William Law · 12 of 14

The Third Dialogue · Part 2

Then begins the resurrection, and the life; and all that which died in Adam comes to life in Christ. Ask not therefore, Academicus, what you are to do to obtain the Spirit of God, to live in it, and be led by it? For your power of having it, and your measure of receiving it, are just according to that faith and earnestness with which you desire to be led by it. For the hungry spirit of prayer is that faith, to which all things are possible, to which all nature, though as high as mountains, and as stiff as oaks, must yield and obey. It heals all diseases, breaks the bands of death, and calls the dead out of their graves. Look at the small seeds of plants, shut up in their own dead husks, and covered with thick earth, and see how they grow. What do they do? They hunger and thirst after the light and air of this world. Their hunger eats that which they hunger after, and this is their vegetation. If the plant ceases to hunger, it withers and dies, though surrounded with the air and light of this world.

This is the true nature of the spiritual life; it is as truly a growth or vegetation, as that of plants; and nothing but its own hunger can help it to the true food of its life. If this hunger of the soul ceases, it withers and dies, though in the midst of divine plenty. Our Lord, to show us that the new birth is really a state of spiritual vegetation, compares it to a small grain of mustard-seed, from whence a great plant arises. Now every seed has a life in itself, or else it could not grow. What is this life? It is nothing else but an hunger in the seed, after the air and light of this world; which hunger, being met and fed by the light and air of nature, changes the seed into a living plant. Thus it is with the seed of heaven in the soul. It has a life in itself, or else no life could arise from it. What is this life? It is nothing else but faith, or an hunger after God and heaven; which no sooner stirs, or is suffered to stir, but it is met, embraced, and quickened, by the Light and Spirit of God and heaven; and so a new man in Christ, is formed from the seed of heaven, as a new plant from a seed in the earth. Let us suppose now, that the seed of a plant had sense and reason, and that, instead of continually hungering after, and drawing in the virtue of the light and air of our outward nature, it should amuse, and content its hunger with reasoning about the nature of hunger, and the different powers and virtues of light and air; must not such a seed of all necessity wither away, without ever becoming a living plant? Now this is no false similitude of the seed of life in man: man has a power of drawing all the virtue of heaven into himself, because the seed of heaven is the gift of God in his soul, which wants the Light and Spirit of God to bring it to the birth, just as the seed of the plant wants the light and air of this world; it cannot possibly grow up in God, but by taking in light, life, and spirit from heaven, as the creatures of time take in the light, and life, and spirit of this world. If therefore the soul, instead of hungering after heaven, instead of eating the flesh and blood of the Christ of God, contents and amuses this seed of life with ideas, and notions, and sounds, must not such a soul of necessity wither, and die, without ever becoming a living creature of heaven? 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. It is for the same reason, and on the same necessity, that the life and growth of the creatures of this world, must be wholly ascribed to the powers of this world, living and working in them. Nor does all this, in the least degree, make a man a machine, or without any power with regard to his salvation. He must grow in God, as the plants grow in this world, from a power that is not his own, as they grow from the powers of outward nature. But he differs entirely from the plants in this, that an uncontrollable will, which is his own, must be the leader and beginner of his growth either in God, or nature. It is strictly true, that all man's salvation depends upon himself; and it is as strictly true, that all the work of his salvation, is solely the work of God in his soul. All his salvation depends upon himself, because his will-spirit has its power of motion in itself. As a will, it can only receive that which it willeth; everything else is absolutely shut out of it. For it is the unalterable nature of the will, that it cannot possibly receive anything into it, but that which it willeth; its willing is its only power of receiving; and therefore there can be no possible entrance for God or heaven into the soul, till the will-spirit of the soul desires it; and thus all man's salvation depends upon himself. On the other hand, nothing can create, effect, or bring forth, a birth or growth of the divine life in the soul, but that Light and Spirit of God, which brings forth the divine life in heaven, and all heavenly beings. 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. Thus, Academicus, you see that God is all; that nothing but his life and working power in us, can be our salvation; us to have it, or be capable of it. And therefore neither you, nor any other human soul, can be without the operation of the Light and Spirit of God in it, but because its will-spirit, or its spirit of prayer, is turned towards something else; for we are always in union with that, with which our will is united. Again: look, Academicus, at the light and air of this world, you see with what a freedom of communication they overflow, enrich, and enliven everything; they enter everywhere, if not hindered by something that withstands their entrance. This may represent to you the ever-overflowing free communication of the Light and Spirit of God, to every human soul. They are everywhere; we are encompassed with them; our souls are as near to them, as our bodies are to the light and air of this world; nothing shuts them out of us, but the will and desire of our souls, turned from them, and praying for something else. I say, praying for something else; for you are to notice this, as a certain truth, that every man's life is a continual state of prayer; he is no moment free from it, nor can possibly be so. For all our natural tempers, be they what they will, ambition, covetousness, selfishness, worldly-mindedness, pride, envy, hatred, malice, or any other lust whatever, are all of them in reality, only so many different kinds, and forms of a spirit of prayer, which is as inseparable from the heart, as weight is from the body. For every natural temper is nothing else, but a manifestation of the desire and prayer of the heart, and shows us, how it works and wills. And as the heart worketh, and willeth, such, and no other, is its prayer. All else is only form, and fiction, and empty beating of the air. If therefore the working desire of the heart is not habitually turned towards God, if this is not our spirit of prayer, we are necessarily in a state of prayer towards something else, that carries us from God, and brings all kind of evil into us. For this is the necessity of our nature; pray we must, as sure as our heart is alive; and therefore when the state of our heart is not a spirit of prayer to God, we pray without ceasing to some, or other part of the creation. The man whose heart habitually tends towards the riches, honors, powers, or pleasures of this life, is in a continual state of prayer towards all these things. His spirit stands always bent towards them; they have his hope, his love, his faith, and are the many gods that he worships: and though when he is upon his knees, and uses forms of prayer, he directs them to the God of heaven; yet these are in reality the god of his heart, and, in a sad sense of the words, he really worships them in spirit, and in truth. Hence you may see, Academicus, how it comes to pass, that there is so much praying, and yet so little of true piety amongst us. The bells are daily calling us to church, our closets abound with manuals of devotion, yet how little fruit! It is all for this reason, because our prayers are not our own; they are not the abundance of our own heart; are not found and felt within us, as we feel our own hunger and thirst; but are only so many borrowed forms of speech, which we use at certain times and occasions. And therefore it is no wonder that little good comes of it. What benefit could it have been to the Pharisee, if, with an heart inwardly full of its own pride and self-exaltation, he had outwardly hung down his head, smote upon his breast, and borrowed the publican's words, "God be merciful to me a sinner"? What greater good can be expected from our praying in the words of David, or singing his psalms seven times a day, if our heart has no more the spirit of David in it, than the heart of the Pharisee had of the spirit of the humble publican?

