Quotations from William Law

For these quotations 1 am indebted to the really excellent work of the Rev. Dr. ALEXANDER WHYTE, of Free St. George’s, Edinburgh. In preparing that unique and pregnant work, Dr. Whyte has laid the whole Christian Church under deep obligation.

FLATUS.

FLATUsS is rich and in health, yet always uneasy, and always searching after happiness. Hvery time you visit him you find some new project in his head; he is eager upon it as something that is more worth his while, and will do more for him than anything that is already past. Every new thing so seizes him that if you were to take him from it he would think himself quite undone. His sanguine temper and strong passions promise him so much happiness in everything that he is always cheated, and is satisfied with nothing.

At his first setting out in life fine clothes were his delight; his inquiry was only after the best tailors and peruke-makers, and he had no thought of excelling in anything but dress. He spared no expense, but carried every nicety to its greatest height. But this happiness not answering his expectations, he left off his brocades, put on a plain coat, railed at fops and beaux, and gave’ himself up to gaming with great eagerness. ‘This

new pleasure satisfied him for a time, and he envied ad, no other way of life. But being by the fate of play drawn into a duel, where he narrowly escaped his death, he left off the dice, and sought for happiness no longer amongst the gamesters. The next thing that seized his wandering imagination was the diversions of the town, and for more than a twelvemonth you heard him talk of nothing but ladies, drawing-rooms, birth-nights, plays, balls, and assemblies. But growing sick of these, he had recourse to hard drinking. Here he had many a merry night, and met with stronger joys than any he had felt before. Here he had thoughts of setting up his staff, and looking out no further; but, unluckily falling into a fever, he grew angry at all strong liquors, and took his leave of the happiness of being drunk. The next attempt after happiness carried him into the field; for two or three years nothing was so happy as hunting; he entered upon it with all his soul, and leaped more hedges and ditches than had ever been known in so short a time. You never saw him but in a green coat; he was the envy of all that blow the horn, and always spoke to his dogs in great propriety of language. If you met him at home in a bad day, you would hear him blow his horn, and be entertained with the surprising accidents of the last noble chase. No sooner had Flatus outdone all the world in the breed and education of his dogs, built new kennels, new stables, and bought a new hunting-seat, but he immediately got sight of another happiness, hated the senseless noise and hurry of hunting, gave away the dogs, and was for some time after deep in the pleasures of building.

Now he invents new kinds of dove-cots, and such contrivances in his barns and stables as were never seen before. He wonders at the dulness of the old builders, is wholly bent upon the improvement of architecture, and will hardly hang a door in the ordinary way. He tells his friends that he never so delighted in anything in his life, that he has more happiness amongst his bricks and mortar than ever he had at court, and that he is contriving how to have some little matter to do that way as long as he lives.

The next year he leaves his house unfinished, complains to everybody of masons and carpenters, and devotes himself wholly to the happiness of riding about. After this you can never see him but on horseback, and so highly delighted with this new way of life that he would tell you, Give him but his horse and a clean country to ride in, and you might take all the rest to yourself. A variety of new saddles and bridles, and a great change of horses, added much to the pleasure of this new way of life. But, however, having after some time tired both himself and his horses, the happiest thing he could think of next was to go abroad and visit foreign countries; and there, indeed, happiness exceeded his imagination, and he was only uneasy that he had not sooner begun so fine a life. The next month he returned home, unable to bear any longer the impertinence of foreigners. After this he was a great student for one whole year; he was up early and late at his Italian grammar, that he might have the happiness of understanding the opera whenever he should hear one, and not be like those unreasonable people that are pleased with they know not what.

Flatus is very ill-natured, or otherwise, just as his affairs happen to be when you visit him; if you find him when some project is almost worn out, you will find a peevish, ill-bred man; but if you had seen him just as he entered upon his riding regimen, or begun to excel in sounding of the horn, you would have been saluted with great civility. Flatus is now at a full stand, and is doing what he never did in his life before — he is reasoning and reflecting with himself. He loses several days in considering which of his cast-off ways of life he should try again. But here a new project comes in to his relief. He is now living upon herbs, and running about the country to get himself into as good wind as any running-footman in the

kingdom.

CALIDUS.

