William Law · 7 of 44

An Address to the Clergy · Part 3

‘Lo, I am always with you,’ says the holy Jesus, ‘even to the End of the World.’ How is he with us? Not outwardly, every illiterate Man knows; not inwardly, says many a learned Doctor, because a Christ within us is as gross Enthusiasm, or Quakerism, as the Light within us.—How then shall the faith of the common Christian find any Comfort in these words of Christ’s promise, unless the Spirit brings him into a Remembrance and Belief, that Christ is in him, and with him, as the Vine is with and in the Branch. Christ says, ‘Without me ye can do Nothing;’ and also, ‘If any man loves me, my Father will Love him, and we will come unto Him, and make our Abode with Him.’ Now if without Him we can do Nothing, then all the Love that a Man can possibly have for Christ, must be from the Power and Life of Christ in Him, and from such a Love, so begotten, Man has the Father and the Son dwelling and making their Abode in Him. What higher Proof, or fuller Certainty can there be, that the Whole Work of Redemption in the Soul of Man is and can be Nothing else, but the inward, continual, immediate Operation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, raising up again their own first Life in the Soul, to which our first Father died?

Again, Christ, after his Glorification in Heaven, says, ‘Behold I STAND at the DOOR and KNOCK.’ He does not say, Behold ye have me in the Scriptures. Now what is the DOOR at which Christ, at the Right-hand of God in Heaven, KNOCKS? Surely it is the Heart, to which Christ is always present. He goes on, IF ANY MAN HEARS MY VOICE; how hears, but by the hearing of the Heart, or what Voice, but that which is the Speaking or Sounding of Christ within Him; He adds, AND OPENS THE DOOR, that is, opens his Heart for me, I WILL COME IN TO HIM, that is, will be a living holy Nature, and Spirit born within him, AND SUP WITH HIM, and HE WITH ME.—Behold the last finishing Work of a Redeeming Jesus, entered into the Heart that opens to him, bringing forth the Joy, the Blessing, and Perfection of that first Life of God in the Soul, which was lost by the Fall, set forth as a Supper, or Feast of the Heavenly Jesus with the Soul, and the Soul with him. Can anyone justly call it Enthusiasm to say, that this supping of the Soul with this glorified Christ within it, must mean something more heavenly transacted in the Soul than that last Supper which he celebrated with his Disciples, whilst He was with them in Flesh. For that Supper of Bread and Wine was such, as a Judas could partake of, and could only be an outward Type or Signification of that inward and blessed Nourishment, with which the Believing Soul should be feasted, when the glorified Son of God should as a Creating Spirit enter into us, quickening, and raising up his own heavenly Nature and Life within us. Now this continual Knocking of Christ at the Door of the Heart, sets forth the Case or Nature of a continual immediate Divine Inspiration within us; it is always with us, but there must be an opening of the Heart to it; and though it is always there, yet it is only felt and found by those, who are attentive to it, depend upon, and humbly wait for it.—Now let anyone tell me how he can believe any Thing of this Voice of Christ, how he can listen to it, hear, or obey it, but by such a Faith, as keeps him habitually turned to an immediate constant Inspiration of the Spirit of Christ within him? Or how any heathenish or profane Person, can do more Despite to this Presence and Power of Christ in his own Soul, or more effectually lead others into it, than that Ecclesiastic, who makes a Mock at the Light within, a Christ within, and openly blasphemes that Faith, and Hope, and Trust, which solely relies upon being moved by the Spirit, as its only Power of doing that which is right, and good, and pious, either towards God or Man.—Let every Man, whom this concerns, lay it to Heart.—Time, and the Things of Time, will soon have an End; and he that in Time trusts to any Thing but the Spirit and Power of God working in his Heart, will be ill fitted to enter into Eternity; God must be all in all in us here, or we cannot be his hereafter.—Time works only for Eternity; and Poverty eternal must as certainly follow him, who dies only fully stuffed with human Learning, as he who dies only full of Worldly Riches.—The Folly of thinking to have any Divine Learning, but that which the Holy Spirit teaches, or to make ourselves rich in Knowledge towards God, by Heaps of Common-Place Learning crowded into our Minds, will leave us as dreadfully cheated, as that rich Builder of Barns in the Gospel, to whom it was said, 'Thou Fool, this Night, shall thy Soul be required of Thee. And then, whose shall all these Things be?' Luke xii. So is every Man that treasures up a Religious Learning that comes not wholly from the Spirit of God.—But to return. To this inward continual Attention to the continual working of the holy Spirit within us, the Apostle calls us in these Words, 'See that ye refuse not him that speaketh; for if they escaped not, who refused him that spoke on Earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn from Him, that speaketh from Heaven,' Heb. xii. 25. Now what is this Speaking from Heaven, which it

