William Law
Though GOD is everywhere present, yet He is only present to thee in the
deepest and most central part of thy soul. The natural senses cannot possess God
or unite thee to Him; nay thy inward faculties of understanding, will and
memory can only reach after God, but cannot be the place of his habitation in
thee. But there is a root or depth of thee from whence all these faculties come
forth, as lines from a centre, or as branches from the body of the tree. This
depth is called the centre, the fund or bottom of the soul. This depth is the
unity, the eternity – I had almost said the infinity – of thy soul; for it is
so infinite that nothing can satisfy it or give it rest but the infinity of
God.
What could begin to deny self, if there were not something in man
different from self?
The separate creaturely life, as opposed to life in union with God, is
only a life of various appetites, hungers and wants, and cannot possibly be
anything else. God Himself cannot make a creature to be in itself, or in its
own nature, anything else but a state of emptiness. The highest life that is
natural and creaturely can go no higher than this; it can only be a bare capacity
for goodness and cannot possibly be a good and happy life but by the life of
God dwelling in and in union with it. And this is the twofold life that, of all
necessity, must be united in every good and perfect and happy creature.
Love is infallible; it has no errors, for all errors are the want of
love.
For as love has no by-ends, wills nothing but its own increase, so
everything is as oil to its flame; it must have that which it wills and cannot
be disappointed, because everything (including unkindness on the part of those
loved) naturally helps it to live in its own way and to bring forth its own
work.
By love I do not mean any natural tenderness, which is more or less in
people according to their constitution; but I mean a larger principle of the soul,
founded in reason and piety, which makes us tender, kind and gentle to all our
fellow creatures as creatures of God, and for his sake.
Learn the true nature and worth of all self-denials and mortifications.
As to their nature, considered in themselves, they have nothing of
goodness or holiness, nor any real part of our sanctification, they are not the
true food or nourishment of the Divine Life in our souls, they have no
quickening, sanctifying power in them; their only worth consists in this, that
they remove the impediments of holiness, break down that which stands between
God and us, and make way for the quickening, sanctifying spirit of God to
operate on our souls, which operation of God is the only thing that can raise
the Divine Life in the soul, or help it to the smallest degree of real holiness
or spiritual life…. Hence we may learn the reason why many people not only lose
the benefit, but are even the worse for all their mortifications. It is because
they mistake the whole nature and worth of them. They practice them for their
own sakes, as things good in themselves; they think them to be real parts of
holiness, and so rest in them and look no further, but grow full of self-esteem
and self-admiration for their own progress in them. This makes them
self-sufficient, morose, severe judges of all those that fall short of their
mortifications. And thus their self-denials do only that for them which
indulgences do for other people: they withstand and hinder the operation of God
upon their souls, and instead of being really self-denials, they strengthen and
keep up the kingdom of self.
Man’s intellectual faculties are by the Fall in a much worse state than
his animal appetites and want a much greater self-denial. And when own will,
own understanding and own imagination have their natural strength indulged and
gratified, and are made seemingly rich and honourable with the treasure
acquired from a study of the Belles
Lettres, they will just as much help poor fallen man to be like-minded with
Christ as the art of cookery, well and duly studied, will help a professor of
the Gospel to the spirit and practise of Christian abstinence.
To find or know God in reality by any outward proofs, or by anything
but by God Himself made manifest and self-evident in you, will never be your
case either here or hereafter. For neither God, nor heaven, nor hell, nor the
devil, nor the flesh, can be any otherwise knowable in you or by you but by
their own existence and manifestation in you. And all pretended knowledge of any
of these things, beyond and without this self-evident sensibility of their
birth within you, is only such knowledge of them as the blind man hath of the
light that hath never entered into him.
Away, then, with the fictions and workings of discursive reason, either
for or against Christianity! They are only the wanton spirit of the mind,
whilst ignorant of God and insensible of its own nature and condition. Death
and life are the only things in question; life is God living and working in the
soul; death is the soul living and working according to the sense and reason of
bestial flesh and blood. Both this life and this death are of their own growth,
growing from their own seed within us, not as busy reason talks and directs,
but as the heart turns either to the one or to the other.
Take note of this fundamental truth. Everything that works in nature
and creature, except sin, is the working of God in nature and creature. The
creature has nothing else in its power but the free use of its will, and its
free will hath no other power but that of concurring with, or resisting, the
working of God in nature. The creature with its free will can bring nothing
into being, nor make any alteration in the working of nature; it can only
change its own state or place in the working of nature, and so feel or find
something in its state that it did not feel or find before.
Perpetual inspiration is as necessary to the life of goodness, holiness
and happiness as perpetual respiration is necessary to animal life.
The will is that which has all power; it makes heaven and it makes
hell; for there is no hell but where the will of the creature is turned from
God, nor any heaven but where the will of the creature worketh with God.
