Talk to a Pastor Recommended Reading - a letter from William Law
In William Law I recognize a kindred spirit. This is very good advice he gives, and it applies to those who may be reading my books as well.
Blessings,
Pastor Roland
A Letter from William Law ... to the Awakening Seekers who were (and are) partaking of his Writings.
Kings Cliffe, 1755
My
dear Friend, — for so I must call you, though unknown to me ...
Your true conduct under your present light is to turn inwards, and
endeavor to find and feel the truth and reality of those doctrines there, which you
begin to have a sight of.
For all I have written is only to help mankind, in this age of darkness, controversy, and
delusion, to find the full truth and fundamental ground of all the doctrines of salvation,
as plainly written and demonstrated in the essence, state and condition of their own
souls, as they are in scripture.
Under such conviction as this, you come to this knowledge, that all is to be transacted
between God and yourself; and that as you are, so is God towards you;
and therefore you are to look for no good, but from such a state of heart, or kind of
prayer, as keeps you continually uniting yourself to God, in steadily believing, and
fully expecting to be delivered from all your evil, through the merits, mediation, and
heavenly birth of the holy Jesus in your own soul.
Form no idea of the progress you make, nor stand upon nor watch how it advances in
you. Give God your heart; desire only to die to yourself and every thing that
hinders your living unto Him, and then your road is safe and good, whatever you meet in
it.
All my books will at present be of use to you, provided you read them only as your
instruction how to find and know the misery and corruption of your own fallen nature, and
the absolute impossibility of ever being delivered from it, but by turning to God through
Jesus Christ. For they mean nothing else but to lead you from me, and from yourself,
from all trust in created things, to expect and find all that you want, in God alone, in
the immediate operation of his living Word and Spirit in your own soul.
In all my writings, I urge you to read more with your heart, than with your head:
and never exercise your mind in apprehending any difficult matters, or stay upon them,
when ever you meet them.
Your heart, given up to God, will have its sufficient daily illumination, and, in its proper
time, will have its true fitness for the understanding of every matter that can
be a blessing to you. And be assured of this, that no knowledge but that which is
born within you from a heart in union with the eternal Word and Spirit of God, is worth a
moment's thought.
My
dear friend, Adieu.