...is so dangerous to refuse, or resist? Surely not outward Voices from Heaven. Or what could the Apostle's Advice signify to us, unless it be such a Speaking from Heaven, as we may and must be always either obeying or refusing?—St. James saith, "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you." What Devil? Surely not an outward Creature or Spirit, that tempts us by an outward Power. Or what Resistance can we make to the Devil, but that of inwardly falling away, or turning from the Workings of his evil Nature and Spirit within us?—They therefore who call us from waiting for, depending upon, and attending to the continual secret Inspirations and Breathings of the Holy Spirit within us, call us to RESIST God in the same manner as the Apostle exhorts us to resist the Devil. For God being only a Spiritual Good, and the Devil our Spiritual Evil, neither the one nor the other can be resisted, or not resisted by us, but so far as their Spiritual Operations within us are either turned from, or obeyed by us.—St. James having shown us, that Resisting the Devil is the only Way to make him flee from us, that is, to lose his Power in us, immediately adds, how we are to behave towards God, that He may not flee from us, or his holy Work be stopped in us. "Draw near," saith he, "to God, and God will draw near to you." What is this Drawing near? Surely not by any local Motion, either in God or us. But the same is meant, as if he had said, Resist not God, that is, let his holy Will within you have its full work; keep wholly, obediently attentive to That, which he is, and has, and does within you, and then God will draw near to you, that is, will more and more manifest the Power of his holy Presence in you, and make you more and more Partakers of the Divine Nature.

Further, what a Blindness is it in the forementioned Writers, to charge private Persons with the Enthusiasm of holding the Necessity, and Certainty of continual immediate Inspiration, and to attack them as Enemies to the Established Church, when every Body's Eyes see, that Collect after Collect, in the Established Liturgy, teaches and requires them to believe, and pray for the Continual Inspiration of the Spirit, as that alone, by which they can have the least good Thought, or Desire? Thus, "O God, Forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee, mercifully Grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all Things direct and Rule our Hearts." Is it possible for words more strongly to express the Necessity of a Continual Divine Inspiration? Or can Inspiration be higher, or more immediate in Prophets and Apostles, than that which directs, that which rules our Hearts, not now and then, but in all Things? Or can the absolute Necessity of this be more fully declared, than by saying, that if it is not in this Degree both of Height and continuance in and over our Hearts, Nothing that is done by us can be pleasing to God, that is, can have any Union with him?

Now the Matter is not at all about the different Effects or Works proceeding from Inspiration, as whether by it a Man be made a Saint in Himself, or sent by God with a prophetic Message to others, this affects not the Nature and Necessity of Inspiration, which is just as great, just as Necessary in itself to all true Goodness, as to all true Prophesy.—All Scripture is of Divine Inspiration. But why so? ‘Because holy men of Old spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ Now the above Collect as well as Christ and his Apostles oblige us in like manner to hold, that all Holiness is by Divine Inspiration, and that therefore there could have been no holy men of old, or in any latter Times, but solely for this Reason, because ‘They LIVED as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ Again, The Liturgy prays thus, ‘O God, from whom all good Things do come, grant that by thy holy Inspiration we may think those Things that be good, and by thy merciful Guiding may perform the Same.’—Now, if in any of my Writings I have ever said any thing higher, or further of the Nature and Necessity of continual Divine Inspiration, than this Church-Prayer does, I refuse no Censure that shall be passed upon me. But if I have, from all that we know of God, of Nature, and Creature, shown the utter Impossibility of any Kind, or Degree of Goodness to be in us, but from the Divine Nature living and breathing in us, if I have shown that all Scripture, Christ and his Apostles, over and over say the same Thing; that our Church Liturgy is daily praying according to it; what kinder Thing can I say of those Churchmen who accuse me of Enthusiasm, than that which Christ said of his blind Crucifiers, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

