English Studies

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The controversy between William Law and John

Wesley

Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar

To cite this article: Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar (2006) The controversy between William Law and
John Wesley, English Studies, 87:4, 442-465, DOI: 10.1080/00138380600757810

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English Studies
Vol. 87, No. 4, August 2006, 442 465

The Controversy Between William Law

and John Wesley
Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar

1 Introduction
It is a common misconception, perpetuated especially by some twentieth-century
(literary) critics whose subject is the eighteenth-century English novelist Samuel
Richardson,1 to associate the English theologian and spiritual writer William Law
(best-known for The Christian Perfection, 1726, and A Serious Call, 1728) with
Methodism, the system of religious faith and practice promoted by John and Charles
Wesley and their followers. Though John Wesley admired Laws early works of the
1720s, he considered Laws later theology as it appeared in his works from 1737 and
onwards as dangerously false because of its Behmenism and mysticism. As a result of
this Wesley became Laws fierce opponent.
The misconception of the relationship between Law and John Wesley is caused by
the connection Dr Joseph Trapp, who opposed all forms of enthusiasm, saw between
Laws writings and the Methodists.2 Moreover, Dr William Warburton, Bishop of
Gloucester, who was just as antagonistic to enthusiasm as Trapp, declared that Law
had begotten Methodism, and that the Moravian Zinzendorf had rocked the cradle.3
Though The Oxford Methodists, a pamphlet of thirty pages defending the Methodists
and printed by Samuel Richardson in 1733, has been attributed to William Law by
Dr J. S. Simon, there is no proof of this, nor is it mentioned as Laws in any of the
collected editions of Laws works.4
The purpose of this essay is to explore in some detail the controversy between
William Law and John Wesley. Drawn into this argument were especially John
Wesleys brother Charles, Laws friend and versifier of his works John Byrom, the
Methodist George Whitefield, whose Calvinist theology led him to break with the

Dr Joling-van der Sar is an independent scholar.

1
This essay is partly derived from my dissertation available from http://home.hccnet.nl/j.t.joling
2
Tory and high churchman, Dr Joseph Trapp (1679 1747) was a poet and pamphleteer. From 1708 to 1718 he
was Professor of Poetry at Oxford. The University of Oxford created him Doctor of Divinity in February 1728
for his attack on the Church of Rome.
3
William Warburton (1698 1779) was made Bishop of Gloucester in 1759. The enthusiasm of Methodism
was especially repugnant to him, and therefore he published in 1762 The Doctrine of Grace against John Wesley.
Warburtons arrogance in the conduct of his literary feuds made him many enemies. See footnotes 13 and 47.
4
See Simon, 97. See also Brazier Green, 55 9.

ISSN 0013-838X (print)/ISSN 1744-4217 (online) 2006 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/00138380600757810
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 443

Wesley brothers in 1741, as well as the Newtonian physician and Behmenist George
Cheyne and the printer and novelist Samuel Richardson, both great admirers of Law.

2 The Influence of the German Theosopher and Mystic Jacob Boehme

on William Law
Born in 1686 at Kings Cliffe, Northamptonshire, Law entered Cambridge in 1705,
where he studied the classics, Hebrew, philosophy and mathematics. He took holy
orders in 1711 and became a Nonjuror in 1714 as a result of his refusal to take the
oath of allegiance to George I. John Wesley was born in 1703 and went to Oxford in
1720, where, according to Dr J. S. Simon, he gathered around him in November 1729
a group of friends called the Oxford Methodists, also known as the Holy Club,
including his brother Charles Wesley and George Whitefield.
Law lived a tranquil life. In contrast to John Wesley, who showed such widespread
activity and who was known to thousands of people, Law travelled little and was
personally known only to a small circle. There are relatively few salient moments in
his career, which revolved around three fixed points, Cambridge, Putney and Kings
Cliffe. Around 1724 25 Law entered the household of Mr Gibbon who lived at
Putney to become tutor to Edward Gibbon, the future father of the famous historian.
In 1743 Law returned to Kings Cliffe, where he lived quietly until his death in 1761.5
It is through the journal and the correspondence of Laws friend John Byrom,
whose interest in Law was first kindled in 1729 by the Serious Call, that we know
several facts about Law which we would otherwise not have known. Byroms journal
informs us that the mystically inclined George Cheyne6 was the one who mentioned
the book Fides et Ratio, in which Law found Boehmes name. Recording a
conversation he had with Law in May 1743, Byrom writes that Law:

mentioned Dr Cheyne . . . that the Dr was always talking in coffee-houses about

naked faith, pure love, . . . that Dr Cheyne was the providential occasion of his
meeting or knowing of Jacob Behmen by a book which the Dr mentioned to him in
a letter, which book mentioned Behmen.7

5
The relationship between Law and Wesley has been explored in Brazier Greens John Wesley and William Law
and in Keith Walkers William Law: His Life and Thought. Hobhouse discussed the relation between Law and
Quakerism in William Law and Eighteenth-Century Quakerism. He described Laws library in An English
Mystics Library. There is a catalogue of Laws library made by Rufus M. Jones in 1927. Editions of Laws
complete works are those of 1762 and Moretons Works, 9 volumes of 1892 3 (a reprint of the 1762 edition). In
2001 a reprint of the Moreton edition was published by Wipf and Stock Publishers, Salem, USA.
6
See Joling-van der Sar. Chapters 2 and 3 describe the relationship between Richardson and Cheyne as well as
the influence of Cheynes thoughts on Richardson.
7
Hobhouse, Fides et Ratio, 350 1. Fides et Ratio was edited in 1708 by the French Protestant theologian
Pierre Poiret, who spent the largest part of his life in The Netherlands, first in Amsterdam, then in Rijnsburg
near Leiden. It consists of five separate sections which, except for Poirets preface, are all anonymous or
pseudonymous. The main discourse, entitled Animadversions, praises the writings of Boehme and opposes the
Christian rationalism of Locke with its rejection of innate ideas and its conception of the human mind as a
tabula rasa.
444 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Since Laws writings began to contain a genuine mystical note after 1735,8 Cheyne
must have mentioned Fides et Ratio probably late 1735 or 1736. After Law had read
Fides et Ratio, he obtained one of Boehmes books and towards the end of his life he
described to his Moravian admirer, Francis Okely, the experience he had when
reading it:

When I first began to read him, he put me into a perfect sweat. But as I discerned
sound truths, and glimmerings of a deep ground and sense, even in the passages
not then clearly intelligible to me; and found in myself a strong incentive to dig in
these writings, I followed the impulse with continual aspirations and prayer to God
for his help and divine illumination, if that I was called to understand them. By
patiently reading in this manner again and again, and from time to time, passing
over any little objections and difficulties that stood in my way for the moment, I
perceived that my heart felt well, and my understanding kept gradually opening; till
at length I discovered the wonderful treasure there was hid in this field.9

The treasure which Law refers to in the above quoted text is true knowledge or
wisdom.
Initially, Law read Boehmes works in the seventeenth-century English translations
(1647 62) by the Seekers John Ellistone and John Sparrow. In his preface to the
Signatura Rerum (1651) Ellistone expressed his wish that the little spark of breathing
desire within him for true knowledge would enable him to write an introduction
worthy of Boehmes work. Ellistone believed that true knowledge is the best treasure
that we can attain in this world and that it includes the knowledge of oneself:

For Man is the great Mystery of God, the Microcosm, or the compleat Abridgement
of the whole Universe: He is the Mirandum dei opus, Gods Master-peece, a living
Emblem, and Hierogliphick of Eternity and Time; and therefore to know Whence
he is, and what his temporall and Eternal Being, and well being is, must needs be
that ONE necessary thing, unto which all our chief Study should aym, and in
comparison of Which all the Wealth of this world is but loss, and dross.10

Laws great admiration for Boehme as the only one from among the generally anti-
mystical Protestant spiritual writers compared with the great Catholic mystics also

8
It is difficult to give a precise definition of the term mysticism. Brazier Green quotes the words of Inge to be
found in Christian Mysticism: No word in our language not even Socialism has been employed more
loosely than Mysticism. Sometimes it is used as an equivalent for symbolism or allegorism, sometimes for
theosophy or occult science, and sometimes it merely suggests the mental state of a dreamer, or vague and
fantastic opinions about God and the world. . . . Religious Mysticism may be defined as the attempt to realize the
presence of the living God in the soul and in Nature, or, more generally, as the attempt to realize, in thought and
feeling, the immanence of the temporal in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal. Usually, the essence of
mysticism is defined as an ultimate union of the soul with God (Brazier Green, 177, 191). In the Studies of
English Mystics Inge described Laws Christian Regeneration as the best summary of the theology and ethics
of Christian mysticism (Brazier Green, 126).
9
Keith Walker, 98 9.
10
Boehme, Signatura Rerum, A2.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 445

appears from the letter of Thomas Langcake to Henry Brooke, dated 30 November
1782:

Mr. Law said to me (of . . . Protestant Mystics) that Jacob Behmen was the first in
excellency, Hiel the next, and in the third place the Quakers, I believe he alluded in
particular to Isaac Pennington, though I should think the deep mystic writers of the
Romish Church surpassed them in their exceeding love of God and divine wisdom.11

Boehme was a powerful thinker and mystic, but his odd expressions make him
rather obscure. Most men of the Enlightenment would probably have agreed with
Bishop Warburton:

Jacob Boehme, delivering to us . . . a heap of unmeaning, or . . . unintelligible

words . . . if indeed, this Wisdom did come down from above, it hath so degenerated
on its way down, as to be ever unfit to return.12

Of course, William Law would not have agreed with such a view, but then again Law
and Warburton disagreed on many things.13

3 The Law-edition of Boehme

Law even projected a new translation of Boehmes works, for which The Way to
Divine Knowledge, printed by Richardson in 1752, had been the preparation. After the
death of both Law and Richardson in 1761, the work was actually carried out by two
of Laws friends, George Ward and the abovementioned Thomas Langcake, who
published a four-volume version (1764 81) which was paid for by Elizabeth
Hutcheson.14 Laws biographer, Walton, refers to the common but erroneous
supposition that Law had been the editor of this incomplete edition and he explains
that, though Law indeed had the intention to produce a new and correct translation
of Boehmes works which can be inferred from his work The Way to Divine
Knowledge, he died before the first of the volumes was printed. All the editors did was
to take the original translations (by Ellistone and Sparrow) and make a few changes.

