A Serious Call

A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (William Law)

“I took it up expecting to find it a dull book, and perhaps to laugh at it. But I found Law quite an over-match for me, and this was the first occasion of my thinking in earnest of religion after I became capable of religious inquiry” (Samuel Johnson)

That was sufficient recommendation for me. Anything that is “quite an over-match” to Johnson is worthy of notice.

Thus, I have been reading Law during this Lent, and a better choice for the season could hardly be found. Given the laxity of the modern Episcopal Church, it is well to be reminded that such a voice as Law’s is integral to the Anglican heritage: Discipline. Severity, even. We must take the Christian life seriously, or not take it up at all.

[John] Keble once, before parting from [his friend Froude], seemed to have something on his mind which he wanted to say, but shrank from saying. At last, while waiting, I think, for a coach, he said to him before partings: “Froude, you said one day that Law’s Serious Call was a clever (or pretty, I forget which) book; it seemed to me as if you had said the Day of Judgement would be a pretty sight.” [quote taken from the Introduction, by C. Bigg (1899)]

---------

The best way for anyone to know how much he ought to aspire after holiness, is to consider, not how much will make his present life easy, but to ask himself, how much he thinks will make him easy at the hour of death.

Law is very much a son of his age, the early eighteenth century, a more rational time than ours. Passage after passage brought the Wesleys to mind as a corrective (they knew Law, and were much influenced by him.) Law is incomplete until the “heart is strangely warmed,” as happened to John and Charles, for the Christian life cannot in the last analysis be reduced so thoroughly to rational prescriptions.

But there are times when Rational Prescriptions are precisely what are needed.

This is a book that I want to revisit when, God willing, I attain Honorable Retirement. Throughout, Law speaks primarily to persons of leisure. He sees such a state as the opportunity to devote oneself entirely to prayer and good works:

[Since] you are no laborer, or tradesman, you are neither merchant nor soldier; consider yourself, therefore, as placed in a state in some degree like that of good Angels who are sent into the world as ministering spirits, for the general good of mankind, to assist, protect, and minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation. For the more you are free from the common necessities of men, the more you are to imitate the higher perfections of Angels.

But until then,

… all Christians are to live wholly unto God in every state and condition, doing the work of their common calling in such a manner, and for such ends, as to make it a part of their devotion or service to God.

I was pricked toward repentance in every chapter, almost every page. Even those areas where I have made some small progress, such as the Hours of Prayer, give me no room for pride when I consider my customary dullness of heart and spirit.

It would be easy to show… how little and small matters are the first steps and natural beginnings of great perfection. But the two things which, of all others, most want to be under a strict rule, and which are the greatest blessings both to ourselves and others, when they are rightly used, are our time and our money. These talents are continual means and opportunities of doing good. He that is piously strict, and exact in the wise management of either of these, cannot be long ignorant of the right use of the other.

Law has much to say about the Giving of Alms. I am still thinking about this, for he addresses an issue that has concerned me. It is relatively easy to write a check to Church World Service or the Carter Center and help people Far Away. It is a little harder to hand over cash to the guys (and ladies) on the street who ask for it; I used to do a lot of this, but these days hardly any at all. But it is a great deal harder still to know how to deal with those who come to you, week after week, asking for money. Some of those who had been my “regulars” I have written off, refusing to give them any more, so I am currently down to two men. But Law makes me wonder if I have been wrong to curtail my giving as much as I have.

[One of the delights of the book is Law’s portrayals of imaginary examples, good and bad. “Miranda,” whom some say is possibly modelled on Law’s mother, is one of my favorites. Thus, the following:]

It may be, says Miranda, that I may often give to those who do not deserve it, or that will make an ill use of my alms. But what then? Is not this the very method of Divine goodness? Does not God make “His sun to rise on the evil and on the good?” …. Do I beg of God to deal with me, not according to my merit, but according to His own great goodness; and shall I be so absurd as to withhold my charity from a poor brother, because he may perhaps not deserve it: Shall I use a measure toward him, which I pray God never to use toward me.”

Or the following:

Now the rule of forgiving is also the rule of giving; you are not to give, or do good, to seven, but to seventy times seven. You are not to cease from giving, because you have given often to the same person, or to other persons, but must look upon yourself as much obliged to continue relieving those that continue to want, as you were obliged to relieve them once or twice.

I read these things, and was put much under conviction. But the editor found it necessary to add this footnote:

Law acted on these principles himself, and the effect on the poor of King’s Cliffe (the village where he lived) was the reverse of satisfactory.

I have written enough, I hope, to encourage my readers to dip into Law’s book. But I cannot end without special mention of Chapter 15: “Of Chanting, or Singing of Psalms in our Private Devotions. Of the Great Effects it hath upon our Hearts. Of the Means of Performing it in the Best Manner.”

There is one thing still remaining, that you must be required to observe, not only as fit and proper to be done, but as such as cannot be neglected without great prejudice to your devotions: and that is to begin all your prayers with a psalm. This is so right, is so beneficial to devotion, has so much effect upon our hearts, that it may be insisted upon as a common rule for all persons.

I do not mean, that you should read over a psalm, but that you should chant or sing one of those psalms, which we commonly call the reading psalms. For singing is as much the proper use of a psalm as devout supplication is the proper use of a form of prayer; and a psalm only read is very much like a prayer that is only looked over.

To which I can say “Amen.”