Christian History Institute Presents Pastwords #12: Religion of Reason Cannot Perfect the Heart by William Law ©2007

LAW, WILLIAM. Religion of Reason. An Extract. Dublin: Printed in the Year MDCCLVII. [1757]

William Law (1686-1761) English non-juror, spiritual writer. On the accession of George I, Law refused the Oath of Allegiance, was deprived of his fellowship, and became a Non-juror. His Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, was inspired by the teaching of J. Tauler, J. Ruysbroeck, Thomas à Kempis, and others, “is a forceful exhortation to embrace the Christian life in its moral and ascetical fullness... [it] was greatly appreciated by J. Wesley, G. Whitefield, and H. Venn. – Cross: Oxford Dict. Christian Ch., p791. In this tract, Law argues that it is through the senses that the physical body relates to the world, so “it is the Sensibility of the Soul that must receive what God can communicate to it.”

"Law was one of the most eminent English writers on practical divinity in the eighteenth century. He was a genuine Mystic, although he lived in a worldly and rationalistic age... At one time, Law was a kind of oracle with Wesley, and his influence upon early Methodism was of an almost formative character. In his later years he became an enthusiastic student of Jakob Boehme, but his strong churchly feeling and his sound English sense kept him from the wild errors and extravagances into which some of Boehme’s disciples fell."

Law in his Address to the Clergy, “regards religion and scholarship as necessarily opposed, and, in expounding this displays a stubborn obtuseness which is surprising in such a master of reasoning. Dr. Flew suggests that Law’s distrust of all human learning and human intellect may be due to his theory that the Fall was the result of a false curiosity. We may agree and also add that the fact that Jacob Boehme, to whom Law owed the main influence which transformed his life, was unlearned in the technical sense, would tend to confirm Law in his antipathy."-- New Schaff-Herzog Enc. Relg. Knowl., 6:431-32., p.92.

nd therefore to seek for the Religion or Perfection of the Heart in the Power of our Reason, is as groundless and absurd, and against the Nature of Things, as to seek for the Perfection and Strength of our Senses in the Power of our Reason. I appeal to every Man in the World for the Truth of all this; for every Man has the fullest inward Conviction, that his Heart is not his Reason, nor his Reason his Heart, but that the one is as different from the other in its whole Nature as Pain, and Joy, and Desire are different from Definitions of them; and that as a thousand Definitions of Joy and Desire, will not become that Desire and Joy itself; so a thousand Definitions of Religion will not become Religion itself, but be always at the same Distance from it, as Speculations upon our Passions are from the Nature of them. You know, not by Hearsay, Reasoning, or Books, but by inward Sentiment, that your Reason can be very nicely religious, very strict in its Descriptions of Goodness, at the same Time that the Heart is a mere Libertine, sunk into the very Dregs of Corruption: On the other Hand, you know that when your Reason is debauched with Arguments, is contending for Prophaneness, and seems full of Proof that Piety is Superstition, your Heart at the same Time has often a Virtue in it that dissents from all that you say.

Now all this Proof that the State of Reason is not the State of your Heart, is the same Proof that Reason is not the Power or Strength of our Religion, because what our Heart is, that is our Religion; what belongs to our Heart that belongs to our Religion; which never had nor can have any other Nature, Power, or Perfection, than that which is the Nature, Power and Perfection of our Heart.

The least stirring of this inward Principle, or Power of Life, is of more Value than all the Activity of our Reason, which is only a painter of dead Images, which leave the Heart, in the same State of Death and Emptiness of all Goodness in which they find it.

Therefore, my dear Friend, know the Place of your Religion, turn inwards, listen to the Voice of Grace, the Instinct of God, and let your Heart pray to God that all that is good and holy in him may touch, and stir, and revive all that is capable of Goodness in you. Your Heart wants nothing but God, and nothing but your Heart can receive him. This is the Seat of Religion.

We are apt to consider Grace only as some Working of our Heart, that checks us, and so we are rather afraid, than fond of it. But if we looked upon it as it really is, so much of God within us striving to raise us from the Dead, we should love and adhere to it as our happy Guide to Heaven.

