrifice of Christ, which Mr. Poiret vindicated, and mentioned the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (this was as we were going in again), and seemed to say that she was a Quaker, though she wrote against them ; that she madfe nothing of it ; that she could not tell what to do with the people that came to her, nor they with her ; that she kept her money ; that she was against priests ; and then, when to write against the Quakers, she pretended to honour them ; that if he had been of her admirers he would have burnt that book, that it should not have been known that she had writ such a book ; and, upon my interjecting some little excuses for her, he seemed to be very warm. When I mentioned- that the greatest things that could be said had been, in short, by the apostles, as, " Be ye followers of me as ■ I am of 74 Law's Conversations with Byrom. Christ ; " " The life which I live, not I, but Christ that liveth in me," — he said, " Why, you are worse than he, I think," meaning Mr. Walker ; and when I was for not con- demning her, but taking the good only wherein she agreed with others, he said that it was not enough to do so ; but, if she was a deluded person, to talk of her as such, or to that effect. I find much repugnancy in me to condemn her.' 'On Friday, 15th, Mr. Law said of Madam Guion » that, though she was much more prudent than Mrs. Bou- rignon, yet, carried away, that she played at cards with Ramsay ; and I said that it was as easy to suppose that Ramsay might tell a lie, being such a gay one as he said, as that she might play at cards with him, and he seemed to say so, that it might. He said, when I mentioned her com.mentaries upon the New Testament, that they would not do in English, nor Mrs. B.'s ; but that they were flat and not bearable (that is, Mrs. Bourignon's).' The suggestion of Byrom, in which Law also seems to have acquiesced, that, because a man played at cards and was ' a gay one,' he might probably be a liar — illogical and uncharitable as it may sound to us — was thoroughly charac- teristic of that tone of thought which made hardly any dis- tinction between what it called ' worldly ' and what was positively immoral. Soon after this interview, Byrom met the Mr. Walker referred to in it, and ' mentioned his going to see Mr. Law, whom he said he should be glad to meet, but not to go in the rain to Putney. I said that he that had gone beyond sea [he had just returned from a visit to Holland] to see three gentlemen, not to go such a little way to see one that had been friendly to him, and was a proper person ! — till he broke out at last, that I knew not his reasons for acting, and — and so he went away, and I ' For an account of Madame Guyon, see infra pp. 158-168, Law's Conversations with Byrom. 75 desired him to stay ; but he went, and just came up again to say, " Pray, when you see Mr. Law, my service to him ; " and I said, " Stay, come up ! hark ye ! " but he went away.' And really, knowing as we do the warm reception which this disciple of Madame Bourignon would have met with from Law, we can hardly help feeling a sense of relief to hear that he did not beard the lion in his den. It looks at first sight as if Byrom wished to let him into a trap ; but it was not so. Byrom was the kindliest and humblest of men living ; he was only anxious for his friend's good, and he knew no more ' proper person ' to effect this than Mr. Law ; nor was he in the least ironical when he spoke of Law as 'friendly.' He knew, no doubt, that Law had a rod in pickle for Mr. Walker ; but it was only ' to smite him friendly,' and he never dreamt of the possibility of anyone objecting to be scolded by the Putney sage any more than he did himself Other friends, however, were quite willing to accom- pany Byrom in his visits to Putney. It is hoped that the reader will not be wearied with the account of one more such visit. In April 1737, Byrom tells us, ' W. Chaddock asked if I was for going to Putney ; and we went thither ; and I told him to go himself, and if Mr. Law was there, and gave opportunity, I would come to them, and he would let me know ; and I walked in the lane thereby. So he went, and soon after they both came out, and I came to them, and Mr. Law said nobody but one that was vapoured with drinking tea would have not come in ; and he talked about Madame Guyon and her forty books, though she talked of the power of quiet and silence, which he believed was a good thing — that, indeed, it was all, if one had it ; but that a person that was to reform the world could not be a great writer ; that the persons who were to reform the world had not appeared yet ; that it would be reformed to 76 Law's Convei'sations with Byrom. be sure ; that the writers against Quakerism were not proper persons, for they writ against the Spirit, in effect, and gave the Quakers an advantage ; that the Quakers were a subtle, worldly-minded people ; that they began with the contempt of learning, riches, &c., but now were a politic, worldly society, and strange people, which word he used for them after I had shown him Thos. Smith's letter to S. Haynes, and F. H.'s to Mary Sutton, to which last, Well, and what is there in all this ? And when I said, a little while after, that they would be glad to know in what manner to answer Smith's letter, or whether to take any notice of it, he said there was nothing in it worth notice, or required answering, if they had no mind. I told him of Smith's leaving a copy of verses with her, and then it was that he said they were strange people. He com- mended Taulerus, Rusbrochius, T. a Kempis, and the old Roman Catholic writers, and disliked, or seemed to con- demn, Mrs. Bourignon, Guion, for their volumes, and describing of states which ought not to be described. When I mentioned J. Behmen as a writer of many books, he said that it was by force that he had writ ; that he de- sired that all his books had been in one ; that, besides, he did not undertake to reform the world as these persons had done ; that, if Mrs. Bou. had lived, why she would have writ twenty more books, and Poiret had published them ! I mentioned the old people, Hermas, Dionysius, Macarius, whom he commended — especially, I think, Macarius. I just asked him which particular books were the best and safest, and, at our coming away, W. Chad, asked that question particularly ; but he said. Another time, and gave no answer to it then, having asked us before if we lay in town all night, and me, if I was not afraid of being robbed ; to which I said, No, no ; and thought after that it was better to be robbed of money Death of old Mr. Gibbon. "jy than instruction. We came away late, it being just near ten when we got to Richard's coffee-house, where we drank a dish of tea.' Byrom Httle knew the deep interest which would attach to the following entry in his jburnal, which, though only indirectly connected with my subject, I cannot forbear quoting: 'Putney, Sund. May 15, 1737. They have had greatdoingshereat the christening of Mr. Gibbon's son. . . , Our landlady says that his lady had no fortune, but was a young lady of good family and reputation, and that old Mr. Gibbon led her to church and back again.' It need scarcely be said that the child was afterwards England's greatest historian. A few months later, ' old Mr. Gibbon ' was himself ' led to church,' never to come ' back again ; ' and his death broke up the establishment at Putney — not, however, immediately. Mr. Law appears still to have remained, off and on, at Putney for two or three years, but evidently in an unsettled state. Byrom never visited him there again ; but the two friends continually met in Somerset Gardens, at the back of the Strand. Law, at this time, seems to have had lodgings in London ; for we constantly find such entries as these in Byrom's journal : ' Went to Somerset Gardens ; found Mr. Law there. Went home with him to his room.' One entry is quite plaintive : ' I have been walking in Somerset Gardens a long while, in expectation of meeting Mr. Law there, who is in town, and I am welly tired.' The entries at this period seem to me to indicate that Law was a good deal worried, as lie might well be, since the comfort- able home in which he had lived for at least ten years was broken up, and the good man knew not what he was to do next. This may account for the increased asperity of his conversation, which Byrom faithfully records, though it often bears hardly upon himself. For instance, we read : 78 Laws Meetings with Byrom. *Aug. I, 1739. To Somerset Gardens. Mr. La^ there; asked me if I had scholars ; I said Yes ; he-s&id he thought it was to be published after I had said that I was desired, &c. \sic\, and I took out my book and showed him the proposal ; but he just looked at it, and gave it me again, and seemed to say that, if he knew it, it would be no use to him ; that he could write faster than he could think ; that, for them, indeed, that wanted to write down what others said, it might do. I said, valeat quantum valere potest. He said that they talked of the Pretender's coming — was not I afraid of it ? I said. No, not at all ; and he talked in his favour. [Then follows a sentence in cipher.] And, as we came away, gave him (the father) a most ex- cellent character for experience, wisdom, piety. I said that I saw him once. He said. Where 1 I said. At A. He said. Did you kiss hands .' I said. Yes ; and parted. He said that Mr. Morden and Glutton had been with him ; that there should not be so much talk about such matters ; that the time was not now ; that he loved a man of taciturnity.' This, with the exception of one other incidental hint, is the only allusion, so far as I am aware, which Law ever made — either in conversation or writing — to Jacobitism. It would be wearisome to relate all these meetings in Somerset Gardens : all of them give one the idea of Law being in a troubled, weary, and, to tell the truth, rather a petulant frame. Now we find him telling Byrom that ' he has been to the city, and is tired ; ' now that ' he has a tooth-ache, and he said, " Well, what say you .' " as he does often ; and I said. Say ! I say nothing, but how do you do .■• I am glad to see you — what would you have me to say "i ' Now we find him complaining that ' Charles Wesley had brought to him Mr. Cossart, who said nothing, but sighed deeply.' Now he rebukes poor Byrom ' for his Law in an imsettled State. 79 inconthiency ; ' ' now he tells him that ' learning had done more mischief than all other things put together,' and that it was useful only ' like a carpenter's business, or any other.' Now, on Byrom's showing him a book he had ' writ to him about the gift of tongues,' he tells him, ' Well, go on and finish it ; I am busy while I am here.' Now ' he mentioned the philosopher's stone as what he believed to be true, but not to be found by philosophers.' On Byrom's complaining, after he had rebuked his incontinency, ' I will be continent, but I have none to converse with, and it is a desolate con- dition, he said that when our king came over I should go into orders. I said, Probably you think too well and ill of me ; for that is so far too well that He said [evidently cutting his disciple short rather impatiently]. He had conversed with clergymen, and thought he knew.' After these accounts, the reader will not be surprised at the following entry : ' Mrs. Hutton came and said, she, having asked a young man — one Ackers, of Barbadoes — how Mr. Law did, he said that he was strangely altered — grown sour.' The fact, is, that Law was an excellent Christian ; but, like other excellent Christians, he had his human in- firmities, and circumstances, at this time, tended to aggra- vate the irascibility and impatience of temper to which he was naturally prone. As a fitting conclusion to this sketch of the relationship between Law and Byrom at this period of the life of the former, I may quote one more entry which illustrates very fairly the difference between the two men. ' I went home with Mr. Law, and in his room he told me that his thought and mine had great sympathy ; but that I was more easily wrought upon, and that his strings were more hard. I said that I was like an instrument that was pinned too soft, and wanted to be better quilled.' Here, for the present, we may dismiss this quaint, gentle, lovable > I.e. in talk. 8o Law and the Brothers Wesley. man. We shall meet him again when Law's life at King's Clifife comes before our notice. Two far more illustrious disciples of Mr. Law, at Putney, were the brothers John and Charles Wesley. These two great and good men were deeply impressed with Law's practical treatises, and for some time they were both respectful admirers of the author. The relation be- tween Law and John Wesley, in especial, is a very interest- ing study. ' I was at one time,' wrote Law, ' a kind of oracle with Mr. Wesley ; ' and the oracle was frequently consulted, both in person and by writing. On one occa- sion we find Wesley demurring to Law's view of Christian duty as too elevated to be attainable ; whereupon Law silenced and satisfied him by saying, ' We shall do well to aim at the highest degree of perfection, if we may thereby, at least, attain to mediocrity.' On another, Wesley com- plained to Law that he felt greatly dejected because he saw so little fruit of his labours, and received from his mentor this very sensible advice : ' My dear friend, you reverse matters from their proper order. You are to follow the Divine Light, wherever it leads you, in all your con- duct. It is God alone gives the blessing. I pray you calmly mind your own work, and go on with cheerfulness, and God, you may depend upon it, will take care of His. Besides, sir, I see you would fain convert the whole world ; but you must wait God's own time. Nay, if after all He is pleased to use you only as a hewer of wood and drawer of water, you should submit ; yea, be thankful to Him that He has honoured you so far.' On another occasion Law gave Wesley some counsel which evidently made a very deep impression upon him, and which, as we shall see, he retorted upon Law many years later. ' You would have,' said Law to him, ' a philosophical religion ; but there can be no such thing. Religion is the most plain, simple thing Laws Influence over John Wesley. 8 1 in the world ; it is only, " We love Him because He first loved us." ' On another occasion we find Wesley writing to Law for advice as to how he should treat a young man who ' had left off the Holy Eucharist.' After detailing the symptoms of the case, he concludes : ' I therefore beseech you, sir, that you would not be slack, according to the ability God shall give you, to advise and pray for him.' When Law became fascinated with mysticism, which hap- pened while he was still at Putney, Wesley for a time followed the example of his friend, and succumbed to the same charm, though always somewhat doubtfully, and never entering fully into the spirit of the system ; and, finally, when Wesley was in doubt as to whether it was his mission to go to Georgia, he at once consulted the Putney oracle, and was, to a great extent, determined by Law's advice. Wesley's visits to Putney were all made on foot, that he might save the money for the poor.' It is easy to see the reasons why Law gained this ascendency over John Wesley. From his childhood Wesley had been brought up with persons of earnest piety, without a tincture of cant about it ; of principles of a very marked High Church type ; of plain, straightforward good sense, sometimes rather bluntly and curtly expressed. These were more or less the characteristics of his father, mother, brothers, and sisters ; above all of his mother, whose influ- ence over her son John was deservedly almost unbounded. All these characteristics he found in an eminent degree in William Law. The thorough reality of the man, his ardent piety, his clear and logical intellect, his raciness, his strong and vigorous common sense, his outspokenness, the very bluntness and abruptness of his manner, his uncom- promising High Churchmanship, — all these features in his character would commend him to the founder of Methodism. > Wesley's first visit to Putney was in 1732. G 82 Rupture between Law and Wesley. The rupture between these two great and good men is a painful subject, but it cannot be wholly passed over in a life of Law. It occurred during the latter part of Law's residence at Putney, soon after Wesley's return from Georgia. It appears to be now the popular opinion that Wesley's conduct in the matter is wholly to be blamed.' This is an opinion with which I must venture utterly to disagree. Let us examine the circumstances of the case. In the spring of 1738 Wesley gained, through the instru- mentality of Peter Bohler, an abiding peace and joy in believing which he had not found under the guidance of Mr. Law. This is plain matter of fact. Whether the fault lay with the master or the disciple is not now the question. The letter which Wesley wrote to Law upon his conversion may have been ill-judged — Wesley's judg- ment was often at fault ; it may have laid him open to the crushing retort which he received ; but that it was written in a real spirit of Christian charity, that the writer had no other motive than anxiety for the spiritual welfare of Law himself (whom he still loved and respected more than almost any living man) and of those over whom Law was exercising a vast influence, that there was no conscious presumption or rudeness in it, — no one, I think, who examines dispassionately the circumstances, can deny. In fact, believing what he did, Wesley, as a Christian, could hardly, in common charity, have helped writing as he did. If Law was taken by many as their spiritual director, and was directing them wrongly or inadequately, was it not the duty of the discoverer of the wrong to deliver his own soul, and for the sake both of the guide and the guided to tell the former of his error ? Bearing these circumstances in mind, let us now turn to the famous letter, and its still • This seems to be the view even of Mr. Tyerman. See his Life of Mr. Wesley, vol. i. p. 188. Wesley's Letter to Law. 83 more famous answer. Wesley's letter runs : ' It is in obedi- ence to what I think the call of God that I, who have the sentence of death in my own soul, take upon me to write to you, of whom I have often desired to have the first elements of the gospel of Christ. If you are born of God, you will approve of the design ; if not, I shall grieve for you, not for myself For as I seek not the praise of men, so neither regard I the contempt of you or any other. . . . For two years I have been preaching after the model of your two practical treatises, and all who heard allowed that the law was great, wonderful, and holy ; but when they attempted to fulfil it, they found that it was too high for man, and that by doing the works of the law should no flesh be justified. I then exhorted them to pray earnestly for grace, and use all those other means of obtaining which God hath appointed. Still I and my hearers were more and more convinced that by this law man cannot live ; and under this heavy yoke I might have groaned till death, had not a holy man to whom God has lately directed me an- swered my complaint at once by saying, " Believe, and thou shalt be saved." Now, Sir, suffer me to ask, how will you justify it to our common Lord that you never gave me this advice ? Why did I scarcely ever hear you name the name of Christ 1 — never so as to ground anything upon faith in His blood .' If you say you advised other things as preparatory to this, what is this but laying a foundation below the foundation .' Is not Christ the First as well as the Last 1 If you say you advised this because you knew that I had faith already, you discerned not my spirit at all. Consider deeply and impartially whether the true cause of your never pressing this upon me was this, that you had it not yourself.' Wesley concluded by warning him, on the authority of Peter Bohler, whom he called a man of God, that his state Was a very dangerous one ; and asked him 84 Laws Reply to Wesley. whether his extreme roughness, and morose and sour be- haviour, could possibly be the fruit of a living faith in Christ. To this letter Law sent the following reply : ' May 19, 1738. Rev. Sir, — Yours I received yesterday. As you have written that letter in obedience to a Divine call, and in conjunction with another extraordinary good young man, whom you know to have the Spirit of God, so I assure you that, considering your letter in that view, I neither desire nor dare to make the smallest defence of myself . . . But now, upon supposition that you had here only acted by that ordinary light which is common to good and sober minds, I should remark upon your letter as follows : How you may have been two years preaching the doctrine of the two practical discourses, or how you may have tired yourself and your hearers to no purpose, is what I cannot say much to. A holy man, you say, taught you this : " Believe and thou shalt be saved, &c." I am to suppose that till you met with this holy man you had not been taught this doctrine. Did you not above two years ago give a new translation of Thomas a Kempis } ' Will you call Thomas to account and to answer it to God, as you do me, for not teaching you that doctrine .-' Or will you say that you took upon you to restore the true sense of that divine writer, and instruct others how they might profit by read- ing him, before you had so much as a literal knowledge of ' It is interesting to find in Law's library at Cliffe three copies of this edition of i Kempis by Wesley, one of them evidently much read. Law had also several Other editions of his favourite author ; one so curious that it is worth noting. T. ^ Kempis has doubtless aflTorded comfort to many troubled spirits, but one may doubt whether the following edition would quite answer the purpose for which it was published : 7. & Kempis — 4 Books of the Imitation of Christ ; together with his Three Tabernacles of Poverty, Humility, and Patience, by W. Willymott, Vice-Provost of King's, Cambridge. Dedicated to the Unhappy Sufferers by the great National Calamity of the South Sea ! (1722). Law's Reply to Wesley. 85 the most plain, open, and repeated doctrine in his book ? You cannot but remember what value I always expressed of k Kempis, and how much I recommended it to your meditations. You have had a great many conversations with me, and I dare say you never was with me half an hour without my being large upon that very doctrine which you make me totally silent and ignorant of. How far I may have discovered your spirit and the spirit of others that may have conversed with me may perhaps be more a secret to you than you imagine. But granting you to be right in your account of your own faith, how am I charge- able with it } I am to suppose that you had been medi- tating upon an author that of all others leads us the most directly to a real, living faith in Jesus Christ ; after you had judged yourself such a master of his sentiments and doctrines as to be able to publish them to the world with directions and instructions on such experimental divinity, that after you had done this you had only the faith of a Judas or devil, an empty notion only in your head ; and that you were thus through ignorance that there was any- thing better to be sought after ; and that you were thus ignorant because I never directed or called you to this faith. But, sir, ^ Kempis and I have both of us had your acquaintance and conversation, so pray let the fault be divided betwixt us, and I shall be content to have it said that I left you in as much ignorance of this faith as he did, or that you learnt no more of it by conversing with me than with him. If you had only this faith till some weeks ago, let me advise you not to be hasty in believing that because you change your language and expressions, you have changed your faith. The head can as easily amuse itself with a living and justifying faith in the blood of Jesus as with any other notion ; and the heart, which you suppose to be a place of security, as being the seat of J 86 Law an Overmatch for Wesley. self-love, is more deceitful than the head. Your last para- graph, concerning my sour, rough behaviour, I leave in its full force ; whatever you can say of me of that kind with- out hurting yourself will be always well received by me.' Mr. Southey calls this a ' temperate answer,' and so it is, but it is difficult to conceive a more cutting one ; and its edge is all the keener on account of its temperateness. Any abuse would not only have been unchristian, but it would have spoilt the force of the answer. It would have been worse than a crime, it would have been a blunder. And none knew this better than William Law. The letter, in fact, shows on a small scale what almost all Law's con- troversial pieces show — the handiwork of a consummate master of the art of controversy. Law had a marvellous knack, without overstepping, the boundaries of Christian courtesy, of making his opponents look particularly foolish. In this case it was a singularly unequal match. For Law had age and experience, as well as incomparably superior argumentative powers, on his side. Wesley was, in more senses than one, Infelix puer atque impar congressus Achilli, and no one was more conscious of this than Wesley him- self ; only, perhaps, instead of comparing himself to Troilus, and Law to Achilles, he would rather have compared him- self to David and Law to Goliath. He knew that he had an intellectual giant to deal with, and that he in comparison was but an intellectual stripling ; but he knew also that ' the battle is not always to the strong ; ' he believed that his cause was God's cause, and that by God's help he might with his little sling and stone pierce through the strong man's armour. After he had written his letter, and received his answer, it would, perhaps, have been wiser in Wesley to have let the matter rest. He had delivered his Wesley's High Estimate of Law. 87 own soul by uttering his protest, and he might have seen that there was nothing to be gained by continuing a controversy with Law. But Wesley was a thorough Englishman, and Englishmen proverbially never know when they are beaten. The very day after receiving Law's reply he wrote him another letter, and received from him an answer which, if possible, was more crushing than the first. But it is neither a pleasing nor a profitable task to descant upon the disputes between two good Christians. It is far pleasanter to record that Wesley's after-conduct was thoroughly characteristic of the noble and generous nature of the man. Though the divergence between him and his late mentor increased rather than diminished with years, yet he constantly referred to Law in his sermons, and always in terms of the warmest admiration and respect. ' In how beautiful a manner,' he exclaims in his sermon on 'Redeeming the Time,' 'does that great man, Mr. Law, treat this important subject ! " ' The ground of this," he says, in his sermon on ' Christian Education,' is ' admirably well laid down by Mr. Law ! ' ^ In another sermon Law is described as ' that strong and elegant writer, Mr. Law.' ' Even when speaking of Law's mysticism, which at the time was the object of his special abhorrence, he asks almost indignantly, ' Will any one dare to affirm that all mystics, such as Mr. Law in particular, .... are void of all Chris- tian experience ? ' * Speaking of the origin of the Methodists, he admits that 'there was some truth' in Dr. Trapp's assertion that ' Mr. Law was their parent.' For ' all the Methodists carefully read his books [i.e. the 'Christian • Sermon XCIII. vol. iii. p. 79- ' Sermon XCV. vol. iii. p. 97- 3 Sermon CXVIII. vol. iii. p. 333- < Sermon XX., on the 'Lord our Righteousness,' preached Nov. 24, 1765, vol', i. p. 269.. 88 Early Methodists on ' the great Mr. Law! Perfection ' and ' Serious Call'], and were greatly profited thereby.' ' What Wesley intimates in this last passage about the value which the early Methodists set upon Mr. Law is per- fectly true. It is only of later years that it has become the fashion to depreciate him. The contemporaries of Wesley and their immediate successors, widely as they differed from Law, always recognised in the warmest way his in- tense earnestness and piety, his splendid intellectual powers, and the inestimable services he had rendered to the cause of true religion in England. Whitefield, for example, always speaks of him as ' the great Mr. Law ; ' and even when ex- pressing his strong disagreement with many things in the ' Spirit of Prayer,' is careful to add, ' But the sun hath its spots, and so have the best of men.' ^ Not to weary the reader with evidence which it would be easy to multiply, it will be sufficient here to quote a very remarkable testi- mony from John Wesley's earliest biographers. Dr. Coke and Mr. Moore, writing, be it remembered, the very year after Wesley's death (1792), in a very marked manner, name Mr. Law, and Mr. Law alone, as a sort of Abdiel among the clergy. After asserting that in 1738 'true religion was little known in England,' that ' the great leading truths of the Gospel were not credited, or at least not enforced by the clergy of the Establishment in general,' and that ' the Dissenters in general were in no better situation,' they add : ' The great Mr. Law was an exception indeed ; ' and then, after speaking of the services rendered by ' his excellent pen,' they own distinctly that ' he was the great forerunner ' Sermon CVII. on ' God's Vineyard,' vol. iii, p. 228. [It is scarcely necessary to add that all these sermons were preached long after Wesley's breach with Law.] ^ He also says that in the ' Spirit of Prayer ' there are ' many things truly noble, and which I pray God to write upon the tables of my heart.' See Whitefield's Letters, vol. ii. p. 359 and/ofJizs. Law and the later Methodists. 89 of the revival which followed, and did more to promote it than any other individual whatever ; yea, more, perhaps, than the rest of the nation collectively taken.' ' Such lan- guage stands forth in striking contrast to the language which has been used about Law in later days. We are forcibly reminded of this when we turn from John Wesley to the modern account of his brother Charles's intimacy with Law and its termination. ' He had,' writes his biographer, ' the highest opinion of William Law, upon whose writings he might be said to meditate day and night. This eloquent but erring man was then resident at Putney ; and, for the purpose of being benefited by his counsel, Charles visited him there on August 3 1 , and September 9, 1 737. Their interviews led to no beneficial result. ' Nothing I can either speak or write,' said he, ' will do you any good.' While he avoided all reference to the atonement of Christ, the true nature of which he appears never to have under- stood, his advices concerning spiritual religion only tended to lacerate the conscience, and discourage the anxious inquirer. He set his pupils upon the hopeless task of attaining to holiness without showing them by what means they might obtain the pardon of their past sins and the blessing of a clean heart. Happily for Mr. Charles Wesley, by the merciful providence of God he was brought into intercourse with other men who were better qualified to instruct him in divine things.' ^ It is almost needless to say that I disagree in toto with this passage ; but it is fair to add that the prejudice which the later Methodists conceived against William Law was not altogether unnatural. There is a sort of poetical jus- tice in it ; for Law never did full justice to the Methodists. John Wesley in especial appreciated William Law better ' See Coke and Moore's Life of Wesley, Introduction. 2 Memoirs of the Rev. Charles Wesley, by Thomas Jackson, i;. ii. p. S^- 90 Law and Charles Wesley. than William Law appreciated John Wesley. Law greatly underrated the extent and permanency of the work for God which the Wesleys were doing. Time has shown that he was wrong when he said, ' These gentlemen have no bottom but zeal to stand upon.' When he could pnly bestow upon the founder of Methodism the grudging praise, ' I never knew any harm in him,' and even spoilt that by adding, ' but I always judged him to be too much under his own spirit,' he i%«j-judged him, though he only said what was very commonly said by many of Wesley's contemporaries in far more unchristian language. But to return to Charles Wesley. He himself gives us an interesting account of an interview he had with William Law, after his change of views. ' To-day ' (Friday, August 10, 1738), he writes, ' I carried T. Bray [a brazier in Little Britain, near Smithfield, who had become a convert to Methodism] to Mr. Law, who resolved all his feelings into fits, or natural affections, and advised him to take no notice of his comforts, which he had better be without than with. He blamed Mr. Whitefield's journals and way of proceed- ing ; said he had great hopes that the Methodists would have been dispersed by little and little in livings, and have leavened the whole lump. I told him my experience. " Then am I," said he, " far below you (if you are right), not worthy to bear your shoes." He agreed to our notion of faith, but would have it that all men held it ; was fully against the laymen's expounding, as the very worst thing both for themselves and others. I told him he was my school- master, to bring me to Christ ; but the reason why I did not come sooner to Him was my seeking to be sanctified before I was justified. I disclaimed all expectation of becoming some great one. Among other things he said, " Was I talked of as Mr. Whitefield is, I should run away and hide myself entirely." "You might," I answered, Byrom on Law and C. Wesley. 9 1 " but God would bring you back like Jonah." Joy in the Holy Ghost, he told us, was the most dangerous thing God could give. I replied, " But cannot God guard His own gifts 'i " He often disclaimed advising, seeing we had the Spirit of God, but mended upon our hands, and at last came almost quite over.' Let us now see how the matter is described from a very different point of view, that of our old friend Dr. Byrom. The following entry in his journal is important as showing that the divergence between Law and the two brothers had begun some time before the memorable letter of 1738 was written. It is dated July 1737 (two months, be it observed, before the interview described by Dr. Jack- son), and begins : ' Mr. C. Westley called as I was shaving.' It then goes on to mention several objections which Charles raised against Law's teaching, especially against his mysticism, ' which,' says Byrom, ' as it seems to me, he very little understood. He defined the mystics as those who neglected the use of reason and the means of grace.' Byrom goes on in his odd, fragmentary way, ' There was the expression of " If any like reading the Heathen Poets let them have their full swing of them," or to this effect, at which I wondering, he said that it was the advice of Mr. Law, and talked very oddly I thought upon these matters.' Then Charles noticed ' a palpable mistake in Mr. Law's " Serious Call," that there is no command for public worship in Scripture.' ' I believe,' concludes Byrom, ' he has met with somebody that does not like Mr. Law. I believe that Mr. Law had given his brother or him or both very good and strong advice which they had strained to a meaning very different from his.' ' Whatever the circumstances may have been, the fact is certain that both the brothers Wesley discarded their former mentor in 1738. Unhappily, > Byrom's Journal, vol. ii. part i. pp. 181-2. 