A Teacher
William Law
Devotion as the total dedication of the inner life to God
The transmission
William Law was born in 1686 at King’s Cliffe, Northamptonshire, England, and educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he became a fellow. As a “nonjuror” he refused on conscience to swear allegiance to King George I in 1714, which ended his university and clerical prospects within the established church; he later served for a time as tutor in the household of the historian Edward Gibbon’s family.
He is best known for A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), a work of such force and simplicity that it became a classic of English devotion and was said to have shaped figures across the religious spectrum.
In his later years Law came increasingly under the influence of the German mystic Jacob Böhme, and his writing turned from practical moral exhortation toward a deeper mystical and theosophical vision of the soul’s regeneration in God.
Returning to King’s Cliffe, he lived a disciplined life of devotion, study, and charity until his death in 1761. He is widely credited with doing more than any other English writer to introduce Böhme to the English-speaking world, and his work bridges the practical piety of the devotional tradition and the speculative depths of Christian mysticism.
What they gave
Total interior devotion: In A Serious Call Law argued that genuine religion is not confined to acts of worship but consists in directing the whole of one’s intentions, habits, and inner life toward God, an ordering of the will that reshapes the self from within.
- The new birth and inner transformation: Under Böhme’s influence he emphasized regeneration as an inward event, the awakening or rebirth of a divine seed or spark within the soul, casting salvation as transformation of consciousness rather than mere external observance.
- Surrender to the divine working: Law taught a posture of self-denial and yieldedness in which the seeker ceases self-will and allows the indwelling life of God to grow, a cooperation of human effort with prevenient grace.
- The deeper Self as the image of God: His mature mysticism located the true ground of the person in the divine image within, holding that the soul finds its reality only by turning inward to the God who already dwells at its center.
In their words
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.
Devotion is neither private nor public prayer; but prayers, whether private or public, are particular parts or instances of devotion.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: the German mystic Jacob Böhme (decisively in his later years), the broader Christian mystical tradition including the Theologia Germanica, and earlier the philosophy of Nicolas Malebranche.
- Influenced: John Wesley and the leaders of the English Evangelical Revival (who admired A Serious Call even while parting from his later mysticism), the Methodist movement, and subsequent English devotional and mystical writers.
Revelations they taught
Essential Works
- A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life1729
- The Spirit of Prayer1749