The greatest saint in the world is not he who prays most or fasts most; it is not he who gives alms, or is most eminent for temperance, chastity or justice. It is he who is most thankful to God.
– William Law –
Read whatever chapter of scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it – yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon him.
– William Law –
There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.
– William Law –
There is nothing that makes us love a man so much as praying for him.
– William Law –
Grant that I may worship and pray unto Thee with as much reverence and godly fear, as if I saw the heavens open and all the angels that stand around Thy throne. Amen.
– William Law –
from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life
The more we pay for any truth, the better is our bargain.
– William Law –
Death to self is the only entrance into the Church of the living God; and nothing but God can give this death, and that alone through the inward work of the cross of Christ by His Spirit made real in the soul.
– William Law –
Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted to God. He therefore is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life, parts of piety, by doing everything in the name of God, and under such rules as are conformable to his Glory.
– William Law –
from A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, 1729
Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state.
– William Law –