92 Dr. Cheyne and Law. another collision between the elder of them and Mr. Law will have to be noticed at a later period. Another disciple of Mr. Law at Putney was Dr. George Cheyne, a physician of great eminence ' and a voluminous writer. Dr. Cheyne incidentally influenced Law more than any living man, having been, as Law himself told Byrom, ' the providential occasion of his meeting or know- ing of Jacob Behmen, by a book which the Doctor men- tioned to him in a letter, which book mentioned Behmen.' ^ According to the same authority. Law had so very high an opinion of Dr. Cheyne that he made the amazing assertion that ' the reputation of Dr. Cheyne served to balance that of Bishop Bramhall.' One can scarcely, however, imagine that, in his calmer moments. Law would have compared the Doctor to the great ' Athanasius Hibernicus.' The fact seems to have been that when Law made . this very absurd comparison, he was somewhat nettled with Bramhall for having spoken slightingly of one of his most favourite authors ; for on the same occasion he told Byrom that ' Bishop Bramhall, in answer to an argument used for the Romish Church from their saints such as Taulerus, had said something like. You may take your foolish Taulerus to yourselves.' No man who did not admire Tauler was likely to find favour in the eyes of Law. Byrom himself furnishes us with reasons for thinking that this or some such explanation must be supposed of Law's wild statement ; for he inserts a letter from Dr. Cheyne on the subject of M. Marsay, a French enthusiast, who combined mysticism proper with many visionary notions which have no necessary connection with mysticism. The letter gives us a curious ' He was, in fact, the fashionable doctor of the day. Thackeray, with that admirable knowledge of details which he invariably shows in his semi- historical works, represents Lord Castlewood in ' Esmond ' going to consult the famous Dr. Chejme, " Byrom's Journal, vol. ii. part ii. p. 364. Dr. Cheyne and Law. 93 illustration of the extent and variety of the subjects on which Mr. Law was consulted and is therefor? worth quot- ing in part. I had written,' says the Doctor, ' in much the same strain with mine to you, to one I think the most solid judge in these sublime and abstracted matters known to me, whose first answer I found grounded on a mistake of the character and writings of Mr. Marsay, author of the " Tdmoignage d' Enfant," &c. ; I therefore sent him all the history of the person, adventures, and methods of proficiency I had learned of this wonderful author, with the number of his books, which I suspected by his first answer he had not thoroughly known. But Mr. Law, being a man who never judges, nor gives characters rashly without entering deeply, into the spirit of his author, in more than two months has never given me an answer to this my second letter, and I hope by his delay he is reading and pondering Mr. Marsay's " T^moignage," which, consisting of eight or ten octavo volumes, must require time under his hands. I have waited hitherto for this answer, whereon to form a small judgment of the author and his works. It would be the greatest mor- tification to me to give up a line or thought, or even a whim (if any such there be), of his But, if a person whom I admire so much as I do Mr. Law rejects his accessories .... I will so far give them up as not to propagate them with that blind zeal I might do otherwise.' ' If Mr. Law was often expected to read ' eight or ten octavo volumes ' on such profound subjects as ' new scriptural manifestations and discoveries about the states and glory of the invisible world, and the future purification of lapsed intelligences, human and angelical' (these being the 'accessories' to which Dr. Cheyne refers), and to read them so carefully that on his opinion their publication or non-publication was to depend, he certainly had his work cut out for him. But ' Byrom's Journal, vol. ii. part iii. p. 331. 94 Dr. Johnson on Law. alas ! Dr. Cheyne's assumption that the delay was caused by Mr. Law's ' reading and pondering ' the formidable volumes does not appear to have been correct ; for some little time after, Law ' mentioned ' to Byrom, ' Dr. Cheyne and his not writing to him upon some matters, because his letters would fall into the hands of his executors ; that the Doctor was always talking in coffee-houses about naked faith, pure love, &c.' This rather contemptuous opinion of Dr. Cheyne's incontinency seems hardly consistent with the flattering comparison of him with Bramhall noticed above. Perhaps this is as fitting an occasion as may be found for suggesting a caution as to the value which should be attached to the conversational remarks of Law and other great men. As illustrations of character they are, if faith- fully reported, invaluable ; but surely it is unfair to the speakers, no less than to the subjects, to take- random utter- ances, made in all the freedom from responsibility and ' abandon ' of a convivial meeting of friends, as necessarily expressing final and deliberate convictions. We have a very notable instance of the erroneousness of such a plan in connection with Law himself Everybody knows Dr. Johnson's famous remark, reported by Boswell, that 'William Law was no reasoner.' That the Doctor made the remark I have no manner of doubt ; but I have also no manner of doubt that it was not the expression of his deliberate conviction, but simply a chance utterance, made, partly in the spirit of pure contradiction, and partly in maintenance of his dignity. He had just made the sweeping assertion that ' no nonjuror could reason,' and being reminded of Charles Leslie, he yielded so far as to allow very properly that he was an exception. But it would have compromised his dignity to yield farther ; and therefore he preferred doggedly to maintain that though Dr. Cheyne's Mysticism. 95 William Law had written ' the finest piece of paraenetic divinity in the language' he was no reasoner. But what was this piece of paraenetic divinity but reasoning from beginning to end ? and when the Doctor owned on another occasion that 'William Law was quite an over- match for him,' in what was he an overmatch except in reasoning ? But to return to Dr. Cheyne. Regarded from one point of view, he would have seemed to be about the last man in the world one would have expected to be a primum mobile of English mysticism. For he was a kind of eighteenth century Banting. Being afflicted with corpulency, he adopted and recommended in print a milk diet ; and, to his great annoyance, was made a butt for the wits of the day in consequence. He also wrote a treatise on the gout, and another on the spleen and the vapours, which he termed ' the English malady.' But though one side of his mind was engrossed with these very material topics, there was another side of it which was filled with the most trans- cendental speculations. He was, in fact, not only the recommender of German mysticism to William Law, but himself a mystic of a very marked type. This tendency is traceable in almost all his works, but most of all in his ' Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed.' This work, which is oddly enough based upon mathematics, touches upon most of the points on which mystics love to dwell. It shows us how 'there is a perpetual analogy (physical, not mathematical) running on in a chain through the whole system of creatures up to their Creator,' how ' the visible are the images of the invisible, the ectypical of the archetypical, the creatures of the Creator, at an abso- lutely infinite distance,' how ' if gravitation be the principle of the activity of bodies,, that of reunion with their origin must by analogical necessity be the principle of action in 96 Laws other Disciples at Putney. spirits,' how ' material' substances are the same with spiri- tual substances of the higher order at an infinite distance,' how ' the pure and disinterested love of God and of all His images in a proper subordination is the consummate per- fection of Christianity.' The fall of man is described, the philosophy of Locke argued against, and, in fact, most of the topics dwelt upon which are discussed, only with infinitely greater power, in Law's later works. It will appear in the sequel that this combination of mysticism with the more mundane subjects on which Dr. Cheyne wrote was not so unusual as one might have ex- pected. Dr. Cheyne is perhaps best known at the present day as a correspondent of David Hume. It is difficult to conceive a more complete contrast than between the Doctor's two friends, William Law and David Hume — that is, so far as religious questions were concerned. Intel- lectually, however, there were some points of resemblance between them. The. same clearness of thought, the same luminous and pure style, the same strong logical power is seen in both ; but to what widely different conclusions did they lead the two men ! Upon the rest of Law's friends and disciples at Putney it is not necessary to dwell at length. Among them may be noticed the daughter of the house. Miss Hester Gibbon, who was a far more docile pupil of Mr. Law's, at least in spiritual matters, than her brother or her more worldly sister Katherine, and of whom Byrom ' heard it said that she was a very good lady, though some people said she was mad ; ' ' Miss Dodwell (daughter of the famous nonjuror), to whom (probably) Law wrote three long and interesting letters which will be noticed among Jtiis writings during this period ; Mr. Archibald Hutcheson, M.P. for Hastings, who had so high an opinion of Mr. Law that on his death-bed ' Byrom's Journal, vol. ii, part i. p. 124. Law's other Disciples at Putney. 97 he recommended him to his wife as her spiritual director ; and Mr. Archibald Campbell, a relation of the above ; Dr. Stonehouse, who, however, on the rupture between Law and Wesley wavered between the two mentors, and finally seems to have sided with the latter ; and others whom it is needless to specify. H 98 The ' Serious Call! CHAPTER VII. THE 'SERIOUS CALL.' In the early part of his residence at Putney, or to speak more accurately, when he was alternating between Putney and Cambridge, Law wrote that work which probably con- stitutes to nine-tenths of those who have heard his name at all his one title to fame. If one desires to let people know whom one means by William Law, the best — perhaps, in most cases, the only— way of doing so, is by saying that he was the author of the ' Serious Call.' It is his only work which can, as a matter of fact, be called an English classic, though it certainly is not his only work which deserves that somewhat vague title of honour ; some may think that it is by no means the work which deserves it best. Still, the popular verdict in such cases is generally correct ; or, at any rate, so far correct that there is always some substantial reason for it. In this case the verdict is stamped by the approval of the great name of Gibbon, who calls the ' Serious Call ' Law's master work. From Gibbon's point of view, one can well understand his selection. He could hardly be expected to appreciate controversial writings, in which he would certainly have taken the other side of the con- troversy. And still less was he likely to sympathise with Law's mysticism, a subject which was utterly repulsive to his frame of mind.' But, Sybarite as he was in his own life, > 'Gibbon,' wrote Mr. Kingsley, 'however excellent an authority for facts, knew nothing aboutj philosophy, and cared less ' {^Alexandria and her Schools, p. 81). This is true, at least so far as anything approaching to idealism or mysticism is concerned. The 'Serious Call! 99 Gibbon could thoroughly appreciate self-denial and piety in others, and a more persuasive and forcible recommenda- tion of these graces was surely never written than is to be found in the ' Serious Call.' And men of much less mark than Gibbon were quite capable of appreciating the book. It is, in fact, of all Law's works the one most calculated to impress the nrraltftude, and on this ground it may fairly be called his ' master work;' though as mere specimens of intel- lectual power his controversial works are more remarkable, and in originality of thought and beauty of expression, in tenderness and maturity both of style and sentiment, he rises to far greater heights in his later mystic works. But there is no need to compare Law with himself Taken by itself the ' Serious Call ' is unquestionably a great work, more than worthy of the high reputation which it won. We may now proceed to examine it in detail. Its full title is ' A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Adapted to the State and Condition of all Orders of Christians.' It travels over very much the same ground as the ' Christian Perfection,' but it is a more powerful work than its predecessor, and deserved in every way the greater popularity which it enjoyed. Its style is more matured, its arguments more forcible, the range of subjects' which it embraces more exhaustive, its wit more sparkling, and its tone more tender, affectionate, and persuasive. In the first chapter the author shows that devotion means not merely prayer, public or private, but a life devoted to God. By some well-drawn instances he exposes the inconsistency of those whose lives are a contradiction to their prayers, and declares that the majority of church- goers only add Christian devotion to a heathen life — pray as Christians, but live as heathens. In the second chapter he contends that the real cause of the inconsistency is simply this : that men have not so roo The ' Serious Call! much piety as to intend to please God in all the actions of their lives, as the happiest and best thing in the world. This is the real distinction between the modern and primi- tive Christians. Law then illustrates what would be the necessary result of having such an intention, first, in the case of a clergyman, then in that of a tradesman, then in that of a private gentleman. The author then passes on to show the danger and folly of not having such an intention, and introduces a very striking picture of a dying tradesman, who had lived well, as the world calls well, but, by his own confession, had never had this intention. He next insists that every employment, lay as well as clerical, must be conducted with the single view to God's glory, ' for all want the same holiness to make them fit for the same happiness.' A man may do the business of life, and yet live wholly to God by doing earthly employments with a heavenly mind. The same rule which Christ has given for our devotion and alms is to be brought to all our actions if we would live in the spirit of piety. He then specially addresses himself to those who are under no necessity of working for their livelihood. In fact, though the whole treatise is of universal application, it i^ more particularly . addressed to this . class of persons.' ' You are no labourer or tradesman, you are neither mer- chant nor sailor,' he writes in a very beautiful sentence ; ' consider yourself, therefore, as placed in a state in some degree like that of the good angels, who are sent into this world as ministering spirits, for the general good of man- kind, to assist, protect, and n^inister for them who shall be heirs of salvation,' He dwells at great length upon the right use of wealth, ■ ' Law expressly asserted this, many years later, both of the ' Serious Call' and. the 'Christian Perfection.' See Works, vol. vi. p. 91. The ' Serious Call.' i o i by no means falling in with the notion that it is useless. ' If we waste it, we do not waste a trifle that signifies little, but we waste that which might be made as eyes to the blind, as a husband to the widow, as a father to the orphan.' Money may be made either a great blessing or a great curse to its possessor. ' If you do not spend your money in doing good to others, you must spend it to the hurt of yourself You will act like a man that should refuse to give that as a cordial to a sick friend, though he could not drink it himself without inflaming his blood.' The use and abuse of riches is then illustrated by two of the most elaborate portraits which Law ever drew— those of the two maiden sisters, Flavia and Miranda. Flavia ' is very ortho- dox, she talks warmly against heretics and schismatics, is generally at church, and often at the sacrament. If any one asks Flavia to do something in charity, if she likes the person who makes the proposal, or happens to be in a right temper, she will toss him half-a-crown or a crown, and tell him if he knew what a long milliner's bill she had just received, he would think it a great deal for her to give. She is very positive that all poor people are cheats and liars, and will say anything to get relief, and therefore it must be a sin to encourage them in their evil ways. You would think Flavia had the tenderest conscience in the world if you was to see how scrupulous and apprehensive she is of giving amiss. She would be a miracle of piety if she was but half so careful of her soul as she is of her body. The rising of a pimple in her face, the sting of a gnat, will make her keep her room two or three days, and she thinks they are very rash people that do not take care of things in time. If you visit Flavia on the Sunday, you will always meet good company, you will know what is doing in the world, you will hear the last lampoon, be told who wrote it and who is meant by every name that is in it. You will I02 Portraits of Flavia and Miranda. hear what plays were acted that week, which is the finest song in the opera, who was intolerable at the last assembly, and what games are most in fashion, &c., &c. But still she has so great a regard for the holiness of the Sunday, that she has turned a poor old widow out of her house, as a prophane wretch, for having been found once mending her cloaths on the Sunday night' After some more admirable hits, Law concludes : ' I shall not take upon me to say that it is impossible for Flavia to be saved, but her whole life is in direct opposition to all those tempers and practices which the Gospel has made necessary to salvation. She may as well say that she lived with our Saviour when He was upon earth as that she has lived in imitation of Him. She has as much reason to think that she has been a sentinel in an army as that she has lived in watching and self-denial. . . . And this poor, vain turn of mind, the irreligion, the folly and vanity of this whole life of Flavia is all owing to the manner of using her estate.' From this sad portrait Law turns with evident relief to a still more elaborate description of the other sister, Miranda. The mentor of the founder of Methodism very characteris- tically introduces this model of Christian perfection by a strong recommendation of living by rule or method. Miranda is ' a sober, reasonable Christian. She is not so weak as to pretend to add what is called the fine lady to the true Christian. She has renounced the world to follow Christ in the exercise of humility, charity, devotion, abstinence, and heavenly affections, and that is Miranda's " fine breed- ing." ' As to her fortune, ' she is only one of a certain num- ber of poor people who are relieved out of it, and she only differs from them in the blessedness of giving.' As to her dress, she has but ' one rule, to be always clean, and in the cheapest things. If you was to see her, you would wonder what pour body it was that was so surprisingly neat and Portrait of Miranda. 103 clean.' As to her devotions, they are so regularly marked out that ' she does not know what it is to have a dull half-, day. She seems to be as a guardian angel to those that dwell about her, with her watchings and prayers blessing the place where she dwells, and making intercession with God for those that are asleep.' As to her food, ' she eats and drinks only for the sake of living, and with so regular an abstinence, that every meal is an exercise of self-denial, and she humbles her body every time that she is forced to feed it.' As to her reading, * the Holy Scriptures, especially of the New Testament, are her daily study. When she has the New Testament in her hand, she supposes herself at the feet of our Saviour and His apostles, and makes every- thing that she learns of them so many laws of her life. She receives their sacred words with as much attention and reverence as if she saw their persons, and knew that they were just come from heaven on purpose to teach her the way that leads to it.' ' She is sometimes afraid that she lays out too much money in books, because she cannot forbear buying all practical books of any note, especially such as enter into the heart of religion, and describe the inward holiness of the Christian life. But of all human writings, the lives of pious persons and eminent saints are her greatest delight. In these she searches as for hidden treasure, hoping to find some secret of holy living, some uncommon degree of piety which she may make her own.' As to her charity, ' to relate it would be to relate the history of every day for twenty years,' and then fol- lows an account of some of the benevolent acts she has done. Tempting as the subject is, we must not linger on this inimitable portrait. It concludes : ' When she dies, she must shine amongst apostles, saints, and martyrs ; she must stand amongst the first servants of God, and be I04 Gibbon on Flavia and Miranda. glorious amongst those that have fought the good fight, and finished their course with joy.' In the next chapter Law goes on to show that every- one may imitate Miranda, in the spirit if not in the letter. He dwells particularly on her dress, enforcing his argu- ment by one of those happy illustrations at which one can hardly help smiling though one feels how grave the subject is. ' Let us suppose,' he says, ' that some eminent saint, as, for instance, that the holy Virgin Mary was sent into the \yorld to be again in a state of trial for a few years, and that you was going to her to be edified by her great piety. Would you expect to find her dressed out, and adorned in fine and expensive clothes 1 No ! You would know in your own mind that it was as impossible as to find her learning to dance. A saint genteelly dressed is as great nonsense as an apostle in an embroidered suit.' He then vindicates Miranda's choice of voluntary poverty, virginity, and retirement, quoting (a thing which he very rarely does) an author outside the canon of Scripture,' to show that such a state was considered the highest state in the early and purest state of Christianity. Before quitting the subject of these two exquisitely drawn portraits, a few words seem requisite on their sup- posed originals. ' Under the names,' writes Gibbon, ' of Flavia and Miranda he has admirably described my two aunts — the heathen and the Christian sister.' ^ If Gibbon means by this that the two ladies in question unconsciously sat for their portraits, the presumption is very strong against it. At the time when the ' Serious Call ' was pub- lished, Miss Hester Gibbon was only twenty-four years of age, and could have passed through scarcely any of the experience which belonged to Miranda. And, apart from this, it was singularly unlike Law to hold up as a model of ' Eusebius. ' Memoirs of my Life and Writings, p. 15. The ' Serious Call.' iqc perfection one who would of course read what he wrote, and recognise herself in the character. It was the very way to foster that pride and self-love which Law held to be the root of all sin. On the other hand, Law had far too much Christian feeling to gibbet the daughter of his friend and benefactor under the character of Flavia. Another tradi- tion makes the Baroness de Chantal the original of Miranda. But probably Law had no one model in his eye when he drew either of the sisters. Miranda was simply the ideal Christian, as Flavia was the ideal worldling. It was Miranda who was to be the model for Miss Gibbon, as for all her sex, not Miss Gibbon who was the model of Miranda. Law dwells with great beauty and force in the ' Serious Call ' on a subject which he had put rather too much in the background in his ' Christian Perfection,' viz. the nature of the peace and happiness enjoyed by those who make their whole lives one continued course of devotion ; and this gives him the opportunity of drawing some neat sketches of those who sought happiness in other ways. The ingenious have discovered in the restless Flatus, who seeks for happiness now from tailors and peruke-makers, now from gaming, now from drinking, now from hunt- ing, a portrait of Law's own pupil, Edward Gibbon. But the Gibbon family are probably, as free from the discredit of furnishing models for Flatus and Flavia as from the credit of furnishing one for Miranda. Passing over Feli- ciana, the lady of fashion, and Succus, the glutton, we come to a painfully lifelike portrait of a character happily more rare now than when Law wrote, Cognatus, the clerical pluralist and farmer, and then to Negotius, the diligent, honourable, and liberal man of business, but mainly in- tent upon dying a rich man : ' As wise an aim,' says Law, ' as if the object of his life was to die possessed of more than io6 The ' Serious Call! a hundred thousand pairs of boots and spurs and as many greatcoats.' The remainder of the treatise — that is, the longer half of it — is taken up with the subject of devotion, in the popular sense of the word, as confined to acts of prayer, praise, and thanksgiving. It would be impossible to analyse this part of the work without spoiling the effect. It will sufifice to remark on one or two points in it which seem specially worthy of attention. 1. We are reminded that we are still under the guidance of the writer of the three famous letters to Bishop Hoadly — that is, of a pronounced Churchman. Law's stated hours of devotion are not evolved out of his own inner conscious^ ness ; they are simply the canonical hours of the Church. 2. We are also reminded that we are under the guidance of the early mentor of Wesley. Law insists as strongly as Wesley himself and the early Methodists did on the advantages, indeed the necessity, of early rising — a rule which he himself consistently followed, as he did all the rules which he laid down. He also devotes no less than twenty-six pages to the subject of psalm-singing, as a part not only of public, but also of private devotion — a fit prelude to that wonderful outburst of sacred song which was one of the most marked features of the Methodist movement. Law was himself passionately fond of music, and he held the somewhat untenable opinion that every one can sing. 3. Law, like every right-minded man, respected women and loved children. He has therefore much to say on the subject of education. He protests against what he conceives to be the radical error of modern educa- tion, viz. its encouraging in children a spirit of emulation, which, he says, is only another name for envy ; and this leads him into one of the most touching passages of the The '-Serious Call! 107 book, the advice of Paternus to his son. Its tenderness, its simplicity, its affectionate tone, evidently come from the heart of one who loved the little ones whom his Divine Master loved. The education of girls seemed to Law to be particularly faulty. Recognising the vast in- fluence which a mother has in forming the character of a child (' as,' he says, ' we call our first language our mother- tongue, so we may as justly call our first tempers our mother-tempers '), he saw the importance of training these possible mothers aright. He had a very high opinion both of the intellectual and spiritual capacities of women. He has ' much suspicion that if they were suffered to dispute with us the proud prizes of arts and sciences, of learning and eloquence, they would often prove our superiors ; ' he believes ' that, for the most part, there is a finer sense, a clearer mind, a readier apprehension, and gentler disposi- tions in that sex than in the other ; ' and, ' if many women are vain, light, gew-gaw creatures, they are only such as their education has made them.' Law illustrates his mean- ing by two of those graphic portraits which he alone could draw : Matilda, who represents the mother as she is ; Eusebia, the mother as she ought to be. 4. On these portraits we must not linger ; but there is yet another which, for our present purpose, is the most important in the book, because it gives us the ideal which Law set before himself personally, which he earnestly strove to realise, and did realise, so far as his circumstances per- mitted : this is Ouranius, the good country parson. The subject has been a favourite one with poets : Chaucer, George Herbert, Oliver Goldsmith, William Cowper, and Alfred Tennyson have all tried their hands at it, and have all suc- ceeded ; but not one of them has surpassed William Law. Ouranius, ' when he first entered into Holy Orders, had a great contempt for all foolish and unreasonable people ; I o8 Portrait of Ouranius. but he has prayed this spirit away. When he first came to his little village, it was as disagreeable to him as a prison ; his parish was full of poor and mean people that were none of them fit for the conversation of a gentleman, and he thought it hard to be called to pray by any poor body when he was just in the midst of one of Homer's battles. Now he is so far from desiring to be considered as a gentleman that he desires to be used as the servant of all. He has sold a small estate that he had, and has erected a charitable retreat for ancient poor people ; he is exceeding studious of Christian perfection, because he finds in Scripture that the intercessions of holy men have an extraordinary power with God ; he loves every soul in his village as he loves himself,, because he prays for them all as he prays for himself; he visits everybody in his village, among other reasons, that he may intercede with God for them according to their particular necessities ; ' — and so forth. Of course. Law's position as a nonjuror pre- vented him from having, like Ouranius, the cure of souls ; but in other respects who can fail to see the resemblance ? That natural impatience of what was foolish and unreason- able ; that natural inclination to enjoy Homer's battles — that is, the beauties of heathen literature ; that determina- tion, when circumstances forced him to retire into a remote and uncongenial seclusion, to do all the good he could in it, to found hospitals, and give almost all his goods to feed the poor ; — it is partly the story, partly the prophecy, of what Law's own experience had been or was to be. Those who know the character and career of Ouranius know, mutatis mutandis, the character and career of William Law himself.' 5. It is only fair to Law to draw special attention to ' It was so recognised by his contemporaries. Law's neighbour, Mr. Harvey, had Law in his eye when he drew ' Ouranius,' in ' Theron and Aspasio.' Influence of the ' Serious Call.' 1 09 the concluding caution of the treatise, because he evidently lays very great stress upon it, rightly feeling that his pur- port was liable to be misunderstood. He recommends a life of strict devotion ; it was the one object of his work to do so. But he does not recommend, as absolutely neces- sary, any particularity of life ; for, as he says, ' Christian perfection }s tied to no particular form of life.' Virginity, voluntary poverty, devout retirement, and such other re- straints of lawful things, are, in his opinion, highly bene- ficial to those who would make the way to perfection the most easy and certain ; and so far he recommends them, but only so far. They are only helps and means to an end which may be attained without them. A devout spirit is the one thing needful. He who attains to this has heard and obeyed the ' Serious Call.' Before quitting the subject of this the most famous, if not the greatest, of all Law's works, it seems desirable to refer to some of the evidences of the influence which it ex- ercised, and the admiration which it excited- in the last cen- tury, and also to notice some of its excellences and defects. The mere fact that, next to the Bible, it contributed more than any other book to the rise and spread of the great Evangelical revival of the eighteenth century, is of itself sufficient to show the importance of the work. But the testimony of some of the most famous indi- viduals who were influenced by it may enable the reader to realise this the more vividly. First and foremost stands the great -name of John Wesley. We have already seen Wesley confessing to Law, in the famous letter of 1738, that ' for two years he had been preaching after the model of Mr. Law's practical treatises,' which had made so deep an im- pression upon himself But it was not only in his ' uncon- verted ' days that Wesley expressed his admiration of the ' Serious Call' Only eighteen months before his death he no Influence of the ' Serious Call! spoke of it publicly as ' a treatise which will hardly be ex- celled, if it be equalled, in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression or for justness and depth of thought ; ' ' and he gave a practical proof of his appreciation of its value by making it a text-book for the highest class in his school at Kingswood. Charles Wesley was as much impressed by the book as his brother John.'' So was George Whitefield. ' Before I went to the University,' he writes, ' I met with Mr. Law's " Serious Call," but had not money to purchase it. Soon after my coming up to the University, seeing a small edition of it in a friend's hand, I soon purchased it God worked powerfully upon my soul, as He has since upon many others, by that and his other excellent treatise upon " Christian Perfection." ' ' So was Henry Venn. ' Law's " Serious Call," says his biographer, ' he read repeatedly, and tried to frame his life according to that model.' ^ So was Thomas Scott. ' Carelessly taking up,' he tells us, ' Mr. Law's " Serious Call," a book I had hitherto treated with contempt, I had no sooner opened it than I was struck with the originality of the work, and the spirit and force of argument with which it is written. ... By the perusal of it I was convinced that I was guilty of great remissness and negligence ; that the duties of secret de- votion called for far more of my time and attention than had been hitherto allotted to them ; and that, if I hoped to save my own soul and the souls of those that heard me, I must in this respect greatly alter my conduct, and increase my diligence in seeking and serving the Lord. From that time I began,' &c.* So, probably, was John Newton.' ' Sermon CXVIII. on a 'Single Eye,' vol. iii. p. 333. ^ See Jackson's Memoirs of Rev. Charles Wesley, p. 52. " Life and Times of the Sev. George Whitefield, by Robert Philip, p. 16. * Memoir of Henry Venn prefixed to the ' Complete Duty of Man,' pub- lished by the Religious Tract Society. Force of Truth, part iii. Scott's ' Theological Works,' p. i8. " See Newton's Works (Cecil's edition), vol. vi. p. 247. Dr. Johnson and Gibbon on the ' Serious CaW 1 1 1 So, certainly, was Thomas Adam, an eminent Evangelical of his day, and himself the author of a devotional work of no small merit and of great popularity. So, too, was Adam's pious and accomplished biographer, James Stilling- jfleet, of Hotham, who; at a time when Law had fallen into discredit with the Evangelical school (1785), wrote: 'I must beg leave to differ from those who would utterly discard Mr. Law's writings, and to assert that we have not perhaps in the language a more masterly performance in its way, or a book better calculated to promote a concern about religion, than Mr. Law's " Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.'"' Nor was it only the Methodists and Evangelicals of the last century who were deeply touched by the ' Serious Call.' Dr. Johnson's opinion of it is well known. ' I became,' he says, ' a sort of lax talker against religion, for I did not much think against it ; and this lasted till I went to Oxford, when I took up Law's " Serious Call to a Holy Life," expecting to find it a dull book (as such books gene- rally are). But I found Law quite an over-match for me ; and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest.' ^ On another occasion he called it ' the finest piece of horta- tory theology in arty language,' and on another, ' the best piece of paraenetic divinity.' Gibbon, the historian, says of it : ' Mr. Law's master work, the " Serious Call," is still r^ad as a popular and powerful book of devotion. His precepts are rigid ; but they are founded on the Gospel. His satire is sharp ; but it is drawn from the knowledge ' See Life of the Author prefixed to Adam's ' Private Thoughts on Re- ligion,' p. xxvi. Speaking generally of Mr. Law's writings, the same writer says, ' Ttey are admirably adapted to awaken the conscience, and beget in the mind of the reader a conviction of the futility of nominal profession and mere decency of conduct ; and have in them such a strength of easy reasoning, level to every capacity, as almost irresistibly wins the reader's assent to the necessity of vital religion. 