The Self Life

by William Law

Extracts from William Law's "Address to the clergy"

What is it that everyone has so much to fear, so much to renounce and abhor, as every inward sensibility of self-exaltation, and every outward work that proceeds from it. But now, at what things shall a man look, to see that working of self which raises pride to its strongest life, and most of all hinders the birth of the humble Jesus in his soul?  Shall we call the pride and vanities of the world the highest works of self-adoration? Shall we look at the painted ladies, to see the pride that has the most of antichrist in it? No, by no means.

These are indeed marks, shameful enough, of the vain, foolish heart of man, but yet, comparatively speaking, they are but the skin-deep follies of that pride which the fall of man has brought forth in him. If you would like to see the deepest root, and strength of pride and self-adoration, you must enter into the dark chamber of man's fiery soul, where the light of God (which alone gives humility and meek submission to all created beings) being extinguished by the death which Adam died. Satan, or self-exaltation, which is the same thing, became the strong man that keeps possession of the house, until a stronger than he should come upon him.

In this secret source of an eternal fiery soul, glorying in the light of this world, a swelling kingdom of pride and vanities is set up in the heart of man, of which, all outward pride and vanities are but its childish transitory playthings. The inward strong man of pride, the diabolical self, has his higher works within; He dwells in the strength of the heart, and has every power and faculty of the soul offering continual incense to him. His memory, his will, his understanding, his imagination, are always at work for him, and for no one else. His memory is the faithful repository of all the fine things that self has ever done; And lest any of these should be lost or forgotten, his memory is continually setting them before his eyes. His will, though it has all the world before it, yet goes after nothing, but that which self sends for. His understanding is ever upon the search for new projects to enlarge the dominions of self; and if this fails, imagination comes in, as the last and truest support of self, she makes him a king and mighty lord of castles in the air.

His is that full-born natural self, that must be pulled out of the heart, and totally denied, or there can be no disciple of Christ; which is only saying this plain truth, that the apostate self-idolatrous nature of the old man must be put off, or there can be no new creature in Christ.

Now what is it in the human soul that most of all hinders the death of this old man? What is it that above all other things strengthens and exalts the life of self, and makes it the master and governor of all the powers of the heart and soul? It is the fancied riches of genius, the flights of imagination, the glory of learning, and the self-conceited strength of natural reason: these are the strong holds of fallen nature, the master-builders of pride's temple in the heart of man, and which, as so many priests, keep up the daily worship of idol-self. And here let it be well observed, that all these magnified talents of the natural man are started up through his miserable fall from the life of Jesus Christ in his soul. Wit, genius, learning, and natural reason, would never have had any more of a name among men, than blindness, ignorance, and sickness, had man continued, as at first, an holy image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Every thing then that dwelt in him, or came from him, would have only said so much of God, and nothing of himself, have manifested nothing to him but the heavenly powers of the triune life of God dwelling in him.

He would have had no more sense or consciousness of his own wit, or natural reason, or any power of goodness in all that he was, and did, than of his own creating power, at beholding the created heavens and earth. It is his dreadful fall from the life of God in his soul, that has furnished him with these high intellectual riches, just as it has furnished him with the substantial riches of his bestial appetites and lusts. And when the lusts of the flesh have spent out their life, when the dark thick body of earthly flesh and blood shall be forced to let the soul go loose, all these bright talents will end with that system of fleshly lusts, in which they began; and that of man which remains will have nothing of its own, nothing that can say, I do this, or I do that; but all that it has or does, will be either the glory of God manifested in it, or the power of hell in full possession of it.

The time of man's playing with wit, and abilities, and of fancying himself to be something great and considerable in the intellectual world, may be much shorter, but can be no longer, than he can eat and drink with the animals of this world. When the time comes, that fine buildings, rich settlements, acquired honors, and rabbi, rabbi, must take their leave of him, all the stately structures, which genius, learning, and flights of imagination, have painted inwardly on his brain and outwardly on paper, must bear full witness to Solomon's vanity of vanities.