O man, consider thyself! Here thou standest in the earnest perpetual
strife of good and evil; all nature is continually at work to bring forth the
great redemption; the whole creation is travailing in pain and laborious
working to be delivered from the vanity of time; and wilt thou be asleep?
Everything thou hearest or seest says nothing, shows nothing to thee but what
either eternal light or eternal darkness has brought forth; for as day and
night divide the whole of our time, so heaven and hell divide all our thoughts,
words and actions. Stir which way thou wilt, do or design what thou wilt, thou
must be an agent with the one or the other. Thou canst not stand still, because
thou livest in the perpetual workings of temporal and eternal nature; if thou
workest not with the good, the evil that is in nature carries thee along with
it. Thou hastthe height and depth of eternity in thee and therefore, be doing
what thou wilt, either in the closet, the field, the shop or the church, thou
art sowing that which grows and must be reaped in eternity.
Your own self is your own Cain that murders your own Abel. For every
action and motion of self has the spirit of Anti-Christ and murders the divine
life within you.
The difference between a good and a bad man does not lie in this, that
the one wills that which is good and the other does not, but solely in this,
that the one concurs with the living inspiring spirit of God within him, and
the other resists it, and can be chargeable with evil only because he resists
it.
Covetousness, envy, pride and wrath are the four elements of self, or
nature, or hell, all of them inseparable from it. And the reason why it must be
thus, and cannot be otherwise, is because the natural life of the creature is
brought forth for the participation of some high supernatural good in the
Creator. But it could have no fitness, no possible capacity to receive such
good, unless it was in itself both an extremity of want and an extremity of
desire for some high good. When therefore this natural life is deprived of or
fallen from God, it can be nothing else in itself but an extremity of want
continually desiring, and an extremity of desire continually wanting. And
because it is that, its whole life can be nothing else but a plague and torment
of covetousness, envy, pride and wrath, all which is precisely nature, self, or
hell. Now covetousness, pride and envy are not three different things, but only
three different names for the restless workings of one and the same will or
desire. Wrath, which is a fourth birth from these three, can have no existence
till one or all of these three are contradicted, or have something done to them
that is contrary to their will. These four properties generate their own
torment. They have no outward cause, nor any inward power of altering
themselves. And therefore all self or nature must be in this state until some
supernatural good comes into it, or gets a birth in it. Whilst man indeed lives
among the vanities of time, his covetousness, envy, pride and wrath may be in a
tolerable state, may hold him to a mixture of peace and trouble; they may have
at times their gratifications as well as their torments. But when death has put
an end to the vanity of all earthly cheats, the soul that is not born again of
the supernatural Word and Spirit of God, must find itself unavoidably devoured
or shut up in its own insatiable, unchangeable, self-tormenting covetousness,
envy, pride and wrath.
If a delicious fragrant fruit had a power of separating itself from the
rich spirit, fine taste, smell and colour, which it receives from the virtue of
the air and the spirit of the sun, or if it could, in the beginning of its
growth, turn away from the sun and receive no virtue from it, then it would
stand in its own first birth of wrath, sourness, bitterness, astringency, just
as the devils do, who have turned back into their own dark root and have
rejected the Light and Spirit of God. So that the hellish nature of a devil is
nothing but its own first forms of life withdrawn or separated from the
heavenly Light and Love; just as the sourness, bitterness and astringency of a
fruit are nothing else but of its vegetable life, before it has reached the
virtue of the sun and the spirit of the air. And as a fruit, if it had a
sensibility of itself, would be full of torment as soon as it was shut up in
the first forms of its life, in its own astringency, sourness and stinging
bitterness, so the angels, when they had turned back into these very same first
forms of their own life, and broke off from the heavenly Light and Love of God,
became their own hell. No hell was made for them, no new qualities came into
them, no vengeance or pains from the Lord of Love fell on them; they only stood
in that state of division and separation from the Son and Holy Spirit of God,
which by their own motion they had made for themselves. They had nothing in
them but what they had from God, the first forms of a heavenly life; but they
had them in a state of self-torment, because they had separated them from birth
of Love and Light.
In all the possibility of things there is and can be but one happiness
and one misery. The one misery is nature and creature left to itself, the one
happiness is the Life, the Light, the Spirit of God, manifested in nature and
creature. This is the true meaning of the words of Our Lord: There is but one
that is good, and that is God.
Men are not in hell because God is angry with them; they are in wrath
and darkness because they have done to the light, which infinitely flows forth
from God, as that man does to the light of the sun, who puts out his own eyes.
Though the light and comfort of the outward world keeps even the worst
of men from any constant strong sensibility of that wrathful, fiery, dark and
self-tormenting nature that is the very essence of every fallen unregenerate
soul, yet every man in the world has more or less frequent and strong
intimations given him that so it is with him in the inmost ground of his soul.