Acad. O Theophilus, truth and reason force me to consent to what you say; and yet I am afraid of following you: for you here seem to condemn forms of prayer in public, and manuals of devotion in private. What will become of religion, if these are set aside or disregarded?

Theoph. Dear Academicus, abate your fright. Can you think, that I am against your praying in the words of David, or breathing his spirit in your prayers, or that I would censure your singing his psalms seven times a day? Remember how very lately I put into your hands the book called, A Serious Call to a Devout Life &c., and then think how unlikely it is, that I should be against times and methods of devotion. At three several times, we are told, our Lord prayed, repeating the same form of words; and therefore a set form of words are not only consistent with, but may be highly suitable to, the most divine spirit of prayer. If your own heart, for days and weeks, was unable to alter, or break off from inwardly thinking and saying, "hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done"; if at other times, for weeks and months, it stood always inwardly in another form of prayer, unable to vary, or depart from saying, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, with all thy holy nature, spirit, and tempers, into my soul, that I may be born again of thee, a new creature"; I should be so far from censuring such a formality of prayer, that I should say, blessed and happy are they, whose hearts are tied to such a form of words. It is not therefore, sir, a set form of words that is spoken against, but an heartless form, a form that has no relation to, or correspondence with, the state of the heart that uses it. All that I have said is only to teach you the true nature of prayer, that it is only the work of the heart, and that the heart only prays in reality (whatever its words are) for that which it habitually wills, likes, loves, and longs to have. It is not therefore the using the words of David, or any other saint, in your prayers, that is censured, but the using them without that state of heart, which first spoke them forth, and the trusting to them, because they are a good form, though in our hearts we have nothing that is like them. It would be good to say incessantly with holy David, "My heart is athirst for God. As the hart desireth the waterbrooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God." But there is no goodness in saying daily these words, if no such thirst is felt, or desired in the heart. And, my friend, you may easily know, that dead forms of religion, and numbers of repeated prayers, keep men content with their state of devotion, because they make use of such holy prayers; though their hearts, from morning to night, are in a state quite contrary to them, and join no further in them, than in liking to use them at certain times.

