448 Enthusiastic devotion of Law's Friends. properly, added a codicil, by which he 'devised all his estates to Hester Gibbon, her heirs and assigns, to be by her or them disposed and given to, and amongst, the descendants of my late brother George Law, in such shares and proportions, and at such time and times as the said Hester Gibbon shall direct, limit, and appoint.' The inscription on the tomb was inserted, under the heading of 'A Character of the Rev. William Law, M.A.,' in several newspapers, having been sent to them by Mr. Ward, who apparently managed most of the business arrangements. Writing to Miss Gibbon, Mr. Ward speaks of Law as our dear and most invaluable friend, in whom I seem to have lost the best, the noblest, and most valuable part of myself.' About ten years later, Mr. Clarke, a clergyman who had sat at the feet of Mr. Law, printed anonymously fifty lines 'To the memory of that excellent man, and truly illuminated divine, the late Rev. William Law, A.M.' They commence— Farewell, good man! whose great and heavenly mind, In love embrac'd the whole of human kind. They are full of the most enthusiastic praise of Mr. Law; but as they are not very remarkable either for poetical merit or depth of thought, and as they convey no special information respecting Law, it would be cruel to inflict them upon the reader. The few who knew Law intimately all speak of him with the same reverence, admiration, and love as Mr. Ward and Mr. Clarke; but they were very few. Nor will it be difficult for the reader of the preceding pages to understand why so powerful a writer and so saintly a character was not better known and appreciated. In the first place, his position as a nonjuror was against him. He belonged to the wrong generation of nonjurors. If it had been the oath of 1688, instead of the oath of 1716, that Law had Law out of Sympathy with his Age. 449 scrupled to take, he could not have failed to have met with many sympathising spirits; for not only was the first generation of nonjurors deservedly esteemed more highly than the second, but they also banded together in a small, though compact and united, phalanx, which their successors did not, at any rate to the same extent. Law was quite isolated qua nonjuror. Then, again, even his earlier writings were not of the character to make him popular in the eighteenth century. His contribution to the Bangorian controversy, able and telling as it was, was on what was, for the time being, the losing side. The three famous letters expressed exactly the sentiments of numberless churchmen of the seventeenth century, and of numberless churchmen of the nineteenth-that is, after the Oxford movement; but they would not find many sympathisers in the eighteenth century. So, again, his 'Christian Perfection' and ' Serious Call,' the most popular of all his works, were so written as to find disfavour in two diametrically opposite quarters. They were vehemently accused, on the one hand, as encouraging enthusiasm; and, on the other hand, they were denounced by the enthusiasts themselves as encouraging 'legalism.' Again, if enthusiasm was the bugbear of the eighteenth century, reason may almost be called its idol. As Law, in his 'Serious Call,' was the stimulator of enthusiasm, so, in his answer to Tindal, he was the depreciator of reason; and hence, though in this work he was on the popular side (for public feeling was strong against the Deists), yet he did not advocate it in the popular way. Again, if Law was out of harmony with the general feeling of the eighteenth century, he was still more so with that of the clergy in particular. This does not appear upon the surface of his writings, because he was particularly careful never to abuse personally his clerical brethren. Such abuse was only too common among many GG 450 Law and the Eighteenth Century Clergy. whose spiritual earnestness was aroused by the Evangelical revival. The Wesleys were honourable exceptions, but Whitefield was a sad offender, and, among inferior men, depreciation of the clergy was a stock subject; but it found no place in the writings of William Law. And yet there were few men, if any, to whom the general habit both of thought and life among the typical eighteenth century clergy was more antagonistic than to Law. Their good points were just those which he would be least likely to appreciate, and their bad points were just those which he would be most likely to deplore. Much has been said and written concerning the shortcomings of the eighteenth century clergy, and, it must be confessed, not without reason; but they had distinctly their good points as well as their bad ones. If they lived and dressed too much like laymen, by so doing they were able to mix with the laity on equal terms, to enter into their feelings, and to come at their real mind. And if the clerical standard of religion and morality was not a very high one, it was, at any rate, higher than that of the average layman, over whom their influence was on the whole, I believe, decidedly good. But Law was not at all the sort of man to appreciate the good side of their character. This vague and indirect, though, in my opinion, very real influence in the direction of religion, would count for nothing in the eyes of one who took the standard of the Serious Call' as the lowest standard at which a Christian should aim. On the other hand, their faults were just those which would seem most glaring in the eyes of Law. They entered freely into the popular amusements. No Puritan held straiter views on the subject of amusements than the High Church William Law. They took a keen interest in the politics of the day, which, of course, involved those very points on which Law was, practically, a Quaker. On week-days they were more like Unpopularity of Law's Views. 451 laymen than clergymen. the priest, in his dress, in his conversation, in every habit of his life. They were, many of them, good scholars, and prided themselves considerably on their scholarship, and on the tradition of a learned clergy, which had always belonged to the Church of England. In Law's view, 'pagan learning' was a positive hindrance to the Christian, and 'scholastic divinity' not much better. We have already noticed the fundamental difference between Law's and Warburton's theories of the nature of the Holy Spirit's influence; it may be added that the majority of the clergy were decidedly on the side of Warburton, and perhaps they liked Law none the better because he could, and did, point out how diametrically the Church prayers, which they were bound to read, were opposed to the limited and somewhat grovelling views of spiritual influence which they held. Law was always emphatically It will thus be seen that, quite apart from Law's mysticism, there is sufficient in his life and sentiments to account for the comparative obscurity of so great and good a man. His mysticism in general, and Behmenism in particular, rendered him, of course, still more out of sympathy with his age. So far as it was the object of his later works to recommend Behmenism, they must be regarded as a failure. Not because they were unpopular, and called forth violent opposition-many works have done this, and yet have been eminently successful in effecting the object they had in view. For instance, every one whose memory can carry him back some forty years will remember the storm of unpopularity with which the 'Tracts for the Times' were received on their first appearance; and yet perhaps no writings of modern times have produced such an immense effect, and won more people over to the views which they advocated. This cannot be said of Law's mystic writings. They have now been before the world for nearly a century 452 Behmenism a Dead Weight to Law's Fame. and a half, and the world does not appear to be at all more inclined to Behmenism than it was when they were first issued. This is not what Law expected. 'All pretences,' he said to a friend, and endeavours to hinder the opening of the mystery revealed by God to Jacob Behmen, and its bearing down all before it, will be as vain as so many attempts to prevent or retard the coming of the last day.' The prophecy has not so far been fulfilled; nor does it seem in the way of fulfilment. Possibly one cause of Law's complete failure, so far as this part of his work was concerned, is that, to all intents and purposes, he stood quite alone in his advocacy of the Theosopher; for it must be confessed that the other Behmenist writers have made so little mark upon the world as practically to count for nothing. In fact, so far from bearing down all before it,' Behmenism has acted as a sort of dead weight to Law's own fame. One of the writers of his memoirs has remarked with perfect truth that, 'by drawing attention to Jacob Behmen, Law has in too many instances only been preparing a tomb for his own works.' Some people will, no doubt, think that it is a pity that they should ever be disinterred. Whether it be so or not, at any rate the memory of the writer ought not to be allowed to die away. Really great and good men are not so common that we can afford to let one be forgotten; and Law deserves both epithets, if ever man did. He was one of the greatest and best of his day. There were others of as original a genius, others of as brilliant talents, others of as self-denying, Christ-like lives; but few of his contemporaries combined all these excellences to the same extent that William Law did. Spiritual Fragments selected from the Memoir of his Life, by Mary Ann Kelty. Works of William Law, with a brief |