However, to make way for criticism, and language-learning, to have the full management of salvation doctrines, the well-read scholar gives out, that the ancient way of knowing the things of God, taught and practiced by fishermen-apostles, is obsolete. They indeed wanted to have divine knowledge from the immediate continual operation of the Holy Spirit, but this state was only for a time, till genius, and learning entered into the confines of the church. Behold, if ever, "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place!" was ever put into place, it is with this.

For as soon as the doctrine is set up, that man's natural acquired learning have full right and power to sit in the divinity chair, and to guide men into that truth which was once, the office and power of the Holy Spirit, as soon as this is done, and so far as it is received, it may with the greatest truth be said, that the kingdom of God is entirely shut up, and only a kingdom of scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, can come in place of it. For by this doctrine the whole nature and power of gospel religion is much more denied, than by setting up the infallibility of the pope; for though his claim to infallibility is false, yet he claims it from and under the power of the Holy Spirit; but the protestant scholar has his divinity knowledge, his power in the kingdom of truth, from himself, his own logic, and learned reason. Christ has nowhere instituted an infallible pope; and it is very clear, that he has nowhere spoke one single word, or given the least power to logic, learning, or the natural powers of man, in His kingdom.

He never said to wolves, "go, and feed my sheep." Christ indeed said of Himself, according to the flesh, it is expedient for you that I go away. But where has He said of Himself according to the Spirit, "it is also expedient for you that I go away, that your own natural abilities and learned reason may have the guidance of you into all truth?" This is nowhere said, unless logic can prove it from these words, "Without me you can do nothing," and, "lo, I am with you to the end of the world."

Instead of this doctrine of everything coming from our own logic, and learned reason, the bible actually says. "When they bring you before magistrates and powers, take no thought how, or what you shall answer, or what you shall say unto them, for the Holy Ghost shall teach you in that same hour what you ought to say.  For it is not you that speak, but the spirit of your Father that speaks in you."

This is the truth of the kingdom of God, come unto men, and this is the birth-right privilege of all that are living members of it, to be delivered from their own natural spirit which they had from Adam, from the spirit and wisdom of this world, and through the whole course of their lives only to say, and do, and be that, which the Spirit of their Father works in them.

William Law, born in 1686, became a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge in 1711, but in 1714, at the death of Queen Anne, he became a non-juror: that is to say, he found himself unable to take the required oath of allegiance to the Hanoverian Dynasty (which had replaced the Stuart Dynasty) as the lawful rulers of the United Kingdom, and was accordingly ineligible to serve as a university teacher or parish minister. He became for ten years a private tutor in the family of the historian, Edward Gibbon (who, despite his generally cynical attitude toward all things Christian, invariably wrote of Law with respect and admiration). William Law then retired to his native King's Cliffe. Forbidden the use of the pulpit and the lecture-hall, he preached through his books. These include Christian Perfection, The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration, Fable of the Bees 1724, Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainments 1726, On Christian perfection 1726, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life 1728, The Case of Reason, or Natural Religion 1731, On the Lord's Supper 1737, The Spirit of Prayer 1749, Christian Regeneration 1750, Where shall I go ... to be in the Truth," 1750, The Way to Divine Knowledge 1752, The Spirit of Love 1752, Of Justification by Faith and Works 1760, Letters on Important Subjects, and on Several Occasions 1760, Address to the Clergy 1761.

 The thesis of this last book is that God does not merely forgive our disobedience, he calls us to obedience, and to a life completely centered in Him. He says: "If you will here stop and ask yourself why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but because you never thoroughly intended it." The immediate influence of the book was considerable.

Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Henry Venn, William Wilberforce, and Thomas Scott each described reading the book as a major turning-point in his life. All in all, there were few leaders of the English evangelical movement on whom it did not have a profound influence.

John Wesley calls it one of three books which accounted for his first "explicit resolve to be all devoted to God." Later, when denying, in response to a question, that Methodism was founded on Law's writings, he added that "Methodists carefully read these books and were greatly profited by them." In 1744 he published extracts from the serious call, thereby introducing it to a wider audience than it already had. About eighteen months before his death, John Wesley called it "a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equaled, either for beauty of expression or for depth of thought."

William Law died in 1761 just a few days after his last book, An Affectionate Address to the Clergy, went to the printers.