[NOTE: William Law was a 17th century Anglican priest whose writings influenced heavily the Methodist movement of John Wesley}
“We pray like most Christians but live like most Pagans”
Let us take
an instance in two modest women: let it be supposed that one of them is
careful of times of devotion, and observes them through a sense of duty,
and that the other has no hearty concern about it, but is at Church seldom
or often, just as it happens. Now it is a very easy thing to see this
difference betwixt these persons. But when you have seen this, can you find any
farther difference betwixt them?
Can you find that their common life is
of a different kind?
Are not the tempers, and customs, and manners of the one, of the same kind as
of the other? Do they live as if they belonged to different worlds, had
different views in their heads, and different rules and measures of all their
actions? Have they not the same goods and evils? Are they not pleased and
displeased in the same manner, and for the same things? Do they not live in
the same course of life? does one seem to be of this world, looking at the things
that are temporal, and the other to be of another world, looking wholly at the
things that are eternal? Does the
one live in pleasure, delighting herself in show or dress, and the other live
in self-denial and mortification, renouncing everything that looks like vanity,
either of person, dress, or carriage? Does the one follow public
diversions, and trifle away her time in idle visits, and corrupt conversation,
and does the other study all the arts of improving her time, living in prayer
and watching, and such good works as may make all her time turn to her
advantage, and be placed to her account at the last day? Is the one careless of expense, and glad to be able to adorn
herself with every costly ornament of dress, and does the other consider her
fortune as a talent given her by God, which is to be improved religiously, and
no more to be spent on vain and needless ornaments than it is to be buried in
the earth? Where must you look, to find one person of religion differing
in this manner, from another that has none? And yet if they do not differ in
these things which are here related, can it with any sense be said, the one is a good
Christian, and the other not?
Take another
instance amongst the men? Leo has a great deal of good nature, has kept what
they call good company, hates everything that is false and base, is very
generous and brave to his friends; but has concerned himself so little with
religion that he hardly knows the difference betwixt a Jew and a Christian.
Eusebius, on the other hand, has had early
impressions of religion, and buys books of devotion. He can talk of all the
feasts and fasts of the Church, and knows the names of most men that have been
eminent for piety. You never hear him swear, or make a loose jest; and when he
talks of religion, he talks of it as of a matter of the last concern.
Here you
see, that one person has religion enough, according to the way of the world, to
be reckoned a pious Christian, and the other is so far from all appearance of
religion, that he may fairly be reckoned a Heathen; and yet if you look into their common
life; if you examine their chief and ruling tempers in the greatest
articles of life, or the greatest doctrines of Christianity, you will not find
the least difference imaginable. Consider them with regard to the use of the
world, because that is what everybody can see. Now to have right notions
and tempers with relation to this world, is as essential to religion as it have
right notions of God. And it is as possible for a man to worship a
crocodile, and yet be a pious man, as to have his affections set upon this
world, and yet be a good Christian.
But now if you consider Leo and Eusebius in this respect, you will
find them exactly alike, seeking, using, and enjoying, all that can be got in
this world in the same manner, and for the same ends. You will find that riches,
prosperity, pleasures, indulgences, state equipages, and honour, are just as
much the happiness of Eusebius as they are of Leo. And yet if Christianity has
not changed a man's mind and temper with relation to these things, what can we
say that it has done for him? For if the doctrines of Christianity were
practised, they would make a man as different from other people, as to all
worldly tempers, sensual pleasures, and the pride of life, as a wise man is
different from a natural; it would be as easy a thing to know a Christian by
his outward course of life, as it is now difficult to find anybody that lives
it. For it is notorious that Christians are now not only like other men in
their frailties and infirmities, this might be in some degree excusable, but
the complaint is, they are like Heathens in all the main and chief articles of
their lives. They enjoy the world, and live every day in the same tempers, and
the same designs, and the same indulgences, as they did who knew not God, nor
of any happiness in another life. Everybody that is capable of any reflection,
must have observed, that this is generally the state even of devout people,
whether men or women. You may see them different from other people, so far as
to times and places of prayer, but generally like the rest of the world in all
the other parts of their lives: that is, adding Christian devotion to a Heathen life.
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