William Law · 2 of 14

Part I. In a Letter to a Friend · Part 2

If Matter, said you, be not made out of nothing then it must be eternal. Just as well concluded, as if you had said, If Snow and Hail and Ice are not made out of nothing, then they must be eternal. And if your Senses did not force you to know, how these things are created out of something, and are in themselves only the Properties of Light, and Air, and Water, brought out of their first State into such a Compaction and Creation, as is called Snow, Hail, and Ice, your rational Philosophy would stand to its noble Conclusion, that they must be made out of Nothing. Now every time you see Snow or Hail or Ice, you see in Truth and Reality the Creation of Matter, or how this World came to be of such a material Nature as it is. For Earth and Stones, and every other Materiality of this World, came from some antecedent Properties of Nature by that same creating Power or Fiat of God as turns the Properties of Light, and Air, and Water, into the different Materialities of Snow, Hail, and Ice.

The first Property of Nature, which is in itself a constringing, attracting, compressing, and coagulating Power, is that working Power from whence comes all Thickness, Darkness, Coldness, and Hardness; and this is the Creator of Snow and Hail and Ice out of something that before was only the Fluidity of Light, Air, and Moisture. Now this same Property of Nature, directed by the Will of God, was the Fiat and creating Power which, on the first Day of this World, compacted, coagulated, or created the wrathful Properties of fallen Nature in the Angelic Kingdom into such a new State as to become Earth and Stones and Water and a visible Heaven. And the new State of the created Heaven and Earth and Stones and Water, &c., came forth by the Fiat of God, or the Working of the first Property of Nature, from the Properties of fallen Nature; just as Snow and Ice and Hail, come forth by the same Fiat from the Properties of Light, Air, and Water. And the created Materiality of Heaven, Earth, Stones, and Water, have no more Eternity in them, than there is in Snow or Hail or Ice, but are only held for a time in their compacted or created State, by the same first astringing Property of Nature, which for a time holds Snow and Hail and Ice in their compacted State.

Now here you see with the utmost Certainty that all the Matter or Materiality of this World is the Effect of Sin, and could have its Beginning from nothing else. For as Thickness, Hardness, and Darkness (which is the Essence of Matter) is the Effect of the wrathful predominant Power of the first Property of Nature, and as no Property of Nature can be predominant, or known as it is in itself, till Nature is fallen from its harmonious Unity under the Light and Love of God dwelling in it, so you have the utmost Certainty, that where Matter, or which is the same Thing, where Thickness, Darkness, Hardness, &c., are found, there the Will of the Creature has turned from God and opened a disorderly Working of Nature without God.

Therefore as sure as the Materiality of this World standeth in the predominant Power of the first attracting, astringing Property of Nature, or in other Words, is a Thickness, Darkness, Hardness, &c., so sure is it that all the Matter of this World has its Beginning from Sin and must have its End as soon as the Properties of Nature are again restored to their first Unity and blessed Harmony under the Light and Spirit of God.

It is no Objection to all this, that Almighty God must be owned to be the true Creator of the Materiality of this World. For God only brought or created it into this Materiality out of the fallen sinful Properties of Nature, and in order to stop their sinful Working, and to put them into a State of Recovery. He created the confused Chaos of the darkened, divided, contrary Properties of spiritual Nature into a further, darker, harder Coagulation and Division, that so the fallen Angels might thereby lose all Power over them, and that this new Materiality might become a Theatre of Redemption and stand its Time under the Dominion of the Lamb of God till all the Wrath and Grossness and Darkness, born of the Sin of the Angels, was fitted to return to its first heavenly Purity.

And thus, though God is the Creator of the Materiality of this World, yet seeing he created it out of that Wrath, Division, and Darkness which Sin had opened in Nature, this Truth stands firm, that Sin alone is the Father, first Cause, and Beginner of all the Materiality of this World; and that when Sin is removed from Nature all its Materiality must vanish with it. For when the Properties of Nature are again in the Unity of the one Will of Light and Love, then Hot and Cold, Thick and Thin, Dark and Hard, with every Property of Matter, must give up all their Distinction, and all the divided Elements of this World lose all their Materiality and Division in that first heavenly Spirituality of a glassy Sea from whence they fell.

