scouted as noxious and pestilential, he looked upon religion as an all-transforming agency, linked it with the supernatural, denounced the adequacy of reason apart from divine illumination, and claimed a place for enthusiasm in piety. In fine, the mysticism into which he finally launched was only an exaggeration of the protest which from the first he was inclined to make against the cool moralizing and superficial religion of the times.

The works of Law fall into three classes, the controversial, the practical or devotional, and the mystical. To the first belong his "Letters to the Bishop of Bangor," his "Remarks on the Fable of the Bees" (an able reply to Mandeville), his "Case of Reason," against Tindal, and his "Confutation of Warburton's projected Defence." These productions contain not a little of pungent argumentation. They exhibit also the art of the skilful controversialist in their freedom from scurrilous personalities, and in the indulgence, at most, of a cutting temperateness. The mysticism of Law upon which he embarked between 1731 and 1737 appears in such writings as the "Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration," the "Spirit of Love," the "Spirit of Prayer," the "Appeal to All that Doubt." The inspiration for these works was drawn from an ample acquaintance with mystical divinity. Law says of himself: "I thank God I have been a diligent reader of these mystical divines, from the apostolical Dionysius the Areopagite down to the great Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambray, the illuminated Guion, and M. Bertot." He delighted especially in mystics of the more hardy and masculine type. He was fond of Eckhart, Tauler, Suso,

Ruysbroek, and Henry Harphius; but his favorite above. all others was Jacob Boehme, some of whose works he translated. Doubtless one reason of his preference for the "blessed Jacob" was the illiteracy of the man. The fact that so unlearned a man could write such rich productions was to the English mystic a most acceptable proof of the pet theory of his later years respecting the worthlessness of human learning in matters of religion. That nature is a divine theophany, that God is love, that the atonement is moral transformation by the indwelling Christ, that religion is intimate union with God, these are the cardinal ideas in Law's mystical treatises.

While the writings just described contain passages of great beauty and spiritual depth, in real influence they can bear no comparison with the practical treatises. Law's "Christian Perfection" and "Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" (1726-1729) took a strong hold of the more earnest minds of the age, and were prominent among the antecedents of the great revival of the eighteenth century. The latter in particular is a masterpiece of practical divinity. Its leading thought is that genuine religion cannot be made a side issue, but must rather be the vitalizing principle of the life, and rule its every part. No less a man than Samuel Johnson confessed his profound obligations to the "Serious Call." "When at Oxford," he says, "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." By the same robust writer the "Serious Call" was further

described as "the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language." John Wesley also owed to it a decided religious quickening. During the latter part of his stay at Oxford, as he himself has acknowledged, Law was a "kind of oracle" to him. He was at great pains to consult him, and even followed him to the extent of taking a step or two across the threshold of mysticism. Law as a mystic, however, soon became the subject of his criticism rather than of his admiration, but he continued to esteem him as an expounder of practical religion. In 1738 he acknowledged his influence on this wise: "For two years I have been preaching after the model of your two practical treatises." In the same letter, it is true, he complained of the treatises in question as more clearly showing the law than the grace of God, as pointing out the ideal rather than the means of attaining it. But this criticism, urged with some asperity, sprang from the first impulses of a new-born zeal, from the consciousness of an experience far greater than that to which he had been led by his former guide. Notwithstanding the adverse comments of the moment, he returned to a lively appreciation of Law's productions, and cordially recommended them to his people. He used the "Serious Call" as a text-book at the Kingswood school, and late in life he wrote concerning it: "It is a treatise which will hardly be excelled, if it be equalled, in the English tongue, either for beauty of expression or for justness and depth of thought." Whatever his obligations to this source may have been, it is quite certain that one cannot read the "Serious Call" and the practical teaching of Wesley, without being struck with the 1 Journal, Sept., 1760.

numerous points of close resemblance between the two. Law, no doubt, was never an advocate of Methodism, after the Wesleyan type. He never subscribed to Wesley's technical representations about the realization of the new birth, assurance of salvation, and Christian perfection. Nevertheless there are adequate reasons for associating him with Methodism as an advocate of a piety dominating the whole life and resting upon a lively faith in the presence and immediate agency of the Holy Spirit.

William Law was pre-eminently a writer. He was not qualified for the practical work of religious leadership. His disposition tended to isolation. Wesley's capacity for close contact with men and affairs was foreign to him. But he ought to be remembered as an important contributor to the revival of the eighteenth century, and as a man whose personal piety was nurtured by an unquenchable ardor of purpose. He struggled faithfully toward his ideal and died in bright anticipation of its realization. "I feel," he exclaimed upon his dying bed, "a sacred fire kindled in my soul, which will destroy everything contrary to itself, and burn as a flame of divine love to all eternity." 99 1

Before taking leave of the Nonjurors, we should notice the fact that, while the more zealous of their number looked upon their immediate neighbors as belonging to the wicked Babylon, the Eastern Church seemed to them entirely worthy of fellowship, and negotiations were entered upon (1716-1720) to test the feasibility of union or mutual recognition. The project proved to be as utopian as that entertained at the same time by a 1 See the interesting biography of Law by J. H. Overton.

high representative of the Established Church respecting a union with the French Church.1

While the first half of the eighteenth century was the great era of the deistical controversy, the patriarch of English deism lived as early as the time of Charles I. Pained by the clash of religious opinions and the strife of sects, Lord Edward Herbert, Baron of Cherbury, set to work to find out the essential tenets of true religion. The results of his investigation and thought were expressed in several works, the principal of which were his "De Veritate" (1624), and his "De Religione Gentilium" (1645). He concluded that the essential articles of religion are the following five: 1. That there is one supreme God. 2. That He is chiefly to be worshipped. 3. That piety and virtue is the principal part of His worship. 4. That we must repent of our sins; and if we do so God will pardon them. 5. That there are rewards for good men and punishments for bad men in a future state, or, as he sometimes expresses it, both here and hereafter. The certainty of these truths he based upon reason, or intellectual intuition. Reason in all ages and the world over acknowledges

1 The possibility of this latter scheme being broached was due to the disgust of many French theologians at the bull Unigenitus. As they were chafing under the imposition of this unholy document, Archbishop Wake received intimation that eminent doctors of the Sorbonne were willing to discuss a plan of union. A friendly correspondence ensued. "Separation from Rome was what the English archbishop chiefly pressed; 'a reformation in other matters would follow as a matter of course.'" (Abbey and Overton, History of the English Church in the Eighteenth Century.)