How many inventions are some people forced to have recourse to in order to keep
off a certain inward uneasiness, which they are afraid of and know not whence
it comes? Alas, it is because there is a fallen spirit, a dark aching fire
within them, which has never had its proper relief and is trying to discover
itself and calling out for help at every cessation of worldly joy.
Selfishness and partiality are very inhuman and base qualities even in
the things of this world but in the doctrines of religion they are of a baser
nature. Now, this is the greatest evil that the division of the church has
brought forth; it raises in every communion a selfish, partial orthodoxy, which
consists in courageously defending all that it has, and condemning all that it
has not. And thus every champion is trained up in defense of their own truth,
their own learning and their own church, and he has the most, the most honour,
who likes everything, defends everything, among themselves, and leaves nothing
uncensored in those that are of a different communion. Now, how can truth and
goodness and union and religion be more struck at than by such defenders of it?
If you ask why the great Bishop of Meaux wrote so many learned books against
all parts of the reformation, it is because he was born in France and bred up in the bosom of Mother Church.
Had he been born in England,
had Oxford or Cambridge been his Alma Mater, he might have rivalled our great Bishop Stillingfleet,
and would have wrote as many learned folios against the Church of Rome as he
has done. And yet I will venture to say that if each church could produce but
one man apiece that had the piety of an apostle and the impartial love of the
first Christians in the first Church at Jerusalem, that 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 one religion. If,
therefore, it should be said that churches are divided, estranged and made
unfriendly to one another by a learning, a logic, a history, a criticism in the
hands of partiality, it would be saying that which each particular church too
much proves to be true. Ask why even the best amongst the Catholics are very
shy of owning the validity of the orders of our Church; it is because they are
afraid of removing any odium from the Reformation. Ask why no Protestants
anywhere touch upon the benefit or necessity of celibacy in those who are
separated from worldly business to preach the gospel; it is because that would
be seeming to lessen the Roman error of not suffering marriage in her clergy.
Ask why even the most worthy and pious among the clergy of the Established
Church are afraid to assert the sufficiency of the Divine Light, the necessity
of seeking only the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit; it is because
the Quakers, who have broke off from the church, have made this doctrine their
corner-stone. If we loved truth as such, if we sought for it for its own sake,
if we loved our neighbour as ourselves, if we desired nothing by our religion
but to be acceptable to God, if we equally desired the salvation of all men, if
we were afraid of error only because of its harmful nature to us and our
fellow-creatures, then nothing of this spirit could have any place in us.
There is therefore a catholic
spirit, a communion of saints in the love of God and all goodness, which no one
can learn from that which is called orthodoxy in particular churches, but is
only to be had by a total dying to all worldly views, by a pure love of God,
and by such an unction from above as delivers the mind from all selfishness and
makes it love truth and goodness with an equality of affection in every man,
whether he is Christian, Jew or Gentile. he that would obtain this divine and
catholic spirit in this disordered, divided state of things, and live in a
divided part of the church without partaking of its division, must have these
three truths deeply fixed in his mind. First, that universal love, which gives
the whole strength of the heart to God, and makes us love every man as we love
ourselves, is the noblest, the most divine, the Godlike state of the soul, and
is the utmost perfection to which the most perfect religion can raise us; and
that no religion does any man any good but so far as it brings this perfection
of love into him. This truth will show us that true orthodoxy can nowhere be
found but in a pure disinterested love of God and our neighbour. Second, that
in this present divided state of the church, truth itself is torn and divided
asunder; and that, therefore, he can be the only true catholic who has more of
truth and less of error than is hedged in by any divided part. This truth will
enable us to live in a divided part unhurt by its division, and keep us in a
true liberty and fitness to be edified and assisted by all the good that we
hear or see in any other part of the church…. Thirdly, he must always have in
mind this great truth, that it is the glory of the Divine Justice to have no
respect of parties or persons, but to stand equally disposed to that which is
right and wrong as well in the Jew as in the Gentile. He therefore that would like
as God likes, and condemn as God condemns, must have neither the eyes of the
Papist nor the Protestant; he must like no truth the less because Ignatius
Loyola or John Bunyan were very zealous for it, nor have the less aversion to
any error, because Dr. Trapp or George Fox had brought it forth.
In what does salvation consist? Not in any historic faith or knowledge
of anything absent or distant, not in any variety of restraints, rules and
methods of practising virtue, not in any formality of opinion about faith and
works, repentance, forgiveness of sins, or justification and sanctification,
not in any truth or righteousness that you can have from yourself, from the
best of men and books, but solely and wholly from the life of God, or Christ of
God, quickened and born again in you, in other words in the restoration and
perfect union of the first twofold life in humanity.
