them. Letters to a Lady on Romanism. 133 ' For instance: 'I agree with you,' he says, ' about the method of the Reformation; the bare history of it is satire enough. But the history of Popes, written by persons of their own communion, is as large and undeniable a history of scandal; there is little room for private judgment on the excellency of one Church above another on that account. You wonder God's judgments did not overtake the reformers; others, that papal tyranny has so long escaped them. Hence we may gather, how much we are out of the way when we are guessing at the fitness of God's judgments; and perhaps they may then be executing in the severest manner when we are wondering why they do not fall. The means of salvation are fully preserved both in the English and Roman communion for all who are disposed to make a right use of them. The sins both of reformers and papists are personal;' and so forth. These last sentences were strangely out of accord with the strong anti-papal feeling then almost universally prevalent, and Law probably felt that they were. For he goes on to speak of the bitterness of controversy, and quaintly adds: 'He who says, "Sirs, ye are brethren," is like to have Moses' reward for his pains.' Then, again pressing the lesson which he appears to have considered specially needful for his correspondent, he proceeds: 'Every part of the Church is in division; let us live in these divided, schismatical, uncharitable parts of Christendom, free from schismatical principles and passions, and intent on love to God and our neighbour. God's goodness overrules this vast disorder and differences in churches. Better say, I am a private member of a Church which has full means of salvation in it; I have no ability, no call or commission to judge How different is this from our modern Protestant Divinity!' is the reflection in Mr. Law's handwriting on the text-in a Bible, evidently much read and annotated by him, now in the possession of Miss S. Law. 134 Letters to a Lady on Romanism. in these matters; they belong to those who, by the providence of God, have the care of this Church.' On another point, Law quite agreed with the premisses of his correspondent, though he denied her conclusion. 'You say,' he writes, "I inclined to the Church of Rome because of the excellent books written by persons of that communion; and they must have been very acceptable to God, and had large assistance from Him." Right in both respects! I think the same of many of their writers, and bless God for the knowledge I have had of them. And as I consider their Church and all its members my brethren in Christ, and as nearly related to me as any Protestants, so it is the same benefit to me to receive benefit from their Church as from that of England. In my own heart I drop and forget all divisions and distinctions which the enemy hath set up among us;' with much more to the same effect. Law bids The second letter opens in the same strain. the lady love the Churches of Rome and Greece with the same affection and sense of Christian fellowship as she loved the Church of England, and consider herself, not as an external member of one in order to renounce communion with the others, but as necessarily forced into one externally divided part because there is no part free from external division.' Strange sentiments from the pen of a clergyman in the middle of the eighteenth century! The rest of the letter does not bear very directly upon the subject of this chapter, but it contains one or two personal references which, if for no other reason, deserve notice for their rarity, Law, as a rule, carefully abstaining from writing anything about himself. We learn, for instance, that he was not unconscious of his own powers. After one of his usual tirades against human learning, he adds: Was the world to see this remark upon learning, they would impute it to my want Letters to a Lady on Romanism. 135 of learning; and though they would be very right in judging my pretensions to learning not to be great, yet it would be unjust to think me an entire stranger to the nature of it. But I profess to you that whatever parts or learning I am possessed of, I think it as necessary to live under as continual apprehension of their being a snare and temptation to me as of any worldly distinctions, &c.' Then, after touching upon a subject about which he was very chary of speaking, but upon which he unquestionably held strong opinions-the restoration of all things-he adds a rebuke of the curiosity of his correspondent about such deep questions, which gives us some insight into her family history. I hope I shall not offend you by observing of your great and good father, whose memory I esteem and reverence, that his chief foible seems to have lain in a temper to speculation, and perhaps you may have some reason to resist and guard against it as a temper to which you have a natural inclination.' The 'foible' was common both to Dodwell and Lee, but it would certainly be brought more under Law's notice in connection with the latter than with the former. On the other hand, the fact that the lady to whom Law was writing had a dearly loved brother, whose falling away from Christianity was one of the chief sources of her perplexities, exactly tallies with the known lapse of the younger Dodwell, but not with what is known of the Lee family. The third letter, which is dated May 29, 1732,' is an answer to an evidently heartrending account of the sister's sad state on the falling away of her brother. She had vindicated herself for loving her brother too well, declared that she would not be able to keep her senses if he were taken before her, and repeated her desire to 'be of the Church of Rome, to be free from the danger and anxiety of thinking for herself on religion.' 'Why not,' replied Law, 'resign 136 Law on Romanism. yourself to God instead of the Church of Rome? A restless, inquisitive, self-seeking temper is the rock on which you split. Resignation is the best cure. You seem to be affected with the "Serious Call"; I pray God you may have benefit by it, and desire you will think the chapter upon resignation to the will of God deserves most of your attention. Your desire to go to the Church of Rome proceeds from this restless temper.' The rest of the letter deals with her excessive love for her fallen brother, and therefore does not throw much light upon the subject of this chapter; but it may be noted in passing, that if Law's correspondent was really Miss Dodwell, the brother would be the author of Christianity not founded on Argument,' one of the most remarkable works which the Deistic controversy produced, and about which Law, among many others, doubted whether it was written on the Christian or the Deist side. It has been stated that, with the exception of these three letters, there is little to show what were Law's views with regard to the Church of Rome. There is, however, one remarkable passage written several years later, which shows that the mystic views which he had then embraced increased rather than diminished his admiration of some of the Romish writers, though he was still, as ever, without the slightest sympathy with Romanism, as a system. His sentiments, however, were not certainly those of the typical protestant of the eighteenth century. How many, for instance, would have been found to echo such a sentiment as this: If each Church [Roman and Anglican] could produce but one man a-piece that had the piety of an apostle, and the impartial love of the first Christians in the first Church at Jerusalem, a protestant and a papist of this stamp would not want half a sheet of paper to hold their Articles of Union, nor be half an hour before they were of Law's Admiration of some Romanists. 137 one religion'? Taken by itself, this might seem to show that Law thought there was but little difference between the Church of England and that of Rome. But this was not his meaning; he was not insensible of the importance of an orthodox faith, but he did think (and who will blame him for thinking?) that, after all, a Christian spirit was at least as important as orthodoxy. This is evident from the following passage which is worth quoting, both for its own intrinsic beauty of thought and expression, and also as a corrective to the false impression which the sentence quoted above might be liable to produce. The more,' he writes, 'we believe or know of the corruptions and hindrances of true piety in the Church of Rome, the more we should rejoice to hear, that in every age so many eminent spirits, great saints, have appeared in it, whom we should thankfully behold as so many great Lights hung out by God to show the true way to Heaven; as so many joyful proofs that Christ is still present in that Church, as well as in other Churches, and that the gates of Hell have not prevailed, or quite overcome it. Who that has the least spark of Heaven in his soul, can help thinking and rejoicing in this manner at the appearance of a St. Bernard, a Teresa, a Francis de Sales,' &c. in that Church? Who can help praising God that her invented devotions, superstitious use of images, invocation of saints, &c., have not so suppressed any of the graces and virtues of an evangelical perfection of life, but that among Cardinals, Jesuits, Priests, Friars, Monks and Nuns, numbers have been found who seem to live for no other end but to give glory to God and edification to men, and whose writings have everything in them that can guide the soul out of the corruption of this life into the highest union with God? And he who, through a partial 6 Among Mr. Law's books is a copy of the Introduction à la vie dévote du bien-heureux François de Sales,' evidently never read. |