Acad. I acquiesce, Theophilus, in the truth of what you have said, and plainly see the necessity of condemning what you have condemned; which is not the form, but the heartless form. But still I have a scruple upon me: I shall be almost afraid of going to church, where there are so many good prayers offered up to God, as suspecting they may not be the prayers or language of my own heart, and so become only a lip-labor, or, what is worse, an hypocrisy before God.

Theoph. I do not, Academicus, dislike your scruple at all; for you do well to be afraid of saying anything of yourself, or to God, in your prayers, which your heart does not truly say. It is also good for you to think, that many of the prayers of the church may go faster, and higher, than your heart can in truth go along with them. For this will put you upon a right care over yourself, and so to live, that, as a true son of your mother the church, your heart may be able to speak her language, conform to her service, and find the delight of your soul in the spirit of her prayers. But this will only then come to pass, when the spirit of prayer is the spirit of your heart; then every good word, whether in a form, or out of a form, whether heard, or read, or thought, will be a suitable to your heart, as gratifying to it, as food is to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty soul. But till the spirit of the heart is thus renewed, till it is emptied of all earthly desires, and stands in an habitual hunger and thirst after God (which is the true spirit of prayer) till then, all our forms of prayer will be, more or less, but too much like lessons that are given to scholars; and we shall mostly say them, only because we dare not neglect them. But be not discouraged, Academicus; take the following advice, and then you may go to church without any danger of a mere lip-labor or hypocrisy, although there should be an hymn, or a psalm, or a prayer, whose language is higher than that of your own heart. Do this: go to the church, as the publican went into the temple; stand inwardly in the spirit of your mind, in that form which he outwardly expressed, when he cast down his eyes, smote upon his breast, and could only say, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" Stand unchangeably (at least in your desire) in this form and state of heart; it will sanctify every petition that comes out of your mouth; and when anything is read, or sung, or prayed, that is more exalted and fervent than your heart is, if you make this an occasion of a further sinking down in the spirit of the publican, you will then be helped, and highly blessed, by those prayers and praises, which seem only to fit, and belong to, a better heart than yours.

This, my friend, is a secret of secrets; it will help you to reap where you have not sown, and be a continual source of grace in your soul. This will not only help you to receive good from those prayers, which seem too good for the state of your heart, but will help you to find good from everything else: for everything that inwardly stirs in you, or outwardly happens to you, becomes a real good to you, if it either finds or excites in you this humble form of mind: for nothing is in vain, or without profit, to the humble soul; like the bee, it takes its honey even from bitter herbs; it stands always in a state of divine growth; and everything that falls upon it, is like a dew of heaven to it. Shut up yourself therefore in this form of humility, all good is enclosed in it; it is a water of heaven, that turns the fire of the fallen soul, into the meekness of the divine life, and creates that oil, out of which the love to God and man gets its flame. Be enclosed therefore always in it; let it be as a garment wherewith you are always covered, and the girdle with which you are girt; breathe nothing but with its ears; and then, whether you are in the church, or out of the church; hearing the praises of God, or receiving wrongs from men, and the world, all will be edification, and everything will help forward your growth in the life of God.

Acad. Indeed, Theophilus, this answer to my scruple is quite good: I not only like, but I love it much: it gives as well an unction to my heart, as a light to my mind. All my desire now is, to live no longer to the world, to myself, my own natural tempers and passions, but wholly to the will of the blessed and adorable God, moved and guided by his Holy Spirit.