Now as all the whole Nature of Matter, its Grossness, Darkness, and Hardness, is owing to the unequal, predominant Working of the first Property of Nature which is an attracting, astringing, and compressing Desire; so every spiritual Evil, every wicked Working and disorderly State of any intelligent Being is all owing to the same disorderly, predominant Power of the first Property of Nature, doing all that inwardly in the Spirit of the Creature, which it does in an outward Grossness, Darkness, and Hardness. Thus, when the Desire (the first Property of Nature) in any intelligent Creature, leaves the Unity and Universality of the Spirit of Love and contracts or shuts up itself in an own Will, own Love, and Self-seeking, then it does all that inwardly and spiritually in the Soul, which it does in outward Grossness, Hardness, and Darkness. And had not own Will, own Love, and Self-seeking come into the Spirit of the Creature, it never could have found or felt any outward Contrariety, Darkness or Hardness: For no Creature can have any other outward Nature but that which is in the same State with its inward Spirit, and belongs to it as its own natural Growth.

Modern Metaphysics has no Knowledge of the Ground and Nature either of Spirit or Body, but supposes them not only without any natural Relation, but essentially contrary to one another, and only held together in a forced Conjunction by the arbitrary Will of God. Nay, 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 is independently made, as when a Tailor first makes the Body of a Coat and then adds Sleeves or Pockets to it, were you to say This, the Schools of Descartes, Malebranche, or Locke could have nothing to say against it. And the Thing is unavoidable, for all these Philosophers were so far from knowing the Ground of Nature, how it is a Birth from God, and all Creatures a Birth from Nature, through the working Will of God in and by the Powers of Nature, as they were so far from knowing this, as to hold a Creation out of nothing, so they were necessarily excluded from every fundamental Truth concerning the Origin either of Body or Spirit and their true Relation to one another. For a Creation out of nothing leaves no room for accounting why any Thing is as it is.— Now every wise Man is supposed to have Respect to Nature in every Thing that he would have joined together; he cannot suppose his Work to succeed unless this be done. But to suppose God to create Man with a Body and Soul, not only not naturally related but naturally impossible to be united by any Powers in either of them, is to suppose God acting and creating Man into an unnatural State, which yet he could not do, unless there was such a Thing as Nature antecedent to the Creation of Man. And how can Nature be, or have any Thing but what it is and has from God? Therefore to suppose God to bring any Creature into an unnatural State is to suppose him acting contrary to himself and to that Nature which is from him.

Yet all the Metaphysics of the Schools does this. It supposes God to bring a Soul and a Body together which have the utmost natural Contrariety to each other and can only affect or act upon one another by an arbitrary Will of God, willing that Body and Soul, held together by Force, should seem to do that to one another which they have no natural or possible Power to do. But the true Philosophy of this Matter, known only to the Soul, that by a new Birth from above has found its first State in and from God is this: Namely, that Nature is a Birth or Manifestation of the triune invisible Deity. And as it could only come into Existence as a Birth from God, so every Creature or beginning Thing can only come forth as a Birth from and out of Nature by the Will of God, willing it to come forth in such a Birth. And no Creature can have, or be, any Thing, but by and according to the working Powers of Nature; and therefore, strictly speaking, no Creature can be, or be put into an unnatural State. It may indeed lose or fall from its natural Perfection by the wrong Use or Working of its Will; but then its fallen State is the natural Effect of the wrong Use of its Will, and so it only has that which is natural to it. The Truth of the Matter is this: There neither is, nor can be, any Thing, nor any Effect in the whole Universe of Things but by the Way of Birth. For as the working Will is the first Cause or Beginner of every Thing, so nothing can proceed further than as it is driven by the Will and is a Birth of it. And therefore nothing can be in any Thing but what is natural to its own working Will and the true Effect of it. Every Thing that is outward in any Being is only a Birth of its own Spirit, and therefore all Body, whether it be heavenly or earthly or hellish, has its whole Nature and Condition from its own inward Spirit, and no Spirit can have a Body of any other Properties but such as are natural to it as being its own true outward State. For Body and Spirit are not two separate, independent Things, but are necessary to each other, and are only the inward and outward conditions of one and the same Being.

Every creaturely Spirit must have its own Body and cannot be without it, for its Body is that which makes it manifest to itself. It cannot be said to exist as a Creature till in a Body, because it can have no Sensibility of itself, nor feel nor find either that it is, or what it is, but in and by its own Body. Its Body is its first Knowledge of its Something and Somewhere.

