William Law · 14 of 14
Dialog 3 · Part 4
What a Blindness was it in me, to think that I had no Covetousness because the Love of Pelf {money or gain} , 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 any Thing 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 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 can take me from myself, nothing but thou can lead me 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 any Thing 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 of the Soul, freed from the miserable Labour of Self, to rest in , 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.
Theophilus. Thither, Theogenes, you must certainly come, if you keep to the Path of Meekness, Humility, and Patience, under a full Resignation to God. But if you go aside from it, let the Occasion seem ever so glorious, or the Effects ever so wonderful to you, it is only preparing for yourself a harder Death. For die you must to all, and every Thing that you have worked or done under any other Spirit, but that of Meekness, Humility, and true Resignation to God. Every Thing else, be it what it will, hath its Rise from the Fire of Nature, it belongs to nothing else, and must of all Necessity be given up, lost, and taken from you again by Fire, either here or hereafter.
For these Virtues are the only Wedding Garment; they are the Lamps and Vessels well furnished with Oil.
There is nothing that will do in the Stead of them; they must have their own full and perfect Work in you, if not before, yet certainly after the Death of the Body, or the Soul can never be delivered from its fallen wrathful State. And all this is no more than is implied in this Scripture Doctrine, viz., that there is no Possibility of Salvation, but in and by a Birth of the meek, humble, patient, resigned Lamb of God in our Souls. And when this Lamb of God has brought forth a real Birth of his own Meekness, Humility, and full Resignation to God in our Souls, then are our Lamps trimmed, and our Virgin-hearts made ready for the Marriage Feast.
This Marriage Feast signifies the Entrance into the highest State of Union, that can be between God and the Soul, in this Life. Or in other Words, it is the Birth-Day of the Spirit of Love in our Souls, which whenever we attain it, will feast our Souls with such Peace and Joy in God, as will blot out the Remembrance of every Thing, that we called Peace or Joy before.
In the Letter on the Spirit of Love, you have been shown, according to the Mystery of all Things opened by the Goodness of God in the blessed Behmen, the Time and Place of its Birth. That it neither does, nor can possibly begin any sooner, than at the Entrance or Manifestation of the Divine Light, in the three first wrathful, self-tormenting Properties of Nature, which are and must be the Ground of every natural Life, and must be Darkness, Rage, and Torment, till the Light of God, breaking in upon them, changes all their painful working into the strongest Sensibilities of Love, Joy, and Triumph, in the Perception and Possession of a new Divine Life.
Now all that we have said To-day of the Necessity of the fallen Souls dying to Self, by Meekness, Patience, Humility, and full Resignation to God is strictly the same Thing, and asserted from the same Ground as when it was then said, that the three first Properties of Nature must have their wrathful Activity taken from them, by the Light of God breaking in upon them, or manifesting itself in them. Now this was always the State of Nature, it never was a State of Wrath, because it never was without the Light of God in it. But the natural, creaturely Life, having a Possibility of falling, and having actually fallen from God, has found and felt what never ought to have been found and felt, viz., what Nature is in itself, without the Manifestation of the Deity in it.
Therefore, as sure as the Light of God, or the Entrance of the Deity into the three first Properties of Nature, is absolutely necessary to make Nature to be a heavenly Kingdom of Light and Love, so sure and certain is it, that the creaturely Life, that is fallen from God under the wrathful first Properties of Nature, can have no Deliverance from it, cannot have a Birth of heavenly Light and Love, by any other possible Way, but that of dying to Self, by Meekness, Humility, Patience, and full Resignation to God.
And the Reason is this. It is because the Will is the Leader of the creaturely Life, and it can have nothing but that to which its Will is turned. And therefore it cannot be saved from, or raised out of the Wrath of Nature, till its Will turns from Nature, and wills to be no longer driven by it. But it cannot turn from Nature, or show a Will to come from under its Power, any other Way, than by turning and giving up itself to that Meekness, Humility, Patience, and Resignation to God, which so far as it goes, is a leaving, rejecting, and dying to all the Guidance of Nature.
And thus you see, that this one simple Way is, according to the immutable Nature of Things, the one only possible and absolutely necessary Way to God. It is as possible to go two contrary Ways at once, as to go to God any other Way than this. But what is best of all, this Way is absolutely infallible; nothing can defeat it. And all this infallibility is fully grounded in the two-fold Character of our Saviour (1) As he is the Lamb of God, a Principle, and Source of all Meekness, and Humility in the Soul, and (2) As he is the Light of Eternity, that blesses eternal Nature, and turns it into a Kingdom of Heaven.
For in this two-fold Respect, he has a Power of us, which nothing can hinder; but sooner or later, he must see all his and our Enemies under his Feet, and all that is fallen in Adam into Death must rise and return to a Unity of an Eternal Life in God.
For, as the Lamb of God, he has all Power to bring forth in us a Sensibility and a Weariness of our own wrathful State, and a Willingness to fall from it into Meekness, Humility, Patience, and Resignation to that Mercy of God which alone can help us. And when we are thus weary and heavy laden, and willing to get Rest to our Souls, in meek, humble, patient Resignation to God, then it is, that He, as the Light of God and Heaven, joyfully breaks in upon us, turns our Darkness into Light, our Sorrow into Joy, and begins that Kingdom of God and Divine Love within us which will never have an End.
Need I say more, Theogenes, to show you how to come out of the Wrath of your evil earthly Nature, into the sweet Peace and Joy of the Spirit of Love? Neither Notions, nor Speculations, nor Heat, nor , nor Rules, nor Methods can bring it forth. It is the Child of Light, and cannot possibly have any Birth in you, but only and solely from the Light of God rising in your own Soul, as it rises in heavenly Beings. But the Light of God cannot arise, or be found in you, by any Art or Contrivance of your own, but only and solely in the Way of that Meekness, Humility, and Patience, which waits, trusts, resigns to, and expects all from the inward, living, life-giving Operation of the God within you, creating, , and reviving in your fallen Soul that Birth and Image, and Likeness of the Holy Trinity, in which the first Father of Mankind was created.
Theogenes. You need say no more, Theophilus; you have not only removed that Difficulty which brought us hither, but have, by a Variety of Things, fixed and confirmed us in a full Belief of that great truth elsewhere asserted, namely "That there is but one Salvation for all Mankind, and that is the Life of God in the Soul. And also, that there is but one possible Way for Man to attain this Life of God, not one for a Jew, another for a Christian, and a third for a . No, God is one, and the Way to it is one, and that is, the Desire of the Soul turned to God."
Therefore, dear Theophilus, adieu. If we see you no more in this Life, you have sufficiently taught us how to seek, and find every kind of Goodness, Blessing, and Happiness, in God alone.
The End of the Third D IALOGUE