2 Boswell's Life of Johnson, in 10 vols., i. 67, 112 Influence of the ' Serious Call! of human life, and many of his portraits are not unworthy of the pen of La Bruyere. If he finds a spark of piety in his reader's mind, he will soon kindle it to a flame ; and a philosopher must allow that he exposes, with equal seve- rity and truth, the strange contradiction between the faith and practice of the Christian world.' ' The first Lord Lyttelton, the poet and historian, is said to have taken up the ' Serious Call ' about bed-time, at a friend's house, and to have been so fascinated with it that he read it quite through before he could go to rest. He expressed himself as ' not a little astonished to find that one of the finest books that ever w^ere written had been penned by a crack- brained enthusiast.' ^ Bishop Home was so impressed with it that 'he conformed himself in many respects to the strictness of Law's rules of devotion.' ' A clergyman, writing under the title of ' Ouranius,' to ' Lloyd's Evening Post,' in a letter dated ' Scarborough, December 21, 1771,' gives this remarkable testimony to the value of the ' Serious Call,' which is worth quoting in full : ' Though I live (when at home) in a small country village, I have had sufficient work upon my hands to bring my parishioners to any tolerable degree of piety and goodness. I preached and laboured among them incessantly ; and yet, after all, was convinced that my work had been as fruitless as casting pearls before swine : the drunkard continued his nocturnal practices, and the voice of the swearer was still heard in our streets. I purchased many religious books, and dis- tributed them among them ; but, alas ! I could perceive no visible effects. In short, I. had the grief to find that all my labour had proved in vain. . . . About this time I happened ' Memoirs of my Life and Writings, p. 15. " Byrom's Jownal, vol. ii. part ii. p. 634., ' Jones of Nayland's Life of Bishop Home, prefixed to his edition of Home's ' Worlcs,' vol. i. p. 67. Influence of the ' Serious Call.' 113 to peruse a treatise of Mr. Law's, entitled " A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life," with which I was so charmed, and greatly edified, that I resolved my flock should par- take of the same spiritual food. I therefore gave to each person in my parish one of those useful books, and charged them upon my blessing (for I consider them as my chil- dren) to carefully peruse the same. My perseverance was now rewarded with success, and I had the satisfaction of beholding my people reclaimed from a life of folly and impiety to a life of holiness and devotion.' The writer then speaks of 'the strong and nervous style,' and the ' sublime thought ' of the ' Serious Call,' and concludes : ' I will venture to add, that whoever sits down, without prejudice, and attentively reads it through, will rise up the wiser man and better Christian.' It would be wearisome and needless to quote further evidence to prove the ad- ' miration which this work excited and the effects which it produced ; it will suffice to add that the ' Serious Call ' was, if possible, more popular in America than in England, and it is certainly better known and more admired there than here in the present day. Its popularity in England has certainly not been advanced by the well-meant, but strangely misdirected, efforts of those who— sometimes under the sanction of high authority ' — have endeavoured to popularise it by abridging it. Abridgments are rarely successes ; but few have been such dismal failures as those of the 'Serious Call.' All they have succeeded in doing is in giving their readers a totally erroneous impression of the book. By a ' I was never more struck with the contrast between the interesting little works with which the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge now supply us and the very uninteresting ones which they used to issue forty years ago, than I was on turning from one of the ' Fathers for English Readers' to 'Tract, No. 163, A Serious Call,' abridged from the abridgment of the original work. I 114 The ^ Serious Call.' provokingly perverted ingenuity they have transmuted one of the raciest and most forcible books that ever was written into a dreary little tract, whose prim propriety does not at all compensate for its intolerable dulness. In fact, Tate and Brady give one about as good a notion of the poetry of David as the various abridgments of the ' Serious Call ' give one of the powers of Law. It was hardly possible that such a book as the ' Serious Call,' dealing as it did with all the popular shortcomings of the day in the most trenchant and uncompromising fashion, should fail to give offence in many quarters. Of course the Flatuses and Cognatuses, the Flavias and Matildas of real life would strongly object to see themselves held up to the scorn of the world. Byrom was ' a little surprised ' to hear two ladies ' mention Mr. Law's book of the " Serious Call " as a silly, ridiculous book, because of Eusebia, dress, &c.,' and he naively adds, ' Probably the gay, pleasant, diverting life may render even innocent people blind.' ' For ' pro- bably,' Law would no doubt have said ' certainly,' and would have added that it was the very object of his book to displease such people, or rather to make them displeased with themselves. He himself was inundated with criticisms of such a conflicting kind that, as he told Byrom, ' there was hardly any passage in the book but what had been both admired and condemned.' This class of objection, however, need not be dwelt upon. Neither is it necessary to comment upon the cavil that ' the apportioning of hours for devotion is too monkish and unearthly for a Christian j ' because Law himself expressly guards against the notion that this ' method of devotion was to be pressed upon any sort of people as absolutely necessary ; ' ^ and, moreover, it is quite sufficient apology to say that as a good Churchman ■ Journal, vol. i. part ii. p. 541. 2 Seneus Call, ch. xx. ad init. The ' Serious Call! 115 he was simply following out the rules of the Church.' Nor for the same reason, need we comment upon the alleged drawback that there is ' nothing said of the benefits from the association of Christians for prayer and religious con- ference ; ' for Law would, of course, have replied that such associations were already provided for by the Church sys- temiJf properly carried out. Charles Wesley hit upon a more serious blot when he said to Byrom, ' Do not you think that a palpable mistake in Mr. Law's " Serious Call," that there is no command for public worship in Scrip- ture .'" * Byrom calls this a ' triiling objection ; ' but, with all due deference to the good doctor, I cannot but think that Law expresses himself far too strongly when he says, ' It is very observable that there is not one command in all the Gospel for publick worship, and perhaps it is a duty that is least insisted upon in Scripture of any other. The fre- quent attendance at it is never so much as mentioned in all the New Testament.' ' The fact is, Law was so struck with the inconsistency of people who were very particular about attending public worship and not at all particular about leading a corresponding life, that, unlike himself, he was carried away, and maintained an untenable position. This was, however, only a casual slip. The general tone of the ' Serious Call ' is certainly in favour of public worship. The com monest, and perhaps the strongest, objection alleged against the ' Serious Call ' is that there is too little of the Gospel in it. No doubt, this term ' the Gospel ' be» came, in the next generation, as John Wesley s^id, 'a mere cant term, with no determinate meaning.' ■* But surely it has in itself a very real meaning ; and this is not put ' This answer, however, would not have satisfied one of the editors of the ' Serions Call ' who makes the objection — the Rev. David Young, of Perth, a Presbyterian minister. ' Journal, vol. ii. part i. p. 182. ' Serious Call, c. i. p, 8. * See Tyerman' s Life of Wesley, iii. 278. I 2 1 1 6 The ' Serious Call! sufficiently forward in the ' Serious Call' Not that the distinctive doctrines of Christianity are ignored, or that the arguments wliich Law urges are not based on distinctively Christian motives. But there is, to say the least of it, too little of the Gospel in the literal sense of the term ; that is, too little of the glad tidings, the bright, joyous side of Christianity. Though this defect is not so marked as in the ' Christian Perfection,' there is still a certain austerity about the ' Serious Call ' (as perhaps there was about the writer at this period of his life) which has a tendency to ' break the bruised reed.' The mortifications and renouncements which Christianity requires are put forward not, indeed, too prominently, for Law has chapter and verse for all that he asserts, but too exclusively. The work, in fact, is more calculated to alarm than to attract. The comforts of the Gospel are not ignored, but they are described too vaguely, and with not sufficient particularity. But this is not altogether what the Evangelicals meant when they complained of the absence of Gospel teaching in the ' Serious Call.' They used the term ' Gospel ' in a wider and also a more technical sense than its literal meaning. Nor was it only to Law's omissions that they would take exception. Many of his positive assertions would be specially offensive to them ; such, for instance, as the following : ' True religion is nothing but simple Nature governed by right reason ; ' ' ' you are to honour, 'improve, and perfect the spirit that is within you, you are to prepare it for the Kingdom of Heaven ; ' ^ ' with what tears and contrition ought you to purge yourself from the guilt of sin ; ' ^ and many more which might be quoted White- field, on one of his voyages home from America, com- menced the task of ' Gospelising' the ' Serious Call.' It • Serious Call, c. xviii. p. 343. 2 /bid. c. xix. p. 363. ' Ilnd. c. xxiii. p. 473. The ' Serzotis Call! 117 required a stronger pen than Whitefield's to supplement Law, and there is no need to regret that the project was abortive ; but one can hardly wonder that it was attempted. Neither can one wonder that Thomas Scott, in the very- passage in which he expresses his deep admiration of the ' Serious Call,' and thankfully acknowledges his obhga- tions to its author, should add, ' There are many things in it that I am very far from approving, and it certainly con- tains as little Gospel as any religious work I am acquainted with.'' There is, in fact, much force in a remark of one of the editors of the ' Call : ' ' It tells the reader what he ought to be, but not how he is to attain it.' ^ It is diffi- cult to conceive any one permanently resting content with the system of the ' Serious Call' And, as a matter of fact, those who expressed most strongly their obligations to it did not. Law himself certainly did not. Within a very few years of its publication he found a lifelong fascination in a system which is not, indeed, antagonistic to that of the ' Serious Call,' but hardly one vestige of which can be found in that famous treatise. The Methodists and Evan- ' gelicals, who were roused from their spiritual lethargy by it, went on to a very different system. And the old- fashioned, high and dry Churchmen who admitted it to an honoured place in their theological libraries, certainly did not as a rule carry out its precepts in all their literal strict- ness. Perhaps, however, the objections to the ' Serious Call ' have partly arisen from a misconception of its nature and scope. It is not, properly speaking, a devotional book ; still less is it a complete body of divinity. It is simply, as its name indicates, a ' Call.' Regarded in this, its proper ' Force of Truth, part ii. Scott's ' Theological Works,' p. 17. ' Introductory Essay prefixed to an edition of the ' Serious Call, ' by the Rev. David Young, of Perth. 1 1 8 Its Excellences as a Composition. light, it must be admitted that it has been wonderfully effective. The ' Call ' reached the ears of thousands, and appealed to them not in vain. As a composition, it is difficult to speak too highly of it. The epithets which Wesley applied to its writer, ' strong ' and ' elegant,' express exactly two out of its many excel- lences. As one reads it, one feels under the guidance of a singularly strong man. There is no weak, mawkish sentimentality, no feeble declamation, no illogical argu- ment. It is like a strong man driving a weighty hammer with well-directed blows. Every stroke tells, and you cannot evade its force. And both in style and matter it is a singularly elegant composition. There are no offences against good taste, no slipshod sentences, no attempts at fine writing in it. Its illustrations (though, perhaps a little too frequent) are always apposite, and often very beautiful. But besides being ' strong ' and ' elegant,' it has also another characteristic, which Wesley would have thought wrong to mention in a sermon, and which Law would probably have disclaimed. The ' Serious Call ' is full of humour, and sparkles with wit in every page. It never forfeits its title to be a serious call, but wit and humour, so far from being inconsistent with seriousness, often shine the brighter from their contrast with their surroundings. If one could conceive — as one cannot — Law taking part in such light productions, what admirable papers he could have contributed to the ' Spectator ' ! Steele and Addison at their very best do not rise higher as humourists than Law did. But, after all, it is not the beauties of composition — many and great as these undoubtedly are — which attract us most in the ' Serious Call.' It is the intense earnest- ness, the obvious reality and thoroughness of the man, the Intense Earnestness of the Writer. 119 knowledge that his ' Call ' to others was only to do what he meant to do and did himself. The book is (to use the language of an able writer of our own day, who cordially admires and appreciates Law, though he differs very widely from his views) ' a book which throughout palpitates with the deepest emotions of its author. Law, whose sensitive- ness to logic is as marked as his sensitiveness to conscience, is incapable of compromise. He not only believes what he professes, but he believes it in the most downright sense, and he is not content until it is thoroughly worked into his whole system of thought,' ' and, it may be added, ' of action.' In short, if Law had written nothing whatever except the ' Serious Call,' he would have written quite enough to deserve a prominent and honoured place in English litera- ture ; and, what is better still, he would have written quite enough to earn the gratitude of all who value true piety. ' Mr. Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. ii. pp. 39S. 396. 1 20 Law against Tindal, the Deist. CHAPTER VIII. THE 'CASE OF REASON,' ETC., AGAINST TINDAL. ' Whether,' writes a correspondent to the 'Gentleman's Magazine' in October i8oo, 'the "Serious Call" be Mr. Law's masterpiece, I have some doubt ; I should give the palm to his " Case of Reason," stated in answer to " Chris- tianity as old as the Creation."' It is difficult to compare works of so different a scope and character ; each is good of its kind, but it may safely be asserted that Law did not diminish the reputation he had justly won by his ' Serious Call ' by his next work, published probably about three years later, in 1732. Law always selected foemen worthy of his steel to do battle with. As he had formerly pitted himself against the ablest champion of the Low, or, as we should now call it, the Broad, Church party, so now he pitted himself against the ablest champion of Deism ; and the unprejudiced reader will admit that he at least holds his own as success- fully in the one case as he does in the other. Tindal was an old enemy, or perhaps we should rather say friend, of Law's ; for Law had found his book, written thirty years earlier, the ' Rights of a Christian Church,' a useful ally in his controversy with Hoadly, as tending to show what was the real conclusion of the bishop's argument— a con- clusion to which the bishop would naturally have objected, since it gave him no locus standi as a bishop at all. It will ' Christianity as old as the Creation^ 121 be remembered that Law was constantly twitting Hokdly for not recognising the author of the ' Rights of a Christian Church' as his ally. Tindal's 'Christianity as old as the Creation ' was a more able and important work than its predecessor. No book on the Deist's side created so great a sensation ; and justly so, for it marks the climax of Deism. Oddly enough, the title of the book contained a truth which Law, especially in his mystic days, not only held, but actually made the cardinal point of his whole system. As we shall see presently, Law insisted as strongly as Tindal did that Christianity was as old as the Creation, in one sense ;- only that sense was certainly not Tindal's sense. It is worth remarking, however, that in the work now before us Law never finds fault with the title of Tindal's book ; but the contents of the book were not necessarily indicated by the title. The way that Tindal proved that Christianity was as old as the Creation was by magnifying Reason at the expense of Revelation, and on this point Law joined issue with him. He will by no means admit what Tindal had laid down as an almost self-evident axiom, viz. that man is obliged to abide by the sole light of his own reason. He contends a priori that this may be a mere groundless pretension. If humility be a duty, then this lofty claim for reason may be nothing better than spiritual pride. This being in Law's view the true point of the controversy, he discusses it at some length, and it need scarcely be said with what result. The earlier part of the 'Case of Reason' is concerned with a question which belongs to the province of Ethics as much or more than to that of Theology. Whether morality depended upon the will of God, or upon the eternal and immutable fitness of things, had long been a bone of contention between moral philosophers. Tindal took the latter view, but turned it to a purpose which its 122 Man, no fit J ridge of GocCs Actions. Christian advocates (among whom Law himself may to a certain extent * be reckoned) never intended. The way in which Law deals with his adversary on this point affords a good specimen of that adroitness which he always showed as a controversialist. 'You argue,' he says in effect, 'that the relation of things and persons, and the fitness result- ing from thence, is the sole rule of God's actions. I grant it most readily ; but I contend that instead of proving what you suppose, it proves the exact opposite. I appeal to this one common and confessed principle as a suflScient proof that man cannot walk by the sole light of his own reason without contradicting the nature and reason of things and denying tMs to be the sole rule of God's actions. For, God's nature being divinely perfect, the fitness of things implies that He must necessarily act by a rule above all human comprehension.' This. idea is powerfully worked out by a reference to Creation, Providence, the miseries of life, the nature and origin of the soul, the origin of evil— in fact, to all the topics of natural religion. ' What,' he asks, 'can we know of such matters by such means as our own poor reason can grope out of the nature and fitness of things .' ' ' We have the utmost certainty that we are vastly incompetent judges of the fitness or unfitness of any methods that God uses in the government of so small a part of the universe as mankind are.' Law shows how the line of argument which Tindal was using must end in ' horrid Atheism.' ' For,' he says, ' it is just as wise and reasonable to allow of no mysteries in reve- lation as to allow of no mysteries or secrets in Creation and Providence. And, whenever this writer or any other shall think it a proper time to attack natural religion with as ' I say ' to a certain extent,' because Law rather held that the 'eternal and immutable fitness of things ' and the • will of God ' were only different modes of expressing one and the same thing. Deism leads to Atheism. 123 much ffeedom as he has now fallen upon revealed, he need not enter upon any new hypothesis or different way of reasoning. For the same turn of thought, the same manner of cavilling, may soon find materials in the natural state of man for as large a bill of complaints against natural re- ligion, and the mysteries of Providence, as is here brought against revealed doctrines.' It is interesting to remark, as illustrative of the clearness with which Law always saw the exact drift of an argument, how he here anticipates and, in fact, obviates an objection which was made in the last century, and has been repeated more than once in our own, against Butler's famous argument in the 'Analogy.' To prove that there are the same difficulties in natural religion as there are in revealed is, it is said, ' a dangerous process, because it may lead to Atheism.' ' ' It not only mayl says Law in effect, ' but it must lead either to Atheism or to the complete dislodgment of the Deist from his position.' Now, when it is remembered that the Deist (as his very name implies) based his whole position on the assumption that God's existence, wisdom, power, love, &c., were all knowable without revelation, the force of this argument, as against Tindal, will be apparent. In fact. Law, by anticipation, carried Butler's train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and in so doing hit exactly upon the true weakness of the Deist's position. That position was, in fact, quite untenable, because his weapons might be turned against himself. This was the chief reason of the sudden and utter collapse of Deism. And no one saw this more clearly than William Law. Others, no doubt — Bishop Butler among the num- ber^pursued more or less decidedly the same course of argument ; but no one, in my opinion, realised its full force as the true key of the position so thoroughly as Law. He ' Seeinteraiia, Miss Hennel's essay ' On the Sceptical Tendency of Butler's Analogy,' and Mr. Mattineau's 'MS. Studies of Christianity.' The objection is as old as the days of the first Pitt. 1 24 Tindar s grovelling Conceptions of God. recurs to the same argument when he deals with the special objections which Tindal raised against the Christian revelation. Instead of answering them in detail, he felt — and felt quite rightly — that, as against a Deist, it was suffi- cient to take the line marked out in the following fine passage : ' There is nothing half so mysterious in the Christian revelation, considered in itself, as there is in that invisible Providence, which all must hold that believe a God. And though there is enough plain in Providence to excite the adoration of humble and pious minds, yet it has often been a rock oi Atheism to those who make their own reason the measure of wisdom.' Again : ' Though the creation plainly declares the glory, and wisdom, and good- ness of God, yet it has more mysteries in it, more things whose fitness, expedience, and reasonableness human reason cannot comprehend. Thus does this argument [of Tindal] tend wholly to Atheism, and concludes with the same force against Creation and Providence as it does against revela- tion.' He then applies the same kind of reasoning to the miracles and the prophecies. Remembering, again, that Law was addressing a Deist, that is, a man who professed to have the highest reverence and appreciation of the perfection of the Deity, we shall see that there is something very telling and apposite in his dignified exposure of Tindal's somewhat grovelling and anthropomorphic conception of God. Writing, for instance, on what he calls the ' relative characters of God' — that is, God's relations to us as our Father, Governor, and Pre- server, Law says : ' That which is plain and certain in these relative characters of God plainly shows our obligations to every instance of duty, homage, adoration, love, and grati- tude. And that which is mysterious and inconceivable in them is a just and solid foundation of that profound humility, awful reverence, internal piety, and tremendous The Greatness of God. 125 sense of the Divine Majesty, with which devout and pious persons think of God, and assist at the offices and institu- tions of religion. . . . And if some people, by a long and strict attention to reason, clear ideas, the fitness and unfitness of things, have at last arrived at a demonstrative certainty, that all these sentiments of piety and devotion are mere bigotry, superstition, and enthusiasm ; I shall only now ob- serve, that youthful extravagance, passion, and debauchery, by their own natural tendency, without the assistance of any other guide, seldom fail of making the same discovery.' Tindal, again, objected to the popular conception of God as ' an arbitrary Being, acting out of humour and caprice.' How finely Law meets this objection 1 ' Though will and power, when considered as blind or imperfect faculties in men, may pass for humour and caprice, yet as attributes of God they have the perfection of God. His own will is wisdom, and His wisdom is His will. His goodness is arbitrary, and His arbitrariness is goodness.' In the same vein Law answers Tindal's question, ' Was it not as easy for God to have communicated His revelation to all nations as to any one nation or person, or in all languages as in any one .' ' ' This argument,' he replies, ' is built upon the truth and reasonableness of this supposition, that God does things because they are easy, or forbears things because they are difficult to be performed ; ' and then, summing up generally the argument on this point, ' We will not,' he says, ' allow a Providence to be right, unless we can com- prehend and explain the reasonableness of all its steps ; and yet it could not possibly be right, unless its proceedings were as much above our comprehension as our wisdom is below that which is infinite.' In the latter part of his treatise. Law turns, as it were, to the reverse side of the medal. Having vindicated the greatness of God, he now asserts the littleness of man. 126 The Littleness of Man. Perhaps on this topic he is in some danger of being run away with by his favourite hobby ; certainly he was in some danger of offending the popular feeling of the day, which on both sides, Christian and Deist alike, ran strongly in favour of reason, and of proving religion to be of all things reasonable. But whether we can quite endorse all his as- sertions or not, we can hardly help admiring the ingenuity and adroitness with which he cuts away the whole ground from under his antagonist. He shows that this grand dis- covery of the Deists that man has the right to judge and act according to reason, is really nothing else than the discovery of a mare's nest. It was no more than if they said, a man has a right to see only with his own eyes, or hear only with his own ears. It was not a matter of duty, but of necessity. The real question between Christians and unbelievers was not whether reason is to be followed, but when it is best followed. But, after aU, what do we mean by ' our own reason ' } We have by nature only a bare capacity of receiving good or bad impressions ; our light is really little more than the opinions and customs of those among whom we live. Talk of the perfection and sufficiency of our own reason ! Why we are nothing better than a kind of foolish helpless animals till education and experience have revealed to us the wisdom and knowledge of our fellow-creatures. Tindal himself calls education a second nature. There are, then, according to him, two natures. This pleader for the sufficiency of the light of nature should have told us to which of the two natures we are to resign ourselves, the first or the second. They may be as different as good and evil ; yet, as they are both natures, both internal lights, which are we to follow .? Which of the two is ' the perpetual, standing rule for men of the meanest as well as the highest capacities,, which carries its own evidence with it, those internal and inseparable marks of truth V ' ' Christianity as old as the Creatiott, p. 243. ' Case of Reason. ' 127 Law, who appears to have perceived almost instinctively the weakest points of his adversaries' position, dwells with great force upon another flaw in Tindal's argument, a flaw which belonged to him in common with most Deists, and which was probably one of the chief causes of the utter col- lapse of Deism. It is this : The Deists boldly asserted the perfection of human reason, but they offered no proof, nor even a pretence of proof, from fact or experience, of their assertion. ' The history,' says Law very truly, ' of all ages for near six thousand years past demonstrates quite the contrary. And yet the matter rests wholly upon fact and experience ; all speculative reasonings upon it are as idle and visionary as a sick man's dreams about health.' So far, most thoughtful people will agree with Law ; but they will not perhaps be disposed to follow him so readily when, pursuing his raid against his pet aversion, he goes on to declare that ' all the disorders of human nature are the dis- orders of human reason,' and that 'all the perfection or imperfection of our passions is nothing else but the perfec- tion or imperfection of our reason. Medea, when she killed her children, and Cato, when he killed himself, acted as truly according to the judgment of their reason at that time as the confessor who chooses rather to suffer than deny his faith ; the difference is purely the different state of their reason. For the passions may be said to govern our actions only as they denote the disordered state of our reason.' Law finally sums up the whole ' case of reason,' which in this part might more fairly be called a case against reason, in the following vigorous manner : ' In a word, when self-love is a proper arbitrator betwixt a man and his adversary ; when revenge is a just judge of meek- ness ; when pride is a true lover of humility ; when false- hood is a teacher of truth ; when lust is a fast friend of chastity ; when the flesh leads to the spirit ; when sensu- ality delights in self-denial ; when partiality is a promoter 128 ' Case of Reason ' not a Popular Work. of equity ; when the palate can taste the difference between sin and holiness ; when the hand can feel the truth of a proposition ; — then may human reason be a proper arbitra- tor between God and man, the sole, final, just judge of all that ought or ought not to be matter of a holy, divine, and heavenly religion.' When it is remembered that the title of Locke's famous treatise — the ' Reasonableness of Christianity ' — gave the keynote to the dominant theology of Law's day, one can hardly be surprised that this vigorous crusade against reason should have been received by the friends of the Christian cause with indifference, if not with actual hostility. At any rate, such appears to have been the fact. Although the ' Case: of Reason ' was published when the ' Serious Call ' was just in the first flush of popularity, and although the writer had long been recognised as one of the most powerful and successful contributors to the Bangorian con- troversy, his new controversial piece was certainly not appre- ciated. Leland barely mentions Law as one of the answerers to Tindal, without one word of commendation, although he can find room for a word of praise for ' the ingenious Mr. Anthony Atkey ' (whoever he may have been), and has a panegyrical epithet for almost all the rest of the many replies to ' Christianity as old as the Creation ' which he notices.' Dr. Waterland gives all the weight of his great name against Law's performance,^ and the majority of contemporary or nearly contemporary writers simply ignore the work. But Law has been better appreciated in later years, and few who read the ' Case of Reason ' in the present day will deny that it is a powerful work, fully worthy of the great writer who penned it. Itwas reprinted at the request of a friend in 1755.' ' See Leland's View of the Deistical fVriters,' Letter IX., pp. 79-85. 2 See Waterland's 'Works' (Van Mildert's edition), vol. vi. p. 454. ' This is worth noting, because one might perhaps have expected that it would not have accorded with Law's later views. See 'Works,' vii. (2) ID, 11,15,16,17,29. Law accused of Romanising. i 29 CHAPTER IX. LAW ON THE ROMAN QUESTION. During the years 1731-32, Law wrote three letters which are worthy of a short separate chapter, among other rea- sons because they furnish us with almost the only materials which we possess for judging of his attitude towards the Church of Rome. Like other nonjurors, he was constantly charged with a tendency to Romanism. His three letters on the Bangorian controversy, in especial, were accused of leading men in this direction. ' The Papists,' wrote Gil- bert Burnet, ' should rejoice in your doctrines, which would do you little service but be of great advantage to them.' ' Mr. Pyle, another antagonist, spoke of Law as ' triumphing over his lordship [Bishop Hoadly], under no banner but that of the Pope ; ' ^ and, in another work, declared that ' Law's principles can possibly serve nobody but a Romanist' ^ The same accusation was hinted at, if not actually made, by Mr. Jackson, of Rossington, and others." The charge was ' An Answer to Mr. Law's Letter to the Bishop of Bangor in a letter to Mr. Law. By Gilbert Burnet (second son of the Bishop of Salisbury). Pub- lished 17 1 7. ^ Vindication of the Bishop of Bangor irt Answer to Law. By T. Pyle, Lecturer of Lynn Regis. 1 7 1 8. ' Second Vindication. By the same. 1718. ' See An Answer to Mr. Law's Letter to the Bishop of Bangor concerning hislate Sermon and Preservative. By John Jackson, rector of Rossington. 1 7 18; and the literature on the Bangorian controversy, passim. Mr. Jackson was subsequently vicar of Doncaster, and became well known in connection with the controversy between Drs. Walerland and Clarke on the subject of the Trinity. K 130 Law on Romanism. utterly unfounded." Law, like the rest of the nonjurors, had no sympathy whatever with the Roman system. His posi- tion in the Church of his baptism was perfectly clear and logical. At the same time, his attitude towards Roman- ism was very different from that of the majority of his contemporaries. He was no Romanist, but he was also no violent anti-Romanist. Though he had no inclination to meddle with politics, he was always a staunch Jacobite at heart ; and the religion of him whom he considered the rightful claimant to the throne was, in his opinion, no suffi- cient bar to his right. But circumstances did not require Law to give his opinion on the Roman controversy, and hence, with the exception of these letters, we have little direct intimation of his views on the subject. The letters were written to a lady, probably, but not certainly. Miss Dodwell, daughter of the learned but ec- centric nonjuror Henry Dodwell. The circumstances of the Dodwell family agree with what is said or hinted in these letters about the personal characters of those referred to in them. But then, so also, to a certain extent, do the cir- cumstances of the Lee family — a name which will come before us again in connection with Law's mystic period.^ However, it is not a matter of importance to identify the individual to whom the letters were addressed. It is suffi- cient to note that, whoever she was, her frame of mind was very similar to that of many, who in the present, and indeed in every,, age, have been attracted to Romanism as the shortest way of getting rid of their difficulties. Law's advice is not only pious, sensible, and admirable in every respect, but it is quite applicable, mutatis mutandis, to all ' Mr. Edward Fisher wrote to Miss Gibbon in 1789, respecting these letters, 'They were published in 1779 and intituled "Letters to a Lady, &c." This lady, it seems, was of the name of Dodwell, not a member of any sect but of the Church of England, and daughter to the pU)us and learned Mr. Henry Dodwell, &c. ; ' but he does not give any reason why ' it seems ' so. Letters to a Lady on Romanism.. 131 who feel the same attraction in the present day. For their practical utility, therefore, the letters are well worth no- ticing. They are also noticeable in a life of Law as being thoroughly illustrative of the character of the writer. That curious mixture of severity and extreme tenderness which is conspicuous in Law's intercourse with Byrom meets us again in these letters. They are full of heart ; but while they could hardly have failed to make the recipient love the writer, they were also calculated to make her fear him. While she must have felt that Law had a most affectionate regard for her welfare, she must also have felt the stern- ness of his rebukes. The fault which some perhaps will find with the letters will not be that they are too High Church, but rather that they are too Broad. But the letters, or rather extracts from them, for they are too long to be quoted in full, shall speak for themselves. They are entitled : 'Letters to a Lady inclined to enter into the Com- munion of the Church of Rome, by W. Law, M.A.' They were not intended for publication ; and were, in fact, not published until some years after the writer's death, being, as is stated in the title-page, 'now [1779] first printed for H. Payne,' a devoted admirer of Law, and himself the author and editor of several works. The first letter is dated ' May 24, 1731,' and is a reply to a most curious medley of reasons which the lady appears to have given for desiring to join the Church of Rome. Among these were the licentiousness of the press— which Law not unnaturally terms ' an unreasonable complaint ; ' the old difficulties about the doctrines of predestination and absolute decrees ; and the objection that God's grace would attend more sensibly the use of His ordinances if He approved of the Church of England. On this latter diffi- culty Law dwells more at length than on the rest. He contends— (0 that before the Reformation the same objec- 1 3 2 Letters to a Lady on Romanism. tio.n might have been made, and therefore the Reformation was not to blame ; (2) that there was the same reason to put the question in the Church of Rome ; (3) that the fact of the Jews falling into idolatry was no objection to their ordinances ; and (4) he administers to his corres- pondent a grave rebuke on the presumption implied in the objection. ' How,' he asks, ' can you tell who are re- ceiving benefit from ordinances ? The prophet had need to be reminded that there were seven thousand who were not bowing the knee to Baal. And, nowadays, people, who have never been out of the town in which they were born, are apt to think they know the state of the religious world.' But, even supposing the corruption of Christianity to be as great as his correspondent supposed, ' it should only move us to profound humility, zeal, ten- derness, charity, and intercession for those who neglect it.' To ask ' how, supposing a sufficiency of Divine grace, men should be in such a state,' is blamable curiosity. ' What is there in the Bible to make us think ourselves qualified to ask or answer such questions, or that any part of our duty depends upon our knowledge of them ? It is the end of revelation to silence such inquiries. It tells us of the blindness and disorder of our nature and the depths of Infinite Providence.' He then touches upon the fall of angels, to which his correspondent had probably referred, and finely adds : ' It is no subject for inquiry ; there is no place in the meek and lowly spirit of the fol- lowers of Christ Jesus for such questions ; they are all to be buried in a profound resignation to the adorable provi- dence of God ; we should resist them, if, through our weak- ness, they intrude on us, like other thoughts contrary to piety.' On some points Law agreed with his correspondent's premisses, but demurred to the conclusions she drew from Letters to a Lady on Romanism. 