CaLiDus has traded above thirty years in the greatest city of the kingdom: he has been so many years constantly increasing his trade and his fortune. Every hour of the day is with him an hour of business: and though he eats and drinks very heartily, yet every meal seems to be in a hurry, and he would say grace if he had time. Calidus ends every day at the tavern, but has not leisure to be there till near nine o’clock. He is always forced to drink a good hearty glass to drive thoughts of business out of his head and make his spirits drowsy enough for sleep. He does business all the time that he is rising, and has settled several matters before he can get to his compting-room. His prayers are a short ejaculation or two, which he never misses in stormy, tempestuous weather, because he has always something or other at sea.

Calidus will tell you with great pleasure that he has been in this hurry for so many years, and that it must have killed him long ago, but that it has been a rule with him to get out of the town every Saturday, and make the Sunday a day of quiet and good refreshment in the country. He is now so rich that he would leave off his business and amuse his old age with building and furnishing a fine house in the country, but that he is afraid he should grow melancholy if he was to quit his business. He will tell you with great gravity that it is a dangerous thing for a man that has been used to get money ever to leave it off. If thoughts of religion happen at any time to steal into his head, Calidus contents himself with thinking that he was never a friend to — heretics and infidels, that he has always been civil to the minister of his parish, and very often given something to the charity schools.

Now this way of life is at such a distance from all the doctrines and discipline of Christianity, that no one can live in it through ignorance or frailty. Calidus can no more imagine that he is born again of the Spirit, that he is in Christ a new creature, that he lives here as a stranger and pilgrim, setting his affections upon things above, and laying up treasures in heaven — he can no more imagine this than he can think that he has been all his life an apostle, working miracles and preaching the gospel. It must also be owned that the generality of trading people, especially in great towns, are too much like Calidus. You see them all the week buried in

. business, unable to think of anything else, and then spending the Sunday in idleness and refreshment, in wandering into the country, in such visits and jovial meetings as make it often the worst day of the week.

Now they do not live thus because they cannot support themselves with less care and application to business, but they live thus because they want to grow rich in their trades and to maintain their families in some such figure and degree of finery as a reasonable Christian life has no occasion for. Take away but this temper, and then people of all trades will find themselves at leisure to live every day like Christians, to be careful of every duty of the gospel, to live in a visible course of religion, and to be every day strict observers both of private and public prayer. Now the only way to do this is for people to consider their trade as something that they are obliged to devote to the glory of God, something that they are to do only in such a manner as that they may make it a duty to Him. Nothing can be right in business that is not under these rules. The apostle commands servants to be obedient to their masters in singleness of heart as unto Christ, not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men.

NEGOTIUS.

NEGOTIUS is a temperate, honest man. He has served his time under a master of great trade, but has by his own management made it a more considerable business than ever it was before. For thirty years last past he has written fifty or sixty letters in a week, and is busy in corresponding with all parts of Europe. The general good of trade seems to Negotius to be the general good of life: whomsoever he admires, whatever he commends or condemns, either in Church or State, is admired, commended, with some regard to trade. As money is continually pouring in upon him, so he often lets it go in various kinds of expense and generosity, and sometimes in ways of charity.

Negotius is always ready to join in any public contribution. If a purse is making at any place where he happens to be, whether it be to buy a plate for a horse race, or to redeem a prisoner out of gaol, you are always sure of having something from him. He has given a fine ring of bells toa church in the country, and there is much expectation that he will some time or other make a more beautiful front to the market-house than has yet been seen in any place. For it is the generous spirit of Negotius to do nothing in a mean way.

If you ask what it is that has secured Negotius from all scandalous vices, it is the same thing that has kept him from all strictness of devotion: it is his great business. He has always had too many important things in his head, his thoughts have been too much employed, to suffer him to fall either into any course of rakery, or to feel the necessity of an inward solid piety. For this reason he hears of the pleasures of debauchery and the pleasures of piety with the same indifferency, and has no more desire of living in the one than in the other, because neither of them consists with that turn of mind and multiplicity of business which are his happiness. If Negotius were asked what it is which he drives at in life, he would be as much at a loss for an answer as if he were asked what any other person was thinking of. For though he always seems to himself to know what he is doing, and has many things in his head. which are the motives of his actions, yet he cannot tell you of any one general end of life that he has chosen with deliberation as being truly worthy of all his labour and pains. He has several confused notions in his head which have been a long time there, such as these are, viz., That it is something great to have more business than other people, to have more dealings upon his hands than a hundred of the same profession, to grow continually richer and richer, and to raise an immense fortune before he dies.