And now, Sir, if you ask why I have gone into this Detail of the Origin and Nature of Body and Spirit, when my Subject was only concerning the Spirit of Love, it is to show you, that Grossness, Darkness, Contrariety, Disquiet, and Fermentation must be the State of the Body and Spirit till they are both made pure and luminous by the Light and Love of Heaven manifested in them. All Darkness, Grossness, and Contrariety must be removed from the Body before it can belong to Heaven, or be united with it; but these Qualities must be in the Body till the Soul is totally dead to Self, Partiality, and Contrariety, and breathes only the Spirit of universal Love, because the State of the Body has nothing of its own, or from itself, but is solely the outward Manifestation of nothing else but that which is inwardly in the Soul. Every Animal of this World has nothing in its outward Form or Shape, every Spirit, whether heavenly or hellish, has nothing in the Nature and State of its Body, but that which is the Form and Growth of its own inward Spirit. As no Number can be any Thing else but that which the Unities contained in it make it to be, so no Body of any Creature can be any Thing else but the Coagulation, or S um total, of those Properties of Nature that are coagulated in it. And when the Properties of Nature are formed into the band of a creaturely Union, then is its Body brought forth, whether the Spirit of the Creature be earthly, heavenly, or hellish.

Nature, or the first Properties of Life, are in a State of the highest Contrariety, and the highest Want of something which they have not. This is their whole Nature and they have nothing else in them. And this is their true Ground and Fitness to become a Life of triumphing Joy and Happiness, viz., when united in the Possession of that which they seek for in their Contrariety. And if Life, in its first Root, was not this Depth of Strife, this Strength of Hunger, and Sensibility of Want, the Fullness of heavenly Joy could not be manifested in it.

You are not a Stranger to the Mystery of the Seven Properties of Nature which we have often spoken of; and therefore I shall shorten the Matter, and only say so much of them as may be of Service to our present Subject.

Nature, whether eternal or temporal, is That which comes not into Being for its own Self or to be That which it is in itself, but for the Sake of Something that it is not, and has not. And this is the Reason why Nature is only a Desire; it is because it is for the Sake of something else; and is also the Reason why Nature in itself is only a Torment, because it is only a strong Desire, and cannot help itself to that which it wants, but is always working against itself.

Now a Desire that cannot be stopped, nor get That which it would have, has a threefold Contrariety, or Working in it, which you may thus conceive as follows: The first and peculiar Property, or the one only Will of the Desire, as such, is to have That which it has not; and all it can do toward having it is to act as if it were seizing it; and this is it which makes the Desire to be a magic Compressing, Inclosing, or Astringing, because that is all that it can do toward Seizing of that which it would have. But the Desire cannot thus magically astringe, compress, or strive to inclose, without Drawing and Attracting: But Drawing is Motion, which is the highest Contrariety and Resistance to compressing or holding together. And thus the Desire, in its magical Working, sets out with two contrary Properties, inseparable from one another and equal in Strength; for the Motion has no Strength but as it is the Drawing of the Desire; and the Desire only draws in the same Degree as it wills to compress and astringe; and therefore the Desire, as astringing, always begets a Resistance equal to itself. Now from this great and equally strong Contrariety of the two first Properties of the Desire, magically pulling, as I may say, two contrary Ways, there arises as a necessary Birth from both of them, a third Property, which is emphatically called a Wheel or whirling Anguish of Life. For a Thing that can go neither inward nor outward, and yet must be and move under the equal Power of both of them, must whirl or turn round; it has no Possibility of doing any Thing else or of ceasing to do that. And that this whirling Contrariety of these inseparable Properties is the great Anguish of Life and may properly be called the Hell of Nature; and every lesser Torment which any Man finds in this mixed World, has all its Existence and Power from the Working of these three Properties: For Life can find no troublesome Motions, or Sensibility of Distress, but so far as it comes under their Power, and enters into their whirling Wheel.

Now here you may observe, that as this whirling Anguish of Life is a third State, necessarily arising from the Contrariety of the two first Properties of the Desire, so in this material System, every whirling or orbicular Motion of any Body is solely the Effect or Product of the Contrariety of these two first Properties. For no material Thing can whirl or move round, till it is under the Power of these two Properties; that is, till it can neither go inwards nor outwards, and yet is obliged to move, just as the whirling Anguish of the Desire then begins when it can neither go inwards nor outwards and yet must be in Motion.

And this may be again another strict Demonstration to you, that all the Matter of this World is from spiritual Properties, since all its Workings and Effects are according to them: For if Matter does nothing but according to them, it can be nothing but what it is, and has from them.

Here also, that is, in these three Properties of the D esire, you see the Ground and Reason of the three great Laws of Matter and Motion, lately discovered, and so much celebrated, and need no more to be told, that the illustrious Sir Isaac plowed with Behmen’s Heifer, when he brought forth the Discovery of them. In the mathematical System of this great Philosopher these three Properties, Attraction, equal Resistance, and the orbicular Motion of the Planets as the effect of them, &c., are only treated of as Facts and Appearances, whose Ground is not pretended to be known. But in our Behmen, the illuminated Instrument of God, their Birth and Power in Eternity are opened; their eternal Beginning is shown, and how and why all Worlds, and every Life of every Creature, whether it be heavenly, earthly, or hellish, must be in them, and from them, and can have no Nature either spiritual or material, no kind of Happiness or Misery, but according to the working Power and State of these Properties.