11
Hobhouse, William Law and Eighteenth-Century Quakerism, 249.
12
Keith Walker, 107.
13
See for instance Laws Short Confutation of Dr. Warburtons Projected Defence (As he calls it) of Christianity, in
his Divine Legation of Moses. In a Letter to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of London. This work was published
in 1757. Law ends his confutation with the following words: I should have had much Uneasiness, my Lord, in
exposing so many gross Errors both in the Matter, and Manner of the Doctors Books, did not my Heart bear me
full Witness, that no want of Good-will, or due Respect towards him, but solely a Regard to That, which ought
only to be regarded, has directed my Pen. (Law, Works, 8:213)
14
Boehme, The Works of Jacob Behmen, 4 vols. A fifth volume had been planned, but Mrs Hutcheson died before
it was completed. It was this four-volume edition of Boehmes main works through which the English
Romantics, especially Blake and Coleridge, got to know Boehme. (See for more details Buddecke, 2:54 6).
Elizabeth Hutcheson was the widow of Archibald Hutcheson, a friend of both Law and Richardson. She joined
Laws household in 1743 together with Miss Hester Gibbon (aunt of the historian Edward Gibbon), accepting
his spiritual direction and sharing in his local philanthropic activities.
446 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
They omitted certain portions of the prefaces and used the life of Boehme by Durand
Hotham, which, according to Walton15 was tinctured by the phantasies and old
wives fables peculiar to the alchemists of former times. All in all, Walton concludes,
the assumption that Law had edited this memoir has discredited Laws good sense
and judgement.
There is a letter by Law on this subject in which he tells us how he had several
times thought of undertaking a new edition of Boehmes work, but never found the
time to do so. He explains how he had taught himself the High Dutch Language on
purpose to know the original text of the blessed Jacob. He refers to his own quarto
edition of 1715, which had been carefully printed from the Gichtel edition of 1682.16
Law acknowledges the quality of the impressive translation by Ellistone and Sparrow,
which had been done with great piety and ability, but he found it nevertheless too
much overloaded with words, while in many places the sense had been mistaken. He
ends his letter by saying that if he were to undertake a new translation, he would try
to make Boehme speak as he would have if he had written in English. Moreover, he
would guard the reader at certain places where Boehme might be misunderstood.
And, lastly, that by prefaces or introductions he would guide the reader in the right
use of these writings, which, he adds, would be entirely unnecessary if only the reader
would observe Boehmes own directions. Law is somewhat dismayed that though
many people of learning had read Boehme with great earnestness, they merely stole
from him certain mysteries of nature and ran away with the Philosophers
Stone.17
Law had procured the commentaries of Dionysius Andreas Freher and these
provide the Law-edition with some remarkable and impressive illustrations.18 The
three principal ones are figures of man, woman, and the zodiac, covered with
symbols, various parts of which open to reveal the meaning of the symbols, or of
parts of the body. The whole is a series of up to nine or ten layers, dramatically
organized to reveal at the deepest level the highest secret and greatest meanings.
These symbolic drawings illustrating Boehmes mystical doctrine had such an
overwhelming impact upon William Blake that, during a dinner party in 1825, he
said Michael Angelo could not have surpassed them.

4 The Relationship of Law and Wesley Between 1732 and 1738

John and Charles Wesley visited Law at Putney on several occasions between 1732
and 1735, when John Wesley left England to do religious work among the colonists

15
Hotham, The Life of Jacob Behmen.
16
This edition is the Theosophia Revelata.
17
Walton, Behmen, Law, & Other Mystics, 24 5.
18
Freher (1649 1728) was a German and one of Boehmes early exegetists. He was much admired by William
Law. His manuscript works are in Dr Williamss Library and in the British Museum. See also Waltons Notes and
Materials. In The Netherlands the Law-edition of Boehmes works can be found at the Bibliotheca Philosophica
Hermetica (BPH) in Amsterdam.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 447

and natives of Georgia. It was during these visits that Law, growing more devoted to
the writings of the mystics, gave to John Wesley the Theologia Germanica which
caused Wesley to give earnest attention to mysticism for some time, even though his
previous reading of Thomas a Kempis had been disappointing.19
Several years earlier while still in Oxford, Wesley wrote to his mother in a letter
dated 28 May 1725 that he had read Thomas a Kempis again and that though he
thought Kempis must have been a person of great piety and devotion, it was his
[Wesleys] misfortune to differ from him in some main points, for he could not
believe that when God sent us into the world He had irreversibly decreed that we
should be perpetually miserable in it. If this had been the case, he added, then the
very endeavour after happiness in this life is a sin. To this his mother replied that she
agreed with her son about this point, but that Kempiss intentions as well as Kempis
himself were holy, just, and good. All in all, she believed Kempis to have been an
honest weak man, that had more zeal than knowledge.
Wesley equally disapproved of Jeremy Taylors Holy Living and Dying and wrote to
his mother on 18 June 1725 that he had heard someone whom he believed to be a
person of good judgment, perhaps Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, say
that she would advise no one very young to read Dr Taylors Of Living and Dying.
Moreover, he added that:

[Taylor] had almost put her out of her senses when she was fifteen or sixteen years
old; because he seemed to exclude all from being in a way of salvation who did not
come up to his rules, some of which are altogether impracticable.20

Between John Wesleys last visit to Law in AugustSeptember 1735 and their
exchange of letters in May 1738, Law became especially absorbed in the works of
Jacob Boehme, while Wesleys outlook equally changed during the years of his
absence in America. Already in 1736 Wesley appears to have turned away from the
mystical writings Law had introduced him to, for in his letter from Georgia to his
brother Samuel he writes on 23 November 1736:

I think the rock on which I had the nearest made shipwreck of the faith, was, the
writings of the Mystics; under which term I comprehend all, and only those, who
slight any of the means of grace. I have drawn up a short scheme of their doctrines,
partly from conversations I have had and letters, and partly from their most
approved writers, such as Tauler, Molinos, and the author of Theologia
Germanica.21

19
The Theologia Germanica was an anonymous medieval spiritual treatise, written in German and widely used by
the Anabaptists. It stresses the priority of individual experience and insight in religious matters. An important
French edition of the Theologia Germanica is Pierre Poirets translation of 1700. For further details about the
Theologia Germanica see Joling-van der Sar, 95 101.
20
Brazier Green, 26 7.
21
Wesley, Works, 12:27.
448 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Not only did Wesley reject mysticism, he became convinced of the inadequacy of
salvation by good works. Moreover, he worried about his own imperfect experience
of salvation by faith alone, which was the supreme issue between him and Law. He
felt that, while in Georgia, he had been beating the air. He described this in his
journal for May 1738 as follows:

Being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, which, by a living faith in Him,

bringeth salvation to every one that believeth, I sought to establish my own
righteousness; and so laboured in the fire all my days.22