133 them. For instance : ' I agree with you,' he says, ' about the method of the Reformation ; the bare history of it is satire enough. But the history of Popes, written by persons of their own communion, is as large and un- deniable a history of scandal ; there is little room for private judgment on the excellency of one Church above another on that account. You wonder God's judgments did not overtake the reformers ; others, that papal tyranny has so long escaped them. Hence we may gather, how much we are out of the way when we are guessing at the fitness of God's judgments ; and perhaps they may then be executing in the severest manner when we are wonder- ing why they do not fall. The means of salvation are fully preserved both in the English and Roman communion for all who are disposed to make a right use of them. The sins both of reformers and papists are personal ; ' and so forth. These last sentences were strangely out of accord with the strong anti-papal feeling then almost universally prevalent, and Law probably felt that they were.' For he goes on to speak of the bitterness of controversy, and quaintly adds : ' He who says, " Sirs, ye are brethren," is like to have Moses' reward for his pains.' Then, again pressing the lesson which he appears to have considered specially needful for his correspondent, he proceeds : ' Every part of the Church is in division; let us live in these divided, schismatical, uncharitable parts of Christendom, free from schismatical principles and passions, and intent on love to God and our neighbour. God's goodness overrules this vast disorder and differences in churches. Better say, I am a private member of a Church which has full means of salva- tion in it ; I have no ability, no call or commission to judge > ' How different is this from our modem Protestant Divinity ! ' is the reflection in Mr. Law's handwriting on the text— in a Bible, evidently much read and annotated by him, now in the possession of Miss S. Law. 1 34 Letters to a Lady on Romanism. in these matters ; they belong to those who, by the provi- dence of God, have the care of this Church.' On another point, Law quite agreed with the premisses of his correspondent, though he denied her conclusion. ' You say,' he writes, ' " I inclined to the Church of Rome because of the excellent books written by persons of that communion ; and they must have been very acceptable to God, and had large assistance from Him." Right in both respects ! I think the same of many of their writers, and bless God for the knowledge I have had of them. And as I consider their Church and all its members my brethren in Christ, and as nearly related to me as any Protestants, so it is the same benefit to me to receive benefit from their Church as from that of England. In my own heart I drop and forget all divisions and distinctions which the enemy hath set up among us ; ' with much more to the same effect. The second letter opens in the same strain. Law bids the lady ' love the Churches of Rome and Greece with the same affection and sense of Christian fellowship as she loved the Church of England, and consider herself, not as an external member of one in order to renounce communion with the others, but as necessarily forced into one externally divided part because there is no part free from external division.' Strange sentiments from the pen of a clergyman in the middle of the eighteenth century ! The rest of the letter does not bear very directly upon the subject of this chapter, but it contains one or two personal references which, if for no other reason, deserve notice for their rarity. Law, as a rule, carefully abstaining from writing anything about himself We learn, for instance, that he was not un- conscious of his own powers. After one of his usual tirades against human learning, he adds : ' Was the world to see this remark upon learning, they would impute it to my want Letters to a Lady on Romanism. 135 of learning ; and though they would be very right in judg- ing my pretensions to learning not to be great, yet it would be unjust to think me an entire stranger to the nature of it. But I profess to you that whatever parts or learning I am possessed of, I think it as necessary to live under as con- tinual apprehension of their being a snare and temptation to me as of any worldly distinctions, &c.' Then, after touching upon a subject about which he was very chary of speaking, but upon which he unquestionably held strong opinions — the restoration of all things — he adds a rebuke of the curiosity of his correspondent about such deep ques- tions, which gives us some insight into her family his- tory. ' I hope I shall not offend you by observing of your great and good father, whose memory I esteem and rever- ence, that his chief foible seems to have lain in a temper to speculation, and perhaps you may have some reason to resist and guard against it as a temper to which you have a natural inclination.' The ' foible ' was common both to Dodwell and Lee, but it would certainly be brought more under Law's notice in connection with the latter than with the former. On the other hand, the fact that the lady to whom Law was writing had a dearly loved brother, whose falling away from Christianity was one of the chief sources of her perplexities, exactly tallies with the known lapse of the younger Dodwell, but not with what is known of the Lee family. The third letter, which is dated 'May 29, 1732,' is an answer to an evidently heartrending account of the sister's sad state on the falling away of her brother. She had vin- dicated herself for loving her brother too well, declared that she would not be able to keep her senses if he were taken before her, and repeated her desire to ' be of the Church of Rome, to be free from the danger and anxiety of thinking f(5r herself on religion.' ' Why not,' replied Law, ' resign 136 Law on Romanism. yourself to God instead of the Church of Rome ? A rest- less, inquisitive, self-seeking temper is the rock on which you split. Resignation is the best cure. You seem to be affected with the " Serious Call " ; I pray God you may have benefit by it, and desire you will think the chapter upon resignation to the will of God deserves most of your attention. Your desire to go to the Church of Rome pro- ceeds from this restless temper.' The rest of the letter deals with her excessive love for her fallen brother, and therefore does not throw much light upon the subject of this chapter ; but it may be noted in passing, that if Law's correspondent was really Miss Dodwell, the brother would be the author of ' Christianity not founded on Argument,' one of the most remarkable works which the Deistic contro- versy produced, and about which Law, among many others, doubted whether it was written on the Christian or the Deist side. It has. been stated that, with the exception of these three letters, there is little to show what were Law's views with regard to the Church of Rome. There is, however, one remarkable passage written several years later, which shows that the mystic views which he had then embraced increased rather than diminished his admiration of some of the Romish writers, though he was still, as ever, without the slightest sympathy with Romanism, as a system. His sentiments, however, were not certainly those of the typical protestant of the eighteenth century. How many, for in- stance, would have been found to echo such a sentiment as this : ' If each Church [Roman and Anglican] could pro- duce but one man a-piece that had the piety of an apostle, and the impartial love of the first Christians in the first Church at Jerusalem, a protestant and a papist of this stamp would not want half a sheet of paper to hold their Articles of Union, nor be half an hour before they were of Law's Admiration of some Romanists. 137 one religion ' ? Taken by itself, this might seem to show that Law thought there was but little difference between the Church of England and that of Rome. But this was not his meaning ; he was not insensible of the importance of an orthodox faith, but he did think (and who will blame him for thinking ?) that, after all, a Christian spirit was at least as important as orthodoxy. This is evident from the following passage which is worth quoting, both for its own intrinsic beauty of thought and expression, and also as a corrective to the false impression which the sentence quoted above might be liable to produce. ' The more,' he writes, ' we believe or know of the corruptions and hindrances of true piety in the Church of Rome, the more we should re- joice to hear, that in every age so many eminent spirits, great saints, have appeared in it, whom we should thank- fully behold as so many great Lights hung out by God to show the true way to Heaven ; as so many joyful proofs that Christ is still present in that Church, as well as in other Churches, and that the gates of Hell have not pre- vailed, or quite overcome it. Who that has the least spark of Heaven in his soul, can help thinking and rejoicing in this manner at the appearance of a St. Bernard, a Teresa, a Francis de Sales,' &c. in that Church .■' Who can help praising God that her invented devotions, superstitious use of images, invocation of saints, &c., have not so suppressed any of the graces and virtues of an evangelical perfection of life, but that among Cardinals, Jesuits, Priests, Friars, Monks and Nuns, numbers have been found who seem to live for no other end but to give glory to God and edification to men, and whose writings have everything in them that can guide the soul out of the corruption of this life into the highest union with God .? And he who, through a partial ' Among Mr. Law's books is a copy of the ' Introduction a la vie devote du bien-heureux Frangois de Sales,' evidently never read. 138 Laws Admiration of some Romanists. orthodoxy, is diverted from feeding in these green pastures of Hfe, whose just abhorrence of Jesuitical craft and worldly policy keeps him from knowing and reading the works of an Alvares du Pas, a Rodigius, a Du Pont, a Guillor^e, a P^re Surin, and such like Jesuits, has a greater loss than he can easily imagine. And if any clergyman can read the Life of Bartholomeus a Martyribus, a Spanish archbishop, who sat with great influence at the very Council of Trent, with- out being edified by it, and desiring to read it again and again, I know not why he should like the Lives of the best of the Apostolical Fathers ; and if any Protestant Bishop should read the " Stimulus Pastorum," wrote by this Popish Prelate, he must be forced to confess it to be a book that would have done honour to the best archbishop that the Reformation has to boast of O my God, how shall I unlock this mystery of things ? in the land of darkness, overrun with superstition, where Divine Worship seems to be all show and ceremony, there both among priests and people Thou hast those who are fired with the pure love of Thee, who renounce everything for Thee, who are devoted wholly and solely to Thee, who think of nothing, write of nothing, desire nothing but the Honour, and Praise, and Adoration that is due to Thee, and who call all the world to the maxims of the Gospel, the Holiness and Perfection of the Life of Christ. But in the regions where Light is sprung up, whence Superstition is fled, where all that is outward in Religion seems to be pruned, dressefl and put in its true order, there a cleansed shell, a whited sepulchre, seems too generally to cover a dead Christianity.' ' No one can read this splendid passage without seeing that Law's admiration of many Romanists was in spite of, not in consequence of their Romanism. The errors of Rome he thoroughly abjured, her persecuting spirit he ' An Appeal to all that Doiibt, &'c., ' Works,' vol. vi. ,ji. 282. Law no Romanist. 139 thoroughly abhorred. ' The error of all errors,' he writes, ' and that which makes the blackest charge against the Romish Church, is Persecution, a religious sword drawn against the liberty and freedom of serving God according to our best light, that is against our " worshipping the Father in spirit and in truth " : This is the great Whore, the Beast, the Dragon, the Antichrist.' But he adds : ' Though this is the frightful monster of that Church, yet even here, who, except it be the Church of England, can throw the first stone at her .' Where must we look for a Church that has so renounced this persecuting Beast, as they who have renounced the use of Incense, the sprinklings of Holy • Water, or the Extreme Unction of dying persons .' What part of the Reformation abroad has not practised and de- fended persecution 1 What sect of Dissenters at home has not, in their day of power dreadfully condemned Tole- ration .' ' ' Certain practices of the Church of Rome — e.g. the celibacy of her clergy, her recommendation of the state of virginity, her comparative freedom from State control — Law also approved of, but, in spite of all this, he was no Romanist. ' An Appeal to all that Doubt, ^c, 'Works,' vol. vi. p. 284. 140 Law becomes a Mystic. CHAPTER X. ON MYSTICISM AND MYSTICS. A VAST interval in point of thought separates those writ- ings of Law which we have been hitherto considering from those which subsequently came from his pen. The ' Case of Reason,' and ' Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome,' were written between 1731 and 1733 ; his next work was not published until 1737. Almost im- mediately after the former date he became acquainted with the writings of Jacob Behmen ; and before the latter date he had virtually embraced, though not yet, perhaps, in all their fulness, those views which made him known as emphatically ' The English mystic' The occasion, causes, and results of this transformation in Law's mind will be noticed presently. Before doing so, it seems necessary to say a few words on the subject of mysticism generally. And, first of all, let us not be frightened by the name. The term ' mysticism ' implies something vague, obscure, impalpable, something, in short, which English people, of all people, from their natural love of clearness, specially abhor. Whether its original reference be to the initiation of the privileged into that which is veiled from common eyes, or whether it refer, as the literal derivation of the. word seems to imply, to the closing of the avenues of the senses, that the mind may be susceptible of supra-sen- suous impressions, or whether we adopt any other of the On the term ' Mysticism! 141 numerous definitions of the word,' the name ' mysticism ' certainly has to many an evil sound. But we must not be misled by a name. We must remember at the outset that the appellation of ' mystic ' was not chosen by the mystics themselves. They called themselves the ' spiritual,' or the ' illuminated,' if they called themselves by any special name at all, which they rarely did. But they seldom, as a rule, called themselves mystics. That is simply a term of re- proach applied to them by their enemies, and applied most loosely and indeterminately to men who held the utmost variety of opinions. In order, therefore, to do common justice to the heterogeneous mass of writers who are lumped together under the opprobrious appellation 01 ' mystics,' we must divest ourselves of all sinister associa- tions connected with the name, and strive to look at them as they really were. Again, we must beware of taking exaggerated forms of mysticism as its normal type. No form of thought that ever existed in the world could bear to be judged by such a test ; and as mysticism is specially liable to exaggeration, it would be specially unfair to mystics to judge them by such a standard. ' It hHS been defined or described in the following ways : ' Theologica myslica est sapientia experimentalis, Dei affectione divinitus infusa, quae mentem ab omni inordinatione puram, per actus supernaturales fidei, spei, et charitatis cum Deo intime conjungit.' . . . ' Mystica theologia, si vim nominis attendas, designat quamdam sacram et arcanam de Deo divi- nisque rebus notitiam.' [He then explains the well-known classical usage of the term yuuo-Tijpiov.] — Isagoge Balthasaris Corderii Soc. Jesu Theologi ad Mysticam Theologiam S. Dionysii Areopagit^. ' La mystique est la science de I'etat sumaturel de I'ame humaine manifesto dans le corps et dans I'ordre des choses visibles par des effets egalement sur- naturels.' Dictionnaire de Mystique Chretienne, par I'Abbe Migne. ^ ' Le mysticisme consiste i substituer 1' illumination directe k la revelation indirecte, I'exstase i la raison, I'eblouissement a la philosophic.'— Victor Cousin, 'Religion, Mysticism, Stoicism.' ' Mystische Theologie entstand, als die Menschen von Gott abgefallen waren, und sich Wiedervereinigung mit ihm sehnten.'— J. L. Ewald, 'Briefe uber die alte Mystik und den neuen Mysticismus,' p. 20. 142 What Mysticism is. And, once more, we must beware of confounding the accidents with the essence of mysticism. For not only is mysticism peculiarly liable to be pushed to extremes, it is also apt to gather around it a number of accretions which are really no part of itself We must in this connexion beware of the old ' post hoc ergo propter hoc ' fallacy. Many mystics have advanced from mysticism pure and simple to build up wild theories for which mysticism has no right to bear the blame. Bearing these cautions in mind, let us now examine what this much-abused system really is. ' The Divine Word (Logos) is instilled into all men. In all something Godlike has been breathed. You bear the image of God.' This is the starting-point, one might almost say the postulate, of all mysticism. The complete union of the soul with God— this is the goal of all mysticism ; and the Christian mystic would add, through a mediator, Jesus Christ. The means by which this union is to be effected are faith and love, which to the mystic are hardly distinguish- able, even in thought, and are quite inseparable, in fact, for love implies faith, and faith can only work by love. As, according to this view, the soul is in itself a part of the Divine Nature, the mystic must seek this union by looking, not without, but within. God is within him, and he is only separated from God when he turns away from his own inner Divine nature. Not that the true mystic — at any rate the true mystic of later "days - despised the world without ; that, too, spoke to him of God ; but the true sanctuary of the Deity was within his own soul ; his gaze therefore must be introverted if he would find true union with God. In seeking this union with God, all thoughts of self must be entirely abandoned ; he must be content, yea, What Mysticism is. 1^13 happy, to sink into his own nothingness and see and know nothing but God ; this is true humility, the cardinal virtue of Christian mysticism. Hence it follows that the love by which this union with God is to be brought about must be totally free from any thoughts of his own happiness ; it must be pure and disinterested, without regard either to reward or punishment ; in a word, it must be simply love. The more this union with God is effected, the more the mystic learns to see God in all things, and all things in God. Hence this outer world and all that is in it, from the noblest work of creation down to the smallest insect or the commonest weed that grows in the field, is to the mystic a copy of the Deity ; everything visible is a type of the invisible, all outer matter a symbol of the inner ; and that not by any fanciful analogy, but in actual reality. But to enter into all this there is need of a religious sense — not reason, not conscience, but something higher than either. This religious sense must be felt to be under- stood. To attempt to explain what it is to one who is destitute of it, would be like trying to point out the sun- rise on the sea to a blind man, or to teach one who is born deaf and dumb to enjoy sweet music. How is this religious sense to be acquired .' A man must enter into the holy place of his own heart, and he will find it there. Then he will gain a new birth, not in any figurative, but in the most literal sense of the term. It must not, however, be supposed that, because he lays so much stress upon the Inner Light and the Inner Life, the true mystic depreciates the outward Written Word. On the contrary, the ' spiritual writers ' (as Law generally calls them) brought out a depth of meaning from that Word which has never been so well brought out by others. In fact, to many well-read men, the very word ' mysticism' chiefly conveys the notion of a mode of interpreting Holy .144 Mysticism founded on plain Texts of Scripture. Scripture which is rightly called ' the mystical interpreta- tion ' : that is, the development of a latent, figurative sense over and above the literal sense, which shows, as S. Augus- tine says, that ' in the Old Testament the New was fore- shadowed, and the New was nothing else than the revealing of the Old.' It was in this sense chiefly that the early Fathers of the Church were mystics, though many of them were also mystics in the other sense as well. Indeed, the two phases of mysticism are very closely connected together, for the same tone of mind which would attract a Christian to the one, would also, as a rule (Law was an exception on this point), attract him to the other. He who loved to trace a latent spiritual meaning throughout the Book of Nature would also love to trace a latent spiritual meaning in the Written Book of Revelation.' At the same time, the true mystic would be the very last man in the world to allow the mystical meaning of Holy Scripture to take the place of the literal or historical sense. On the contrary, the very stronghold of mysticism is the extreme literalness of its interpretations of Scripture. The mystic contends that he has chapter and verse for every one of his fundamental tenets, and that it is not he but his opponents who have to explain away the plain letter of Scripture. He would ask, for example, how could language express more unmistakably that ' the Divine Word is instilled into all men,' than the text : ' That is the True Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world ' (John i. 9) ; or, that the union of? 'the soul with God is to be the Christian aim, than the prayer of our Lord, in John xvii. ; or, that this union is to be effected 1 For modern specimens of this form of mysticism, see \ii^ Mystical Ser- mons of that good man, the late Rev. W. R. Wroth, of S. Philip's, Clerken- well, edited by the Rev. J. E. Vaux; also Dr. Littledale's Commentary on the Song of Songs; Dr. Neale On the Psalms, etc. Mysticism as old as Mankind. 145 through love, than ' He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him ' (i John iv. 16) ; or, that this love must be disinterested, than ' Love seeketh not her own ' (i Cor. xiii. 5) ; or, that the Christian must look within if he would find God, than ' The kingdom of God is within you ' (Luke xvii. 21); or, that the outer world is in all its parts a type of the unseen world, than ' The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made ' (Rom. i. 20), and, in fact, almost every parable of Christ } Having thus seen what mysticism is, a brief sketch of a few of the principal mystic writers may help us the better to understand Law's position. We shall be travelling over ground which he travelled over before us, for 'of these mystical divines,' he writes, ' I thank God I have been a diligent reader through all ages of the Church ; from the apostolical Dionysius the Areopagite down to the great Fdn^lon, Archbishop of Cambray, the illuminated Guion, and M. Bertot.' ' Of course such a sketch must necessarily be very imperfect and superficial, and strictly limited to what bears upon the subject of this biography, otherwise it would quickly swell into a bulky volume instead of a single chapter. In one sense, mysticism is as old as mankind. There is a mystic element in every man's nature. For who has not sometimes felt a tendency to turn from the world that is without him and is no part of him, to the world which is within and which is the very centre of his life .? Who has not sometimes thought that there is something in this outer world more than meets the eye, something that is but a type of the invisible .? So far as a man follows these tendencies, so far he is a mystic. The Christian mystic ' Some Animadversions upon Doctor Trafs 'Reply.' Law's 'Works.' vol. vi. p. 319- L 1 46 ' Fathers of the Desert ' — Pseudo-Dionysius. would certainly assert that he owed his mysticism to no human teacher, but that he was taught by none other than by God Himself; by God speaking both internally to his soul, and externally through the Holy Scriptures. The points of resemblance between Christian mysticism and Platonism, and even older philosophies, need not here be discussed ; for, whether they were as striking as they have been affirmed to be or not, they are never referred to by William Law, and do not, therefore, come within our purview. For the same reason, it is unnecessary to dwell upon the mysticism of the later Platonists at Alexandria. In fact, the first mystics who attract our attention in connexion with William Law are those whom he terms the ' Fathers of the Desert.' Among these the most famous were the two hermits Macarius, who, in the enthu- siastic language of the editor of one of them, ' shone like two lights of Heaven in those deserted places.' Macarius ^Egyptius was read and admired greatly by William Law. The fragments of his letters which have come down to us are full of the most pronounced mysticism.' In speaking of the Fathers of the Desert as the earliest mystic Christians who attracted William Law, it is assumed that the Epistles of the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite are spurious. If, as many of the mystic writers, William Law among the number, believed, these writings were really the product of S. Paul's convert at Athens, he must of course be regarded as the founder of Christian mysticism. It is, however, now pretty generally agreed that the works belong to a later date. Still the writer, whoever he may have been, cannot have lived later than the sixth century. ' See 'MacariijEgyptii Epistolse.'ed. Floss. (1850) /(MWOT. In one of the epistles (p. 234) occurs this fine sentence, 'O ifivos Tijj eeiSrTiros 6 vovs tarw riliSiv. Among Law's books are Les Vies des Saints Pires des Diserts and the Spiritual Homilies of S. Macarius Aigyptius. Abbots of S. Victor — .S*. Bernard. 147 His writings were deeply valued both in early and mediaeval times ; and, if they are now less thought of, it cannot be denied that, through them, a nobler and more spiritual element was introduced into the arid region of Aristotelian scholasticism.' They contain all the crucial points of mysticism, and one can well understand that they would be deeply appreciated by Law, and his ' wish might be father to the thought' that their author derived his in- struction directly from the mouth of an apostle. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries mysticism flourished greatly, especially in France. The two great abbots of S. Victor, Hugo and his pupil and successor, Richard, and the still greater abbot of Clairvaux, Bernard, ' the last of the Fathers,' were the most remarkable among a host of mystics belonging to this period, and their names alone were sufficient to shed a lustre upon any cause. It is somewhat remarkable that Law makes few if any allusions to mystics of this date. One would have thought that S. Bernard in especial would have been a mystic after his own heart. No doubt this great and good man was a mystic of a very moderate and sober type. Many of the characteristic features of mysticism are not found in his writings ; but on many points— such, for instance, as the mystic ecstasy, the abstraction from earthly things, the application of terms of human love to the relation between 1 ' La traduction des ouvrages de St. Denis I'Areopagite par Scot Erigine marque la date precise de I'introduction du mysticisme dans la philosophic scolastique.'— i)« la Controverse de Bossuet et de Finelon sur le Quietisme, L A Bonnel, Introd. See also Enfield (ii. SH). who was thoroughly in accord with the spirit of the eighteenth century in strongly condemning Dionysius ' It was the translation of this book [of Dionysius] which revived the knowledge of Alexandrian Platonism in the West, and laid the foundation of the mystical system of theology which afterwards so generally prevailed. Thus philosophical enthusiasm, born in the East, nourished by Plato, educated in Alexandria, matured in Asia, and adopted into the Greek Church, found its way, under the pretext and authority of an apostohc name, into the Western Church, and there produced innumerable mischiefs.' L 2 148 German Mystics of the 14/^ Century. Christ and the Christian — he expresses himself as strongly as the most advanced mystics ; and, more perhaps than any of his predecessors, he brought into prominence that very side of mysticism which was most fascinating to William Law — the discovery of a mystical meaning in all outward nature as the shadow and emblem of the things invisible.' Passing over the mystics of the thirteenth century, of whom Bonaventura was the most remarkable,^ we next come to a group of mystic writers who attracted and in- fluenced Law more than any others, with the single excep- tion of Jacob Behmen. These were the mystics, mostly German, of the fourteenth century. The chief representatives of this form of mysticism were Eckart, commonly called ' Master Eckart,' of Cologne, John Tauler, a Dominican friar of Strasbourg, Henry Suso, also of Strasbourg, Ruysbroch, an Augustinian friar and prior of Griinthal in Brabant, and a little later, Henry Harphius. They were all mystics of a singularly robust and manly type, and this characteristic, among others, probably tended to attract Law to their writings. The tenderness which constitutes one of the chief charms of mysticism is apt to degenerate into effeminacy and sickly sentimentality. Law's natural infirmities lay all the other way : he described himself rightly when he said that his ' strings were hard,' though they were considerably softened by his mysticism. But, whatever William Law was, he was always a thorough man ; and anything approaching to mawkishness was particularly distasteful to him. Now there was nothing of this kind about these fourteenth century ' ^tt inter alia, Morison's Life of S. Bernard, p. 22. " It does not appear that this phase of mysticism had any special con- nexion with William Law, though Bonaventura Speculum Disciplime is one of the books in his )ibrary. Master Eckart. 1 49 mystics. Whatever they wrote was hardy and masculine. It would have been well if they had been equally free from wildness and extravagance. But in this respect they were certainly offenders, especially Eckart their chief, who appears at times to lose all self-control, and utters senti- ments about the inward freedom of the spirit, and the virtual abolition of the distinction between the creature and the Creator, which were not only liable to grievous perversion by those who sought an occasion for sin, but which actually were so perverted by the Beghards, or Brethren of the Free Spirit, who found, or professed to find, in them a justification of the grossest and most bare- faced Antinomianism. Law does not often allude to Eckart, and he certainly would have strongly disapproved of his extravagances, which touched on the very verge of Pantheism. But I think there is very little doubt that he was well acquainted with his writings. This is shown, among other ways, by one of Byrom's mystic poems, which were nothing else than Law in verse. One of the prettiest of these odd compositions is entitled ' The Soul's Tendency towards its True Centre,' and commences : Stones towards the earth descend ; Rivers to the ocean roll ; Every motion has some end ; What is thine, beloved soul ? Mine is where my Saviour is : There with him I hope to dwell j Jesu is the central bliss ; Love. the force that doth impel. And so forth. Now, nearly four hundred years earlier, Eckart had written : ' Consciously or unconsciously all creatures seek their proper state. The stone cannot cease moving till it touch the earth, the fire rises up to heaven : thus a loving soul can never rest but in God ; and so we say that God has given to all things their proper place : 150 Extravagance of Eckart and Ruysbroch. to the fish the water, to the bird the air, to the beast the earth, to the soul the Godhead.' ' If Byrom versified Law, had not Law read Eckart ? In the above quotation from Eckart there is nothing extravagant or liable to abuse. ' O si sic omnia ! ' But what will be said of the following ? — ' When the will is so united that it becometh a one in oneness, then doth the Heavenly Father produce his only begotten Son in Him- self and in me. Wherefore in -Himself and me ? I am one with Him. He cannot exclude me. In the selfsame operation doth the Holy Ghost receive His existence and proceed from me as from God. Wherefore ? I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost deriveth not His being from me, He deriveth it not from God. I am in rio wise excluded.' ^ Ruysbroch — the ' divine Rusbrochius,' as Law termed him — sometimes expressed himself hardly less wildly. ' Our created,' he writes, ' is absorbed in our uncreated life, and we are, as it were, transformed into God. Lost in the abyss of an eternal blessedness, we perceive no distinction between ourselves and God.' One can hardly call this by a milder name than blasphemy ; and my apology for venturing even to quote it is, that I desire to be perfectly fair ; and if this chapter is intended to bring out the good points of mysticism, it seems due to those who strongly objected to the system generally, and to Law's exposition of it in particular, to admit that the objectors had some ' a. S. Augustine's famous remark at the very beginning of his Confes- sions ; ' ' Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless until it repose in Thee. ' ■•' It is only fair to Eckart, however, to add, that in other passages he ex- pressly denies that the union with God makes us part of God. He writes : ' Wir haben zwar alle, iiber unser erschaffenes Wesen auch ein ewiges Leben in Gott, als in unserer lebhaften Ursache, der uns aus dem Nichts geschaffen hat. Aber dock sind wir nicht Gott selbst. '■ He is very highly praised by Chevalier Bunsen, who calls ' Meister Eckart, the Dominican, the Socrates of the Rhenish School. ' See Letter from Chevalier Hunsen, prefixed to the transla- tion of ' Theologia Germanica,' by S. Winkworth. yohn Tattler. 151 grounds for their objections, so far as the more extreme exponents of mysticism were concerned. It seemed also necessary, in illustration of our subject, to show into what perilous quicksands Law was in danger of running when he embarked on his mystic voyage. It was not, however, Eckart or Ruysbroch whom Law studied and valued most among these fourteenth century mystics.' It was a man of a far more sober type — John Tauler — who in fact did his very best to check, and prevent the ill effects of, the extravagances both of his master Eckart and his friend Ruysbroch. ' Tauler, indeed, some- times soars to heights where it is somewhat difficult for an ordinary mortal to follow him ; but on such occasions he generally adds a caution which shows that he felt the danger of such speculations to some minds. Take, as an example, the following passage from his sermon on ' Whose is this image and superscription >. ' — ' He that would be truly united to God must dedicate the penny of his soul, with all its faculties, to God alone, and join it unto Him. For if the highest and most glorious unity, which is God Him- self, is to be united to the soul, it must be through oneness. Now when the soul hath utterly forsaken itself, and all creatures, and made itself free from all manifoldness, then the sole Unity, which is God, answers truly to the Oneness of the soul, for there is nothing in the soul besides God.' But thinking, probably, that if he went on much further in this strain there was danger lest some of his hearers should become what has been rather flippantly termed 'God- intoxicated,' he adds : ' But there are some who will fly before they have wings, and pluck the apples before they are ripe, and at the very outset of the Divine life be so ■ Among Law's books, however, are Rusbrochii Opera Omnia, underlined and evidently much read. Tauler appears in Law's library both in a Latm and a, German dress. 