Quotes from William Law

For nothing, my Friend, acts in the whole Universe of Things but Spirit alone. And the State, Condition, and Degree of every Spirit, is only and solely opened by the State, Form, Condition, and Qualities of the Body that belongs to it. For the Body can have no Nature, Form, Condition, or Quality but that which the Spirit that brings it forth, gives to it.

Let me now only add this one word more, that he who has learned to pray, has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.

Hence so much is said in the Scripture of the quickening, raising, and reviving the inward, new Man, of the new Birth from above, of Christ being formed in us, as the one only Redemption and Salvation of the Soul.

Hence also the Fall of Adam was said to be a Death, that he died the Day of his Sin, though he lived so many hundred Years after it: it was because his Sin broke the Union of his two-fold Life and put an End to the heavenly Part of it, and left only one Life, the Life of this bestial, earthly World in him.

Hold it therefore for a certain Truth, that you can have no Good come into your Soul, but only by the one Way of a Birth from above, from the Entrance of the Deity into the Properties of your own soulish Life.

The natural, called in Scripture, the old Man, is steadily the same in Heart and Spirit in every Thing he does, whatever Variety of Names may be given to his Actions. For Self can have no Motion but what is selfish, which Way soever it goes, or whatever it does, either in Church or State. And be assured of this, that Nature in every Man, whether he be learned or unlearned, is this very Self, and can be nothing else, till a Birth of the Deity is brought forth in it.

For a frequent intercession with God, earnestly beseeching him to forgive the sins of all mankind, to bless them with His providence, enlighten them with His Spirit, and bring them to everlasting happiness, is the divinest exercise that the heart of man can be engaged in.

Be daily, therefore, on your knees, in a solemn deliberate performance of this devotion, praying for others in such forms, with such length, importunity, and earnestness, as you use for yourself; and you will find all little, ill-natured passions die away, your heart grow great and generous, delighting in the common happiness of others, as you used only to delight in your own.

If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and all perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing.

If I am seeking everything that can delight my senses, and regale my appetites; spending my time and fortune in pleasures, in diversions, and worldly enjoyments; a stranger to watchings, fastings, prayers, and mortification; how can it be said that I am working out my salvation with fear and trembling?

and have not Charity (that is, have not the Spirit of Christ) it profiteth me nothing.

If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God first, it will in the end make no difference what you have chosen instead.