William Law was an Anglican priest who refused to swear allegiance to a king he considered illegitimate. Cast out of his university post, he spent the rest of his life in quiet study and writing. In 1728, he published a book that would shake the religious complacency of his age.
"Devotion," he wrote, "is neither private nor public prayer, but a life given to God. A man is not devout because he visits the church daily, but because he lives for God everywhere. He who divides his life between God and the world, giving some to one and some to the other, has not begun devotion."
"If you ask why the world is not full of true Christians,
I will tell you: it is not because they lack belief —
They believe everything the Bible teaches.
It is because they have never intended to be Christians.
They have never really meant to serve God
In everything they do."
Law's critique was devastating: most religious people, he argued, are religious only in religious matters. They pray at prayer time, worship at worship time, then return to ordinary life as though God did not exist. "The same person who would never miss church will cheat in business, gossip about neighbors, and live for pleasures. He has never understood that religion is not a part of life but the whole of it."
The "serious call" is the call to make every moment sacred. "Every day is a day of God. Every hour is an hour of God. The tradesman at his counter, the woman in her household, the student at his books — each has the same opportunity for holiness as the monk in his cell."
"Consider this:
You would think a man mad
Who prayed for humility on Sunday
And spent the week in pride.
You would think him insincere
Who asked God for patience
Then gave way to every irritation.
Yet this is how most people live their religion."
Law did not call for withdrawal from the world. He called for transformation within it. "The merchant can buy and sell to the glory of God. The lawyer can practice law as a service to justice. The mother can raise children as souls being formed for eternity. Every honest calling can become a holy calling — if it is done with holy intentions."
The book changed lives. John Wesley read it as a young man and said it first opened his eyes to the possibility of genuine religion. Samuel Johnson called it "the finest piece of hortatory theology in any language." Generation after generation discovered in its pages the challenge they needed to hear: that half-hearted religion is no religion at all.
Teaching 23
Devotion is not prayers and services but a life given wholly to God. The merchant at his counter has the same opportunity for holiness as the monk in his cell. There is no sacred and secular — only one life, which is either offered to God entirely or not at all.