152 yohn Tauler. puffed up that it contents them not to enter in at the door and contemplate Christ's humanity, but they will appre- hend His highness and incomprehensible Deity only. . . . Beware of such perilous presumption. Your- safe course is, to perfect yourselves first in following the lowly life of Christ, and in earnest study of the shameful cross.' As Tauler unquestionably exercised a very deep and lasting influence upon William Law, it may be well to quote one or two more specimens, which will show us what sort of a man he was. In the following passage we have another instance of this double tendency, noted above, of rapture checked by practical good sense. ' The ground,' writes Tauler, ' or centre of the soul, is so high and glorious a thing that it cannot properly be named, even as no adequate name can be found for the Infinite and Almighty God. In this ground lies the image of the Holy Trinity. . . . God pours Himself out into our spirit as the sun rays forth its natural light into the air and fills it with sunshine, so that no eye can tell the difference between the sunshine and the air ; how far less this Divine union of the created and the uncreated spirit. Our spirit is received and utterly swallowed up in the abyss which is its source. Then the spirit transcends itself and all its powers, and mounts higher and higher towards the Divine Dark. Yet let no man in his littleness and nothingness think of himself to approach that surpassing darkness ; rather let him draw nigh to the darkness of his ignorance of God, let him simply yield himself to God, ask nothing, desire nothing, love and mean only God, yea, and such an unknown God ! .... Moreover, if a man, while busy in this lofty, inward work, were called by some duty in the providence of God to cease therefrom and cook a broth for some sick person, or any other such service, he should do so willingly and with great joy.' In the same practical spirit Tauler set Noble character of Tauler. 153 himself against the extravagances of asceticism. ' There are some who thoughtlessly maim and torture their miser- able flesh, and yet leave untouched the inclinations which are the root of evil in their hearts. Ah, my friend, what hath thy poor body done to thee that thou shouldst so torment it ? Oh, folly ! mortify and slay thy sins, not thine own flesh and blood.' When we remember that the ser- mons from which the above extracts are quoted were written chiefly in the first half of the fourteenth century, we shall appreciate what remarkable productions they were for so early a date. Hallam calls Tauler 'the first German writer in prose.' ' Heinsius says that ' Tauler, in his German sermons, mingled many expressions invented by himself, which were the first attempt at a philosophical language, and displayed surprising eloquence for the age in which he lived. It may be justly said of him that he first gave to prose that direction in which Luther after- wards advanced so far.'^ Luther himself deeply valued Tauler, and said ' he was a teacher such as had been none since the time of the apostles.' ^ But it was the character of Tauler, even more than his writings, which helped to recommend the doctrines he taught. At a time of deep depression, when his country- men were ready to sink into despair, Tauler stood forth as their undaunted champion against the formidable com- bination of temporal and spiritual weapons wielded by the King of France and the Pope.'' When Strasbourg was visited by a deadly pestilence, it was Tauler who sustained ' Literature of Europe, i. 48. In another passage of the same work (ii. 378) the writer says : ' Tauler's sermons in the native language (German) are supposed to have been translated from Latin. ' « Heinsius, iv. 76, quoted by Hallam. = See Ewald, p. 35. •■ For an interesting account of the state of Germany in Tauler's time, see Miss WinkBTorth's Introduction to the translation of ' Theologia Germanica, p xxxiii All the ' Friends of God ' (Gottes Freunde) were more or less mystics. 154 ' Theologia Germanica! the spirits of the survivors, and taught them to find in religion the support they sorely needed.' On the whole, Tauler was perhaps as exemplary a specimen of the Chris- tian mystic as one can find in any age, and thoroughly deserved the high esteem in which he was held by William Law. His reputation is all the more remarkable when we remember that the account of him has come down to us mainly through sources which were greatly prejudiced against him. Not only did he at Cologne oppose the pantheistic notion of the Beghards, not only did he fear- lessly attack the vices and follies of his fellow-monks, but he set himself, so far as politics were concerned, against the whole hierarchy of Rome. He never separated, or wished to separate, himself from the Roman obedience ; but he was always a patriot first, a Romanist afterwards. And, in point of fact, though perhaps unintentionally, he was, in his doctrine, as well as in his conduct, a precursor of Luther. Indeed, all these mystics of the fourteenth century, and Tauler more than all, tended to pave the way for the Reformation. And therefore Romish writers speak of them with grave suspicion, and while admitting their merits, warn their readers against the tendency of their teaching.^ Belonging to this same group, though somewhat later in date, is a little anonymous work entitled ' Theologia Germanica.' It contains a sort of summary of mystical ' Seeinteralia, Winkworth, p. xlv., &nA\?iMgh3.n's Hours initk the Mystics. ' • Maitre Eckart fut en rapport avec les Beghards, Taulire fut un des plus ardents propaga eurs de I'association des Amis de Dieu, dont quelques-uns se separ^rent plus tard ouvertement de I'eglise, sous le nom de Vatidois. Ces mystiques exalt& et hardis de la Germanic du xiv» si^cle justifikent, par I'influence diverse qu'eurent leurs &rits, et indulgence avec laquelle on les traita, et la defiance qu'ils avaient excitde.' (Bonnel : De la Controverse de Bpssuet et de Finelon sur le QuUtisme. Introd. xiii.) See also UUmann's Re- formatoren vor der Reformation. ' Tkeologia Germanica! 155 theology, expressed in pointed and pithy language, and deeply affected many minds of various casts. William Law valued it very highly, and recommended it to the more advanced among his disciples, as appears from his second letter to John Wesley in 1738. Referring to some depreciation of the ' Theologia Germanica ' which Wesley made in his reply to Law's first answer to him. Law writes : ' If you remember the " Theologia Germanica '' so imper- fectly as only to remember something of Christ our Pattern, but nothing express of Christ our Atonement, it is no wonder that you can remember so little of my conversations with you. I put that author into your hands not because he is fit for the first learners of the rudiments of Christianity, who are to be prepared for baptism, but because you were a clergyman, that had made profession of divinity, had read, as you said, with much approbation and benefit the two practical discourses [' Christian Perfection' and the ' Serious Call '], and many other good books ; and because you seemed to me to be of a very inquisitive nature, and much in- clined to meditation : in this view, nothing could be more reasonable for you than that book, which most deeply, ex- cellently, and fully contains the whole system of Christian faith and practice, and is an excellent guide against all mistakes, both in faith and works. What that book has not taught you, I am content that you should not have learnt from me.' Other minds of a very different tone from Law's were equally fascinated with the work. Luther published an edition of it,> and wrote in his Preface, ' This precious little book, poor and unadorned as it is in words of human wisdom, is so much the more costly and rich in Divine wisdom. As to myself, next to the Bible and S. Augustine, . Indeed, according to its English translator, ' he discovered the work and .first brought it into notice in his edition of 1512.' 156 ' De Imitatione Christi! not one book has been published from which I have learned more of what God, Christ, man, and all things are. I thank God that I can thus seek and find my God in the Ger- man tongue, as I have hitherto not been able to find him, either in the Greek, Latin, or Hebrew tongues. God grant that this little book may become better known ; so shall we find that the " German Theology " is without doubt the best theology.' Arndt, a sort of reviver of Luther's work in the succeeding century, published a new edition and spoke most highly of it.^ Spener, a reviver of Arndt's work in the later part of the century, and the founder of the school of Halle pietists, says of it : ' It must be profit- able, that this simple little book, the " German Theology,'' as well as the writings of Tauler, from both of which equally, next to the Scriptures, our dear Luther became what he was, should be more placed into the hands of students, and its use recommended to them.'* Henry More, the famous Cambridge Platonist, speaks of- it as ' that golden little book which first so pierced and affected me.' In later times Charles Kingsley admired it greatly, and wrote a preface to a new edition of it ; * and Ewald devotes more than twenty pages to this little work in his small volume on Mysticism.* The Chevalier Bunsen placed it next to the Bible. A somewhat kindred treatise to the ' Theologica Ger- manica,' but far better known, is the famous ' De Imitatione ' Luther cannot be called a mystic, yet in many respects he agreed with the mystics. He was a professed enemy of the conventional Aristotle and the. dogmas of the scholastic j)hilosophy ; he had some leaning towards Platonism, and was a deep admirer of Augustine ; his regard for Tauler and the ' Theologia Germanica ' appears from the text. '' See A Short Defence of the Mystical Writers, &c., appended to ' Paradise Restored, ' &c. , by T. Hartley, Rector of Winwick. » See Ewald, p. 201. * See Life of Kingsley, i. 426 ; and Miss Winkworth's translation of Theo- logia Germanica. Seventeen editions of the work appeared during Luther's lifetime. ' Ewald, pp. 200-222, ' De Imitatione Christi! 157 Christi.' But the two works have not altogether the same scope. The ' German Theology ' is a mystic treatise, and nothing else ; the author of the ' Imitation of Christ ' was an ascetic at least as much as a mystic' None but those who have a tendency to mysticism would care about reading the former ; but the latter has found readers and admirers among all classes, mystic and non-mystic, Romanist and Protestant. The former certainly helped to prepare the way for the Reformation. The latter, though it dwells largely upon the interior life, still devotes a fair share of its pages to the advocacy of doctrines and practices which were decidedly opposed to those of the Reformers. The ' Imitatio Christi,' however, may be regarded as a mystic treatise, inasmuch as most of the essential features 01 mysticism are found in it. The duty and blessedness of turning from the outer to the inner life,^ the entire abne- gation of self,^ the doctrine of the cross expressed after the mystic fashion,^ the Christian's pure and disinterested love to God,^ rest in God as the highest blessing,^ the union of the soul with God,' the blessedness of silent ' It is needless to enter into tlie vexed question of the authorship of the De Imitatione. Law evidently assumed it to be the work of a Kempis. Those who desire to see the claims of a Kempis fuUy stated may be referred to Mr. Kettlewell's interesting work on The Authorship of ' De Imitatione Christi,' ' ' Learn to despise exterior things, and give thyself to the interior, and thou shalt see the kingdom of God will come into thee.' (Book IL u. i.) ' Happy ears, indeed, which hearken to truth itself teaching within, and not to the voice which soundeth without. Happy eyes which are shut to outward things and attentive to the interior.' (Book IIL c. i.) ' ' One thing is chiefly necessary for him, and what is that ? That having left all things else, he leave also himself and wholly go out of himself, ' &c. (Book II. 0. xi.) * See the whole chapter ' Of the King's Highway of the Holy Cross.' (Book II. i;. xii.) = See Book III. chap. vi. (the whole): 'Of the Proof a True Lover.' ^ See Book III. chap, xxi : 'That we are to rest in God above all goods and gifts.' ' 'Join me to Thyself by an inseparable bond of love,' &c. (Book III. c. xxiii. § 10). ' Ah ! Lord God, when shall I be wholly united to Thee, and absorpt in Thee,' &c. (Book IV. ^. xiii.) 158 Mystics in the Church of Rome. waiting,' the mystic ecstasy,^— on all these crucial points the treatise is express ; and thus, while the work was valued by Law before his mystic days, it would be certainly all the more valued by him after he became a mystic.' ^ It would transcend the limits of this work to dwell upon the distinctively Romish mystics. The monastic system was favourable to the development of mysticism ; hence it flourished, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in those countries which were most devoted to the Roman See — in Italy, in Spain, and in France. It was encouraged in the fifteenth century by the revival of Platonism by Ficinus, Picus, and others under the patronage of the Medici. Some mystics, like S. Theresa, were visionaries as well ; as such, they would find no favour with William Law, but as mystics he read and admired them heartily, as we have already seen. The Church of Rome utilised these mystics to her own purpose. It may seem at first sight as if she was not so wise in her generation in the seventeenth century as she had shown herself at an earlier date ; her treatment of F^n^lon, Molinos, Madame Guyon, P^re Lacombe, Falconi, and Malaval, was apparently based on a very different principle from that on which she treated S. Theresa, S. Francis de Sales, and S. John of the Cross. But the contrast is only an apparent, not a real, one. In point of fact, she showed the same keen perception of her ' 'If thou walkest interiorly, thou wilt make small account of flying words. It is no small prudence to be silent in the evil time, and to turn within,' &c. (Book III. u. xxviii.) '' ' Cleanse, cherish, enlighten, and enliven my spirit, that it may be absorbed in Thee with ecstaciesof joy' (Book III. c. xxxiv.) ' Dean Milraan regards the author of the 'Imitation' as a mystic of- the mystics. ' In one remarkable book was gathered and concentrated all that was elevating, passionate, profoundly pious in all the older mystics. Ger- son, Ruysbroch, Tauler, all who addressed the heart in later times, were summed up and brought into one circle of light and heat in the single small volume, the " Imitatior of Christ.'" — Bist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ix. p. 161, &c. The Quietists. 159 own interests when she suffered Molinos to die in the prisons of the Inquisition, when she condemned F^nelon's ' Maxims of the Saints ' to the Index, and forced him to retract his sentiments ; when she drove Madame Guyon from pillar to post ; when she imprisoned P^re Lacombe, as she .did when she canonised the earlier mystics. For, while it was easy for her to turn to account the visions of a Theresa, the raptures of a Francis, and the almost morbid craving for suffering of a John of the Cross, it was not easy for a Church which lays great stress on externals, and whose whole system is objective, to utilise the intensely subjective speculations of the Quietists. The prayer 01 silence, the passive ■ state, the almost exclusive recom- mendation of the introverted gaze, — these doctrines were very liable to prove antagonistic to the whole Romish system. Besides, there was a most suspicious resemblance between the French and Italian mystics of the seventeenth century and the German mystics of the fourteenth,' who had contributed so largely to the undermining of the power of Rome, and to preparing the way for the Reformation. One need not therefore be surprised to find the Church of Rome setting her face against this new phase of mysticism ; but it certainly is strange that she should have selected so apparently harmless a doctrine as that of ' pure and dis- interested love ' for the chief point of her attack. ' Harm- less,' indeed, is too negative an epithet to apply to the doctrine. For surely, in point of fact, purity and dis- interestedness are of the very essence of love. A love which is not disinterested is not love. A mother who loved her child only for the pleasure or advantage she derived from it, would not love it with a mother's love. A ' ' Ces mystiques exaltes et hardis de la Germanic du xiv« siecle .... sont les ancgtres directes de nos Quietistes du xvii= siecle. '-iJ^ la Contro- mrse de Bossuet et de Finelon sur le QuiHisme. L. A. Bonnel, Introduction, xiii. 1 60 F^nelon on Disinterested Love. novel which represented its hero as loving his mistress only for the sake of her fortune would be universally condemned for holding up to admiration so mercenary a lover. And ought the love which the Christian bears to his God to be of a baser and more selfish character than that poor, faint shadow of love between creature and creature ? William Law.would, of course, have answered this ques- tion in the negative. In the famous controversy between Bossuet and F^nelon he was decidedly on the side of Fenelon — ' the great F^nelon,' as he terms him. He does not, so far as I am aware, refer to the subject anywhere in his writings, but we learn his opinion upon it from our old informant, Dr. Byrom. In the last interview between the two friends in Somerset Gardens in 1739, ' I asked,' writes the Doctor, ' why Mr. Poiret was so angry at Father Male- branche ; he said that Father had writ against the pure love ; I said that the doctrine appeared to me to be true, for must it be impure } He seemed to be quite for it, that interest and love were different things.' ' When we remem- ber that Law said this at a time when he was generally disposed to snub rather than to agree with his friend, and that he said it in opposition to one who was so prime a favourite with him as Father Malebranche, we may consider it as conclusive on the matter of his sentiments ; but, if fur- ther evidence be needed, I may quote a little poem of Dr. Byrom, who, on such a subject, of all subjects, would cer- tainly not have dared to write what his mentor would not have approved of It is ' On the Disinterested Love of God,' and commences — The love of God with genuine ray Inflam'd the breast of good Cambray ; And banish'd from the prelate's mind All thoughts of interested kind ; ' Byrom's Journal, vol. ii. part i. 280. F^elon and Madame Guy on. 1 6 1 He saw, and writers of his class (Of too neglected worth, alas !), Disinterested love to be The Gospel's very ABC,'' &c. &c. Law himself, however, very rarely mentions any of this group of mystics. There is, indeed, frequent allusion to Madame Guyon in the earlier interviews between Law and Byrom ; but the subject was obviously introduced by Byrom, who was attracted to her by her resemblance to his favourite, Madame Bourignon. Law's remarks on both ladies are by no means complimentary. To that most lovable of men and fascinating of writers, Archbishop F6nelon, Law hardly ever refers.^ And yet one would have thought that both Pension's and Madame Guyon's writings would have been full of attraction to anyone who sympathised with mysticism. They both expressed in very touching and beautiful lan- guage just those sentiments which Law echoed in all his later works. Are not, for example, such passages as the following, from Fdnelon's ' Maxims of the Saints,' the very counterpart of what may be found over and over again in Law i" — ' Those who love God only out of regard to happi- ness, love Him just as a miser loves his gold, a voluptuous man his pleasures. Such love, if it be called love, is un- worthy of God. Pure love is not inconsistent with mixed love, but is mixed love carried to its true result. When this result is attained, the motive of God's glory so expands itself and fills the mind, that the other motive, our own happiness, becomes so small, and so recedes from our in- ward notice as to be practically annihilated. It is then • See Byrom's Poems, in ' Chalmers' Edition of the English Poets from Chaucer to Cowper, in 21 vols.' Vol. XV. " But in Law's library there are three copies of the Life of Fenelon, with many passages marked, and also many of Fenelon's works. M 1 62 Fdnelon and Madame Guy on. that God becomes what He ever ought to be, the Centre of the soul, to which all its affections tend ; the great moral Sun of the soul, from which all its light and warmth pro- ceed. We lay ourselves at His feet. Self is known no more, not because it is wrong to regard and desire our own good, but because the object of desire is withdrawn from our notice. When the sun shines, the stars disappear. When God is in the soul, who can think of himself? So that we love God and God alone, and all other things in and for God.' And what could be more in accordance with Law's later teaching than Madame Guyon's account of her own conversion to the spiritual, interior life .' After having striven in vain to find comfort, amid uncongenial surround- ings, in religious exercises, she consulted ' a holy Franciscan,' and was told by him : ' Your efforts have been unsuccessful, madam, because you have sought without what you can only find within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart and you will not fail to find Him.' ' These words,' she says, ' were to me like the stroke of a dart which pierced my heart asunder. Oh my Lord ! Thou wast in my heart, and demanded only the turning of my mind in- ward, to make me feel Thy presence. Oh, Infinite Good- ness ! Thou wast so near, and I ran hither and thither seek- in g Thee, and yet found Thee not ! My life was a burden to me, and my happiness was within myself. I was poor in the midst of riches, and ready to perish with hunger near a table plentifully spread with a continual feast.'' Her husband allowed her a stated time for prayer ; but ' I often,' she writes, ' exceeded my half-hour, and then he was angry, and I was sad. ... In time I understood. When months and years had passed away, God erected His temple fully ' See Life, Reli^iotis Opinions, and Experience of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, &c., by T. C. Upliam, p. 36. Madame Gtiyon. 163 in my heart. He entered there, and I entered with Him. I learned to pray in that Divine retreat ; and from that time I went no more out' ' Now, surely here was a mystic after Law's own heart ; a perfect illustration of the truth of his favourite text, ' Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, lo there ! for, behold the kingdom of God is within you' (S. Luke xvii. 21). Moreover, Madame Guyon had a strong sympathy with that particular phase of mysticism which most of all fascinated William Law, the seeing in the visible a symbol of the in- visible. How beautifully, for instance, she works out that favourite illustration from natural things of the soul's find- ing its true rest in God ! ' All fountains and rivers have a tendency to ocean. They often flow with great vio- lence ; overcoming obstacles, dashing against rocks, foaming and rushing around them with great noise ; but when they meet and mingle with the mighty ocean, all is peaceful, because they have reached the place of their rest. So,' &c. How ingeniously she traces the analogy between pure water and a holy soul ! ' Nothing is more simple than water, nothing more pure. It is a fitting emblem of the holy soul. Water has the property of yielding to all impressions. As it yields to the slightest human touch, so the holy soul yields without resistance to the slightest touch of God, the slightest intima- tion of the Divine will. Water is without colour, but sus- ceptible of all colours. So the holy soul, colourless in itself, reflects the hues, whatever they may be, which emanate from the Divine countenance. Water has no form, but takes the form of any vessel in which it is contained. So the holy soul takes no position or form of itself, but only that which God gives it.' ^ Numberless other quotations might be given to show .Upham,p. 88. ^ /*.U pp. 388-9- M 3 164 Law and the Quietists. how both these writers harmonised with William Law. He expressly mentions both ' the great F^nelon and the illuminated Guion ' as mystic writers whom he had read, and yet we may gather, from his distinct words in one case and from his silence in the other, that neither of them was a real favourite of his. With the knowledge we have of Law's character it is not difficult to conjecture why they were not. In the first place, it is highly probable that the very name ' Quietist ' may have had an ominous sound to him. For Law, though he constantly depreciated human learning and never paraded his own, was nevertheless a thoroughly well-read man. He was, no doubt, well aware that under this name of Quietist, or its Greek equivalent, the wildest enthusiasts had, some centuries earlier, propa- gated notions which were calculated to bring mysticism into derision. Little has hitherto been said of the Greek or Oriental phases of mysticism, because it seemed neces- sary rigorously to confine this sketch to those mystics who influenced Law ; and, with the exception of course of the earliest mystics of this school who have been already men- tioned, this form of mysticism does not appear to have attracted him. But the name ' Quietists ' suggests that of ' Hesychasts,' a set of fanatics in the monasteries of Mount Athos, whose fanaticism may be judged of from the follow- ing instructions which they were required to carry out. ' Being alone in thy cell, close the door, and seat thyself in the corner. Raise thy spirit above all vain and transient things ; repose thy beard on thy breast, and turn thine eyes with thy whole power of meditation upon thy navel. Re- tain thy breath, and search in thine entrails for the place of thy heart, wherein all the powers of the soul reside. At first thou wilt encounter thick darkness ; but by persevering night and day thou wilt find a marvellous and uninterrupted joy ; for as soon as thy spirit shall have discovered the Law and Fdnelon. 165 place of thy heart, it will perceive itself luminous and full of discernment' ' The Quietists of the seventeenth century showed none of the extravagances of their namesakes of the fourteenth, but we can readily see that there was much in Fenelon and still more in Madame Guyon which would not find favour in the eyes of William Law. In the first place, both of them wrote too much and were too diffusive in their style to please him. They were, neither of them, robust enough for Law's taste. In fact, although on the main points at issue, Law agreed with Fdnelon and not with Bossuet, yet in their personal characters, the ' Eagle of Meaux ' would in some respects be more in harmony with the thoroughly masculine and somewhat stern nature of Law, than his gentler and more lovable opponent. For instance, though he never said one word upon the subject, I should mu(fh doubt whether Law would have sympathised with F6nelon's submission to the See of Rome, and virtual retractation of his most cherished sentiments. Law himself never yielded one inchwhen he believed himself to be in the right. He preferred sacrificing all his prospects in life to abating one jot even of his political principles. Of course his position in the English Church was somewhat different from that of Fdnelon in the Roman Church, where there is no alter- native between submission and exclusion. Still, one can scarcely conceive even all the thunders of the Vatican making the shghtest impression upon William Law ; and though he would be slow to condemn a Romanist who submitted to recant his private opinions at the bidding of his Church, yet one can quite understand that the man who had consented to make such a submission would not be the kind of man to commend himself greatly to Law. ■■ Quoted in Dean Waddington's History of the Church, p. 609. 1 66 Law and Fdnelon. Again, Law was not the kind of character to sympathise with a man who at one period of his career seems to have put himself under the guidance of a woman. Some of the letters which passed between F^nelon and Madame Guyon are really written as if she were the spiritual director, and he the humble disciple.' And, moreover, that woman was one of whom he could write to another woman : ' I have never felt any natural inclination to her or her writings. I think nothing of her pretended prophecies or revelations.' ^ In fact, though F^nelon was not exactly effeminate, there was a certain softness about him which, indeed, constitutes one of the many charms of his exquisitely charming character ; but it was not at all the sort of charm to fas- cinate William Law. The hardier, more rugged type of mystic, like Tauler and Ruysbroch, would be more in his vein. As to Madame Guyon, the very fact that she held many of Law's sentiments would naturally make him all the more ' Thus Madame Guyon wrote to Fenelon in November 1688: 'Your soul is not yet brought into full harmony with God, and therefore I suffer. My prayer is not yet heard. God's designs will be accomplished in you. You may delay the result by resistance ; but you cannot hinder it. Pardon Chris- tian plainness.' And again: 'God appears to be making me a medium of communicating good to yourself, and to be imparting to my soul graces which are ultimately destined to reach and bless yours. My mind does not form its conclusions by extraordinary methods of dreams, inward voices, and spiritual lights, but intuitively. The instrumentality cannot fail to be beneficial, pro- vided there is a proper correspondence on your part. Do not regard this in- strumentality as a useless thing. Be so humble and childlike as to submit to the dishonour, if such it may be called, of receiving blessings from God through one so poor and unworthy as myself. Our souls shall become like two rivers mingling in one channel and flowing on together to the ocean.' On his appointment as preceptor to the Duke of Burgundy, she wrote to him: 'Act always without regard to self. The less you have of self, the more you will have of God. You are called in God's providence to aid and superintend in the education of a prince, whom with all his faults God loves, and whom, as it seems to me, He designs to restore spiritually to Himself.' See Upham, PP- 337-9- '^ Fenelon to Madame de Maintenon. See CEuvres de Fenelon, vol. xviii. P- 367- Law and Madame Guy on. 167 intolerant of her other views which were Hkely to bring those sentiments into disrepute. For instance, Law would unquestionably have regarded with extreme repugnance such expressions as the following, which are reported to have been uttered in a conversation between her and her implacable foe, Bossuet : — B. : Do you really deny that you can ask anything of God? Mad. de G. : I do. B. : You cannot offer the petition. Forgive us our tres- passes ? Mad. de G. : I can say the words by heart, but as to conveying any meaning to my heart, the state of oraison pure and gratuitous love to which I am raised does not ad- mit of it' The spectacle of a poor, weak woman badgered and baited by the greatest theologian of the age is a cruel one, and it is hardly fair to judge of her by what she said, or rather what was drawn out of her, under such an ordeal. But apart from these extorted confessions, there were many things both in her life and writings which would be ex- tremely distasteful to William Law. He would have re- garded with considerable suspicion her prophecies and revelations ; he would have disapproved of her comparing herself in any way with the woman in the Apocalypse ; ^ he would hardly have relished her illustrations borrowed ' (Euvres de Bossuet, vol. xxviii. p. 563. ^ It is, however, only fair to Madame Guyon to see her own account of this comparison: — B. : I was surprised to see you speak of yourself as the Woman in the Apocalypse. Mad. de G. : As I read the passage in the Apocalypse, which speaks of the woman who fled into the wilderness, I thought of myself as driven from place to place for announcing the doctrines of the Lord, and it seemed to me the expression might be applied not as prophetic of me, but as illustrative of my condition. 1 68 Law and Madame Guypn. from sexual love, for in the most high-flown of his own mystic writings he always scrupulously avoided any ex- pressions or sentiments of what may be called an amatory character ; her spiritual adaptation of the Song of Solomon, therefore, would not have been at all to his taste ; still less her extraordinary 'Act of Consecration,' which is worth quoting in full as illustrative of that element of romantic enthusiasm in her character, which would assuredly find no echo in the breast of William Law. ' I henceforth take Jesus Christ to be mine. I promise to receive Him as a husband to me. And I give myself, unworthy though I am, to be His spouse. I ask of Him in this marriage of spirit with spirit that I may be of the same mind with Him, meek, pure, nothing in myself, and united in God's will. And, pledged as I am to be His, I accept as a part of my marriage portion the temptations and sorrows and crosses and contempt which fell to Him.' This extra- ordinary document was signed with her name and sealed with her ring. Again, mysticism would come to William Law in a very questionable shape, when it appeared in the form of a very beautiful and fascinating woman, appealing to every senti- ment of chivalry by the persecutions she suffered from over- bearing prelates and not over-scrupulous monks. There is not one jot of trustworthy evidence to show that her life was aught but that of a pure and honourable lady ; but there is no question that she owed much of her influence to more mundane attractions than Law would at all have approved. The spectacle of young dandies fluttering round her in the salons of Paris like moths fluttering round a candle, and talking about the mystic ecstasy and pure love, would be an utter abomination in the eyes of Law. Thus, when we come to look into the matter, it need cause us no surprise that one whose writings have been truly called ' the very Law and Madame Bourignon. 169 abstract and model of the true, pure mysticism ' ' should still have been regarded with doubtful favour by William Law. As for that other mystic lady, Madame Bourignon, a very few words will suffice to explain the reasons of that strong antipathy to her which, as we have seen. Law constantly expressed in his conversations with Byrom. Law had the deepest reverence for the Divine Person of the Blessed Jesus, whom he believed to be ' God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God,' Who was not made manifest in the flesh, until, in the fulness of time. He was ' born of the Virgin Mary.' With what abhorrence, then, must he have regarded Madame Bourignon's wild, not to say impious theory, that Jesus was born of Adam in his state of inno- cence ! Law had a profound distrust in ' visions and reve- lations.' Was it likely that he would agree with a writer who spoke of ' the high, secret mysteries which God had revealed to her ' ? Law, though he deplored the state of the Church in his own day, and by no means approved of the sentiments and practice of many of the clergy, always held the highest views of the ministerial office, and carefully abstained from all personal abuse of his clerical brethren. Could he possibly approve of a writer — and that writer a woman — who ventured to contrast the preaching of the clergy of her day with that of the apostles, in the following unseemly language ? — ' Their sermons are nothing else but apish mummeries. If an ape saw an excellent painter draw- ing a curious picture, and if in his absence it should take the pencil and colours and so scratch upon the same table, it would entirely daub, all though \sic\ it made use of the same pencil and colours, because it wanted the painter's spirit. This is the true emblem of most of the preachers and writers > Ewald {Brief e iiber die alte Mystik uud den neuen Mysticismus, p. 176) says of Madame Guyon's works, ' Sie sind der Inbegriff und Grundriss der echten, reinen Mystik,' 1 70 M. Bertot. nowadays in religion.' But it is needless to dwell on the many points of disagreement between Law and Madame Bourignon ; as in other cases, these would ~be all the more annoying to him because they tended to bring into discredit the other points — and they were many and striking — in which he agreed with her.' The last of the mystic writers whom Law mentions is M. Bertot. He is generally known as ' Le Directeur Mys- tique,' and among his spiritual children was Madame Guyon herself. He was a native of the diocese of Coutances in Normandy, in which diocese he officiated as a parish priest until his removal to the famous Abbey of Montmartre, near Paris, where he remained until his death, his special employment being the spiritual direction of the religious Benedictines. Ewald, who, oddly enough, declares his in- ability to discover anything about Bertot's life, though there is no difficulty in ascertaining the details of it, gives some interesting extracts from his writings, which he had learned from a friend. There is no need to quote them, as they differ in no wise from the ordinary views of mystics ; and Bertot does not appear to have exercised any special influ- ence over Law.^ But there is one mystic of the seventeenth century whose influence over Law was second only to that of Jacob Behmen himself. That man is Father Malebranche. Male- branche is in himself a singularly interesting character, and ' See Bourignon 's Nouv. del (pp. 166-170), Renouv. de PEspr. Ev., Preface, p. 110-2, &c. Also Preface to Leslie's Snake in the Grass, aniBou- rignonism Detected, and, on the other side, An Apology for Mad. Antonia Bou- rignon. The anonymous author of the last work asks plaintively, ' Does she deserve to be treated either as a heretick or mad, Vfhimsical woman ? ' (p. 56). I am afraid the answer of most people will be that she does. 2 For the same reason it is unnecessary to notice in detail the writings of Molinos (the most notorious, if not the greatest, of this group of mystics, with the exception of F^nelon and Madame Guyon), or of Malaval, or of Pere Lacombe, or of Falconi. FatJur Malebranche. 