It is to no Purpose to object to all this, that these Kingdoms are over-run with Enthusiasts of all Kinds, and that Moravians with their several Divisions, and Methodists of various Kinds, are everywhere acting in the Wildest Manner, under the Pretence of being called and led by the Spirit. Be it so, or not so, is a matter I meddle not with; nor is the Doctrine I am upon in the least affected by it. For what an Argument would this be; Enthusiasts of the present and former Ages have made a bad use of the Doctrine of being led by the Spirit of God, Ergo, ‘He is enthusiastic, or helps forward Enthusiasm, who preaches up the Doctrine of being led by the Spirit of God.’ Now absurd as this is, was any of my Accusers as high in Genius, as bulky in Learning, as Colossus was in Stature, he would be at a Loss to bring a stronger Argument than this, to prove me an Enthusiast, or an Abettor of them.

But as I do not begin to doubt about the Necessity, the Truth, and Perfection of Gospel Religion, when told that whole Nations and Churches have, under a Pretence of Regard to it, and for the Sake of it, done all the bad Things that can be charged upon this or that Leading Enthusiast, whether you call those bad Things, Schism, Perjury, Rebellion, Worldly Craft, and Hypocrisy, amp;c. So I give not up the Necessity, the Truth, and Perfection of looking wholly to the Spirit of God and Christ within me, as my promised Inspirer, and only Worker of all that can be good in me, I give not this up, because in this, or that Age, both Spiritual Pride and Fleshly Lusts have prospered by it, or because Satan has often led People into all the Heights of Self-Glory, and Self-Seeking, under a Pretence of being inspired with Gospel Humility, and Gospel Self-denial.

Another Charge upon me, equally false, and I may say, more senseless, is that I am a declared Enemy to the Use of Reason in Religion. And why? Because in all my Writings, I teach that Reason is to be denied, amp;c. I own, I have not only taught this, but have again and again proved the absolute Necessity of it. And this, because Christ has made it absolutely Necessary, by saying, ‘Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself,’ amp;c. For how can a Man deny himself, without denying his Reason, unless Reason be no Part of Himself? Or how can a rational Creature, whose chief Distinction from Brutes is that of his Reason, be called to deny himself any other Way, than by denying that which is peculiar to Himself? Let the Matter be thus expressed, Man is not to deny his Reason. Well, how then? Why, (N.B.) He is only to deny himself. Can there be a greater Folly of Words? And yet it is their Wisdom of Words, who allow the Denying of self to be good Doctrine, but boggle, and cry out at the denying of Reason, as quite bad. For how can a Man deny himself, but by denying That which is the Life, and Spirit, and Power of Self?—What makes a man a Sinner? Nothing but the Power and Working of his Natural Reason. And therefore, if our natural Reason is not to be denied, we must keep up and follow That which works every Sin that ever was, or can be in us. For we can Sin nowhere, or in any Thing, but where our Natural Reason or Understanding has its Power in us.—What is meant in all Scripture by the Flesh and its Works? Is it something distinct, and different from the Workings of our rational and Intelligent Nature? No, it is our whole intelligent, rational Nature, that constitutes the Flesh or the Carnal Man, who could not be criminally so, any more than the Beasts, but because his Carnality has all its Evil from his intelligent Nature or Reason, being the Life and Power of it. And every Thing which our Lord says of Self, is so much said of our natural Reason; and all that the Scripture says of the Flesh and its evil Nature, is so much said of the evil State of our Natural Reason, which therefore is, ought, and must be denied, in the same manner and Degree as self and Flesh is, and must be denied.