All outward Nature, all inward Life, is what it is, and works as it works, from this unceasing, powerful Attraction, Resistance, and Whirling.

Every Madness and Folly of Life is their immediate Work and every good Spirit of Wisdom and Love has all its Strength and Activity from them. They equally support Darkness and Light: The one could have no Powers of Thickness and Coldness, the other no Powers of Warmth, Brightness, and Activity but by and through these three Properties acting in a different State. Not a Particle of Matter stirs, rises, or falls, separates from or unites with any other, but under their Power. Not a Thought of the Mind, either of Love or Hatred, of Joy or Trouble, of Envy or Wrath, of Pride and Covetousness, can rise in the Spirit of any Creature, but as these Properties act and stir in it.

The next and following Properties, viz., the fourth, called Fire; the fifth, called the Form of Light and Love, and the sixth, Sound, or Understanding, only declare the gradual Effects of the Entrance of the Deity into the three first Properties of Nature, changing, or bringing their strong wrathful Attraction, Resistance, and Whirling, into a Life and State of triumphing Joy, and Fullness of Satisfaction; which State of Peace and Joy in one another is called the Seventh Property, or State of Nature. And this is what Behmen means by his Ternarius Sanctus, which he so often speaks of as the only Place from whence he received all that he said and wrote: He means by it the holy Manifestation of the Triune God in the seven Properties of Nature, or Kingdom of Heaven. And from this Manifestation of God in the seven Properties of Nature, or Kingdom of Heaven, he most wonderfully opens, and accounts for all that was done in the six first working Days of the Creation, showing how every one of the six active Properties had its peculiar Day’s Work, till the whole ended or rested in the sanctified, paradisiacal Sabbath of the seventh Day, just as Nature doth in its seventh Property.

And now, Sir, you may see in the greatest Clearness how every Thing in this World, every Thing in the Soul and Body of Man, absolutely requires the one Redemption of the Gospel. There is but one Nature in all created Things, whether spiritual or material; they all stand and work upon the same Ground, viz., the three first Properties of Nature. That only which can illuminate the Soul, that alone can give Brightness and Purity to the Body. For there is no Grossness, Darkness, and Contrariety in the Body, but what strictly proceeds from the same Cause that makes Selfishness, Wrath, Envy, and Torment in the Soul; it is but one and the same State and Working of the same three first Properties of Nature. All Evil, whether natural or moral, whether of Body or Spirit, is the sole Effect of the Wrath and Disorder of the Spirits of Nature working in and by themselves. And all the Good, Perfection, and Purity of every Thing, whether spiritual or material, whether it be the Body or Spirit of Man or Angel, is solely from the Power and Presence of the supernatural Deity dwelling and working in the Properties of Nature. For the Properties of Nature are in themselves nothing else but a mere Hunger, Want, Strife, and Contrariety, till the Fullness and Riches of the Deity entering into them unites them all in one Will and one Possession of Light and harmonious Love; which is the one Redemption of the Gospel, and the one Reason why nothing else but the Heart, or Son, or Light of God, can purify Nature and Creature from all the Evil they are fallen into.

For nothing can possibly deliver the Soul from its selfish Nature and earthly Passions but that one Power that can deliver Matter from its present material Properties and turn Earth into Heaven: And that for this plain Reason, because Soul and Body, outward Nature and inward Life, have but one and the same Evil in them, and from one and the same Cause.

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 from one End of it to the other, all its material State, all its gross divided Elements, declare that they are what they are, because the Light and Love of Heaven is not working and manifest in them, and that nothing can take Darkness, Materiality, Rage, Storms, and Tempests from them, but that same heavenly Light and Love which was made Flesh to redeem the fallen Humanity first, and after that the whole material System.

Can the Deist with his Reason bring the Light of this World into the Eyes of his Body? If not, how comes it to be less absurd, or more possible, for Reason to bring heavenly Light into the Soul? Can Reason hinder the Body from being heavy, or remove Thickness and Darkness from Flesh and Blood? Yet nothing less than such a Power can possibly help the Soul out of its fallen and earthly State. For the Grossness of Flesh and Blood is the natural State of the fallen Soul; and therefore nothing can purify the Soul, or raise it out of its earthly, corrupt State, but that which hath all Power over all that, that is earthy and material in Nature.