It may not be improper here to speak a Word, or two or the true Ground and Nature of Enthusiasm, which some suppose peculiar to Religion. In Will, Imagination, and Desire consists the Life of every intelligent Creature; and as every intelligent Creature is its own Self-mover, so every intelligent Creature has Power of kindling and inflaming its Will, Imagination, and Desire as it pleases, with Shadows, Fictions, or Realities; with Things earthly or spiritual, temporal or eternal. And this kindling of the Will, Imagination, and Desire, when raised into a ruling Degree of Life, is properly that which is to be understood by Enthusiasm. And therefore Enthusiasm is, and must be, of as many Kinds as those Objects are, which can handle and enflame the Wills, Imaginations, and Desires of Men. And to appropriate Enthusiasm to Religion, is the same Ignorance of Nature, as to appropriate Love to Religion; for Enthusiasm, a kindled inflamed Spirit of Life, is as common, as universal, as essential to human Nature, as Love is; it goes into every kind of Life as Love does, and has only such a Variety of Degrees in Mankind as Love hath. And here we may see the Reason, why no People are so angry at religious Enthusiasts, as those that are deepest in some Enthusiasm of another Kind.

He whose Fire is kindled from the Divinity of Tully's Rhetorick, who travels over high Mountains to salute the dear Ground that Marcus Tullius Cicero walked upon; whose noble Soul would be ready to break out of his Body, if he could see a Desk, a Rostrum from whence Cicero had poured forth his Thunder of Words, may well be unable to bear the Dulness of those, who go on Pilgrimages only to visit the Sepulchre whence the Redeemer of the World rose from the Dead. He whose heated Brain is all over painted with the ancient Hieroglyphicks; who knows how and why they were this and that, better than he can find out the Customs and Usages of his own Parish; who can clear up every Thing that is doubtful in Antiquity, and yet be forced to live in Doubt about that which passes in his own Neighbourhood; who has found out the Sentiments of the first Philosophers with such Certainty, as he cannot find out the real Opinion of any of his Contemporaries; he that has gone thus high into the Clouds, and dug thus deep into the Dark for these glorious Discoveries, may well despise those Christians as Brain-sick Visionaries, who sometimes find a moral and spiritual Sense in the bare Letter and History of Scripture Facts.

It matters not what our Wills and Imaginations are employed about; wherever they fall and love to dwell, there they kindle a Fire, and that becomes the Flame of Life, to which every thing else appears as dead, and insipid, and unworthy of Regard. Hence it is that even the poor Species of Fops and Beaux have a Right to be placed among Enthusiasts, though capable of no other Flame than that which is kindled by Taylors and Peruke-makers. All refined Speculatists, as such, are great Enthusiasts; for being devoted to the Exercise of their Imaginations, they are so heated into a Love of their own Ideas, that they seek no other Summum Bonum. The Grammarian, the Critick, the Poet, the Connoiseur, the Antiquary, the Philosopher, the Politician, are all violent Enthusiasts, though their Heat is only a Flame from Straw, and therefore they all agree in appropriating Enthusiasm to Religion. All ambitious, proud, self-conceited Persons, especially if they are great Scholars, are violent Enthusiasts, and their Enthusiasm is an inflamed Self-love, Self-esteem, and Self-seeking. This Fire is so kindled in them, that every Thing is nauseous and disgustful to them, that does not offer Incense to that Idol which their Imagination turned from God into a gloomy Depth of Nothingness, and therefore their Enthusiasm is a dull burning Fire, that goes in and out through Hopes and Fears of they know not what to come. All professed Infidels are remarkable Enthusiasts, they have kindled a bold Fire from a few faint Ideas, and therefore they are all Zeal, and Courage, and Industry, to be constantly blowing it up. A Tindal and a Collins are as inflamed about nothing, as a St. Bennet and St. Francis with the Doctrines of the Gospel.

Enthusiasts therefore we all are, as certainly as we are Men; and consequently, Enthusiasm is not a Thing blameable in itself, but is the common Condition of human Life in all its States; and every Man that lives either well or ill, is that which he is, from that prevailing Fire of Life, or driving of our Wills and Desires, which is properly called Enthusiasm. You need not then go to a Cloyster, the Cell of a Monk, or to a Field Preacher to see Enthusiasts, they are every where, at Balls and Masquerades, at Court and the Exchange; they sit in all Coffee-houses, and cant in all Assemblies...