Quotes from William Law

You have seen, that the Properties of Nature are, and can be, nothing else in their own Life, but a restless Hunger, Disquiet, and blind Strife for they know not what, till the Property of Light and Love has got Possession of them.

This is a noble magnificence of thought, a true religious greatness of mind, to be thus affected with God's general providence, admiring and magnifying His wisdom in all things; never murmuring at the course of the world, or the state of things, but looking upon all around, at heaven and earth, as a pleased spectator, and adoring that invisible hand, which gives laws to all motions, and overrules all events to ends suitable to the highest wisdom and goodness.

The Deist, therefore, who looks for Life and Salvation through the Use of his Reason, acts contrary to the whole Nature of every Thing that he sees and knows of himself and of the Nature and State of this World.

For Love is the one only Blessing and Goodness, and God of Nature; and you have no true Religion, are no Worshiper of the one true God, but in and by that Spirit of Love, which is God himself living and working in you.

Look at all Nature, through all its Height and Depth, in all its Variety of working Powers; it is what it is for this only End, that the hidden Riches, the invisible Powers, Blessings, Glory, and Love of the unsearchable God, may become visible, sensible, and manifest in and by it.

Look at all the Variety of Creatures; they are what they are for this only End, that in their infinite Variety, Degrees, and Capacities, they may be as so many speaking Figures, living Forms of the manifold Riches and Powers of Nature, as so many Sounds and Voices, Preachers, and Trumpets, giving Glory and Praise and Thanksgiving to that Deity of Love which gives Life to all Nature and Creature.

Wonder not therefore, Academicus, that all the Work of our Salvation and Regeneration is, by the Scripture, wholly confined to the Operation of the Light and Spirit of God, living and working in us.

For by Charity here, the Apostle means neither more nor less, but strictly that same Thing, which, in other Places, he calls the new Creature, Christ formed in us, and our being led by the Spirit of Christ. According to the Apostle, nothing availeth but the new Creature, nothing availeth but the Spirit of Charity here described; therefore this Charity, and the new Creature, are only two different Expressions of one and the same Thing, viz., the Birth, and Formation of Christ in us.

Never, therefore, allow yourselves to despise those who do not follow your rules of life: but force your hearts to love them, and pray to God for them; and let humility be always whispering it into your ears, that you yourselves would fall from those rules to-morrow, if God should leave you to your own strength and wisdom.

The want of our religion is that there is too little personal dealing with God. Our faith stands more in the wisdom of men than in the power of God. There is no need so crying as that believers be taught how to meet with God, to tarry and to dwell with Him. This the Holy Spirit alone can do.

There can be no Goodness and Happiness for any intelligent Creature, but in and by this two-fold Life; and therefore the Union of the Divine and human Life, or the Son of God incarnate in Man, to make Man again a Partaker of the Divine Nature, is the one only possible Salvation for all the Sons of fallen Adam, that is, of Adam dead to, or fallen from his first Union with the Divine Life.

Deism, therefore, or a Religion of Nature, pretending to make Man good and happy without Christ, or the Son of God entering into Union with the human Nature, is the greatest of all Absurdities.

For Nature and Creature, without the Christ of God or the Divine Life in Union with it, is and can be nothing else but this mere Emptiness, Hunger, and Want of all that which can alone make it good and happy.

The want of our religion is that there is too little personal dealing with God. Our faith stands more in the wisdom of men than in the power of God. There is no need so crying as that believers be taught how to meet with God, to tarry and to dwell with Him. This the Holy Spirit alone can do. But

And therefore, that the holy Deity is all Love, and Blessing, and Goodness, willing and working only Love and Goodness to every Thing, as far as it can receive it, is a Truth as deeply grounded in me as the feeling of my own Existence.

all Salvation is, and can be nothing else, but the Manifestation of the Life of God in the Soul.

A new commandment," saith He, "I give unto you, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." [John xiii. 34, 35]

For the Life of the Creature, whilst only creaturely, and possessing nothing but itself, is Hell; that is, it is all Pain and Want and Distress. Now nothing, in the Nature of the Thing, can make the least Alteration in this creaturely Life, nothing can help it to be in Light and Love, in Peace and Goodness, but the Union of God with it, and the Life of God working in it, because nothing but God is Light, and Love, and heavenly Goodness.

And, therefore, where the Life of God is not become the Life and Goodness of the Creature, there the Creature cannot have the least Degree of Goodness in it.

Now the Holiness of the common Christian is not an occasional Thing, that begins and ends, or is only for such a Time, or Place, or Action, but is the Holiness of that, which is always alive and stirring in us, namely, of our Thoughts, Wills, Desires, and Affections.

It is because the Spirit of Christ, is not the one only thing that is the Desire of their Hearts; and therefore their Learning only Works in, and with the Spirit of this World, and becomes itself, no small Part of the Vanity of Vanities.

And thus the Work of our Salvation is wholly and solely the Work of the Light and Spirit of God, dwelling and operating in us.

We often charge Men, both in Church and State, with changing their Principles; but the Charge is too hasty; for no Man ever did, or can change his Principles, but by a Birth from above.

For you are to observe, that Body begins not from itself, nor is any Thing of itself, but is all that it is, whether pure or impure, has all that it has, whether of Light or Darkness, and works all that it works, whether of Good or Evil, merely from Spirit.