The thing that seems to give Negotius the greatest life and spirit, and to be most in his thoughts, is an expectation that he has, that he shall die richer than any one in his business ever did....

But further. Let it now be supposed that Negotius, when first entered into business, happening to read the gospel with attention and eyes open, found that he had a much greater business upon his hands than that to which he had served an apprenticeship; that there were things which belong to man of muck more importance than all that our eyes can see, so glorious as to deserve all our thoughts, so dangerous as to need all our care, and so certain as never to deceive the faithful labourer. Let it be supposed that from reading this book he had discovered that his soul was more to him than his body; that it was better to grow in the virtues of the soul than to have a large body or a full purse; that it was better to be fit for heaven than to have a variety of fine houses upon the earth; that it was better to secure an everlasting happiness than to have plenty of things which he cannot keep; better to live in habits of humility, piety, devotion, charity, and self-denial, than to die unprepared for judgment; better to be most like our Saviour or some eminent saint than to excel all the tradesmen in the world in business and bulk of fortune. Let it be supposed that Negotius, believing these things to be true, entirely devoted himself to God at his first setting out in the world, resolving to pursue his business no further than was consistent with great devotion, humility, and self-denial, and for no other ends but to provide himself with a sober subsistence, and to do all the good that he could to the souls and bodies of all his fellow-creatures. Let it therefore be supposed that, instead of the continual hurry of business, he was frequent in his retirements, and a strict observer of all the hours of prayer; that instead of restless desires after more riches his soul had been full of the love of God and heavenly affection, constantly watching against worldly tempers, and always aspiring after Divine grace; that instead of worldly cares and contrivances he was busy in fortifying his soul against all approaches of sin; that instead of costly show and expensive generosity of a splendid life he loved and exercised all instances of humility and lowliness; that instead of great treats and full tables his house only furnished a sober refreshment to those that wanted it. Let it be supposed that his contentment kept him free from all kinds of envy, that his piety made him thankful to God in all crosses and disappointments, that his charity kept him from being rich by a continual distribution to all objects of compassion.

Now, had this been the spirit of Negotius, can any one say that he had lost the true joy and happiness of life by thus conforming to the spirit and living up to the hopes of the gospel? Can it be said that a life made exemplary by such virtues as these, which keep heaven always in our sight, which both delight and exalt the soul here and prepare it for the presence of God hereafter, must be poor and dull, if compared with that of heaping up riches, which can neither stay with us nor we with them?

EARLY RISING.

I TAKE it for granted that every Christian that is in health is up early in the morning: for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early because he is a Christian than because he is a labourer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or has business that wants him. We naturally conceive some abhorrence of a man that is in bed when he should be at his labour, or in his shop. We cannot tell how to think any good of him. who is such a slave to drowsiness as to neglect his business for it. Let this, therefore, teach us to conceive how odious we must appear in the sight of Heaven if we are in bed, shut up in sleep and darkness, when we should be praising God, and are such slaves to drowsiness as to neglect our devotions for it. For, if he is to be blamed as a slothful drone that rather chooses the lazy indulgence of sleep than to perform his proper share of worldly business, how much more is - he to be reproached that had rather lie folded up in bed than to be raising up his heart to God in acts of praise and adoration. Prayer is the nearest approach to God, and the highest enjoyment of Him that we are capable of in this life. It is the noblest exercise of the soul, the most exalted use of our best faculties, and the highest imitation of the blessed inhabitants of heaven. When our hearts are full of God, sending up holy desires to the throne of grace, we are then in our highest state, we are upon the utmost heights of human greatness; we are not before kings and princes, but in the presence and audience of the Lord of all the world, and can be no higher till death is swallowed up in glory. On the other hand, sleep is the poorest, dullest refreshment of the body, that is so far from being intended as an enjoyment that we are forced to receive it either in a state of insensibility or in the folly of dreams. Sleep is such a dull, stupid state of existence, that even amongst mere animals we despise them most which are most drowsy. He, therefore, that chooses to enlarge the slothful indulgence of sleep rather than be early at his

devotions to God, chooses the dullest’ refreshment It of the body before the highest, noblest employment of the soul; he chooses that state which is a reproach to mere animals rather than that exercise which is the glory of angels..

