Quotes from William Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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