Quotes from William Law

To lessen your fear and regard to the opinion of the world, think how soon the world will disregard you, and have no more thought or concern about you, than about the poorest animal that died in a ditch...Is it therefore worth your while to lose the smallest degree of virtue, for the sake of pleasing so bad a master, and so false a friend, as the world is?

The merit of persons is to be no rule of our charity, but we are to do acts of kindness to those that least deserve it.

We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to his Glory.

A lack of this complete submission to the will of God, and a failure to realize that our salvation can only be worked out by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit forming the very life of Christ within the redeemed heart, has placed the Christian church today in the same apostasy that characterized the Jewish nation.

the reason why you see no real mortification or self-denial, no eminent charity, no profound humility, no heavenly affection, no true contempt of the world, no Christian meekness, no sincere zeal, no eminent piety in the common lives of Christians, is this, because they do not so much as intend to be exact and exemplary in these virtues.

As sure, therefore, as there is any wisdom in praying for the Spirit of God, so sure is it, that we are to make that Spirit the rule of all our actions;

True Christianity is nothing but the continual dependence upon God through Christ for all life, light, and virtue; and the false religion of Satan is to seek that goodness from any other source. So

If [we] have no chosen the kingdom of God [first], it will make in the end no difference what [we] have chosen instead.

And thus we understand, how the Whole of our Redemption (according to the plain language of Scripture) is inwardly and outwardly solely the Work of the Light and Spirit of God, a Kingdom of God both within and without us, and to which we do not, cannot live, but so far as we are inspired, moved, and led, by the Spirit of God.

Nourish it with good works, give it peace in solitude, get it strength in prayer, make it wise with reading, enlighten it by meditation, make it tender with love, sweeten it with humility, humble it with penance, enliven it with psalms and hymns, and comfort it with frequent reflections upon future glory.

For as sure as the Lip of Truth hath told us, that there is but One that is good, so sure is it, that not a Spark of Goodness, nor a Breath of Piety, can be in any Creature, either in Heaven, or on Earth, but by that Divine Spirit, which is the Breath of God, breathed from himself into the Creature.