Theoph. This resolution, Academicus, only shows that you are just come to yourself; for everything short of this earnest desire to live wholly unto God, may be called a most dreadful infatuation or madness, an insensibility that cannot be described. For what else is our life, but a trial for the greatest evil, or good, that an eternity can give us? What can be so dreadful, as to die possessed of a wicked immortal nature, or to go out of this world with tempers, that must keep us forever burning in our own fire, and brimstone? What has God not done to prevent this? His redeeming love began with our fall, and kindles itself as a spark of heaven in every fallen soul. It calls every man to salvation, and every man is forced to hear, though he will not obey his voice. God has so loved the world, that his only Son hung and expired, bleeding on the cross, not to atone his own wrath against us, but to extinguish our own hell within us, to pour his heavenly love into us, to show us that meekness, suffering, and dying to our own fallen nature, is the one, only possible way, for fallen man to be alive again in God. Are we yet sons of pride, and led away with vanity? Do the powers of darkness rule over us? Do impure evil spirits possess and drive on our lives? Has sin lost all its power of frightening us? Is remorse of conscience no longer felt? Are falsehood, guile, debauchery, profaneness, perjury, bribery, corruption, and adultery, no longer seeking to hide themselves in corners, but openly entering all our high places, giving battle to every virtue, and laying claim to the government of the world? Are we thus near being swallowed up by a deluge of vice and impiety? All this is not come upon us, because God has left us too much without help from heaven, or too much exposed us to the powers of hell; but it is because we have rejected and despised the whole mystery of our salvation, and trampled under foot the precious blood of Christ, which alone has that omnipotence, that can either bring heaven into us, or drive hell out of us. O Britain, Britain, think that the Son of God saith unto thee, as he said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy children, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." And now let me say, What aileth thee, O British earth, that thou quakest, and the foundations of thy churches that they totter? Just that same aileth thee, as ailed Judah's earth, when the divine savior of the world, dying on the cross, was reviled, scorned, and mocked, by the inhabitants of Jerusalem; then the earth quaked, the rocks rent, and the sun refused to give its light. Nature again declares for God; the earth, and the elements can no longer bear our sins: Jerusalem's doom for Jerusalem's sin, may well be feared by us. Oh ye miserable pens dipped in Satan's ink, that dare to publish the folly of believing in Jesus Christ, where will you hide your guilty heads, when nature dissolved, shall show you the rainbow, on which the crucified savior shall sit in judgment, and every work receive its reward? O tremble! ye apostate sons that come out of the schools of Christ, to fight Lucifer's battles, and do that for him, which neither he, nor his legions can do for themselves. Their inward pride, spite, wrath, malice and rage against God, and Christ, and human nature, have no pens but yours, no apostles but you. They must be forced to work in the dark, to steal privately into impure hearts, could they not beguile you into a fond belief, that you are lovers of truth, friends of reason, detectors of fraud, great geniuses, and moral philosophers, merely and solely, because ye blaspheme Christ, and the gospel of God. Poor deluded souls, rescued from hell by the blood of Christ, called by God to possess the thrones of fallen angels, permitted to live only by the mercy of God, that ye may be born again from above! my heart bleeds for you. Think, I beseech you, in time, what mercies ye are trampling under your feet. Say not that reason, and your intellectual faculties, stand in your way; that these are the best gifts, that God has given you, and that these suffer you not to come to Christ. For all this is as vain a pretense, and as gross a mistake, as if ye were to say, that you had nothing but your feet to carry you to heaven. For your heart is the best and greatest gift of God to you; it is the highest, greatest, strongest, and noblest power of your nature; it forms your whole life, be it what it will; all evil, and all good, comes from it; your heart alone has the key of life and death; it does all that it will; reason is but its plaything, and whether in time or eternity, can only be a mere beholder of the wonders of happiness, or forms of misery, which the right, or wrong working of the heart is entered into.

