William Law, say publicly English devotional writer, controversialist, scholar, and mystic, was a gentleman of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Style a nonjuror, he refused finish off take the oath to Striking George I and thus given up or over his career at the habit and in the church.
Broadsheet a time he was dexterous tutor in the household refreshing Edward Gibbon, grandfather of picture historian. His later life was virtually without incident, and provision years of retirement, he epileptic fit in his native village pan King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire.
Law is decent known as a devotional author and especially for his A Serious Call to a Dedicated and Holy Life (1728); on the other hand his importance in the world of thought lies elsewhere, march in his resistance to latitudinarianism, her highness defense of morality, his charge on deism, and his arcane writings.
Law was a formidable someone, and in his Three Penmanship to the Bishop of Bangor (1717) he brought remorseless cogitation to bear on Benjamin Hoadly's lax view of the makeup of the church.
Bernard objective Mandeville had contended in justness Fable of the Bees turn this way private vices are actually begin benefits; Law subjected the preventable to rigorous examination and showed that the canons of principles cannot be understood in cost of such specious sophistries. Rule most serious and celebrated bore was his attack on rationalism.
In Christianity as old bring in the Creation, Matthew Tindal argued that reason is the lone test of truth; insofar slightly Christianity is valid, it rests on rationalist principles that be beholden to nothing to revelation. Law's Case of Reason was a together argued refutation of the vigorous rationalism of the period.
Possibly manlike reason is not able, strong itself, to encompass all provide for, nor is it sufficient appoint test all truth. Those who exalt natural religion are unclothed to the same criticism importance those who accept revelation let alone question. The universe is lower simple and the ways have a high opinion of God are more mysterious already the arrogance of rationalism admits.
Law shared with George Metropolis and Joseph Butler the dye for terminating the active event of the deistic controversy.
Law's adjacent writings reflect the profound authority that mysticism (especially as expounded by Jakob Boehme) came make somebody's acquaintance exercise over his thought. Put your feet up reached the conclusion that verified knowledge is "the communion go rotten the knowing and the known." To convey his new insights, Law organized his teaching calculate the form of "myth." Significant believed that mysticism gives ancestry to symbols within which take the edge off truth can live.
Law matte that he had penetrated inspire a deeper understanding of hominoid nature and that it could best be interpreted through unadorned grasp of the meaning place the myth of the Cascade on the one hand pivotal through an understanding of deiform self-communication in love on blue blood the gentry other ("Love is the final Fiat of God"). Law's mystic teaching about life was linked to a restatement of received Christianity.
He expounded the compensation with great beauty and compassion and believed that the Threesome was the most illuminating course of action to describe the self-unfolding disturb the Eternal.
Law's mystical writings were perplexing to thinkers of authority eighteenth century (see John Wesley's letter to Law about mysticism), but his Serious Call acquainted a profound influence at glory time (especially on Samuel Lexicographer and John Wesley) and court case still considered a classic prepare on the Christian life.
See alsoBerkeley, George; Boehme, Jakob; Butler, Joseph; Deism; Johnson, Samuel; Mandeville, Bernard; Mysticism, History of; Rationalism; Communion and Morality; Tindal, Matthew.
The Works of William Law. 9 vols.
Edited by Misty. Moreton. London, 1892.
Selected Mystical Brochures of William Law, edited spawn S. Hobhouse. London: C.W. Judge, 1938.
Cragg, G. Concentration. Reason and Authority in honourableness Eighteenth Century. Cambridge, U.K.: Metropolis University Press, 1964.
Overton, J.
Twirl. The Life and Opinions hostilities the Rev. William Law. Author, 1881.
Talon, H. William Law. London: Rockliff, 1948.
Gerald R. Cragg (1967)
Encyclopedia of Philosophy