Passivity-Prayer of Silence.

273

religion consists in living wholly to my Beloved, according to His satisfaction, and not my own. What God wills, that I will; what God loves, that I love; what pleases God, that pleases me. I have no desire to know anything of myself, or to feel anything in myself, but that I am an instrument in the hands of God, to be, to do, and suffer according to His good pleasure. I am content to know that I love and rejoice in God alone, that He is what He is, and that I am what He pleases to make of me and do with me.'

7. The adherence of Law to the mystic doctrine of passivity is hinted at in the above passage. It is more plainly advocated elsewhere. All,' he says, 'depends upon thy right submission and obedience to the speaking of God in thy soul. Stop, then, all self-activity, listen not to the suggestions of thy own reason, run not in thy own will; but be retired, silent, passive, and humbly attentive to this new-risen Light within thee;' and much more to the same effect.2

8. The mystic 'prayer of silence' is of course closely connected with this passivity; and, in Law's view, 'the last state of the spirit of prayer' is when 'the soul is now come so near to God, has found such union with Him, that it does not so much pray to as live in God. Its prayer is not any particular action, is not the work of any particular faculty, not confined to times, or words, or places, but is the work of its whole being, which continually stands in fulness of faith, in purity of love, in absolute resignation, to do, and be, what and how its Beloved pleaseth.' 3

1 Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration, Works,' vol. v. (2),

P. 86.

2 Spirit of Prayer, 'Works,' vol. vii. pp. 77, 78, 83, &c.

3 Ibid. (2), p. 172.

See also p. 183. In fact, the whole tenor of this part of the treatise is directly or indirectly concerned with the prayer of silence.

T

274 Analogy between the Visible and Invisible.

9. Least of all must we omit to notice that essential part of Law's system which, in one shape or another, entered into the scheme of all mystics, viz. the analogy between the visible and the invisible worlds, and the priority and far greater reality of the latter than of the former. This view may perhaps be more correctly termed idealism than mysticism; it was held by many who were not mystics, but not rejected by any who were. Every mystic is an idealist, though every idealist is not necessarily a mystic. It is the theory which was so finely set forth by Plato in many passages, notably in his magnificent allegory of the cave.' It was clothed in a Christian garb by S. Augustine ; it was gracefully and luminously set forth by Malebranche, and reproduced in an English dress by Norris of Bemerton." But it found a far more powerful and original expositor than Norris in William Law. Norris was a mere echo of Augustine and Malebranche; but Law was never content to be a mere echo of anyone -no, not even of the 'blessed Jacob.'

'The invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made' (Rom. i. 20). This was Law's pivot text, and it seemed to him to prove that 'this outward world was not created out of nothing, but out of the invisible things of God; so that the outward condition and frame of visible

In the Seventh Book of the Republic. For the benefit of the unlearned reader I quote Dr. Jowett's analysis of the allegory. Imagine human beings living in a sort of underground den which has a mouth wide open towards the light, and behind them a breast work, such as marionette players might use for a screen, and there is a way beyond the breastwork along which passengers are moving, holding in their hands various works of art, and among them images of men and animals, &c. &c. The cave is the world of sight, the fire is the sun, the way upwards is the way to knowledge, and in the world of knowledge the idea of God is last seen,' &c. Those who only see the world of sight do not even see the shadows of reality, but only the shadows of an image.'

2 See his Theory of an Ideal World, passim.

Analogy between the Visible and Invisible. 275

nature is a plain manifestation of that spiritual world from whence it is descended. For, as every outside necessarily supposes an inside, and as temporal light and darkness must be the product of eternal light and darkness, so this outward visible state of things necessarily supposes some inward invisible state, from whence it is come into this degree of outwardness. Thus, all that is on earth is only a change or alteration of something that was in heaven, and heaven itself is nothing else but the first glorious outbirth, the majestic manifestation, the beatific visibility of the one God in Trinity.' '

So far, Law only wrote what Platonists of every shade had written in effect before him; but, with characteristic thoroughness, he followed up this analogy-one might almost say this adunation—of the spiritual and the natural worlds into the closest details, some of which, when barely stated, apart from their context, sound almost grotesque. Thus, life and death are the same things throughout the universe; therefore the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in fruits, and the beginnings and progress of a perfect life in angels, are not only like to one another, but are the very same thing, or the working of the very same qualities, only in different kingdoms.' 'Look at life in an angel, and life in a vegetable, and you will find that life has but one and the same form, one and the same ground in the whole scale of beings. No omnipotence of God can make that to be life which is not life, or that to be death which is not death, according to nature; and the reason is, because nature is nothing else but God's own outward manifestation of what He inwardly is and can

' Appeal to all that Doubt, 'Works,' vol. vi. (2), p. 22. See also p. 116, and vol. v. (2), p. 80.