Some people will tell you that they indulge themselves in sleep because they have nothing to do, and that if they had either business or pleasure to rise to, they would not lose so much of their time in sleep. But such people must be told that they mistake the matter, that they have a great deal of business to do; they have a hardened heart to change, they have the whole spirit of religion to get. For surely he that thinks devotion to be of less moment than business or pleasure, or that he has nothing to do because nothing but his prayers want him, may be justly said to have the whole spirit of religion to seek.

CovVETOUSNESS.

Theophilus — — Tell me now, have I enough proved to you the short, simple, and certain way of destroying that body of self which lives and works in the four elements of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath?

Theogenes — Enough of all reason. But as to covetousness, I thank God I cannot charge myself with it: it has no power over me; nay, I naturally abhor it. And I also now clearly see why I have been so long struggling in vain against other selfish tempers.

Theophilus. — Permit me, my friend, to remove your mistake. Had covetousness no power over you, you could have no other selfish tempers to struggle against. They are all dead, as soon as covetousness has done working in you. You take covetousness to relate only to the wealth of this world. But that is but one single branch of it; its nature is as large as desire, and wherever selfish desire is, there is all the evil nature of covetousness. Now envy, pride, hatred, or wrath can have no possibility of existence in you, but because there is some selfish desire alive in you that is not satisfied, not gratified, but resisted or disappointed. And therefore, so long as any selfish tempers, whether of envy, uneasiness, complaint, pride, or wrath are alive in you, you have the fullest proof that all these tempers are born and bred in and from your own covetousness — that is, from that same selfish bad desire which, when it is turned to the wealth of this world, is called covetousness. For all these four elements of self are fallen nature — are ied together in one inseparable band; they mutually generate, and are generated from one another; they have but one common life, and must all of them live or all die together. This may show you again the absolute necessity of our one simple and certain way of dying to self, and the absolute insufficiency of all human means whatever to effect it....

Theogenes. — What a blindness was it in me, to think that I had no covetousness because the love of pelf was not felt by me! For to covet is to desire. And what can it signify whether I desire this or that? If I desire anything but that which God would have me to be and do, I stick in- the mire of covetousness, and must have all that evil and disquiet living and working in me which robs misers of their peace both with God and man. Oh, sweet resignation of myself to God, happy death of every selfish desire, blessed unction of a holy life, the only driver of all evil out of my soul, be thou my guide and governor wherever I go! Nothing but thou canst take me from myself. Nothing but thou canst lead to God: hell has no power where thou art, nor can heaven hide itself from thee. Oh, may I never indulge a thought, bring forth a word, or do anything for myself or others, but under the influence of thy blessed inspiration! Forgive, dear Theophilus, this transport of my soul: I could not stop it. The sight, though distant, of this heavenly Canaan — this Sabbath of the soul — freed from the miserable labour of self, to rest in meekness, humility, patience, and resignation under the Spirit of God, is like the joyful voice of the Bridegroom to my soul, and leaves no wish in me but to be at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

RULES FOR MY FururRE CoNnpDuwcrt.

1. 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.

2. To examine everything that relates to me in this view, as it serves or obstructs this only end of life.

3. 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.

4. To avoid all concerns with the world or the ways of it but where religion and charity oblige me to act.

5. 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 all the world.

6. That the greatness of human nature consists in nothing else but in. imitating the Divine Nature.

That, therefore, all the greatness of the world which is not in good actions is perfectly beside the point.

7. 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.

8. To avoid all excess in eating and drinking.

g. To spend as little time as I possibly can among such persons as can receive no benefit from me nor I from them.:

10. To be always fearful of letting my time slip away without some fruit.

11. To avoid all idleness.

12. To call to mind the presence of God whenever I find myself under any temptation to sin, and to have immediate recourse to prayer.

13. To think humbly of myself, and with great charity of all others.

14. To forbear from all evil-speaking.

15. To think often of the life of Christ, and propose it as a pattern to myself.

16. To pray privately three times a day, besides morning and evening prayers.