Back in England in 1738, Wesley remembers that on his way out to Georgia in 1735,
while again active in outward works he had met twenty-six Moravian Brethren,
who had shown him a more excellent way, but at the time he had not understood
them and their ideas had seemed all foolishness to him.23
Within a week after Wesley landed in England on 1 February 1738 he met in
London with the Moravian Peter Bohler, who told him that faith in Christ, which was
the free gift of God given to everyone who looked for it, is accompanied by a pardon
of all past sins, as well as the freedom from present sins. This would lead to Wesleys
spiritual experience on the evening of 24 May 1738, while attending a meeting of the
Moravian Society in Aldersgate Street.
The assurance that his sins were now forgiven, and that he could sin no longer,
made Wesley realize, more than before, that Law had failed him. Wesley now believed
that Law, rather than offering him the faith which saves, had summoned him to take
up the Cross, to follow the example of Christ, offering him a new life by example, by
good works. Brazier Green argued that the fundamental problem between Wesley and
Law was doctrinal, stating that Laws individualistic ideal was a call, a challenge, or a
high standard, and not an appeal, an offer, or a gift.

5 The Breach Between Law and Wesley in 1738

Wesley believed that Law did not have this saving faith, and he felt called upon to help
Law seek it. The result was a correspondence between the two men consisting of four
letters which have been variously interpreted, sometimes favouring Wesleys side of the
argument, sometimes leaning towards Laws position. The first letter was sent by Wesley
to Law on 14 May 1738. Wesley describes in it the inadequacy of Laws work, the aim of
which, Wesley thought, was too high. He also mentions his meeting with Bohler:

It is in obedience to what I think to be a call of God, that I, who have the sentence
of death in my own soul, take upon me to write to you, of whom I have often
desired to learn the first elements of the gospel of Christ. . . . For two years [i.e.
1736 38] I have been preaching after the model of your two practical treatises; and

22
Ibid., 1:100 1.
23
Ibid., 1:100.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 449

all that heard have allowed, that the law is great, wonderful, and holy. But no
sooner did they attempt to fulfil it, but they found that it is too high for man; and
that by doing the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified. . . . Both they
and I were more and more convinced, that this is a law by which a man cannot
live. . . . Under this heavy yoke I might have groaned till death, had not a holy man
[the Moravian Peter Bohler], to whom God lately directed me, upon my
complaining thereof, answered at once, Believe, and thou shalt be saved. Believe in
the Lord Jesus Christ with all thy heart, and nothing shall be impossible to thee.
This faith, indeed as well as the salvation it brings, is the free gift of God. . . . Strip
thyself naked of thy own works, and thy own righteousness, and fly to Him.24

It is after this point, which stresses that faith, a free gift, leads to salvation and that
works are to be rejected, that Wesley indignantly asks of Law: How will you answer
it to our common Lord, that you never gave me this advice? And Wesley continues
in the same vein to complain that Law hardly ever mentioned the name of Christ and
faith in the blood of Christ:

Why did I scarce ever hear you name the name of Christ? never, so as to ground
anything upon faith in his blood? . . . If you say you advised them because you
knew that I had faith already, verily you knew nothing of me; you discerned not my
spirit at all. I know that I had not faith, unless the faith of a devil, the faith of Judas,
that speculative, notional, airy shadow, which lives in the head, not in the heart.25

Wesley then suggests that Law lacks this saving faith himself:

What is this [i.e. this faith of a devil, or of Judas] to the living, justifying faith in the
blood of Jesus? the faith that cleanseth from sin; that gives us to have free access to the
Father; to rejoice in hope of the glory of God; to have the love of God shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost? . . . I beseech you, Sir, . . . whether the true reason of
your never pressing this upon me, was not this, that you had it not yourself?26

Law answers Wesley in a letter of 19 May 173827 in which he ironically assures

Wesley that he has not the least inclination to distrust or question [Wesleys]
mission . . . to dispose [Law] as a monster of iniquity that had corrupted all that had
conversed with [him]. Yet Law argues that salvation by faith was not inconsistent
with Laws own position and he refers to Wesleys new translation of Thomas a
Kempis and asks:

Will you call Thomas to account, and to answer it to God, as you do me, for not
teaching that doctrine? Or will you say that you took upon you to restore the true
sense of that divine writer? . . . You cant but remember what value I always
expressed for Kempis, and how much I recommended it to your meditation.

24
Ibid., 12:50 1.
25
Ibid., 12:51; also in The Works of Wesley, 25: Letters, I, 541.
26
Ibid., 12:51 2; also in The Works of John Wesley, 25: Letters, I, 5412.
27
Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 25: Letters I, 543 5.
450 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Moreover, Law reminds Wesley that the second time that he saw him, he gave him
the little book of the German Theology, and recommended it highly to Wesley,
adding that: If that book does not plainly lead you to Jesus Christ, I am content to
know as little of Christianity as you are pleased to believe.28
Finally, Law draws Wesleys attention to A Demonstration written by Law in 1737
which ought to help Wesley to make a right judgment of [Laws] sentiments. For
what Law had written there was governed by two common, fundamental,
unchangeable maxims of our Lord which say that without me ye can do nothing,
If any man will come after me or be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow
me. And here we come to one of the fundamental issues between Law and Wesley,
for Law clearly made a distinction between the Christ of history and the Christ of
experience:

The Gospel is not a History of something that was done, and past 1700 Years ago,
or of a Redemption that was then present, and only to be transmitted to Posterity
as a Matter of History; but it is a Declaration of a Redeemer, and a redeeming
Power that is always in its redeeming State, and equally present to every Man.29

According to Law there are three doctrines which are a scandal of the Reformation,
i.e. faith without works, the outward imputation of Christs merits, and absolute
election and reprobation. Though the rejection of these three doctrines is present in
Laws works of the 1730s and 1740s, his view is most clearly put into words in his
later work Of Justification by Faith and Works: the Dialogue between a [Calvinist]
Methodist and a Churchman, published in 1760, in which Law wrote:

And now let me tell you, that two or three old Heresies joined together, would not
more abuse and contradict the Gospel, than your [i.e. those of the Calvinist
Methodist] three Doctrines, (1.) Of Faith without Works. (2.) Of a Righteousness
of Christ only outwardly imputed to us. (3.) Of absolute Election and Reprobation.

