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William Law is best remembered today for his Serious Call to a
Devout and Holy Life. To those interested in his spirituality,
however, other works have greater impact, in particular The Spirit
of Prayer and The Spirit of Love, which are considered the finest
and most appealing. In the years in which they were written, his
vision had reached its fullest and most characteristic development,
and his literary power was at its height. It is in these books that
the profound influence of Jacob Boehme can be most clearly seen.
His great synthesis of the mystical outpourings and orthodox
Christian theology, provide an English spiritual classic. Law's
understanding and interpretation of mysticism was more original
than traditional, being dynamic and creative. He believed in the
life of God working from within, and the flame of divine love being
a link with and an understanding of God. He conceived that
mysticism was a matter of life, that relied on willing rather than
knowing, and that ultimately rested on trust in God. Despite
holding no official position he was widely regarded in his own time
and later as a spiritual guide, and his trilogy The Spirit of
Prayer, The Spirit of Love and The Way to Divine Knowledge was the
mature expression of his theology and religion.
'It is not to be thought that the life of darkness is sunk in
misery and lost as if in sorrow. There is no sorrowing. For
sorrowing is a thing swallowed up in death, and death and dying are
the very life of the darkness.' Jacob Boehme's mystical pantheism
and dialectical conception of God - in which good and evil are
rooted in one and the same being - soon brought him into conflict
with Lutheran orthodoxy. It is in 'The Signature of all Things'
(Signatura Rerum) that the tenets of Boehme's theosophy are related
in their greatest detail. Casting the reader into the vortex of his
cosmological universe, Boehme's endeavour to express a new sense of
the human, divine and natural realms attains its apotheosis in his
conception of the Ungrund, the uncertainty that precedes the divine
will's arousing itself to self-awareness. Challenging and rewarding
in equal measure, this is a profound text, deeply influential upon
devotional writers such as William Law, visionaries such as William
Blake (informing The Marriage of Heaven and Hell) and, more
recently, upon cultural production as diverse as the psychology of
Carl Jung and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
This devotional classic, written by William Law, an eloquent
religious teacher of the eighteenth century, was designed to prod
indifferent Christians into making an honest effort to live up to
what they professed to believe. It has been appreciated in every
succeeding generation because of its innate vigor and virility.
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