171 doubly interesting to us on account of his connection with William Law. He was a mystic of the seventeenth cen- tury in point of date, but only in point of date. In his type of character, no less than in his opinions, he differed widely from the other mystics of that period. In the first place, the Roman Church certainly could not complain of him, as she did of the Quietists,' that he was a Protestant in disguise. She might condemn his ' Tfaite de la Nature et de la Grace ' to the Index, but she could not deny that he was himself her faithful son. When Dom Lamy quoted some passages out of Malebranche's ' Recherche de la V^rite,' in support of Fenelon's doctrine of pure love, Malebranche at once wrote a pamphlet indignantly repudiating any sympathy with the Quietists, and satisfied even Bossuet himself that he was sound on these points. Malebranche was, however, in one sense, unquestionably a mystic of the mystics. His mysticism was much fostered by his connec- tion with the Oratory in the Rue St. Honore, in which he passed the greater part of his life. The attitude of the Ora- tory in regard to mysticism could not be better described than in the language of the Abbd Blampignon, which I shall therefore make no apology for venturing to translate.^ ' From its commencement the Oratory declared against the ancient school and its Aristotle of convention, by showing 1 spirit of Lave, ' Work?,' vol. viii. p. 33. ' Ibid, p. 31. 176 Resemblances between Law and Malebranche. enough Latin to read Augustine, but ' as for Greek ! — so many languages weary the brain and impede the reason. How is it possible to justify the passion of those who turn their heads into a library of dictionaries ? ' He would have made a clean sweep of all literature and sciences, with the exception of algebra and a little natural science ; history, geography, &c., are all pedantry and puerility. ' Adam was perfect, and he knew neither history nor chronology.' He anathematised style as the product of sin, yet his own style was singularly polished and attractive ; ' his own writings show in every page of them the mind of the well-read scholar as well as the profound thinker, and, strangest of all, they are constantly interlarded with most apposite quotations from those very classical authors whom he ab- jured. The same curious inconsistency has already been noticed in Law. It may be added that neither in Law nor in Malebranche is there the slightest trace of affectation or unreality in their inconsistency. Again, in France during the latter half of the seven- teenth century, and in England during the first half of the eighteenth, ' there were giants in the land.' Bossuet, F^ne- lon, Pascal, in France ; Butler, Waterland, Bentley, Sherlock, in England,— were great names. Both Malebranche and Law fully reached the stature of the tallest of their con- temporaries,''' but they were content, and they were allowed ' Even Enfield, who had no sympathy with Malebranche's system, and could only see in his theory of ' seeing all things in God ' a singular and para- doxical dogma, still owns 'the work {Recherche de la Vhiti) was written with such elegance and splendour of diction, and its tenets were supported by such ingenious reasonings, that it obtained general applause.and procured the author a distinguished name among philosophers and a numerous train of followers.' (ii. 534.) Norris of Bemerton says of Malebranche : ' He is indeed the great Galileo of the intellectual world. He has given us the point of view and whatever farther detections are made, it must be through his Telescope. He has search'd after Truth in the proper and genuine Seat and Region of it, has open'd a great many noble Scenes of the World we are now contemplating [the Resemblances between Law and Malebranche. i ']'] to live and work and die unnoticed and unrewarded. Both Malebranche and Law were born for the recluse \\(&, and both of them found it ; for Malebranche was as much a re- cluse amid the hubbub of Paris as Law was amid the green fields of Northamptonshire. For simplicity and purity of life, for intense piety and self-denial, there was nothing to choose between these two saintly mystics. But in one point they differed widely. Malebranche was always the philo- sopher as well as the theologian. Law, though he was constantly accused of blending philosophy with religion, had in reality no taste for philosophy, for Behmenism can hardly be dignified, or, as Law would say, degraded, by that name. The study of mathematics, too, which was re- garded by Malebranche as a sort of handmaid to mysticism, was not thus looked upon by William Law. But it is need- less to pursue the contrast and comparison further. With the great name of Malebranche this brief sketch of the mystics who influenced William Law may fitly close. There were many others, both sects and individuals, of a mystic tendency, with whom Law was brought into con- nection. But to treat of them under the head of mystics would be to encourage the very error against which a pro- test was entered at the beginning of this chapter. It would be to confound the mystics proper with those who, together with a large admixture of mysticism, blended much which, whether better or worse, was really a different element. 'Platonists, Philadelphians, Swedenborgians, Moravians, Quakers, will all have to come before us in connection with Law. All were tinged with mysticism ; but all were some- ideal world] ; and would perhaps have been the fittest Person of the age to have given a just and complete Theory of its Systems. But even this great Apelles has-dravra this Celestial Beauty but half way, and I am afraid the excellent piece will suffer, whatever other hand has the %.m%\Aa%oi\ St& A specimen of the Divinity and Philosophy of the Highly-Illuminated Jacob Behmen, by John Wesley; also Extract of a Letter to Rev. W. Law and Thoughts upon Jacob Behmen, passim in vol. ix. of Wesley's 'Works' ; also his Journal passim. 2 Journal for Friday, June 4, 1 742- The pass^es quoted before this were written in 1780 and 1784. » See Jones' Life of Bishop Home, pp. 67 and 69 ; and Letters to a Lady on Jacob Behmen's Writings, in the same volume, p. 210. < Boswell's Life of Johnson (edition of 1822 in four volumes), u. 112. s Memoirs of My Life and Writings, by E. Gibbon, p. I4- 1 86 Mosheim and Schlegel on Behmen. Southey refers to his writings as ' the nonsense of the Ger- man shoemaker ; ' ' and the calmest and most evenly- balanced historian of our own day terms Behmen's specula- tions ' the incoherencies of madness.' ^ This is one side of the picture. In common fairness to Behmen himself and to William Law, his admirer, we m.ust now turn to the other side. Little favour as Behmen has found with the majority of Englishmen, he is very differ- ently spoken of by many illustrious writers of his own land. It is true that Mosheim, whose mind was of a cast the very opposite of that which is likely to be attracted by mysticism of any kind, is of opinion that Behmen's philo- sophy was ' more obscure than that of HeracHtus ' [sur- named (tkotswos, the obscure], and that Behmen himself was mad.' But, on the other hand, Schlegel while admit- ting that ' B5hme is much ridiculed by the general race of literary men,' adds : ' These are themselves sensible that they understand neither the good nor the bad that is in his writings ; but they are ignorant that they know absolutely nothing either respecting the man himself, or the relation in which he stood to his contemporaries.' He then pro- ceeds to give his own estimate of Behmen, which, consider- ing the vast influence which the theosopher exercised over Law's mind, it will not, I trust, be out of place to quote. 'Jacob Bohme,' he writes, ' is commonly called a dreamer; and it is very true that in his writings there may be more marks of an ardent imagination than of a sound judgment. But we cannot at least deny this strange man the praise of ' Southey's Life of Wesley, chap. ii. ^ Hallam's Literature of Europe, ii. 380. ' Jac. Bbhmius, Sutor Gorliensis : ' Hie, cum naturi ipsS. proclivis esset ad res abditas pervestigandas et Rob. Fluddii et Rosajcrucianorum scita cogno- visset, Theologiam, igne duce, imaginatione comite, invenit, ipsis Pythagoricis numeris et Heracliti notis obscuriorem ; ita enim Chymicis imaginationibus et tanti verborum confusione et caligine omnia miscet ut ipse sibi obstrepere videatur.'— (2uoted by Warburton, Doctrine of Grace, p. 625. Spener and Semler on Behmen. 187 a very poetical fancy. If we should consider him merely as a poet and compare him with those other Christian poets who have handled subjects connected with the super- natural world — with Klopstock, with Milton, or even with Dante — we shall find that he rivals the best of them in ful- ness of fancy and depth of feeling, and that he falls little below them even in regard to individual beauties and poetical expression. Whatever defects may be found in the philosophy of Jacob Bohme, the historian of German literature can never pass over his name in silence. In few works of any period have the strength and richness of our language been better displayed than in his. His language possesses, indeed, a charm of nature, simplicity, and un- sought vigour, which we should look for in vain in the tongue which we now speak, enriched as it is by the im- mense importation of foreign terms, and the invented phraseologies of our late philosophers.' ' It may be said, indeed, that this does not touch the point in question, for it was not from a literary, but from a theo- logical, point of view that Law regarded Behmen, and Schlegel's view at most vindicates Law's taste, not his judg- ment. The same, howeVer, cannot be said of other judgments respecting Behmen. Spener says of Behmen's writing: ' Should much of it be unintelligible to any person, as I do not deny it to be the very case with my own self, yet let him not condemn it ; but rather reilect that the fault of it may be in his own self ; he being not as yet advanced under the experience of the Holy Ghost's operation, or heart's work, so far as to be in a capacity of comprehending it all.' ^ Semler, of whose piety and splendid intellectual powers there can be but one opinion, whatever may be thought of • SchlegeVs History of Literature, Lecture xv., p. 395. ' Dr. P. J. Spener on yacob Behmen's Works, prefixed to the German edition of Thaulerus, Frankfort, 1692. 1 88 Other German Writers on Behmen. his views, found both pleasure and profit in reading Beh- men's writings ; it was, indeed, with especial reference to Behmen that he wrote : ' We may in general know and praise the mild and pure spirit of the mystics, and the earnest and holy sentiment of such Christians, without go- ing so far as to approve and imitate all their steps and all their opinions.' ' Hochm^nn, whose zeal and piety stimu- lated him to attempt in Germany the same work of refor- mation which Wesley did in England,^ but with very different success, was an ardent admirer of Behmen. Schel- Hng, who, so far as I can understand him, seems to desire to make an alliance between the Kantian philosophy and Christianity, but who, whatever his opinions might be, was not a man whose judgment can be passed lightly over, derived great advantage from Behmen. Fouqud, a true poet, and an earnest seeker after truth, fourid in Behmen's works ' a Christian satisfaction which he had in vain sought elsewhere.' Hagenbach calls Behmen ' the father of Pro- testant mysticism.'* Hegel was a reader of Behmen ; J. L. Ewald appreciated him so highly as to assert that ' if he had had a learned education and been able to express his meaning clearly, he might perhaps ' have been a German Plato.' * Dorner speaks of ' the wondrous beauty and plasticity of his language ' and of ' many a noble germ in the fermenting chaos of his notions.' * ' Lebensbeschreibung, p. 269. ■■' When one reads of Hochmann travelling about Germany, attacking the lukewarmness of the clergy^ occupying the pulpit where he could, and con- ducting devotional services in houses, one cannot help being reminded of the early M ethodists ; but the resemblance ceases when we consider the doctrines taught. On a vast variety of points Hochmann differed from the orthodox standards, the Wesleys in none. ' History of the Church, ii. 290. * ' In seiner Aurora hatte er seine eigenthUralichsten Ideen oder Anschauun- gen niedergelegt. Sie enthalt viel Tiefes und Wahres. Hatte er gelehrte Bildung gehabt, und seine Anschauungen zum klaren Bewusstse3m bringen konnen, so hatte er vielleicht ein deutscher Plato werden konnen. ' — Ewald's Briefe iiber die alte Mystik, &•(., p. 230. ' History of Protestant Theology, i. 184. English Admirers of Behmen. 189 The above authorities are not quoted as being all ortho- dox, but simply to show that, in the opinion of many able men, Behmen was not at any rate the madman or impostor that he was thought to be in England during parts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.' But even in Eng- land, at an earlier date, he was not without his admirers among men of eminence. Not to mention here Dr. Por- dage, Mrs. Lead, and other enthusiasts whom we shall meet again, it may be noted that more than one member of the noble family of Hotham, — men of mark in their day, though now forgotten, — that Dr. Francis Lee, whom we shall meet again, and that Sir Isaac Newton were readers of Behmen. I do not presume to offer an opinion upon Law's assertion that Newton was indebted for his famous discoveries to the Teutonic theosopher ; but' Law's state- ment of the fact that copies of extracts from Behmen's works in Newton's own handwriting were found among that great man's papers after his death, has not, so far as I am aware, ever been impugned.^ ' It should be added, however, that thorough justice is done to Behmen in the Encyclopedia Britannica. ' Behmen, ' it is owned in the article on ' Mysticism, ' ' was a genial, manly mystic, free from everything effeminate and sentimental. His whole life resembled one great dream ; but he strove with as much zeal as ever man displayed to benefit his fellow-mortals and exalt the name of God.' ' Law wrote to Dr. Cheyne : ' When Sir Isaac Newton died, there were found amongst his papers large abstracts out of Jacob Behmen's works written with his own hand. This I have from undoubted authority. No wonder that attraction, with its two inseparable properties, which make in Jacob Behmen the first three principles of eternal nature, should come to be the grand founda- tion of the Newtonian philosophy.' See also Law's Works, vol. vi. (2) 314-5. ' Sir Isaac, ploughed with Behmen's heifer. ' Law told Byrom ' that Sir I. New- ton shut himself up for three months in order to search for the philosopher's stone from J. Behmen, that his attraction and three first laws of motion were from Behmen.' Journal, ii. (2) 364. Law's account is quoted by Sir David Brewster, in his Life of Newton, vol. ii. pp. 371-2, without one word to show that it was incorrect ; on the contrary, he adds ' that this statement ' (viz. that ' Sir Isaac was formerly so deep in Jacob Behmen that he, together with Dr. Newton, his relation, set up furnaces and were for several months at work in ■ 1 90 Obscurity of Behmen's Writings. From these conflicting opinions as to the value of Beh- men's works, one naturally turns to the works themselves. And one can quite understand that the first impulse of the reader, after having dipped into one or two pages, would be to toss them aside in disgust. ' Stupendous ' is the only epithet that adequately expresses their nature. They amaze, bewilder, take away one's breath. Let the reader judge from one single specimen which can hardly be called an unfair one, because it is taken from what the author terms, in his ' Preface to the Reader,' the A B C of all his writings ; and, moreover, the particular passage is introduced with the remark, ' It must be set down more plainly and intelli- gibly.' ' This, then, is the way in which our author renders particularly plain what he considers to be the most ele- mentary part of his works : ' Mark what Mercurius is ; it is Harshness, Bitterness, Fire, and Brimstone Water, the most horrible essence ; yet you must understand thereby no materia, matter, or comprehensible thing ; but all no other than Spirit and the source of the original nature. Harsh- ness is the first essence, which attracts itself ; but it being a hard, cold Virtue or Power, the Spirit is altogether prickly and sharp. Now, the sting and sharpness cannot endure attracting, but moves and resists and is a contrary will, an enemy to the Harshness, and from that Stirring comes the first mobility which is the third form. Thus the Harshness continually attracts harder and harder, and so it becomes hard and tart so that the Virtue or Power is as hard as the hardest Stone, which the Bitterness cannot endure, and there then is a great anguish in it like the horrible brimstone Spirit and the sting of the Bitterness, which rubs itself so hard that in the Anguish there comes to be a twinkling quest of the tincture ') is substantially true is proved by Dr. Newton's own letter. Law was the very ^last man in the world to make a statement of this kind without the strongest grounds for doing so. ' See The Three Principles of tke Divine Essence. Behmen's Works, vol. i. Verbal Interpretation of Scripture. 191 Flash which flies up terribly and breaks the harshness, &c. &c.' And so he goes on for an internlinable number of pages. Even the above extract is by no means the most amazing of Behmen's utterances. If one desired to take an extreme case, perhaps the verbal interpretation of Scripture would be that in which Behmen most of all out- Herods Herod. It really would seem at first sight as if he thought that Moses wrote, and Christ spoke, in German. He did not do so, for he speaks vaguely of a ' language of nature,' which he evidently distinguishes from any known tongue ; • but it is diiificult to attach any meaning to such an amazing passage as the following, except on the assumption that he did : ' Am Anfang erschuff Gott Himmel und Erden.' ' These words must be considered exactly what they are. For the word " Am " conceives it- self in the Heart and goes forth to the lips ; but there is captivated and goes back again sounding, till it comes to the place from whence it came forth. And this signifies how that the Sound went forth from the Heart of God, and encompassed the whole Place or extent of this World ; but when it was found to be evil, then the Sound returned again into its own Place.' ^ All the rest of the verse is ex- plained syllable by syllable in the same way. The whole of the Lord's Prayer is interpreted by a similar process ; ' ' See Memoirs of the Life, Death, Burial, and Wonderful Writing of Jacob Behmen, now first done at large into English, by Francis Okely. ' He would,' writes Mr. Okely, 'from the outward signature and formation of flowers and herbs, immediately intimate their inward virtues, &c., together with the letters, syllables, and words of the name inspoken and ascribed to them. It was his custom first to desire to know their names in the Hebrew tongue, as being one that had the greatest affinity to that of nature ; and if its name were unknown in that language, he inquired what it was in Greek,' &c. ^ Aurora, &'c., chap, xviii. ' See The Threefold Life of Man, chap, xvi., which is entitled 'A Sum- mary Explanation of the Lord's Prayer ; how it is to be understood in the language of nature from syllable to syllable, as it is expressed in the words of the high Dutch tongue, which was the author's native language.' Behmen's 'Works,' in four volumes (1764). vol. ii. p. 175. 192 Law as an Interpreter of Behmen. and the same principle is applied to other parts of Scrip-- ture.' One can hardly wonder that such passages roused the ire of John Wesley, who of all things loved plainness, and one is certainly inclined to echo his indignant inquiry : ' Did any man in his senses from the beginning of the world ever think of explaining any treatise, human or divine, syllable by syllable ? If any Scripture could be thus explained, if any reason could be extracted from the several syllables, must it not be from the syllables of the original, not of a translation, whether English or German ? ' ^ After these portentous samples of Behmen's style, it is high time to relieve the reader's mind at once by stating that it will not be necessary for our present purpose to ex- pound Behmenism from the works of Behmen. There is no need to dwell further on the obscurities of Behmen, for as Byrom very truly, if not very poetically, remarks in one of his poems : — All the haranguing, therefore, on the theme Of deep obscurity in Jacob Behme Is but itself obscure ; for he might see Farther, 'tis possible, than you or me.' Very possibly he might ; but still we may be thankful that our present task is concerned, not with Behmen, as he appears in his own writings, but with Behmen as he appears after passing through the crucible of Law's power- ful mind ; with Behmen, not as he expressed himself in his own obscure and complicated style, but in the nervous and' luminous style of his English exponent. We may pass over, therefore, for the present the discus- sion of Behmen's theology, or rather theosophy, until it comes before us in Law's mystic writings. But it is neces- ' See inter alia, Behmen's ' Works,' vol. ii. chaps, ii. and iii. * A Specimen of the Divinity and Philosophy of the Highly-Illuminated . yacob Behmen, Wesley's ' Works,' vol. ix. ' Socrates' Reply concerning Heraclitus' Writings. Byrom's Poems. Beauties in Behmens Writings. 19,3 sary to add that Behmen has not done justice to himself if he desired the first extract which has been quoted to be a fair example of the way in which he could make himself intelligible. Some parts of his writings we may at any rate understand, whether we agree with him or not ; and some parts contain passages of singular beauty, both of idea and expression. Take, for example, the following very beautiful vindication of the efificacy of infant baptism, which, with one or two omissions, might be used in a church pulpit at the present day : ' Say not. What does Baptism avail a child which understandeth it not ? The matter lies not in our understanding ; we are altogether ignorant ot the kingdom of God. If thy child be a bud, grown in thy tree, and that thou standest in the covenant, why bringest thou not also thy bud into the covenant ? Thy faith is its faith, and thy confidence towards God in the covenant is its confidence. It is, indeed, thy essence, and generated in thy soul. And thou art to know, according to its exceeding worth, if thou art a true Christian, in the covenant of Jesus Christ, that thy child also (in the kindling of its life) passes into the covenant of Christ ; and though it should die in the mother's womb, it would be found in the covenant of Christ. For the Deity stands in the centre of the Light bf Life ; and so now, if the tree stands in the covenant, then the branch may well do so.'> Or take again the following description of ' the Lord's Supper ' : ' Christ gave not to his disciples the earthly substance, which did but hang to Christ's body, in which he suffered death, which was despised, buffeted, slain, for then he had given them the mortal flesh ; but he gave them hi? holy body, his holy fiesh, which hung also upon the cross in the mortal substance, and his holy blood which was shed together with the mortal, ' Tfu Three Principles of the Divine Essence, Behmen's ' Works,' vol. i, chap. xxiiL p. 252. 1 94 Beauties in Behmen's Writings. as an immortal flesh and blood which, the disciples received into their body, which was put on to the soul, as a new body out of Christ's body.' ' Agalin, the following is a very striking description of the future state, and, with the excep- tion of one or two peculiar expressions, intelligible, at any rate, to the meanest capacity : ' If we will speak of our native country, out of which we are wandered with Adam, and will tell of the Resting-place of the Soul, we need not to cast our minds far off ; for far off or near is all one and the same thing with God ; the Place of the Holy Trinity is all over. . . , The Soul, when it departs from the Body, needs not to go far, for at that Place where the body dies, there is Heaven and Hell ; and the man Christ dwells every- where. God and the Devil is there ; yet each in his own kingdom. The Paradise is also there ; and the Soul needs only to enter through the deep door in the Centre. Is the Soul holy? Then it stands in the Gate of Heaven, and the earthly Body has but kept it out of Heaven ; and now when the Body comes to be broken, then the Soul is already in Heaven ; it needs no going out or in ; Christ has it in his arms, &c.'^ Many other passages might be quoted, strangely wild and fanciful, but with a certain weird and dreamy fascination about them, which none but a man of genius with a true poet's eye could have written ; but as they seem to me to be entirely without foundation in the only Book which the Christian can recognise as an authority on subjects so utterly beyond human ken, I refrain from quoting them.* ' The Threefold Life of Man, Behmen's 'Works,' vol. ii. chap. xvi. p. 175. ' The Three Principles of the Divine Essence, Behmen's ' Works,' vol. i. chap. xix. ad fin ; see also chap. ix. p. 61, on the same subject. ' There is nothing nearer to you than Heaven, Paradise, and Hell .... then it be- comes a paradisical child.' ' For examples, such passages as that in the Aurora, commencing : ' It is most certain and true that there are all manner of Fruits in Heaven, and no merely Types and Shadows. Also the Angels pluck them with their Hands and eat them, as we do that are men ; but they have not any Teeth, &c. ' (chap. viii.). Behmen did not prof ess to be inspired. 195 Not that Behmen ever professed to have received any revelation which was to supersede the Bible, or even to supplement it in any way ; but, as the inner light always existed in his own mind, and only required to be developed or ' opened ' (to use his own expression), so the truths which he proclaimed were all contained in the Bible, and only required to be ' opened.' Thus, with regard to the Creation and the Fall, which were the very hinges on which his whole system turned, he thought at first that his discoveries were not in the Bible. ' But,' he says, ' when I found the Pearl, then I looked Moses in the face, and found that Moses had wrote very right, and I had not rightly under- stood it.' ' Neither is it correct to say that Behmen regarded himself as inspired ; there was simply an ' opening ' of God in him ; that is, the impulse came from within, not from without, — strictly in accordance with the fundamental prin- ciple of all mysticism, that Christ is within us. Nor does he at all claim for himself the sole possession of the revelation which he had to make to the world ; others had potentially what he had actually. 'O thou bright Crown of Pearl,' he exclaims, ' art thou not brighter than the Sun ? There is nothing like thee ; thou art so very manifest, and yet so very secret, that among many thousand in this world, thou art scarcely rightly known of any one ; and yet thou art carried about in many that know thee not ! ' ^ Once more, Behmen, like most mystics, though in this respect unlike his admirer William Law, loved to find allegorical meanings in every part of Scripture ; but he did not, like the later mythical school, explain away the literal meaning of the historical facts. The sufferings of Christ, for example, were real, external facts, as well as being mystical. 'The outward man Christ underwent > The Three Principles of the Divine Essence, chap. xvii. §§ i8, 19. 2 The Threefold Life of Man, ' Works,' vol. ii. p. 69, chap. vi. O 2 1 g6 Law's Estimate of Behmens Mission. this Pain also outwardly when He was scourged ; for all the inward Forms which the man Christ must bear inwardly for our sakes, which caused him to sweat drops of Blood, they stood also outwardly on his Body.' ' In fact, Behmen's position in regard to God's Revealed Word could not be better described than in the following words of William Law: ' He has no right to be placed among the inspired Pen-men of the New Testament ; he was no Messenger from God of anything new in Religion ; but the mystery of all that was old and true both in Religion and Nature was opened in him. This is the particularity of his character, by which he stands fully distinguished from all the Prophets, Apostles, and extra- ordinary Messengers of God. They were sent with oc- casional Messages, or to make such alterations in the ceconomy of Religion as pleased God ; but this man came on no particular Errand, he had nothing to alter, or add, either in the Form or Doctrine of Religion ; he had no new Truths of Religion to propose to the World, but all that lay in Religion and Nature, as a Mystery unsearchable, was in its deepest Ground opened in this Instrument of God. And all his Works are nothing else but a deep manifestation of the Grounds and Reasons of that which is done, that which is doing, and is to be done, both in the kingdom of Nature and the kingdom of Grace, from the Beginning to the End of Time. His Works, therefore, though immediately from God, have not at all the Nature of the Holy Scriptures ; they are not offered to the World, as necessary to be re- ceived, or as a Rule of Faith and Manners, and therefore no one has any Right to complain, either of the Depths of his Matter, or the Peculiarity of his Stile : They are just as they should be, for those that are fit for them ; and he that • The Three Principles of the Divine Essence, chap. xxv. ; ' Wprks,' vol. i. p. 267. Law on Bek)nens Want of Learning. 197 likes them not, or finds himself unqualified for them, has no obligation to read them.' • In spite of the marked and wide distinction which Law draws between the writers of Holy Writ and Behmen, it will be thought perhaps that he claims for his favourite a sufficiently exalted mission ; and though he admits that no man is obliged to read Jacob's writings as necessary to salvation, yet in another passage he expresses pretty clearly what his opinion is of those who do not appreciate them. ' I have given,' he says, ' notice of a Pearl ; if any one takes it to be otherwise, or has neither skill or value for Pearls, he is at Liberty to trample it under his feet.' ^ We all know what is the kind of animal which tramples Pearls under- foot. It will be asked. What were the reasons for the fascina- tion which Behmen exercised over a man of undoubted genius and piety like William Law.' These will appear more fully when we come to Law's mystic writings, but one reason may be noted here, viz., the contrast between the mean condition and want of education in Behmen, and the spirituality and beauty of his writings. For years. Law had been taking up his parable on the utter insufficiency of human learning to discern spiritual truths ; nay, on the positive hindrances which it gave to the discernment of them. Here was a very case in point ! A pearl had been cast before these learned swine, cram-full of the husks of school-divinity, heathen mythology, profane poetry,— every- thing, in short, except the one thing needful,— and they trampled it under their feet, and turned again to rend him who had cast it before them ! Over and over again Law refers with inexpressible gusto to Behmen's want of human > Appeal to all that Doubt, b'c. ; Law's ' Works,' vol. vi. p. 323-4. « Ibid. p. 329. igS Want of Appreciation of Behmen. learning. ' In his natural capacity and outward condition of Life, he was as mean and illiterate as any one that our Lord called to be an Apostle.' ' ' The poor illiterate Behmen was so merely an instrument of Divine Direction, as to have no ability to think, speak, or write anything but what sprung up in him or came upon him as independently of himself, as a shower of rain falls here or there independently of the place where it falls. His works, being an opening of the Spirit of God working in him, are quite out of the course of man's reasoning wisdom, and proceed no more according to it than the living Plant breathes forth its virtues according to such rules of skill as an Artist must use to set up a painted dead Figure of it,' ^ — and to the same effect in innumerable other passages.^ And Law was surely so far right, in thinking that the learned men of his day utterly failed to appreciate the true character and value of Behmen and his writings. We have seen that many of them avowed point-blank, without any circumlocution, that Behmen's inspiration came from the Devil, — the source, by the way, from which Wesley, White- field, and the early Methodists were frequently said to derive' their impulse.'' Behmen was no ' Demonosopher' (to adopt Wesley's happy phrase). His motives were perfectly pure and dis- interested. His life was perfectly guileless and transparent ; ' Appeal to all that Doubt, &'c., p. 322. ' Fragment of a Dialogue by IV. Law, prefixed to the translation of i3ehmen's ' Works' of 1764 falsely attributed to Law. Though these volumes can by no means be depended upon always, there is no doubt whatever thit this Dialogue was, as it purports to be, the work of Law. Law's style is un- mistakable ; it was not to be imitated by any one, and least of all by the translators of this work, of whom more anon. ' See especially the whole of the Second and Third Dialogues in The Way to Divine Knowledge, Law's 'Works,' vol. vii. pp. 83-251. , ' See Bishop Lavington's Enthusiasm of Papists and Methodists compared, passim ; also Bishop Warburton's IJoctrine of Grace, passim, &c. Bekmen's Genius. 199 and through his wild soul there flashed many noble and elevating thoughts, to which he struggled, and often in vain, to give an imperfect utterance. Those who follow him blindly as a guide will probably fall into intellectual quag- mires, from which Law himself did not altogether escape ; but those who can see nothing in his writings but the dis- ordered fancies of an unsound mind, have either imper- fectly studied them, or else are unable to recognise genius when they meet with it. 200 General Remarks on Mysticism. CHAPTER XII. 'general remarks on mysticism. Long as this digression has already been, it seems neces- sary to add a few general remarks on Mysticism before returning to the subject of Law's outer life. It will have been gathered from the preceding pages that I have a deep, but not indiscriminate, admiration for the characters and writings of many of the mystics. And surely their ardent piety, their intense realisation of the Divine Presence, their spiritual-mindedness, their unsel- fishness, their humility, their calm and serene faith, the refinement, nay, the poetry of their style and matter, their elevating view of the heavenly meaning of outward nature, their cultivation of the inner life, — the ' life that is hid with Christ in God,' — and many other points in their system, are worthy of admiration. But it may naturally be asked, How is it, if mysticism really be what it has been described as being, that it has not found more favour with a people so religious as the English, on the whole, decidedly are ? This question requires an answer. It will have been observed that in the foregoing sketch the name of not one single Englishman appears. The sketch, it will be re- membered, was confined to those mystics exclusively who influenced William Law ; and, though there were many Englishmen of a mystical tendency who would come under that category, and who will therefore be noticed presently. Vatighafis ^ Hozirs with the Mystics! 201 there was assuredly not one who can fairly be called a mystic proper. It would be too sweeping a statement to assert that there were no English mystics, but they were few and far between. Mysticism is a plant which seems to thrive on English soil hardly better than an Alpen-rose would on the top of Helvellyh. A fair and full account of Christian mysticism is still a want in English literature. Perhaps the most popular English book on the subject — the book from which many who have not made mysticism their special study derive their knowledge of it — is Mr. Vaughan's ' Hours with the Mystics,' and its popularity is not undeserved. The writer is full of information ; he writes cleverly, and evidently desires to do justice to his subject. But his very plan shows that he is hardly in sympathy with it. His work is in the form of a dialogue, or rather of a series of narratives, read by a lawyer, on which the hearers— a country gentleman, his sharp-witted wife, a lively young artist, and a rather flip- pant young lady — make their comments. The subject is introduced as ' Three friends sat about their after-dinner table, chatting over their wine and walnuts,' — not very favourable circumstances under which to discuss the deep, spiritual thoughts of devoted and self-denying Christians. A good deal of smart badinage goes on over the narratives. Now and then the subject seems likely to be slow, and the ladies cut the performance. The writer loves to quote all the extravagant expressions which mystics, carried away by the heat of devotion, may have used. Those passages in the history of mysticism are chiefly dwelt upon which have a smack of romance about them ; such, for example, as the account of Madame Guyon, who, being a fascinating woman with a romantic history, occupies a space far be- yond the proportion of her merits. The whole account of Tauler's efforts as a patriot, though it has nothing directly 202 Vatighads ' Hours with the Mystics!. to do with mysticism, is given at full length ; and the treatise ends very appropriately with the ringing of the marriage bells for the wedding of the lively young artist and the pert young lady.' This sort of thing is all very well when the subject is like those, for instance, discussed in the ' Noctes Ambrosi- ' Here are one or two specimens of the manner, that the reader may judge for himself whether the description in the text is exaggerated or not. Gower : Let me brjng some prisoners to your bar. Silence in the court there ! [Then follows an account of some mystics' views.] Guilty of mys- ticism, or not ? Atherton : Can you call good evidence to character ? Gower : First rate 1 &c. (I. 27.) Willoughby: Here's another definition for you : mysticism is the romance of religion. What do you say? Gower : True to the spirit ; not scientific, I fear. Willoughby : Science be banished ! &c. (I. 29. ) Gower (flourishing a ruler, turning to the four points, and reading with tremendous voice a formula of incantation from Horst) : Lalla Bacheram ! Willoughby (springing upon Gower) : Seize him! He's stark, staring mad ! Gower : Hands off ! were we not to discuss to-night the best possible order for your mystics ? Atherton : And a neat little plan I had set up — shaken all to pie at this moment by your madcap antics ! Gower : Thanks, if you please, not reproaches. I was calling help for you ; I was summoning the fay. Willoughby : The fay ? Gower : The fay. Down with you in that arm-chair and sit quietly. Iilnow that I was this morning reading Anderson's Marchen — all about Luk- Oie, his ways and works, the queer little elf, &c. (I. 39.) • ••••••?