To pretend, therefore, that Reason may have sufficient Power to remove all hellish Depravity and earthly Lusts from the Soul, whilst it has not the least Power over Sweet or Sour in any one Particle of Matter in the Body, is as highly absurd, as if a Man should pretend that he has a full Power to alter the inward, invisible, vegetable Life of a Plant, but none at all over its outward State, Colour, Leaves, or Fruit. The Deist therefore, and not the Christian, stands in need of continual Miracles to make good his Doctrine. For Reason can have no Pretence to amend or alter the Life of the Soul, but so far as it can show that it has Power to amend and alter the Nature and State of the Body.

The unbelieving Jews said of our Lord, "How can this Man forgive Sins?" Christ showed them how by appealing to that Power which they saw he had over the Body: "Whether," says he, "is it easier to say, Thy Sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, take up thy Bed, and walk?" But the Delusion of the unbelieving Deist is greater than that of the Jew. For the Deist sees, that his Reason has no Power over his Body, can remove no Disease, Blindness, Deafness, or Lameness, from it, and yet will pretend to have Power enough from his Reason to help the Soul out of all its Evil; not knowing that Body and Soul go hand in hand, and are nothing else but the inward and outward State of one and the same Life; and that therefore he only, who can say to the dead Body of Lazarus, "Come forth," can say to the Soul, "Be thou clean." The Deist therefore, if he pleases, may style himself a natural or a moral Philosopher, but with no more Truth than he can call himself a Healer of all the Maladies of the Body. And for a Man to think himself a moral Philosopher, because he has made a choice Collection of Syllogisms, in order to quicken and revive a Divine Goodness in the Soul, or that no Redeemer need come from Heaven, because human Reason, when truly left to itself, has great Skill in chopping of Logic; may justly be deemed such an Ignorance of the Nature of Things as is seldom found in the Transactions of illiterate and vulgar Life. But this by the by.

To return to our chief subject: The Sum of all that has been said is this: All Evil, be it what it will, all Misery of every kind, is in its Birth, Working and Extent, nothing else but Nature left to itself, and under the divided Workings of its own Hunger, Wrath, and Contrariety; and therefore no Possibility for the natural, earthly Man to escape eternal Hunger, Wrath, and Contrariety, but solely in the Way as the Gospel teacheth, by denying and dying to Self. On the other hand, all the Goodness and Perfection, all the Happiness, Glory, and Joy that any intelligent, Divine Creature can be possessed of, is, and can be, from nothing else, but the invisible uncreated Light and Spirit of God manifesting itself in the Properties of the creaturely Life, filling, blessing, and uniting them all in one Love and Joy of Life. And thus again: no Possibility of Man’s attaining to any heavenly Perfection and Happiness, but only in the Way of the Gospel, by the Union of the Divine and human Nature, by Man’s being born again from above of the Word and Spirit of God. There is no Possibility of any other Way, because there is nothing that can possibly change the first Properties of Life into an heavenly State, but the Presence, and working Power, of the Deity united with, and working in them. And therefore the "Word was made Flesh," and must of all Necessity be made Flesh, if Man is to have a heavenly Nature. Now as all Evil, Sin, and Misery, have no Beginning, nor Power of Working, but in the Manifestation of Nature in its divided, contrary Properties; so it is certain that Man has nothing to turn to, seek or aspire after, but the lost Spirit of Love. And therefore it is, that God only can be his Redeemer, because God only is Love; and Love can be nowhere else but in God, and where God dwelleth and worketh.

Now the Difficulty which you find in attaining to this Purity, and Universality of the Spirit of Love is because you seek for it, as I once told you, in the Way of reasoning: You would be possessed of it only from a rational Conviction of the Fitness and Amiableness of it. And as this clear Idea does not put you immediately into the real Possession of it, your Reason begins to waver, and suggests to you, that it may be only a fine Notion that has no Ground but in the Power of the Imagination. But this, Sir, is all your own Error, and as contrary to Nature, as if you would have your Eyes do That which only your Hands or Feet can do for you. The Spirit of Love is a Spirit of Nature and Life; and all the Operations of Nature and Life are according to the working Powers of Nature; and every Growth and Degree of Life can only arise in its own Time and Place from its proper Cause, and as the genuine Effect of it. Nature and Life do nothing by Chance or accidentally, but every Thing in one uniform Way. Fire, Air, and Light, do not proceed sometimes from one Thing, and sometimes from another; but wherever they are, they are always born in the same Manner, and from the same Working in the Properties of Nature. So in like Manner, Love is an immutable Birth, always proceeding from the same Cause, and cannot be in Existence till its own true Parents have brought it forth.