I will here give you an infallible touchstone, that will try all to the truth. It is this: retire from the world, and all conversations, only for one month; neither write, nor read, nor debate anything in private with yourself; stop all the former workings of your heart and mind; and, with all the strength of your heart, stand all this month as continually as you can, in this following form of prayer to God. Offer it frequently on your knees; but, whether sitting, standing, or walking, be always inwardly longing, and earnestly praying this one prayer to God: "That, of his great goodness, he would make known to you and take from your heart, every kind, and form, and degree of pride, whether it be from evil spirits, or your own corrupt nature; and that he would awaken in you the deepest depth and truth of all that humility, which can make you capable of his Light, and Holy Spirit." Reject every thought, but that of wishing, and praying in this manner from the bottom of your heart, with such truth and earnestness, as people in torment, wish and pray to be delivered from it. Now if you dare not, if your hearts will not, cannot give themselves up in this manner to the spirit of this prayer, then the touchstone has done its work, and you may be as fully assured, both what your infidelity is, and from what it proceeds, as you can be of the plainest truth in nature. This will show you, how vainly you appeal to your reason, and speculation, as the cause of your infidelity; that it is full as false and absurd, as if thieves and adulterers should say, that their theft and adultery was entirely owing to their bodily eyes, which showed them external objects, and not to anything that was wrong or bad in their hearts. On the other hand, if you can, and will give yourselves up in truth and sincerity to this spirit of prayer, I will venture to affirm, that if you had twice as many evil spirits in you, as Mary Magdalen had, they will all be cast out of you, and you will be forced with her, to weep with tears of love, at the feet of the holy Jesus.

But here, my friends, I stop, that we may return to the matter we had in hand.

Rust. You have made no digression, Theophilus, from our main point, which was to recommend Christianity to poor Humanus. He must, I am sure, have felt the death-blows, that you have here given to the infidel scheme. The idol of reason, which is the vain god, that they worship in vain, is here like Dagon fallen to the ground, never to rise up again. Humanus is caught by your bait of love, and I dare say he wants only to have this conversation ended, that he may try himself to the truth, by this divine touchstone, which you have put into his hands.

Acad. Give me leave, gentlemen, to add one word to this matter. Theophilus has here fairly pulled reason out of its usurped throne, and shown it to be a powerless, idle toy, when compared to the royal strength of the heart, which is the kingly power, that has all the government of life in its hands. But if Humanus, or anyone else, would see reason fully maintained in all its just rights, and yet entirely disarmed of all its pretenses to a religion of its own, and the truth of the gospel fully proved to every man, learned, or unlearned, from the known state of his own heart; if he would see all this set forth in the strongest, clearest light, he need only read about an hundred pages of a book {A Demonstration of the Gross and Fundamental Errors of a Late Book called A Plain Account of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper} published about twelve years ago, to which no answer has, nor, it may be, ever will be given by any patron of reason, and infidelity. And if part of that book (as I have often wished) beginning at page 70 to 117, was printed by itself, and known and read in every part of the kingdom, all Christians, though no scholars, would have learning enough both to see the deep, true, and comfortable foundation of their gospel faith, and the miserable folly, and ignorance of those, who would set up a religion of human reason instead of it. But now, Theophilus, I beg we may return to that very point concerning prayer, where we left off. I think my heart is entirely devoted to God, and that I desire nothing but to live in such a state of prayer, as may best keep me under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. Assist me therefore, my dear friend, in this important matter; give me the fullest directions that you can; and if you have any manual of devotion, that you prefer, or any method that you would put me in, pray let me know it.

Rust. I beg leave to speak a word to Academicus. I am glad, sir, to see this fire of heaven, thus far kindled in your soul; but wonder that you should want to know, how you are to keep up its flame, which is like wanting to know, how you are to love and desire that, which you do love and desire. Does a blind, or sick, or lame man want to know, how he shall wish and desire sight, health, and limbs? or would be at a loss, till some form of words taught him how to long for them? Now you can have no desire or prayer for any grace, or help from God, till you in some degree as surely feel the want of them, and desire the good of them, as the sick man feels the want, and desires the good of health. But when this is your case, you want no more to be told how to pray, than the thirsty man wants to be told what he shall ask for. Have you not fully consented to this truth, that the heart only can pray, and that it prays for nothing but that, which it loves, wills, and wishes to have? But can love or desire want art, or method, to teach it to be, that which it is? If from the bottom of your heart you have a sincere, warm love for your most valuable friend, would you want to buy a book, to tell you, what sentiments you feel in your heart towards this friend, what comfort, what joy, what gratitude, what trust, what honor, what confidence, what faith, are all alive, and stirring in your heart towards him? Ask not therefore, Academicus, for a book of prayers; but ask your heart what is within it, what it desires? and then, instead of calling upon Theophilus for assistance, stand in the same form of petition to God.