•. Gower : Don't you think Atherton has a very manuscriptuial air to-night ? Kate : There is a certain aspect of repletion about him. Mrs. Atherton ; We must bleed him, or the consequences may be serious. What's this? (Pulls a paper out of his pocket.) Kate : And this ? (Pulls out another.) Willoughby : He seems better. The MS. is the long account of Tauler. The two impostors in Sir W. Scott's novels, Sir A,. Wardour's Dousterswivel and Leicester's Alasco, are instanced as specimens of one kind of mystic (vol. ii. p. 34). Swedenborg is 'the Olympian Jove of mystics ' — whatever that may mean (IL 279). And yet the writer admits at the beginning of his work that ' the mystics were the conservators of the poetry and heart of religion,' and that ' their very' errors, were often such as were possible only to great souls.' (t. 15.) John Keble on Mysticism, 203 anae,' or ' Friends in Council' But questions which, to say the least of them, are of the profoundest spiritual moment, and works whose every page palpitates with the deepest emotions of their authors, surely deserve a little more serious treatment. And there are a few English writers, and those men of high mark, who have treated the subject, though only slightly and incidentally, in a more serious and sympa- thetic tone. Foremost among these stands the honoured name of John Keble. He was attracted to the subject, partly by his reverence for patristic authority, and partly by his poetical instinct. The author of the ' Christian Year ' could hardly be insensible to the deep vein of devo- tional poetry which runs through the prose writings of the mystics, especially those parts of them which treat of the analogies between the visible and the invisible worlds. It would be difficult, indeed, to find a more thoughtful and appreciative estimate of Christian mysticism than in the beautiful fragment (alas ! that it should be only a frag- ment) in Tract 89 of the ' Tracts for the Times.' The title of the tract is ' On the Mysticism attributed to the Early Fathers,' and the primary object of the writer is to vindicate the Fathers from the supposed stigma attaching to them on account of their mysticism. His remarks on the prejudices against mysticism were perhaps more applicable forty years ago than they are now ; but the prejudices still exist, if they are not so virulent, and therefore the weighty words of the departed saint are well worth quoting. ' It [the word mysticism],' he writes, 'touches the very string which most certainly moves contemptuous thought in those who have imbibed the peculiar spirit of our time. Mysti- cism implies a sort of confusion between physical and moral, visible and invisible agency, most abhorrent to the minds of those who pique- themselves on having thoroughly 204 Tract 89 of the ' Tracts for the Tifnes.' clear ideas, and on their power of distinctly analysing effects into their proper causes, whether in matter or mind. Again, mysticism conveys the notion of something essenti- ally and altogether remote from common sense and prac- tical utility ; but common sense and practical utility are the very idols of the age. Further, that which is stigma- tised as mysticism is almost always something which makes itself discerned by internal evidence In the eyes of a world full of hurry and business, there is a temptation to acquiesce over lightly, in any censure of that kind How meanly even respectable persons allow themselves to think of the highest sort of poetry — that which invests all things, great and small, with the noblest of all associations — when once they have come to annex to it the notion of mysticism ! Perhaps its mischievous effects on theology are as great as any attributable to a single word.' The frame of mind in which such a subject as mystic- ism should be studied is well described. ' A person who would go into this question with advantage should be im- bued beforehand with a kind of natural piety, which will cause him to remember all along that perhaps, when he comes to the end of his inquiry, he will find that God was all the while really there. He will " put off his shoes from off his feet " if he do but think it possible that an angel may tell him by and by, " the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." So it must be in some measure with every right-minded person in the examination of every practice and opinion against which the charge of mysticism is brought. Whatever may appear in the case at first sight, likely to move scorn or ridicule, or tempt to mere lightness of thought, it will be an exercise of faith, a trial of a serious heart, to repress for the time any tendency of that kind ; the loss and error being infinitely greater, if we are found trifling with a really sacred subject, than if we ' On the Mysticism attrihited to the Fathers! 205 merely prove to have been a little more serious than was necessary. In this sense — that is to say, in regard of the reverent or irreverent temper in. which such inquiries may be approached — superstition is surely a great deal better than irreligion The noblest and most refined devo- tional tendencies have always had to bear the imputation of mysticism, or some other equivalent word ; as if to cul- tivate them were a mere indulgence of a dreamy, soaring, indistinct fancy. In this use of it, the word " mysticism " has done probably as much harm in checking high, con- templative devotion, as the kindred term " asceticism " in encouraging Christian self-discipline.' The grounds on which mysticism was attributed to the early Fathers were (i) their allegorical way of interpreting Scripture ; (2) their tendency to spiritualise the works of nature. With the first of these we are not concerned ; but on the second Keble's remarks are very applicable to Wil- liam Law. He calls it the symbolical or sacramental view of nature. ' The works of God in creation and providence, besides their immediate uses in this life, appeared to the old writers as so many intended tokens from the Almighty to assure us of some spiritual fact or other, which it con- cerns us to know : ' and then, having referred to several pas- sages of Scripture in which this analogy is obviously worked out, he asks : ' What if the whole scheme of sensible things be figurative 1 What, if all aladrjTa answer to voijTa in the same kind of way as these which are expressly set down ? What if these are but a slight specimen of one great use which Almighty God would have us make of the external world and of its relation to the world spiritual ? The form of speaking would imply some such general rule ' (' That was the True (aXr}0i,v6v) Light,' &c.), 'taking for granted that there was somewhere in the nature of things a true coun- terpart of these ordinary objects, a substance of which they 2o6 Mystic View of Nature in the Bible. were but unreal shadows ; and only informing us, in each case with authority, what that, counterpart and substance was.' The Scriptures deal largely in symbolical language taken from natural objects. The chosen vehicle for the most direct Divine communication has always been that form of speech which most readily adopts and invites such imagery, viz. the poetical. Is there not something very striking to a thoughtful, reverential mind in the simple fact of symbolical language occurring in Scripture at all ? that is, when truths supernatural are represented in Scripture by visible and sensible imagery. Consider what this really comes to. The Author of Scripture is the Author of Nature. He made his creatures what they are, upholds them in their being, modifies it at his will, knows all their secret relations, associations, and properties. We know not how much there may be, far beyond metaphor and similitude, in his using the name of any one of his crea- tures, in a translated sense, to shadow out some thing invisible. But thus far we may seem to understand, that the object thus spoken of by Him is so far taken out of the number of ordinary figures of speech and resources of language, and partakes henceforth of the nature of a Type.' Then, after having illustrated his position by a great variety of passages in Scripture, he concludes : 'The text, " The invisible things from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made," lays down a principle or canon of mystical interpretation for the works of nature It is the characteristic tendency of poetical minds to make the world of sense from beginning to end symbolical of the absent and unseen ; and poetry was the ordained vehicle of revelation, till God was made mani- ' It will at once be seen how exactly all this agrees with the Platonic idealism of S. Augustine, whom, indeed, ICeble frequently quotes in this Tract. Charles Kingsley on Mysticism. 207 fest in the Flesh.* The Tract from which these quotations have been made is little known, perhaps ; but every one knows the hymn, ' There is a book who runs may read.' That hymn is the poetical rendering of Keble's views on one phase of mysticism. Few men differed more widely in their general tone of thought than John Keble and Charles Kingsley. But they ■might have found a common bond of sympathy in the attractions which mysticism presented to both. Moreoverj it was, in part, the same aspect of mysticism which fasci- nated both. Kingsley, like Keble, was deeply impressed with the mystic harmony between the visible and invisible worlds. Nay, he went beyond Keble in the extent to which he would adopt the plan of spiritualising nature. 'The great mysticism,' he writes, 'is the belief, which is becoming every day stronger with me, that all sym- metrical natural objects, aye, and perhaps all forms, colours, and scents which show organisation or arrangement, are types of some spiritual truth or existence, of a grade between the symbolical and the mystic type. Everything seems to be full of God's reflex, if we could but see it.' • ' The visible world is in some mysterious way a pattern or symbol of the invisible one ; its physical laws are the analogues of the spiritual laws of the eternal world.' ^ Like Keble, he observes with regret that ' our popular theology has so completely rid itself of any mystic elements,' and he attributes this avoidance of mysticism to the influence exercised by the philosophy of Locke.' There was, how- ever, another phase of mysticism which attracted Kingsley, -but would probably have repelled Keble ; that is, its breadth. ' Life of C. Kingsley, i. 77- = Miscellanies, by C. Kingsley, Review of Vaughan's Hours with the Mystics, i. 329. ' Ibid. p. 325. 2o8 Kingsley and Law. The Christ in every man, the ' hght which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,' was a doctrine which, like the mystics, Kingsley understood in its most literal sense, and ' realised with extraordinary vividness.' ' His mode of reconciling the wrath of God with the love of God exactly tallied with William Law's explanation. ' Because,' he writes, ' I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of his, which will and must devour all, destroy all, which is decayed, monstrous, abor- tive in his universe.' ^ Like Law, he left it to be inferred as the necessary consequence of this theory, rather than actually stated his belief in the final restitution of all things. It seems strange that Kingsley should never have referred to Law in any of his frequent allusions to mysticism, par- ticularly when we remember how deeply Law was appre- ciated by Kingsley's friend, F. D. Maurice. Possibly Law's reputation as a nonjuror and distinct high churchman may have repelled him ; possibly, also, Law's best known work, ' The Serious Call,' may have led him to avoid an author who in that stage of his career certainly took a widely dif- ferent view of life from his own. But, assuredly, if any such prejudices as these prevented Kingsley from reading Law's later writings, he lost much which would have thoroughly harmonised with his own deepest convictions.^ There is another English writer, differing in tone of mind both from Keble and Kingsley as widely as Keble and Kingsley differed from each other, who shows some appreciation of the mystics, not because he had the least ' See Life of C. Kingsley, i. 1 60. 2 Ibid. p. 396. ^ Take, for example, the following sentence, in which he speaks in a tone of sadness of a want which the popular theology could not supply to him: ' I want to love and honour the absolute, abysmal God himself, and none other will satisfy me. This Lockism infects all our pulpits ' (Life, i. 397). Would not the ' Spirit of Prayer ' and the ' Spirit of Love ' have helped him to supply this want? Dean Waddington on Mysticism. 209 sympathy with any phase of mysticism, but simply because he has made it his laudable aim to be fair all round. The late Dean Waddington certainly cannot be claimed by the mystics as their own ; indeed, he was so very much the reverse, that he seems almost ashamed of the approbation which his sense of justice forced him to bestow upon them, and half takes away with one hand what he has given with the other. His testimony, however, is all the more valu- able on this very account, because it is, as it were, extorted fron;i him in spite of himself He preludes his account of some ofthe wilder sects which hung on the outskirts of mys- ticism with these very sensible and much-needed cautions : ' In a religious society, the purest characters are commonly those which shun celebrity ; it is rare that they throw their modest lustre on the historic page. On this account it is that, while the absurdities of mysticism are commonly known and derided, the good effect which it had in turning the mind to spiritual resolves and amending the hearts of multitudes imbued with it, is generally overlooked.' ' Again : ' Under the respectable name of Mysticism much genuine devotion was concealed, and many ardent and humble aspirations poured forth before the Throne of Grace.' ^ And speaking of the prevalence of mysticism in every age of the Church, he writes : ' The aspirations of mysticism, sometimes degraded into absurdity, sometimes exalted into the purest piety, have unquestionably pervaded and warmed every portion of the ecclesiastical system, from the earliest era even to the present.' ^ These three writers have been taken as typical instances of three very different classes of minds which have been more or less favourably impressed with the lives and writings of the mystics. Of course many more might have been • Waddington's History ofthe Church, chap. xxvi. p. 608. 2 Ibid. chap, xxviii. p. 70°- ' ■^*'''^- P- 7°^' P 2 1 o Is Mysticism unpractical ? added ;^ but they are certainly the exception, not the rule. The general tendency of English divines has been to regard mysticism with suspicion, and never more so than in the days of Law, when the popularity of Lockism was at its zenith. Nor is this suspicion altogether unnatural ; for the abuse of mysticism leads to just those faults which are specially odious to the English mind. Let us briefly consider what these faults are. (i.) Mysticism is charged with being unpractical and leading men to neglect active duties and good works. The lives of some false mystics, and some extravagant expres- sions in the teaching of true mystics, may lend countenance to the charge ; but assuredly this is not, as it has been repeatedly stated to be,^ the legitimate tendency of the system, nor has it been, as a matter of fact, its general result. The lives of the most distinguished mystics rebut the charge. When the wretched Strasburgers were stricken to the ground by the double curse of the Black Death and the Papal Interdict, it was the mystic Taiiler who showed his faith by his works of untiring benevolence, and, while ' E.g., S. T. Coleridge, through whose writings a vein of mysticism runs, though he never, so far as I am aware, wrote directly on the subject. See especially his Lay Sermons, pp. 74-9, 98-9, and passim. Bishop Berkeley's ' Siris ' is essentially a mystic work. See also Ashwell's Life of Bishop fVil- berforce, pp. 125 and 239. ''■ Thus M. Bonnel writes : ' Le mysticisme confini dans les etroites limites d'un certain monde interieur, non-seulement n'inspire par lui-mSme I'exercice d'aucvme vertu, mais, pousse i ses dernites consequences, il peut devenir un principe d'inertie nuisible ^ la societe ; il rapproche du ciel, mais c'est en faisant perdre de vue la terre, c'est-a-dire en detournant les ames de la grande vocation de I'humanite.' — De la Controverse de Bosstiet et de Finilon sur le QuiStisme, Introduction III. Dr. Hey: 'It [mysticism] makes men useless when it runs to excess ; it furnishes them with means of evading such duties as they cannot be ignorant of, and it prevents them from learning many others ; ' with much more to the same effect. (Lectures in Divinity, vol. i. pp. 47 1-2, &c.) The same idea runs through the whole of Alexander Knox's letter to D. Parken, Esq., ' On the Character of Mysticism.' See Knox^s Remains, vol. i. pp. 328, 329, ■343, &c. Mysticism and Practical Christianity. 211 other religious teachers fled from the devoted city, man- fully remained at his post, and, almost by his sole efforts, sustained the faith of his afflicted countrymen. When F^ndlon retired to Cambray in semi-disgrace, he astonished the people of his diocese by taking the hardest duties upon himself, by visiting the poor in their cottages, sympathising with their griefs, and ' partaking of their black bread as though he had never shared the banquets of Versailles.' ' The Mystic, S. Bernard, was the very incarnation of active Christianity. Madame Guyon was as energetic in attending to the patients at hospitals, as she was in recom- mending Quietism. Even the recluse Malebranche never forgot the claims of practical benevolence in the studies of philosophical mysticism. William Law, though he was always ready to show his faith by his good works, had not scope for the exercise of his charity until he had long been a Mystic ; while the sect in England, which has been most conspicuous for its mystic views, has also been most remarkable for its deeds of practical Christianity I mean, of course, the Quakers. Nor can it be said that, in the case of those practical Christians who were attached to Mysticism, the men were better than their opinions. They give a perfectly consis- tent account of the principle on which a Mystic, while holding that the one aim of the Christian must be complete union with God, that he must have no will but God's will, that he must resign himself wholly to God and be passive in his hands, may yet, or rather, therefore, be active in all outward Christian duties. Thus Macarius is writing nothing out of harmony with his system when he says, ' If we would be born of the Heavenly Father we must do something better than the rest of men, that is, live in faith ' See Bishop de Bausset's Life of Fenilon, translated by Mudford, passim. p 2 2 1 2 Mysticism and Practical Christianity. and fear, with all diligence, pains, zeal, love, and good works. The Lord quickens and awakens dead and corrupt souls through the good works and teaching of the Apostles.' Rusbrochius was in no way inconsistent when he declared, ' God requires obedience from us, according to his Gospel. Use thou only the grace that is in thee and take heed to thyself of that which can hinder thy culture. Therefore, not only plough and till, but also root out the thorns. Shouldst thou be lazy, thy field will become a wilderness.' Tauler's teaching to the same effect has already been quoted. F^n^lon drew, in his~ own beautiful language, a perfectly logical distinction between quietism and idleness, ' Holy indifference is not inactivity. It is the furthest possible from it. It is indifference to anything and every- thing out of God's will ; but it is the highest life and activity to everything in that will. Self-renunciation is not the renunciation of faith or of love, or of anything except selfishness.' And again, ' The state of continuous faith and consequent repose in God is called the /aJJzV^ state; but the more pliant and supple the soul is to divine impressions^ the more real and efficacious is her own action, though with- out any excited or troubled movement. Nothing disturbs it ; and being thus peaceful, it reflects distinctly and clearly the image of Christ ; like the placid lake, which shows in its own clear and beautiful bosom the exact forms of the objects around and above it' ' In short, Madame Guyon's explanation of the mystic passivity, though somewhat clumsily expressed, is substantially correct. ' Better,' she says, ' call it passively active, because the sanctified soul, though it no longer has a will of its own, is never strictly inert. There is always an act of co-operation with God.' " Or, a:s a distinguished modern mystic expresses it, ' Perfect ' Maximes des Saints. ' Upham's Life of Madame Guyon, p. 378. Mysticism and Outward Ordinances. 2 1 3 self-surrender differs wide as the Poles are asunder from inactivity. No true mystic withdraws himself wilfully from the business of life, no, not even from the smallest busi- ness.' ' The worst that can be said is that the mystic teaching on this head has been sometimes misunderstood, and perverted to an abuse which no true mystic ever intended. (2.) It is not so easy to vindicate mysticism froni another charge which has been brought against it, viz., that it tends to make men think lightly of the outward ordi- nances of religion. It is true that the more moderate mystics expressly disclaim any such intention ; but even these lay so much more stress upon the duty of retiring into the inner temple of one's own heart that it can hardly be wondered at if their more extravagant disciples have concluded that worship in any other temple was a matter of minor considaration. Take, for example, the following passage from Tauler, the most reasonable and practical of mystics, on the Christian progress :— ' They turn their thoughts inward, and remain resting on the inmost founda- tion of their souls, simply looking to see the hand of God with the eyes of their enlightened reason, and await from within their summons to go whither God would have them. And this they receive from God without any means, but what is given through means, such as other mortal men, is as it were tasteless ; moreover, it is seen as through a veil, and split up into fragments, and within it is a certain sting of bitterness. It always retains the savour of that which is of the creature, which it must needs lose and be purified from, if it is to become in truth food for the spirit, and to enter into the very substance of the soul.'=' Behmen' is never weary of dwelling upon the blessedness of this introversion > Ewald's Briefe iiber die alte Mystik und den neuen Mysticismus, p. 280. 2 Sermon for Advent Sunday. 214 Behmen on Outward Ordinances. of the soul. ' Turn away your heart and mind from all contention, and go in very simply and humbly at the door of Christ into Christ's sheepfold ; seek that in your heart ; ' ' and many more passages to the same effect. His admis- sion of the possible use of outward ordinances is very faint and reluctant, and contrasts strangely with the fire and en- thusiasm with which he speaks ofthe blessedness of retiring into the temple within.' ' Where,' he says, ' the living knowledge of Christ is, there is the altar of God in all places where the hungry soul may offer the true, acceptable, holy offering in prayer, &c. Not that we would hereby wholly abolish and raze the stone churches, but we teach the temple of Christ which ought to be brought along into the stone church, or else the whole business of the stone church is only a Cain's offering, both of preacher and hearer. . . . Cain goes to church to offer, and comes out again a killer of his brother.' ^ Ewald gives from his own experi- ence a curious instance of the results of this kind of teach- ing. ' I am preacher,' he writes, ' in a place where there are many Behmenists. They attended no church, took no part in the Lord's Supper. But, on closer acquaintance, I found among them some very candid, moral, and well- instructed men. I asked the cause why they attended no church ; they answered me that they edified themselves every Sunday and feast-day with Behmen's writings. I persuaded some of them to come to my church, and I gave myself much trouble to speak in their language, which was already popularised through the expression and imagery of the Bible.' ^ But it could hardly be expected that many clergy could adapt themselves so conveniently to the idio- syncrasies of the Behmenists. ' The T7iree/old Life of Man, Behmen's Works, vol. ii. chap. xi. p. 125. ' Mystcrhim Magnum, Behmen's Works, vol. iii. chap, xxvii. p. 132. ' Briefe iiber die alte Mystik imd den netien Mysticismus, p. 225-6, Law on Outward Ordinances. 215 Law himself personally never neglected the means of giace ; he and all who were under his influence attended every service, week-day and Sunday, at their own parish church, and he never intended one syllable of his teaching to direct his readers otherwise. But some of his sentiments might not unreasonably be construed as depreciating out- ward ordinances. Take, for example, that magnificent passage in the ' Spirit of Prayer,' which gave such deep offence to John Wesley: 'This pearl of eternity is the Church, or temple of God within thee, the consecrated place of divine worship, where alone thou canst worship God in spirit and in truth. In spirit, because thy spirit is that alone in thee, which can unite and cleave unto God, and receive the working of His Divine Spirit upon thee. In truth, because this adoration in spirit is that truth and reality, of which all outward forms and rites, though instituted by God, are only the figure for a time, but this worship is eternal. Accustom thyself to the holy service of this inward temple. In the midst of it is the fountain of living water, of which thou mayst drink and live for ever. There the mysteries of thy redemption are celebrated, or rather opened in life and power. There the Supper of the Lamb is kept ; tJte bread that came down from Heaven, that giveth life to the world, is thy true nourishment : all is done and known in real experience, in a living sensibility of the work of God on the soul. There; the birth, the life, the sufferings, the death, the resurrection, and ascension of Christ are not merely remembered^ but inwardly found and enjoyed as the real state of thy soul, which has followed Christ in the r^eneratjoa When once thou art well-grounded in this inward worship, thou wilt have learnt to live unto God above time and place. For every day will be Sunday to thee, and wherever thou goest thou wilt have s.J>riest, a church, and an altar along with 2 1 6 Mysticism and Dogmatic Theology. thee.' ' John Wesley drew inferences from this passage which Law never intended, but Wesley was a practical man and saw whither, as a matter of fact, such doctrines tended when imbibed by ordinary mortals. (3.) ' Mysticism,' wrote Alexander Knox, ' is hostile to Christianity, because it necessarily disqualifies the mind for that distinct and intelligent contemplation of Immanuel. The contemplation of the deity, to which the embodied spirit is unequal, is contrary to the incarnation.' ' This is far too strongly stated, but it points to a peril against which all who have a tendency to mysticism should be on their guard. Law over and over again affirms, as Behmen affirmed before him, that the doctrine of the Christ within in no wise weakened his belief in the historical Christ who was ' born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate ; ' and all the more moderate mystics affirm the same. But there is among the more extravagant mystics unquestion- ably a tendency to ignore the glorious truth that by the incar- nation God, as it were, came down from the clouds in order to prevent men from losing themselves in the clouds. This question, however, is in fact part of a greater : Does mys- ticism tend to sap the foundation of dogmatic theology ? Here, again, we must answer. Not necessarily, but still there is a danger of the system being so perverted. To men who are accustomed to soar to the lofty heights of mystic ecs- tasy, ' to lose themselves in the divine dark,' it is apt to appear slavish, grovelling work to be tied down to articles of faith. Law himself was by no means free from this danger. He is never weary of crying down the learned labours of divines, apparently forgetful of the fact that, after all, Christianity is, in one sense, an historical religion, which requires its proofs like any other history, that after all it is a system of distinct articles of belief, which must ' spirit of Prayer, Law's Works, vol. vii. p. 74-5. ' Remains, vol. ii. p. 333. Mysticism and Philosophy. 217 be defended and proved like those of any other system. Mysticism avowedly addresses itself to the feelings, not to the reason ; the eighteenth century was essentially an age of reason not of feeling ; each mode of viewing the matter has something to say for itself ; each has its peculiar snares ; and assuredly, if there be danger on the one hand of the heart of religion being frozen out by cold dogmas, there is, at least, equal danger on the other, of the rationale of religion evaporating in mere heat of feeling and in airy speculation. (4.) The charge against mysticism of giving too little prominence to Christian dogmas is unquestionably a grave one, which the Christian mystic cannot afford to neglect ; but he need not be so careful to answer another similar objection raised against his system on the grounds of philosophy. It may be necessary, from the philosopher's point of view, to explain philosophically this phenomenon of the human mind ; but certainly, from the mystic's own point of view, any such explanation would seem strangely out of place. ' Sensationalism, idealism, scepticism, mys- ticism, eclecticism,' ' would appear to him to be what the logicians call a cross division. He would ask himself ' What in the world am I doing in this galley ? ' He has been conscious of no such intellectual process as that by which the historian of philosophy supposes him to have arrived at his conclusions, if we are to call those conclusions which he would call simply intuitions or illuminations. He would say in effect to the philosopher, ' Settle these matters among yourselves. I know nothing about all these processes of the human mind ; one thing I know, whereas I was blind, now I see, and that is enough for me.' ^ ' This is Mr. Morell's division of the various systems of philosophy. See his History of Philosophy, passim. 2 'We cannot,' writes Dr. Dorner {Hist, of Prot. Theology Eng. Tr. i. 52), ' vfith some recent writers, regard it (mysticism) only as a kind of philo- sophy, or as the preliminary stage of a modern speculative mode of thought. 2 1 8 Other Charges against Mysticism. (S.) A very favourite expression of reproach against the mystics is that they are 'visionary ; ' if by visionary be meant apt to see and believe in visions, the epithet cannot be applied with truth to the genuine mystic* It is true that many mystics, such as S. Theresa, did see visions, but not quA mystics. The very essence of mysticism is that a man should retire into the temple of his own soul, and he will find God there. He has no need of any vision or appear- ance from without, — no, not even from God ; his state of ecstasy or coiltemplation is not a manifestation of God from without, but an opening of God from within. Law was in this respect a true mystic ; he held that visions were not to be sought ; and he looked with considerable sus- picion and reserve on those who professed to have been favoured with them. (6.) ' Mysticism encourages vanity or spiritual pride.' ' Theoretically it might be enough to answer that humility is the very cardinal grace of the mystic ; but then there is a pride which apes humility, and it is quite possible that spiritual pride might lurk under the garb of mystic self- abasement. But, as a matter of fact, the most pronounced mystics have without exception, so far as I know, been in- very truth the humblest of men ; nor can I think of one instance in which true mysticism has led to self-conceit. (7.) Mysticism is charged with using too familiar, not to say improper, expressions to describe the relation between Christ and the Christian. It has been seen that, according which fell with its time, a stage, however, which retires in obscure idealism into itself, to find in itself all truth and reality. The whole essence of mys- ticism lies in a real religious fellowship of the subject with the personal God and of God with him. The religious element must be regarded as the original principle, as the life-germ of mysticism.' ' ' Ceux qui traitent les mystiques de visionnaires seraient fort etonnes de voir quel peu de ces ils font des visions en elles-memes.' — Diciionnaire de Mystique Chrkienne, Introduction par I'Abb^ Migne. ' Hey's Lectures on Divinity, i. 470. The Earthly and the Spiritual Marriage. 219 to the mystic theory, perfect union of the soul with God is to be the aim of the Christian ; that this union is to be effected through love ; and that all earthly and visible things are types, or rather, more than types, actually lower forms of things spiritual and invisible. It naturally follows that the best figure under which this spiritual union can be represented is the union of two human beings through earthly love. That there is a beautiful analogy between the earthly and the heavenly in this respect no one of course will deny. God has ' consecrated the state of rnatrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity betwixt Christ and his church.' But in this ' mystical union ' of which our prayer-book speaks, the bride is the church collectively, not the individual Christian. Some mystics not only mar- ried the individual soul to Christ, but closely followed out the analogy in the minutest particulars, and, it must be confessed, outraged sometimes one's notions not only of reverence but even of decency. No one worked out this analogy more elaborately than Jacob Behmen ; in fact it would be quite impossible to transfer to these pages many passages from him on this subject. Happily, on this point Law did not follow his master ; not only is there not one syllable in his writings which could shock the most fastidious ; he hardly ever alludes to the analogy at all. To sum up, it appears to me that the prejudices against mysticism have been excessive, but not altogether without foundation ; and that William Law, though he has escaped many of the snares to which mysticism is exposed, has, to some little extent, laid himself open to the charges which were only too freely brought against his system. We may now, after this long discussion return to his outer life. 220 Law at Kings Cliffe. CHAPTER XIII. law's life at king's cliffe. It will be remembered that we left William Law in London at the close of the year 1739, in a very unsettled condition. Owing to the death of Mr. Gibbon and the consequent breaking up of the establishment at Putney, his occupatioh was gone. I do not suppose that he either felt or antici- pated the pressure of poverty. He had inherited a little property ; possibly, Mr. Gibbon had left him a small legacy. His books were popular, and were selling well ; and he might easily have made an arrangement with his publishers which would have secured him at least a moderate com- petency. But writing with the intense earnestness of pur- pose that Law did, with no other motive than to do good, he would have regarded it as a prostitution of his pen to write simply for bread and cheese. A ripe scholar of Law's reputation and experience might easily have gained his living by tuition ; but his failure with young Gibbon had probably disgusted him with that mode of life, for which he was really not adapted. Other men, again, in Law's circumstances, would have turned their thoughts to matri- mony. It is true that Law was now past the prime of life, being fifty-three years of age ; but he was wonderfully young and vigorous for his years ; he was a personable, and, when he chose, a remarkably agreeable man, and would have had no difficulty in finding a wife. There was one lady, at any rate, with a fortune of her own, who would, we . Law on Clerical Celibacy. 