The spiritual life is nothing else but the working of the Spirit of God
within us, and therefore our own silence must be a great part of our
preparation for it, and much speaking or delight in it will be often no small
hindrance of that good which we can only have from hearing what the Spirit and
voice of God speaketh within us…. Rhetoric and fine language about the things
of the spirit is a vainer babble than in other matters; and he that thinks to
grow in true goodness by hearing or speaking flaming words or striking
expressions, as is now much the way of the world, may have a great deal of
talk, but will have little of his conversation in heaven.
What need of so much news from abroad, when all that concerns either
life or death is all transacting and at work within us?
By considering yourself as an advocate with God for your neighbours and
acquaintances, you would never find it hard to be at peace with them yourself.
It would be easy for you to bear with and forgive those, for whom you
particularly implored the divine mercy and forgiveness.
Intercession is the best arbitrator of all differences, the best
promoter of true friendship, the best cure and preservative against all unkind
tempers, all angry and haughty passions.
You cannot possibly have any ill-temper, or show any unkind behaviour
to a man for whose welfare you are so much concerned, as to be his advocate
with God in private. For you cannot possibly despise and ridicule that man whom
your private prayers recommend to the love and favour of God.
To pretend to devotion without great humility and renunciation of all
worldly tempers is to pretend to impossibilities. He that would be devout must
first be humble, have a full sense of his own miseries and wants and the vanity
of the world, and then his soul will be full of desire after God. A proud, or
vain, or worldly-minded man may use a manual of prayers, but he cannot be devout,
because devotion is the application of an humble heart to God as its only
happiness.
Would you know whence it is that so many false spirits have appeared in
the world, who have deceived themselves and others with false fire and false
light, laying claim to information, illumination and openings of the divine
Life, particularly to do wonders under extraordinary calls from God? It is
this: they have turned to God without turning from themselves; would be alive
to God before they are dead to their own nature. Now religion in the hands of
self, or corrupt nature, serves only to discover vices of a worse kind than in
nature left to itself. Hence are all the disorderly passions of religious men,
which burn in a worse flame than passions only employed about worldly matters;
pride, self-exaltation, hatred and persecution, under a cloak of religious
zeal, will sanctify actions which nature, left to itself, would be ashamed to
own.
Jalal-uddin Rumi
The Beloved is all in all; the lover merely veils Him;
The Beloved is all that lives, the lover a dead thing.
The astrolabe of the mysteries of God is love.
The sect of lovers is distinct from all others;
Lovers have a religion and a faith all their own.
Once the noble Ibrahim, as he sat on his throne,
Heard a clamour and noise of cries on the roof,
Also heavy footsteps on the roof of his palace.
He said to himself, “Whose heavy feet are these?”
He shouted from the window, “Who goes there?”
The guards, filled with confusion, bowed their heads,
saying,
“It is we, going the rounds in search.”
He said, “What seek ye? They said, “Our camels.”
He said, “Who ever searched for camels on a housetop?”
They said, “We follow thy example,
Who seekest union with God, while sitting on a throne.”
Can I explain the Friend to one for whom He is no Friend?
When a mother cries to her sucking babe, “Come, O son,
I am thy mother!”
Does the child answer, “O mother, show a proof
That I shall find comfort in taking thy milk”?
Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;
Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
Reason is like an officer when the King appears;
The officer then loses his power and hides himself.
Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
The philosopher who denies divine providence is a stranger to the
perception of the saints.
If thou has not seen the devil, look at thine own self.
The sufi is the son of time present.
Past and future veil God from our sight;
Burn up both of them with fire. How long
Wilt thou be partitioned by these segments, like a reed?
So long as a reed is partitioned, it is not privy to secrets,
Nor is it vocal in response to lip and breathing.
I died a mineral, and became a
plant.
I died a plant and rose an animal.
I died an animal and I was a man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as a man, to soar
With the blessed angels; but even from angelhood
I must pass on. All except God perishes.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become that which no mind ever conceived.
O, let me not exist! for Non-Existence proclaims,
“To Him we shall return.”
(A dervish was tempted by the devil to cease calling upon Allah, on the
ground that Allah never answered, “Here am I.” The prophet Khadir appeared to
him in a vision with a message from God.)
Was it not I who summoned thee
to my service?
Was it not I who made thee
busy with my name?
Thy calling “Allah!” was my “Here am I.”
Why hast thou said, “I have sinned so much,
and God in His mercy has not punished my sins”?
How many times do I smite thee, and thou knowest not!
Thou art bound in my chains from head to foot.
On thy heart is rust on rust collected
So that thou art blind to divine mysteries.
When a man is stubborn and follows evil practices,
He casts dust in the eyes of his discernment.
Old shame for sin and calling on God quit him;
Dust five layers deep settles on his mirror,
Rust spots begin to gnaw his iron,
The colour of his jewel grows less and less.
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