I have elsewhere shown the Gross Darkness and Ignorance which govern that which is called Metaphysicks in the Schools,

that it is so great, that if you were to say, that God first creates a Soul out of Nothing, and when that is done, then takes an Understanding Faculty and puts it into it, after that, adds a Will, and then a Memory, all as independently made, as when a Tailor first makes the Body of a Coat, and then adds sleeves, and Pockets to it; were you to say this, the Schools of Descartes, Malebranche, or Locke, could have Nothing to say against it.

And here Truth obliges me to say, that Scholastic Divinity is in as great Ignorance about the Most fundamental Truths of the Gospel, as I have again and again shown, in Regard to the Nature of the Fall of Man, and all the Scripture Expressions Concerning the new Birth; and here also concerning the Doctrine, of a Man’s denying himself, which modern Learning supposes to be possible without, or different from a Man’s denying his own natural Reason; Which is an Absurdity of the greatest Magnitude. For what is Self, but that which a man is, and has in his natural Capacity? Or what is the Fulness of his Natural Capacity, but the Strength and Power of his Reason? How then can any Man deny Himself, but by denying that which gives Self its whole Nature, Name, and Power? If man was not a Rational Creature, he could not be called to deny himself, he could not need, or receive the Benefit and Goodness of Self-Denial: No man therefore can obey the Precept of denying Himself, or have any Benefit or Goodness from it, but so far as he denies, or dies to his own natural Reason, because the Self of Man, and the Natural Reason of Man, are Strictly the same Thing.—Again, our Blessed Lord said in his Agony, “Not my Will, but thine be done.” And had not this been the Form of his whole Life, He had not lived without Sin.—Now Thus to deny our own Will, that God’s Will may be done in us, is the Height of our Calling; and so far as we keep from our own Natural Will, so far we keep from Sin. But now, if our own Natural Will, as having all sin and evil in it, is always to be denied, whatever it costs us, I would fain know, how our Natural Reason can ever escape, or how we can deny our own Will, and not deny that rational or intelligent Power, in and from which the Will has its whole Existence and continual direction? Or how there can be always a Badness of our own Will, which is not the Badness of our own natural intellectual Power? Therefore it is a Truth of the utmost Certainty, that as much as we are obliged to deny our own Natural Will that the Will of God may be done in us, so much are we obliged to deny our own natural Reason and Understanding that our own Will may not be done, or followed by us. For whoever lives to his own natural Reason, he necessarily lives to his own natural Will. For our natural Will, in whatever State it is, is nothing else but our Natural Reason willing this, or that.

Now hard as this may seem to unregenerate Nature, and yet harder to nature highly exalted, and big with the Glory of all That, which Wits, Poets, Orators, Critics, Sophists, and Historians have enriched it with, yet true it is, and a Truth as certain as the Fall of Man, that this full Denial of our own natural Will, and our own Natural Reason, is the only possible Way for Divine Knowledge, Divine Light, and Divine Goodness, to have any Place or Power of Birth in us.—All other religious Knowledge, got any other Way, let it be as great as it will, is only great in Vanity, Emptiness, and Delusion. For Nothing but That which comes immediately from God, can have any Thing godly in it, and all that which comes from Self, and natural Reason, however outwardly coloured, can have no better a Nature within, than Self-seeking, Self-esteem, and fleshly Wisdom, which (N.B.) are those very works of the Devil in us, which Christ came into the World to destroy.—For the Efforts of natural Reason, and Self-abilities, to be great in religious Knowledge from our own particular Talents, are as Satanical Things as any we carry about us, and most of all fix us in the highest Contrariety to that State, which our Lord affirms to be absolutely necessary.

‘Except ye be converted, and become as little Children, ye cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.’—Now as sure as this is necessary, so sure is it, that no one can be thus converted, or come under the good Influence of this childlike Nature, till natural Reason, Self, and own Will, are all equally denied.—For all the Evil and Corruption of our fallen Nature consists in this, it is an awakened Life of own Reason, own Will broken off from God, and so fallen into the Selfish Workings of its own earthly Nature.