28
Ibid., 25: Letters I, 544.
29
Law, Works, 5:105. See also Boehme (The Threefold Life of Man, 14:17): But for you to depend wholly on the
History, and so to apply the merit, suffering, and death of Christ, and will still keepe the Devill lodging in your
soule, that is a reproach to Christ; what doth it availe you to pray, that God would forgive you for Christs sake;
when you forgive not all others? Your heart sticketh full of revenge and robbery. The distinction between the
Christ of history and the Christ of experience is reminiscent of the seventeenth-century English enthusiasts, also
found among the Seekers, with their strong Anabaptist tinge, and the early Quakers (Knox, 94, 174 5). See
Boehmes first epistle (Epistles, 1:7 8), a Theosophical letter, or letter of divine wisdom, wherein the life of a
true Christian is described . . ., in which he writes that: He is farre from a Christian, who onely comforteth
himselfe with the Passion, Death, and Satisfaction of Christ, and doth apply and impute it to himselfe as a
pardon or gift of favour, and yet remaineth still an unregenerated, wilde [wordly, and sensuall] Beast; such a
Christian is every ungodly Man: For every one would faine be saved through a gift of favour, the devill also
would very willingly be an Angell againe by grace received and applyed from without. But to turne, . . . and be
borne anew of Gods grace-water of love, and the holy Ghost, that pleaseth him not. Even so it pleaseth not the
Titular Christian, who will put upon himselfe the mantle of Christs grace [and apply his merits unto himselfe by
an Historicall laying claime to a promise] and yet will not enter into the Adoption and New birth; albeit Christ
saith, that he cannot otherwise see the Kingdome of God.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 451

These are the Scandal and Reproach of the Reformation, wherever they are found,
and have nothing to support them, but that implicit Adherence, and systematic
Obstinacy, which keeps Romish Scholars steady to a Trent-Creed. Gospel-Salvation,
is on Gods Part, a Covenant of free Grace and Mercy, and cannot possibly be
anything else; on Mans Part, it is wholly a Covenant of Works, and cannot possibly
be any Thing else. For the sake of Works, Man was that which he was by his
Creation: for the sake of Works, he is all that he is, by his Redemption. Works are
the Life of the Creature, and he can have no Life better or worse than his Works:
That which he does, that he is.30

The only answer the Calvinist Methodist has to this theory, is that the Churchmans
[Laws] doctrine is direct Arminianism. Incidentally, both Law and Wesley rejected
Whitefields [Calvinist Methodist] views on predestinarianism.31
Returning to the exchange of letters in 1738, Law refuses any responsibility for
Wesleys earlier lack of faith, and he proceeds to warn Wesley of the dangers of
trusting the heart, for that can be even more deceitful than the head:

If you had only this faith till some weeks ago, let me advise you not to be too hasty
in believing that because you have changed your language or expressions you have
changed your faith. The head can as easily amuse itself with a living and justifying
faith in the blood of Jesus as with any other notion; and the heart which you
suppose to be a place of security, as being the seat of self-love, is more deceitful
than the head.32

Wesley immediately sets out to answer Laws letter and he writes on 20 May 1738
that in the Theologia Germanica he remembers something of Christ our pattern, but
nothing express of Christ our Atonement, and adds that: These two maxims may
imply, but do not express the thing itself, He is our propitiation, through faith in his
blood. Next he accuses Law for having recommended books to him which had no
tendency to this faith.33

30
Law, Works, 8:239 40.
31
John Byrom refers to the disputes on predestinarianism in his letter to Dr Hartley, dated April 1741.
Apparently, Dr Hartley had read Whitefields letter about predestination, written in answer to Wesley, and
thought it a shrewd thing. However, to Byrom it appeared to be a thorough mistake of St. Pauls words,
who according to him, was far from a predestinarian. He imagined Wesley and Whitefield had different
constructions on the same word, otherwise he could not explain such a contradiction to the general assertion
of the whole Bible, that is, that grace and salvation were offered and intended to all men (Byrom, The Private
Journals, 2: pt. I, 306). Consider for instance what Boehme wrote about the subject of predestination: Now
come on, you Electionists [Sparrows note explains that contend about Election and Predestination] and
contenders about the Election of Grace, you that suppose you alone are in the right, and esteem a simple faith to
be but a foolish thing; you have danced long enough before this door, and have made your boast of the
Scriptures, that they maintain that God hath of grace chosen some men in their mothers womb to the kingdom
of heaven, and reprobated or rejected others (Boehme, Aurora, 26:151). For George Cheynes views, see Joling-
van der Sar, footnote 159, 44.
32
Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 25: Letters, I, 545.
33
Wesley, Works, 12:53; The Works of John Wesley, 25: Letters, I, 546 7.
452 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Law then puts an end to this correspondence by asking Wesley in the fourth
and last letter, probably dated 22 May 1738, why he should be made Wesleys
teacher:

Who made me your teacher? Or can make me answerable for any defects in your
knowledge? You sought my acquaintance, you came to me as you pleased, and on
what occasion you pleased, and to say to me what you pleased. If it was my business
to put this question to you, if you have a right to charge me with guilt for the
neglect of it, may you not much more reasonably accuse them who are
authoritatively charged with you? Did the Church in which you are educated put
this question to you? Did the Bishop that ordained you either deacon or priest do
this for you? Did the Bishop that sent you into Georgia require this of you? Pray,
sir, be at peace with me.34

After this exchange of animosities in 1738 there was never to be any contact between
the two men until 1756.