221 may be quite sure, have lent a favourable ear to his suit, Miss Hester Gibbon. But this resource was quite out of the question. Law never swerved one single inch from what he believed to be right. Given Law's opinions, and you might be absolutely certain what his conduct would be, for from the very beginning to the end of his career, it would be impossible to find a single instance of his acting on the principle — Video meliora proboque, Deteriora sequor. Now, no hermit in his cell ever held stricter views on the subject of clerical celibacy than William Law did ; and at the very time of which we are speaking, he expressed those views in print with remarkable vigour. ' When,' he wrote in 1 739, ' a clergyman excuses himself from any Heights of the Ministerial Service, by saying, " he has married a wife, and therefore cannot come up to them," it seems to be no better excuse than if he had said, " he had hired a farm" or " bought five yoke of oxen." ' It was true that ' the Refor- mation had allowed Priests and Bishops, not only to look out for wives, but to have as many as they pleased, one after another, but from the beginning it was not so.' The. sight of ' Reverend Doctors in Sacerdotal robes, making love to women,' was an abomination to him. He intro- duces one of those pictures at which one hardly knows whether to smile or be serious. ' John the Baptist came out of the wilderness burning and shining, to preach the Kingdom of Heaven at hand. Look at this great saint, all ye that desire to 'preach the Gospel. Now, if this holy Baptist, when he came to J erusalem, and had preached a while upon Penitence, and the Kingdom of Heaven at hand, had made an offering of his Heart to some fine young Lady of great accomplishments, had not this put an end to all that was burning and shining in ' his character.?' And surely 222 Law retires to Kings Cliffe. 'those clergy who date their mission from Jesus Christ Himself, who claim being sent by Him as He was by His Father, to stand as His representatives, &c. &c., should look upon Love-addresses to the Sex, as unbecoming, as foreign, as opposite to their character, as to the Baptist's. Were not Our Blessed Lord's own words ' (Matt. xix. 12) ' more than a volume of human eloquence in praise of the Virgin State. And had not St. Paul done everything to hinder a Minister of Jesus Christ from entering into marriage, ex- cept calling it a sinful state ? Did not the apologists in primitive times appeal to the members of both sexes con- secrated to God in a Virgin Life, as one great Proof of the Divinity of the Christian Religion. But when such argu- ments as these were used to set forth the glory of the Gos- pel, need anyone to be told that it must have been highly shameful in those Days for a Priest of such a Religion, to be looking out for a wife .' ' And so he goes on for several pages. Holding such opinions as these, and always having the courage of his opinions. Law certainly was ' not a marrying man.' At the close, therefore, of 1740, he quietly retired to -King's Cliffe, his native village, where both his parents were buried, where his eldest, and apparently most beloved, brother George still resided, and where he himself owned a house. Here he lived alone for nearly three years, occa- sionally paying visits to London, for a letter from him to Mr. Spanaugle is preserved by Dr. Byrom, dated April 1742, in which Law says that *he is about to leave town,' and in another entry in his 'Journal' (May 1743), Byrom describes a visit which he paid to King's Cliffe, when Law 'received a letter [from London] while I was with him, and said he should have gone that day but for me.' As this entiy gives us the only glimpse which we can catch of Law in his solitude, a short extract from it is worth insert- Law in his Solitude. 223 ing. ' I went,' writes Byrom, ' to Wansford on Sunday night, and on Monday morning to King's Cliff, where I light at the Cross Keys, and understanding that Mr. Law was at his house by the church, and his brother very ill of the stone, I went to him. Mr. Law rid out with me over his brother's grounds ; I dined and supped with him and lay at the Cross Keys.' Then follows a full report of Mr. Law's conversation which need not be recorded ; but we learn from it that Law had all his books around him, for Byrom mentions that Law pointed out to him a passage in Bertot, and showed him a ' German book of distiches upon Behmenish principles,' and that ' Rusbrochius lay upon his table in folio.' We may gather, therefore, what was the course of Law's studies at this period. His solitude, however, was not destined to last long. In 1740 Mr. Archibald Hutcheson died. In his last illness he was visited by Mr. Law, to whom he expressed his de- sire that his widow should lead a retired and religious life ; he expressed the same wish to the lady herself, and added that he knew no one so well suited to help her to carry out the pious plan as his friend Mr. Law, if she could take up her residence within reach of his society. Mrs. Hutcheson at once determined to accede to her dying husband's wishes, and upon his death consulted Mr. Law on the subject. Mr. Law, who was always very careful in his relations with the other sex, appears to have shrunk from undertaking the spiritual guidance of a rich widow, lest his motives should be misinterpreted. But there was another lady who was also left desolate, and who had for many years been taught to look up to Mr. Law with the deepest reverence and ad- miration. This was Miss Hester Gibbon ; and it was pro- bably on Mr. Law's suggestion that Mrs. Hutcheson pro- posed to her that they should live together, and partake jointly of the benefits of Mr. Law's spiritual direction. The 2 24 Mrs. Hutcheson and Miss Gibbon. proposal was accepted, and a house was taken for them by Mr. Law at Thrapstone. There they took up their abode in the summer of 1743. Their joint income amounted to nearly 3,000/. a year, more than two-thirds of which be- longed to Mrs. Hutcheson ; and their intention was to carry out literally the counsel of the ' Serious Call,' and to devote the whole of their fortune, after the supply of their own necessary wants, to the relief of the poor. But Thrapstone was not a suitable place for their purpose ; it was then, as now, a very small place, and did not furnish sufficient scope for their benevolence. Moreover, at Thrapstone, they must have been at an inconvenient distance from their spiritual director, King's Cliffe being ten miles away, a serious matter in those days of bad roads. King's Cliffe contained many more poor, and Mr. Law had on his hands there a very suitable house for the ladies ; he therefore proposed that they should remove thither, and, on their consent, fitted up the house for their accommodation. Whether this was ' Mr. Law's house by the Church ' at which Byrom found his friend in May 1743, we need not stop to enquire; but as King's Cliffe was undoubtedly his residence during the whole of the remainder of his life, it may be interesting to the reader to know what sort of a place it was and still is. King's Cliffe is probably not very much changed since the days of Law. The houses are for the most part old ; and as the village lies off the main high road, and has not until the present year been invaded by the railway, it has been little affected by modern alterations. Nevertheless, it is a place of some importance in its way, and was compara- tively more so in Law's time. It is the capital of the East Bailiwick of the Forest of Rockingham, which originally included fifteen parishes. The pilgrim whose respect for Law's memory may lead him to Cliffe will not be disap- ^_ _ _ — __ Description of Kings Cliffe. 225 pointed. The ' Cross Keys,' where Byrom used to lie when he came to drink in wisdom at the fountain head is still the chief inn ; and though it has slightly modernised its exterior, it is still substantially the same old house which we connect with Law's quaint and gentle disciple. The parish church, at every service in which, week-day and Sunday, Law was a constant attendant, is the same exter- nally as it was in his day,^ though internally it has suc- cumbed to the modern spirit of restoration. There is a new rectory, a few new houses, and a handsome new school, very different from the humble and now venerable little school- house, still standing but disused, which owed its existence to the munificence of the good people whose lives we are about to trace. But, happily, ' Mr. Law's house by the Church ' is still unaltered, and still occupied by one who bears the honoured name of Law. This, historically and aestheti- cally, as well as through its associations with ' the English Mystic,' is by far the most interesting object in King's Cliife. It stands in an open space called the ' Hall Yard,' and is partly on the site of what was once a royal residence. Several monarchs lodged for a while at their ' Manor House at Clive ' when they came to hunt in the neighbouring Forest of Rockingham, or when they made their royal pro- gresses through the country. King John probably rebuilt the house, for it went by the name of ' King John's palace.' 'I hope,' wrote Law to Byrom in 1751, ' you will make King John's house, not the Cross Keys, your inn.' The front part of the house has the date ' 1603 ' over the door, but the back part is much older. The garden and the little close of pasture stand just as they were in the days of Law, and there still remains the little wooden bridge over the brook (a tributary of the Nene) which Law crossed almost every day of his life when he went to visit his favourite schools and alms-houses. These, too, stand just as Law Q 2 26 Traces of Law at King's Cliff e. left them, and, though plain and unpretentious, have a pic- turesque and venerable appearance. In one corner of the garden of the manor house, stands a fine oak grown from an acorn planted by Mrs. Hutcheson immediately after her settlement at Cliffe in 1744. In the main street of the village there still stands the house which Law's father built and where he earned an honourable living as a grocer and chandler, but it is no longer used as a shop. You may still meet in the streets of Cliffe boys and girls dressed in the quaint but not unbecoming costume of the charity, through which Law, ' being dead yet speaketh.' ' In fact. King's Cliffe is the only one of the places connected with any of the great revivers of practical religion in the eighteenth century which still retains many traces of those who made their names famous. Epworth has not much left in it to remind one of the Wesleys, nor Olney of Cowper and Newton and Scott, nor Haworth of Grimshaw, nor Everton of Berridge, nor Madeley of Fletcher, but King's Cliffe reminds one of Law at every step ; and it may be added that those who may be so fortunate as to gain access will find in more than one of the houses at Cliffe still more interesting memorials of the departed saint. It is not necessary to transcribe here information about King's Cliffe which may be found in a directory. I shall therefore only add that the whole valley, on an acclivity of which Cliffe (hence the name) lies, formerly belonged to the Forest of Rockingham, and that one of the walks of that forest is called Morehay. There, in an interesting old house still standing, lived William Law's eldest brother, George, who was a sort of ranger or bailiff for the Earl of ' Since this sentence was written, the old dress has, alas ! been improved off the face of creation. It is no part of the present work to discuss the arrangement of the schools ; but I may remark, as a matter of fact, that any education, not based on distinctively Church principles, would have been utterly abhorrent to the feelings of William Law. Law and Hutchesofi s Charities. 227 Westmoreland. Enough, it is lioped, has now been told to enable the reader to realise what sort of a place it was in which Law was born and bred and where he passed the last twenty years of his life. In the year 1744 this curious family circle was settled in the Hall Yard, and no time was lost by them in carry- ing out their benevolent designs. It has been already mentioned that William Law had, seventeen years previ- ously, founded a school for the education and full clothing of fourteen poor girls. In 1745, Mrs. Hutcheson founded a similar school for eighteen boys, and in 1756 increased the number to twenty, and directed that every boy who should have stayed out his full time in the school, with good behaviour, should be put to some trade. She then bought a school-house for the master, and built a school and four small tenements adjoining it ' for the separate habita- tion of four ancient and poor widows, chosen out of the Town of King's Cliffe.' William Law also built a school-house and school, and also two small ' tenements adjoining to the school, to be inhabited separately by two ancient maidens or widows of the Town of King's Cliffe.' The ' widows ' in Mrs. Hutcheson's alms-houses, and the ' ancient maidens or widows ' in Mr. Law's ' are to have two shillings and six- pence paid them on every Saturday throughout the year, and ten shillings to each of them every Lady-day to help them, to iiring.' It would be wearisome to the general reader if all the laws of these excellent charities were here inserted. It will suffice to mention two or three which are most character- istic of W. Law's spirit and intention. With regard to the ' widows and ancient maidens ' it is provided that ' none are to be looked upon as qualified to be chosen merely be- cause they are old and poor, but only such old and poor women as are of good • report for their sobriety, industry, Q 2 2 28 Regard for VirtiM and Religion in the Charities. and Christian behaviour in their several stations. The want of these virtuous quahfications is not to be dispensed with ; it being our desire and intention by these provisions to reward the virtue and merit of such ancient women, and prevent their falling to the straitness of a parish allowance in the time of their age and infirmities. If, therefore, in any after times any ancient women of ill manners, of unchris- tian behaviour, who have had the character of idle, gossip- ing, or slothful persons should be nominated, such dis- regard of virtuous qualifications would be as great a viola- tion of the nature and design of these charities, as if young women, or persons of another parish, were chosen in them.' The same strict regard for virtue and religion is shown in the case of the schools :— ' If a master or mistress be not of a perfectly sober, decent, and Christian behaviour, and of good example to the children, the trustees are earnestly requested not to suffer the continuance of such a master or mistress, a more pious and virtuous education of the- children than that of a common school being the one great end chiefl^y intended by these foundations.' And as an indication of the particular form of Christianity in which W, Law desired the children to be trained, and the ancient maidens and widows to be cherished, the following provi- sions may be quoted : — ' The Rector of King's Cliffe for the time being is always to be a trustee. As soon as he is inducted into the living of King's Cliffe, and enters upon his first residence, he has a right to claim admission into the trust. No other person of King's Cliffe is ever to be a trustee ; be he who he will, or of what degree soever, he is utterly incapable of being admitted or chosen into any share of this trust.' The Trustees are always ' to be chosen out of the neighbouring gentry and clergy not more than four miles distant from King's Cliffe.' ' Every boy and girl at their going out of the school are to have a new ' Rules to be observed by Girls' 229 Bible, and Book of Common Prayer distinct from it, given to them.' The holidays are to be only at the times of the three great Church festivals — Christmas, Easter, and Whit- suntide — ' but in harvest time the children are allowed to glean in the fields for their parents, after having said each of them one lesson early in the morning.' ' The master at his first entrance into the school in the morning is to pray with the children, and again at 12 o'clock, except on those days when they go to church, and again at their breaking up in the evening.' The other provisions are mostly of a business nature, sensible, but not generally interesting ; but the above ex- tracts are quoted to show that what Law most of all desired was that the children should be so trained that they might grow up to be good Christians, and good churchmen and churchwomen. When Law became a mystic he did not cease to be a churchman. These pdints are more strikingly brought out in the following ' Rules to be observed by girls,' which were evi- dently drawn up by Mr. Law himself, and which are so interesting in their touching simplicity, that I trust there is no need to apologise for quoting from them at some length. After some excellent injunctions about teaching the girls to pray, to behave courteously, to learn certain lessons, &c., they provide : — (7) Every girl, as soon as she can say the whole cate- chism in a ready manner shall have a shilling given her, before them all, with commendation and exhortation to go on in her duty. (8) Every girl shall have sixpence given her, as soon as she can say by heart the morning and evening prayer. (9) Every one that shall get by heart the 5th, 6th, 7th, i8th, or 25th chapters of S. Matthew, or the 6th or 7th of S. Luke, or the 18th or 19th of S. John; or the iSth 230 ^ Rules to be observed by Girls! chapter of i Cor. from the 20th verse, shall have for every such chapter, a shilling given her, in the presence of all the rest, with commendation and exhortation to love and practise the Word of God. They shall also ever after repeat these chapters, one at a time, once every week, in a plain and distinct manner ; at which time every other girl shall leave off her work, and quietly listen to the chapter that is repeat- ing. At the end of which chapter they shall all say, ' Glory be to Thee, O Lord, for this thy holy word,' and, making a curtsey, every one shall sit down in their proper seat. (11) Every girl that gives the lie to any other girl, or to any person, or that calls another, fool, or uses any rude or unmannerly word, shall, the morning afterwards, as soon as they are all there, be obliged to kneel down before her mis- tress, and in the presence of them all, say in a plain and distinct manner, these words : — ' Our blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ, hath said that "Whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." I, therefore am heartily sorry for the wicked words that I have spoken to my fel- low Christian ; I humbly beg pardon of God, and of all you that are here present, hoping and promising, by the help of God, never to offend again in the like manner.' Then shall the girl she had abused come and take her from her knees, and kiss her ; and both turning to their mistress, they shall make a curtsey, and return to their seats. (12) Any girl that shall be found to have told a lie, to have cursed or swore, or done any undutiful thing to her parents, or to have stolen anything from any other girl, shall stand chained a whole morning to some particular part of the room by herself, and afterwards, in the presence of them all, shall, upon her knees, repeat these words : — ' The word of God teaches us that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. I, therefore, a wicked child, ^ Rules to be observed by Girls' 231 humbly confess before God, and all you that are here pre- sent, that I have grievously sinned against God, in lying [or cursing, swearing, or stealing, as the case may be]. I am heartily sorry for this great sin, and humbly on my knees, beg of God to forgive me. I desire you all to pray for me and to forgive me, and I promise by God's grace never to commit the like fault.' Then shall the mistress say this prayer : ' Almighty' God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, who desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his sins, and be saved ; we beseech Thee to have mercy upon this child, who hath confessed her sins unto Thee, and grant that both she, and all of us here present, may, by the assistance of thy Holy Spirit, be preserved from all sin, strengthened in all goodness, and serve Thee faithfully all the days of our life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.' Then shall all the girls rise, and making a curtsey, return to their seats. (13) Any girl that continues to commit these faults, after the third time, Mr. George Law shall be called in, and he shall turn her away. (14) Every girl when she walks in the street shall make a curtsey to all masters and mistresses of families, and to all ancient people, whether rich or poor. They shall also make a curtsey when they enter into any house, and at their coming out of it. (16) Every girl shall be constant at church at all times of divine service, as well on the week-days as on Sundays. They shall all learn to sing the psalms, and to get them by heart that are most commonly sung. They must always go to church at all funerals, and placing them- selves at those times together, all of them join in sing- ing the psalm that shall then be appointed. These rules, and others which it is unnecessary to quote, are all corrected in Mr. Law's own handwriting. Then 232 Living the Life of ' The Serious Call' there are prayers for all the canonical hours, private prayers for the children, and a short ' prayer on entering into the church,' which is so beautiful that I cannot forbear quoting it : — ' Lord, receive me, I beseech thee, in this thy holy house of prayer, and grant that I may worship and pray unto thee, with as much reverence and godly fear, as if I saw the heavens open, and all the angels that stand round thy throne. Amen.' The other prayers are too long to quote, but they are so spiritually and elegantly expressed, that if we had no other evidence (which we have) than internal evidence, we might be quite sure that they were the composition of none other than Mr. Law himself In fact, the settlement of these charities occupied a good deal of Mr. Law's time during the first three years of his resi- dence with Mrs. Hutcheson and Miss Gibbon in the Hall Yard ; and indeed the attending to them seems to have constituted one of his chief outward employments during the remainder of his life. The life spent by this worthy trio was not an eventful one ; but, for its literal fulfilment of the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, it was perhaps without a parallel in England, at least during the eighteenth century. Law had described in the ' Serious Call,' the sort of life a Chris- tian, in his opinion, ought to live ; and that life he strove to live himself to the very letter, without the slightest abatement or reserve, A few details of his mode of doing so will, it is hoped, not be uninteresting to the reader. It will be remembered that in the ' Serious Call ' great stress is laid upon the duty of early rising. Accordingly, Mr. Law himself rose about five o'clock every morning, and spent of course the first hours of the day in private devo- tion and study, At nine o'clock the whole household assembled for devotion, of which the collects and psalms for the day invariably formed part. Then Mr. Law retired Laws Mode of Life at King's.Cliffe. 233 to his study, but not to a sanctum where he was liable to no interruption. His window overlooked a courtyard, and every mendicant knew that if he appeared before that win- dow and preferred his claim for relief, that claim would secure Mr. Law's instant and careful attention, no matter how busily he might be engaged. As there was, no doubt, the same freemasonry among beggars in the eighteenth as there is in the nineteenth century, we can readily believe that Mr. Law rarely spent a ' quiet morning ' without holding a sort of ragged levee ; and as he always made a point of inquiring into every applicant's peculiar wants, and seeing them supplied with his own eyes, no small amount of his time must have been thus taken up. The family dined at noon in summer, and at one in winter ; immediately after dinner the whole household was again assembled for devo- tion. Then Mr. Law again retired to his study until tea- time, when he descended into the parlour and entered into cheerful conversation with the ladies, not, however, sitting down and partaking of the meal, but standing and eating a few raisins. The whole household was then again assem- bled for devotion, the servants reading a chapter of the Bible in turn and Mr. Law explaining it. Law then took a brisk ' constitutional,', and after another frugal meal and a final assembling of the whole family for devotion, retired to his room, smoked one pipe and drank a glass of water, and retired to rest at nine o'clock. This was the ordinary routine of every day when there was no church service ; but on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as, of course, on Sundays, the whole family went to church, and also often entertained some of the neighbour- ing gentry, whom they probably invited on' those days for the express purpose of getting them to accompany them to God's house. The Hon. Misses Finch Hatton used to dine with them every alternate Friday, and after service the 234 Some of Law s Peculiar Habits. whole party used to go out for an airing, Mrs. Hutcheson and the guests in a carriage (no doubt, Mrs. Hutcheson's, for Byrom speaks of ' Mrs. Hutcheson's coachman '), and Mr. Law and Miss Gibbon on horseback. Such was the quiet and regular life which Law led at King's CHffe. It may add vividness to the picture to men- tion one or two of his little habits which are thoroughly characteristic of the mingled simplicity, oddity, kindliness, and at the same time beautiful Christian ideas of the man. 1. Law held that the outward employment of every day ought to commence with an act of charity. Accordingly, after his early devotions and studies, his first act daily was to distribute with his own hands among his poorer neigh- bours all the milk (except the little that was required for the family use) derived from four cows which he kept for this very purpose. 2. Wood turnery was then, as now, the staple trade of King's Cliffe. Law, therefore, always ate out of a wooden trencher, in order to encourage the local trade. Some say that he adopted this habit, because it was the ancient col- lege fashion ; others, because he thought that plates injured knives ; but, besides that the evidence for the former reason is stronger, it is also far more like the man, and therefore may safely be adopted. 3. In order that he might not give to others what he would not thankfully receive himself. Law always made a point of wearing on his own person the coarse linen shirts which he had made for the poor ; they were then washed, and distributed as occasion required. 4. For the same reason, he made a point of tasting the soup which was concocted regularly every day for the poor ; and it is said that the only occasions on which his consti- tutional irascibility ever showed itself were, when, on mak- ing a sudden raid upon the kitchen, he found that the soup Some of Law'^ Peculiar Habits. 235 was not strong enough, or that room was not at once made upon the kitchen fire for a mendicant's vessel. 5. Law was very humane to dumb animals. When he saw a bird in a cage, he always felt an irrepressible desire to open the cage door and give the captive a chance of escape — a doubtful kindness in the case of such birds as canaries^ who, if they took advantage of the chance offered them, would only fly away to die. This, by the way, was not the only mistaken kindness which Mr. Law showed, as we shall see presently. 6. Law was exceedingly fond of music. Whether he had any great musical power himself, does not appear ; probably not, for if he had, he would hardly have maintained the paradox that everybody could sing. But to listen to music, and to sing himself, after a fashion, was his delight. Of course, like everything else in Law's view, music was to be made subservient to religious purposes. It was probably at his request that the Psalms were always sung at King's Cliffe Church ; it was certainly at his suggestion that a large music-room was built in the Hall Yard, and an organ placed there, on which Miss Gibbon used to perform sacred music. Singing also formed a regular and frequent em- ployment at the schools of which Law was the presiding genius. 7. Law loved little children, and, like many men of his temperament, seems to have lost all his austerity when he had to do with them. The large space which he devoted to the right training of the young in his ' Practical Treatises,' the money which he spent, and, still more, the time and trouble which he gave to the management of his charity schools are a sufficient indication of this partiality. And he loved to have little ones about him. He was always de- lighted to see his nephew's children, and encouraged them to visit the Hall Yard as often as possible. A pretty pic- 236 Laws Personal Appearance and Manners. ture has been left us by an eye witness, of this grave, stern man playing with his great-nephews and nieces, and giving them ' rides on his foot.' One almost instinctively speaks of Law as a grave and stern man, partly because his works — especially those v/ritten in his ante-mystic period — give one that impression, and partly because a tradition of the kind has been handed down ; but there were others besides little children, on whom Law left anything but an impression of sternness and gravity. Perhaps this is as convenient a place as will be found for saying a few words on Law's personal appear- ance and manners. Very characteristically, but very inconveniently for his biographer. Law steadily refused the entreaties of his friends that he should sit for his portrait. He would not allow any sketch of any kind to be made of him ; he is thus, per- haps, the only celebrity of the eighteenth century of whose outer man we have no authentic picture. The consequence IS that we have some very conflicting accounts of his per- sonal appearance, varying, no doubt, according to the vari- ous impressions which he made upon those who, to use a vile modern term, ' interviewed ' him. The expression is used advisedly ; he was literally ' interviewed,' that is, visited with the same purpose with which ' Our own Corre- spondent' visits great personages at the present day, to make a report of what he sees. Law strongly objected to the process ; and we can well understand his not making a very favourable impression upon some of his interviewers. The biographer of Mr. Charles Wesley writes : ' Mr. Law is said to have been a tall, thin, bony man, of a stern and for- bidding countenance, sour and repulsive in his spirit and manner, resembling, in this respect, the religion which he taught.'' This is written in reference to a visit paid by ' Jackson's Memoirs of the Kev. Charles Wesley, p. S^- Impression left zipon Methodists, 237 Charles Wesley in September, 1737, to 'this eloquent but erring man, then resident at Putney.' Dr. Jackson does not inform us by whom this was said, but one can quite believe that it would be the sort of tradition about Law that would be handed down from generation to generation of Metho- dists. And not altogether without reason. For Law, though he was frequently dubbed a Methodist, had in re- ality but very little sympathy with them ; he did not do justice to their good points, and he was keenly alive to their weaknesses ; ' therefore he did not show himself, per- haps he did not even desire to show himself, at his best to them. We have seen that even the first and greatest of them, John Wesley himself, had to complain of Law's ' sour and morose behaviour ; ' and, if John Wesley was not alto- gether to Law's liking, most certainly others, who belonged, broadly speaking, to the same school, were still less so. One of the sisters of the Wesleys, who had an interview with Law, described him, as ' the very model of the law itself for severity and gravity.' This is the way in which Peter Bohler describes an interview he had with Law. On the introduction of John Wesley, ' I began speaking to him of faith in Christ. He was silent. Then he began to speak of mystical matters again. I saw his state at once ; ' and the good man is pleased to add, ' it was a very dangerous one.' It is curious to compare with this. Law's own account of the same interview ; but without attempting to reconcile the discrepancies between the two accounts, of this we may be sure, that Bohler was just the sort of man before whom Law would shut himself up in his shell. As a proof of this here is a graphic description in Law's own words of the way in which the London Moravians, of whom Bohler was ■ For instance, he wrot to his friend Langcake, ' These men of zeal, whether of the Foundry, the Tabernacle, or elsewhere, seem to have a fire that has as much of nature as of grace in it,' and as such he treated them. 238 Law showed his rough side to the Methodists. a shining light, impressed Law, and the way in which he treated them. ' Mr. Gambold was with me both before and after he was a Moravian. At first he came with six or seven of his fellow Methodists from Oxford ; he only then hung down his head, spoke now and then a word or two, with much show of humility, meekness, &c. I said to one- of them, whom I had been more acquainted with, that I could not tell what to make of Mr. Gambold, or why he should come to me. He said it was his great modesty that made him act in this manner. When I afterwards saw him by himself, and he was more open, I could see nothing in him but that same kind of soft, humble, and meek language, that had nothing else in it. He afterwards consulted me by a letter from Oxford, in which he desired me to consider him as one that had been deeply experienced in all that the mystics had written in every age. And yet his letter was a full demonstration of quite the contrary. Two or three of the chief Moravians made attempts upon me in the same show of meek, humble, and mighty deliberate language. This may, perhaps, have much helped forward Mr. Gam- bold's uniting with them, for what they say-has nothing to recommend it but their manner of saying it. What a folly for a man to say he has read Behmen and the mystics, who can talk no better about them than Mr. G. has done.' ' As Law was the very last man in the world to conceal his real sentiments, as he was outspoken almost to a fault, we can well conceive that he would show his rough side to men of whom he wrote after this fashion. But he had another side which he showed to his friends, on whom his outward appearance made a very different impression from that which it made upon Methodists and Moravians. Mr. Richard Tighe visited Cliffe at the begin- > This was written in 1757, probably to Mr. Langcake. LatJi) s Appearance as described by Friends. 239 ning of the present century for the express purpose of ac- quiring all the information he could respecting William Law. He must therefore have conversed with several who remembered him personally ; and, in fact, one of his in- formants was Law's great-nephew and heir, one of those very children whom Law had danced on his knee half-a- century before. Mr. Tighe thus describes Law's appearance and habits. ' Mr. Law was in stature rather over than under the middle size ; not corpulent, but stout-made, with broad shoulders ; his visage was round, his eyes grey ; his features well proportioned, and not large ; his complexion ruddy, and his countenance open and agreeable. He was naturally more inclined to be merry than sad. In his habits he was very regular and temperate ; he rose early, &c.' ' And again, ' By those persons now dwelling at Cliffe who knew Mr. Law, it was reported that he was by nature of an active and cheerful disposition, very warm-hearted, unaifected, and affable, but not to appearance so remarkable for meekness as some others of the most revered members of the Christian Church are reported to have been'^ — a hit, of course, at the Methodists. A correspondent of the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for October 1 800, writes : ' Con- cerning that good and truly great man, the Rev. W. Law, commonly called the mystic divine, give me leave to ob- serve, that many years since I was acquainted with some of his admirers, from whom I understood that Mr. Law was a bachelor all his life-time, that in person he was a well-set man, and rather of a dark complexion, though remarkably cheerful in his temper.' And that most indefatigable inves- tigator of everything relating to William Law, the late Mr. Walton, after repeating, but with fuller detail, the account ' A Short Account of the Life and Writings of the late Rev. William Law, by Richard Tighe, p. 30-1. There is a portrait in the possession of Miss Law which is supposed to have resembled William Law, and it tallies with this description. ' ' ^^