Now whether this Self broken off from God, reasons, wills, and contends about the Difference of Scripture Words and Opinions, or reasons against them all, the same evil State of fallen Nature, the same Loss of Life, the same Separation from God, the same evil Tempers of Flesh and Blood, will be equally strengthened and inflamed by the one as by the other,—Hence it is, that Papists and Protestants are hating, fighting, and killing one another for the Sake of their different excellent Opinions, and yet, as to the Lusts of the Flesh, the Lust of the Eye, and the Pride of Life, they are in the highest Union and Communion with one Another. For if you expect a zealous Protestant to be therefore a new born Creature alive unto God, or a zealous Papist to be therefore dead to all Divine Goodness, you may be said to have lived in the World without either Eyes or Ears.—And the Reason why it must be so, is because bad Syllogisms for Transubstantiation, and better Syllogisms against it, signify no more towards the Casting Satan out of our Souls, than a bad or better Taste for Painting.

Hence also it is, that Christendom, full of the nicest Decisions about Faith, Grace, Works, Merits, Satisfaction, Heresies, Schisms, amp;c., is full of all those evil Tempers which prevailed in the heathen World, when none of these things were ever thought of.

A Scholar, pitying the Blindness and Folly of those who live to themselves in the Cares and Pleasures of this vain Life, thinks himself Divinely employed, and to have escaped the Pollutions of the World, because he is, day after day, dividing, dissecting, and mending Church-Opinions, fixing Heresies here, Schisms there; forgetting all the while, that a carnal Self and natural Reason have the doing of all that is done by this learned Zeal, and are as busy and active in him, as in the reasoning Infidel, or projecting Worldling. For where Self is wholly denied, there nothing can be called Heresy, Schism, or Wickedness, but the Want of loving God with our whole Heart, and our Neighbour as ourselves; nor any Thing be called Truth, Life, or Salvation, but the Spirit, Nature, and Power of Christ living and manifesting itself in us, as it did in him. But where Self or the natural Man is become great in Religious Learning, there the greater the Scholar, the more firmly will he be fixed in that Religion, whose God is their Belly. I write not to Reason, says the blessed Jacob Behmen; O Enthusiasm! says the Mouth of Learning: And yet Jacob said as sober a Truth, as if he had said, I write not to Self and own Will; for natural Reason, Self and own Will, always did, and always must see through the same Eyes, and hear through the same Ears. Now let it only be supposed, that Behmen and myself, when we speak of natural Reason, mean only the natural Man (as is over and over declared by us) and then Behmen’s saying, that he writes neither from Reason, nor to the natural Reason of others, is only saying that very same Thing as St. Paul says, that 'the natural Man receiveth not the Things of "the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him, (N.B.) neither can he know them, (N.B.) because they are Spiritually 'discerned.'"

But that I may fully show the Perverseness of my Accusers, in charging me with denying the Use of Reason in Religion, see here a Word or two of what I have said at large, and in the plainest Words, more than twenty-four years ago, which Doctrine I have maintained in all that I have since wrote.—My Words are these.

You shall see Reason possessed of all that belongs to it. I will grant it to have as great a Share in the good Things of Religion, as in the good Things of this Life; that it can assist the Soul, just as it can assist the Body, that it has the same Power and Virtue in the Spiritual, that it has in the natural World; that it can communicate to us as much of the one, as of the other, and is of the same Use and Importance in the one as in the other. Can you ask more? All which I thus make out in the following Manner. Man, considered as a Member of this World, who is to have his Share of the Good that is in it, is a sensible, and a rational Creature, that is, he has a certain Number of Senses, as Seeing, Hearing, Tasting, Touching, and Smelling, by which he is sensible of that which the outward World, in which he is placed, can do for him, or communicate to him, and so is sensible of what Kind and Degree of Happiness he can have from it. Now besides these Organs of Sense, he has a Power or Faculty of Reasoning upon the Ideas, which he has received from these Senses. Now how is it, that the good Things of this World are communicated to Man? How is he put in possession of them? To what Part of him are they proposed? Are his Senses, or his Reason, the Means of his having so much as he has or can have from this World? Now here, you must degrade Reason just as much as it is degraded by Religion, and are obliged to set it as low with Respect to the Things of this World, as it is set with Respect to the Things of the Spiritual World. It is no more the Means of Communicating the good Things of the one, than of the other. And as St. Paul says, "The Natural Man cannot receive the Things of the Spirit of God," for this Reason, "because they are Spiritually discerned;" so you must of Necessity say, the Rational Man cannot receive the Things of this World, for this Reason, because they are sensibly received, that is, by the Organs of Sense. Reason therefore has no higher Office or Power in the Things of this World, than in the Things of 'Religion; and Religion does no more Violence to your Reason, or rejects it any other Way, than all the good Things of this World reject it; it is not Seeing, it is not Hearing, Tasting, or Feeling the Things of this Life; it can supply the Place of no one of these Senses.