6 Wesleys Aversion to Mysticism and Quietism

While Laws admiration for the mystics, especially Boehme, increased, Wesleys
dislike of mysticism and quietism equally intensified over the years. After Wesleys
spiritual experience of 24 May 1738 at the meeting of the Moravian Brethren in
Aldersgate Street, he visited the Moravians at Herrnhut, Germany, and for
some weeks he actively took part in the life of their community. Yet he was to
break with them in 1740. In a letter to Count Zinzendorf and the church at Herrnhut
dated 5 8 August 1740, Wesley wrote that he disliked their admiration for the
modern mystics:

You receive not the ancient, but the modern mystics, as the best interpreters of
Scripture; and in conformity to these, you mix much of mans wisdom with the
wisdom of God: You greatly refine the plain religion taught by the letter of Holy
Writ, and philosophize on almost every part of it to accommodate it to the mystic
theory.35

Wesleys rejection of the Theologia Germanica appears from the following text,
dated 7 15 November 1741:

On Wednesday I read over once again Theologia Germanica. O how was it, that I
could ever so admire the affected obscurity of this unscriptural writer! Glory be to
God, that I now prefer the plain Apostles and Prophets, before him and all his
Mystic followers.36

34
Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 25: Letters, I, 549 50.
35
Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 26: Letters, II, 29.
36
Wesley, Works, 1:347.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 453

On 4 June 1742 Wesley wrote in his journal his reaction to Jacob Boehmes
Mysterium Magnum. He found it most sublime nonsense; inimitable bombast;
fustion not to be paralleled! and he added that it was all of a piece with his inspired
interpretation of the word Tetragrammaton.37 And on 5 June 1742 Wesley dismisses
the Quietist Madame Guyon:

I made an end of Madam Guyons Short Method of Prayer and Les Torrents
Spirituelles. Ah, my brethren!38 I can answer your riddle, now I have ploughed
with your heifer. The very words I have so often heard some of you use, are not
your own, no more than they are Gods. They are only retailed from this poor
Quietist; and that with the utmost faithfulness. O that ye knew how much God is
wiser than man! Then would you drop Quietists and Mystics together, and at all
hazards keep to the plain, practical, written word of God.39

7 Laws Four Works of 1739 and 1740

William Laws writings have been acknowledged as the greatest of English prose. Yet,
with the exception of the early works of the 1720s, the Christian Perfection and the
Serious Call, most of his works have been largely neglected. In 1739 Law published
the Christian Regeneration, which is mainly concerned with the process of the New
Birth, or Regeneration. John Wesley did not like this work and wrote in his Journal
for 23 October 1739 that he had read Mr Laws book on the New Birth. His only
comment was that it was philosophical, speculative, precarious; Behmenish,
void, and vain!, adding O what a fall is there.40 Even Charles Wesley, who
continued to visit Law, disliked the Christian Regeneration. He believed that Laws
knowledge of the New Birth was merely in theory as is apparent from the following
words:

I read part of Mr Law on Regeneration to our Society. How promising the

beginning! how lame the conclusion! . . . Christianity, he rightly tells us, is the
recovery of the divine image; and a Christian is a fallen spirit restored, and
re-instated in paradise; a living mirror of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. After this,
he supposes it possible for him to be insensible of such a change; to be happy and

37
Ibid., 376.
38
The use of the word brethren needs some clarification, since it has caused some critics to draw a wrong
conclusion. It was frequently used not only by Wesley, but also by Law, who in An Earnest and Serious Answer to
Dr. Trapp addressed himself to all [his] younger Brethren of the Clergy (Law, Works, 6:45). It is used by
Cheyne in his books to refer to his fellow physicians as well as in some letters sent by Cheyne to Richardson,
which caused Bechler to argue in her essay Triall by what is contrary: Samuel Richardson and Christian
Dialectic that the use of brethren implied that Richardson was a member of a secret Behmenist circle,
including Law, Byrom, and Cheyne as well as others. Unfortunately, this misreading stuck and was copied by
other critics. See for my rejection of Bechlers interpretation of the word brethren (Joling-van der Sar,
footnote 272, 87). Dussinger also exposed Bechlers mistake as a complete misreading of the term brethren
(Dussinger, 455; for Dussingers comments on Bechler, see 453 4).
39
Wesley, Works, 1:376.
40
Ibid., 1:234.
454 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
holy, translated into Eden, renewed in the likeness of God, one with Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, and yet not know it. Nay, we are not to expect, or bid others
expect, any such consciousness, if we listen to one who too plainly demonstrates, by
this wretched inconsistency, that his knowledge of the new birth is mostly in
theory.41

In 1740 appeared An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapp as well as An Appeal
to All that Doubt. The reaction of George Cheyne to these works as well as the
Christian Regeneration can be found in Cheynes letter to Samuel Richardson of 9
March 1742. It is in this letter that Cheyne enthusiastically asks Richardson Have
you seen Laws Appeal? which he described as admirable and unanswerable.
Moreover, he wished all the Methodists might get it by Heart.42 Then, a few weeks
later on 26 April 1742, Cheyne wrote to Richardson that Law had already sent him
the Christian Regeneration as well as the Appeal, but that he would very much
appreciate it if Richardson would ask William Innys (Laws publisher) to get all Laws
works bound and then to send them to him.43
In the tract called Some Animadversions upon Dr. Trapps late Reply, usually
published in one volume with the Appeal, Law felt called upon to answer Dr Trapps
Reply, who had accused him, among other things, of malignity of spirit, an undis-
tinguishing head, shameful ignorance, an unthinking temper, perverse disposition,
indecent sufficiency, nauseous dullness, as well as want of grammar.44 In the
Animadversions Law states that all the accomplishments of human learning are
merely the Ornaments of the Old Man full of the disorders and corruptions of the
fallen nature of man, and under the Blindness and Perverseness of some of its
Passions, which explains why the errors of all churches are defended by the greatest
scholars. Law describes this as follows:

If it were not thus, how could the Errors of all Churches have the greatest Scholars
for their Champions? All the learned Catholic World is amazed at the Prejudice,
the Blindness, the Perverseness, the Partiality, the Weakness, the Sophistry, the
Unfairness of Protestant Critics. All the Protestant World is in the same Degree of
Wonder at the same Disorders in Catholic Disputants. Is not this a Demonstration
of the Nature, Power and Place of human Learning. . . . Is not this a Demonstration,
that human Learning is as different from Divine Light as Heaven is from Earth, the
new from the old Man? . . . Take away all Selfishness from the Papist and the
Protestant, or let them both be dead to the Workings of this Spirit, and then they
will be as fully agreed about Gospel Truths, as they are in the form of a Square and
a Circle.45

41
Wesley, Journal of Charles Wesley, 1:191.
42
Mullett, 88. The Cambridge University Press announced in October 2002 that a scholarly edition of the Works
and Correspondence of Samuel Richardson will be published in 25 volumes.
43
Ibid., 93.
44
Law, Works, 6:156.
45
Ibid., 6:168 9.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 455

This attack by Law not only on Roman Catholics but also on Protestants caused
Dr Trapp to exclaim that a Quaker or infidel, could not well have reflected with
more Virulency upon the clergy of the Church of England than Law had done. Law,
however, believed that if each Church could produce but one Man apiece who had
the piety of an apostle, and the impartial love of the first Christians, in the first
Church at Jerusalem, a Protestant and a Papist of this stamp would not need half a
sheet of paper to hold their Articles of Union, nor be half an hour before they
were of one religion.46
John Byrom wrote a poem based on Some Animadversions upon Dr. Trapps late
Reply, which reflects Laws concern with the concept of universal love and his dismay
at the disputes among the various sects of Christianity. At Richardsons death it was
found among his manuscripts.47
A Catholic Christians Dying Speech.

In this divided State of Christendom,

Of diffrng Parts one must conform to some.
I have been led, and thought it best to join
The Church of England, in her Rites Divine;
And, as in Life I profited thereby,
In her Communion I desire to dye:
Trusting, that if I worship God with her,
In Spirit, and in Truth, I shall not err;
But as acceptable to him be found
As if in Times for one pure Church renownd,
Born, I had really livd, in Heart, and Soul,
A faithful Member of thunbroken whole.

Now as the time is come for me to go

From this divided State of Things below,
To share I hope, thro Mercy in a scene
Where no Disorders, no Divisions reign;
Into his Hands as I am, now to fall,
Who is the great Creator of us all;
God of all Churches, who with unconfined
46
Ibid., 6:183.
47
This poem (and others by Byrom) is to be found in the Forster Manuscripts, fol. xvi, nrs. 46 and 47, Victoria
and Albert Museum, London. For the connection between Richardson, Byrom and Law, see Byrom, The Private
Journals, 2: pt. II, 520 4, 543. In a letter dated 21 October 1751 Byrom writes to Law concerning the printing of
two of Byroms poems, that the letter to the Templar [i.e. Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple] does indeed
want to be printed. Byrom then informs Law that Richardson was so willing to print it upon hearing [it]
repeated at first that I should have him to print it. If Law had no objection, Byrom writes, he wanted the other
too (i.e. Essay on Enthusiasm) to be printed by Richardson. Apparently not having received Byroms letter, Law
wrote to Byrom on 4 November 1751 that he had desired Mr. Innys to let Mr. Richardson print his work. It is
in this letter that Law informs Byrom that both Dr John Freke and Samuel Richardson would correct the proof
sheets. In Byroms Journals we also find Warburtons reaction to Byroms Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple
and Essay on Enthusiasm. Though trying to remain polite in his letter at the censure upon him in these two
works, Warburton wrote to Hurd that [Byrom] is certainly a man of genius, plunged deep into the rankest
fanaticism. . . . He is very libellous upon me; but I forgive him heartily, for his is not malevolent, but mad
(Byrom, The Private Journal, 522). Both the Epistle to a Gentleman of the Temple and the Essay on Enthusiasm are
printed in The Poems of John Byrom, 2: pt. I, 138 ff. and 173 ff.
456 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Unchanging Love embraces all Mankind;
Who for his Creatures, has prepared, above,
A Kingdom that of Universal Love,
For them that worship him the best they can,
Of every People, Nation, Tribe, or Clan:

So in this Loving Spirit, I desire,

As in the midst of this one holy Choir,
With solemn Rites, and with a Christian view,
Of all the World to take my last Adieu.
Joind, tho of this divided Church, in Heart,
To what is good in every other Part;
Whatever is well-pleasing in Gods Sight,
In any Church, with that I woud unite;
Praying that evry Church may have its Saints,
And rise to the Perfection that it wants.

Father! Thy Kingdom come! Thy Sacred Will!

May all the Nations upon Earth fulfil!
Thy Name be praised by every living Breath;
Author of Life, and Vanquisher of DEATH.48

8 Laws Definition of Enthusiasm

It is towards the end of Some Animadversions upon Dr. Trapp that Law comes to the
subject of enthusiasm. Dr Trapp had accused Law of enthusiasm on the basis of Laws
Demonstration (1737) that the Book of all Books is your own Heart, in which are
written the deepest Lessons of Divine Instruction, and Laws advice to learn
therefore to be deeply attentive to the Presence of God in your Hearts, who is always
speaking, always instructing, always illuminating that Heart that it is attentive to
him.49 Indignantly, Law asks whether anything can be conceived of as more
scriptural, or more inoffensive than all this. He added that to show the deep and
intimate Union the Soul has with its Creator, he had said that God is an all-
illuminating essence, which, if one chooses to allow it into ones heart, becomes the
true Light of the mind, both in this world and in the hereafter:

God is an all-speaking, all-working, all-illuminating Essence, possessing the Depth,

and bringing forth the Life of every Creature according to its Nature. Our Life is
out of the Divine Essence, and is itself a creaturely Similitude of it; and where we
turn from all Impediments, this Divine Essence becomes as certainly the true Light
of our Minds here, as it will be hereafter.50