2 Ibid. vol. vi. (2), p. 69, &c.

276 Earthly Light, etc., a Lower Form of Heavenly.

do.' And therefore, also, 'eternal death in an angel is the same thing, and has the same nature, as the hard death that is in a senseless flint.' '

2

All those Scriptural expressions which speak of fire, and light, and air, and darkness, and seed, &c., in reference to spiritual things, Law took not in a metaphorical, but in a perfectly literal sense. Thus,' there is but one fire throughout all nature and creature, standing only in different states and conditions. That fire which is the life of our bodies is the life of our souls; that which tears wood in pieces is the same which upholds the beauteous forms of angels; it is the same fire that burns straw that will at last melt the sun; the same fire that kindles life in animals that kindled it in angels.' So, too, earthly light was not a type, but a lower form of heavenly light. The heaven in this world began when God said, "Let there be light," for so far as light is in anything, so much it has of heaven in it, and of the beginning of a heavenly life. This shows itself in all things of this world, chiefly in the life-giving power of the sun, in the sweetness and meekness of qualities and tempers, in the softness of sounds, the beauty of colours, the fragrance of smells, and richness of tastes, and the like; as far as anything is tinctured with light, so far it shows its descent from heaven, and its partaking of something heavenly and paradisaical.' 'When God said, "Let there be light and there was light," it could not be the present light of this world which now governs the night and the day; for the sun, the moon and stars were not created till the

1 Appeal to all that Doubt, 'Works,' vol. vi. p. 78. It is hardly fair to take such assertions as these simply as they stand, detached from their context, which explains them. But space does not allow more; therefore the reader must be referred to Law's own works for their explanation. They are quoted simply as illustrative of the thoroughness with which Law accepted the my ic theory of the close relationship between the spiritual and the material worlds. 3 Ibid. p. 145.

2 Ibid. (2), p. 171.

Analogy between the Visible and Invisible. 277

fourth day. But the light which God then spake forth, was a degree of heaven, that was commanded to glance into the darkened deep, which penetrated through all the depth of the chaos, and intermixed itself with every part; ... it was God's baptizing the dead chaos with the spirit of life, that it might be capable of a resurrection into a new creation; for darkness is death and light is life;' or, which in Law's view would come to the same thing, 'the darkness is the evil and the light is the good that is in everything; darkness is natural, essential, and inseparable from hell; light is natural, essential and inseparable from heaven; it belongs only to heaven, and, wherever else it is, it is only there as a gift from heaven.'1 The effects of the sun on this world, the exact analogy between the birth and growth of the seed of a vegetable and of the heavenly seed in the soul, the law of attraction which governs all bodies, from vegetables to angels,' and many other points on which Law traced the closest correspondence between the worlds of matter and of spirit, cannot here be described without taking up too much space. It must suffice to add that, as a necessary consequence of these views of the oneness. throughout all nature, Law took a much wider view of the purposes of redemption than the popular one. 'All the design of Christian redemption,' he says, 'is to remove everything that is unheavenly, gross, dark, wrathful, and disordered from every part of this fallen world; and when you see earth and stones, storms and tempests, and every kind of evil, misery, and wickedness, you see that which Christ came into the world to remove, and not only to give 'Spirit of Prayer, 'Works,' vol vii. (2), pp. 29-31.

4

See Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration, 'Works,' vol. v. (2), p. 69; Appeal to all that Doubt, vol. vii. (2), pp. 73, 140; Spirit of Prayer, vol. vii. (2), p. 16; Spirit of Love, vol. viii. (2), p. 42.

See Appeal to all that Doubt, vol. vi. (2), p. 79; Spirit of Prayer, vol. vii. (2), p. 146, &c.

See Appeal to all that Doubt, vol. vi. (2), pp. 32, 33, 65