'Now it is only thus helpless and useless in Religion; it is neither Seeing, nor Hearing, Tasting, nor Feeling of Spiritual Things; therefore in the Things of Religion, and in the Things of this World, it has one and the same Insignificance.—It is the Sensibility of the Soul that must receive what this World can communicate to it; it is the Sensibility of the Soul that must receive what God can communicate: Reason may follow after in either Case, and view through its own Glass what is done, but it can do no more. Reason may be here of the same Service to us, as when we want any of the Enjoyments of this Life; it may direct us how and where they are to be had; it may take away a Cover from our Eyes, or open our Window-Shutters when we want the Light; but it can do no more towards Seeing, than to make way for the Light to act upon our Eyes. This is all its Office and Ability in the Things of Religion; it may remove that which hinders the Sensibility of the Soul, or prevents the Divine Light's acting upon it, but it can do no more; because the Faculty of Reasoning is only the Activity of the Mind upon its own Ideas or Images, which the Senses have caused it to form from that which has been stirred up in them, but has Nothing of the Nature of that which it speculates upon by Ideas; it does not become dark, when it reasons upon the Cause or Nature of Darkness, nor becomes Light, when it reasons about it; neither is it Religion, nor gets any Thing of the Nature of Religion, when it is wholly taken up in Descriptions and Definitions of religious Doctrines and Virtues.

'For the Good of Religion is like the Good of Food and Drink to the Creature that wants it. And if instead of giving such an one Bread and Wine, you should teach him to seek for Relief by attending to clear Ideas of the Nature of Bread, of different ways of making it, amp;c., he would be left to die in the Want of Sustenance, just as the Religion of Reasoning leaves the Soul to perish in the Want of that Good which it was to have from Religion. And yet as a Man may have the Benefit of Food much assisted by the right use of his Reason, though Reason has not the Good of Food in it, so a Man may have the Good of Religion much assisted and secured to him, by the right use of his Reason, though Reason has not the Good of Religion in it. And as it would be great Folly and Perverseness, to accuse amp;gt; a Man as an Enemy to the true Use of Reasoning about Food, because he declares that Reason is not Food, nor can supply the Place of it, so is it equally such, to accuse a Man as an Enemy to the Use of Reasoning in Religion, because he declares that Reasoning is not Religion, nor can supply the Place of it. We have no Want of Religion, but because we want to have more of the Divine Nature in us than we have in our fallen Nature. But if this be the Truth of the Matter (and who can deny it?) then we are sure that nothing can be our Good in Religion, but that which communicates to us something of God, or which alters our State of Existence in God, and makes us Partakers of the Divine Nature, in such a Manner and Degree as we wanted. What a Folly is it then to put any Trust in a Religion of rational Notions and Opinions logically deduced from Scripture Words? Do we not see Sinners of all Sorts, and Men under the Power of every corrupt Passion, equally zealous for such a Religion? Proof enough, that it has not the good of Religion in it, nor any Contrariety to the Vices of the Heart; it neither kills them, nor is killed by them. For as Pride, Hypocrisy, Envy or Malice, do not take away from the Mind its Geometrical or Critical Abilities; so a Man may be most logical in his Religion of Reason, Words, Doctrines, and Opinions, when he has Nothing of the true Good of Religion in him.