Properly understood, Law argues, enthusiasm is the kindling of the will, imagi-
nation, and desire, when raised into a ruling Degree of Life. And therefore,
48
Forster MSS, fol. xvi, nr. 47.
49
Law, Works, 5:102; 6:195.
50
Ibid., 6:195 6. See footnote 8 above in which the essence of mysticism is defined as the ultimate union of the
soul with God.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 457

according to Law, enthusiasm is of as many kinds as those objects are, which can
kindle and inflame the wills, imaginations, and desires of men. Consequently, to
appropriate enthusiasm to religion, is the same ignorance of nature as to appropriate
love to religion. Even philologists, critics, poets, atheists, philosophers, politicians
and especially proud scholars are all enthusiasts, heated into a Love of their own
Ideas.51 The works of a Bayle, a Shaftesbury, and Cicero, would loose four Fifths of
their astonishing Beauties, had they not keen Enthusiasts for their Readers.
Then Law comes to Dr Trapps description of Jacob Boehme as an enthusiast, from
whom, according to Dr Trapp, Law had borrowed some of [his] strange Notions,
and would put them off as [his] own. Apparently, Dr Trapp had obtained this
information from a trusty Assistant who had said what else can be expected from
those, who read Jacob Behmen, Dr. Pordage, and Mrs. Lead, with almost the same
Veneration and implicit Faith, that other People read the Scripture. Law informs
us that he knows very little, yet as much as [he desires] to know, of Dr Pordage
and Mrs Lead, but that he has read much of J. Behmen, called the Teutonic
Philosopher.52 Laws explicit defence of Boehme defies certain critics who believe
that Law defended Methodism in his works of 1740.53
Law warmly defends himself against the charge of plagiarism and refers to several
Mystical Divines of whom he had been an avid reader, through all Ages of the
Church, from the Apostolical Dionisius the Areopagite, down to the great Fenelon
Archbishop of Cambray, and the illuminated Guion. And Law accuses Dr Trapp of
being a stranger to the writers he mentioned, knowing no more of Rusbrochius,
Thaulerus, Suso, Harphius, Johannes de Cruce, &c. than he knows Boehme, mainly
because these mystical writers did not help anyone to further his career, nor were they
of any use to scholastic, controversial writers.

Had [Dr Trapp] known any Thing of them, he had known that I am as chargeable
with the Sentiments of all of them, as with those of J. Behmen. . . . Writers, like

51
Law wrote: All refined Speculatists, as such, are great Enthusiasts: for being devoted to the Exercise of their
Imaginations, they are so heated into a Love of their own Ideas, that they seek no other summum bonum. The
Grammarian, the Critic, the Poet, the Connoisseur, the Antiquary, the Philosopher, the Politician, are all violent
Enthusiasts, though their Heat is only a Flame from Straw, and therefore they all agree in appropriating
Enthusiasm to Religion. All ambitious, proud, self-conceited Persons, especially if they are Scholars, are violent
Enthusiasts, and their Enthusiasm is an inflamed Self-Love, Self-Esteem, and Self-Seeking. This Fire is so kindled
in them, that every Thing is nauseous and disgustful to them, that does not offer Incense to that Idol, which
their Imagination has set up in themselves. All Atheists are dark Enthusiasts; their Fire is kindled by a Will and
Imagination turned from God into a gloomy Depth of Nothingness, and therefore their Enthusiasm is a dull
burning Fire, that goes in and out, through Hopes and Fears of they know not what that is to come. . . . A Tyndal
and a Collins are as inflamed with the Notions of Infidelity, as . . . a St. Francis with the Doctrines of the Gospel
(Law, Works, 6:198 9).
52
Ibid., 6:201.
53
Dussinger wrote: Although as basically a High Churchman not always in agreement with the Methodists
cause, Law came to their defence with two replies: An Earnest and Serious Answer to Dr. Trapps Discourse (1740),
followed by An Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel (1740). . . . Law had probably written
on behalf of the Methodists in a previous pamphlet (Dussinger, 479). As to Laws alleged authorship of this
pamphlet first published in 1733, see the introduction above.
458 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
those . . . there have been in all Ages of the Church, but as they served not the ends
of Popular Learning, as they helped no People to Figure and Preferment in the
World, and were useless to scholastic, controversial Writers, so they dropped out of
public Use, and were only known, or rather unknown, under the Name of Mystical
Writers, till at last some People have hardly heard of that very Name. . . . They were
deeply learned in all the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, not through the Use of
Lexicons, or meditating upon Critics, but because they had passed from Death unto
Life.54

Law believed that to put our trust in our own reason, to be content with its
Light, and to depend upon it as our guide, is a Mistake that has every Grossness
and Vanity of the Adoration of an Idol, and he concludes that this kind of idolatry,
this last Effort of human Vanity, has overrun the last Ages of the World. Hence
it is that, according to Law, the State of the Church is described in the Book of
Revelation, as a spiritual Whoredom.55
Law ends Some Animadversions upon Dr. Trapp by asserting that if anyone should
ask him what warrant he had for all he had said about Boehme, or how he could
prove to the World that Boehmes writings are the work of the Holy Spirit, he
would answer that he had no intention whatsoever to prove this to the world. He had
merely given a notice of a Pearl and if anyone takes it to be otherwise, or has
neither Skill or Value for Pearls that person is free to trample it under his Feet. He
adds that it cannot be proved to a Disciple of Bayle, for to such a person nothing
that is just, sober, or true, can be sufficiently proved: because it is his Genius, his
Honour, his Ambition, to maintain the Paradox.56

9 Laws Spirit of Prayer of 1749 and 1750

After the outburst of activities in 1739 and 1740, Law remained silent for about nine
years. In 1749 Law wrote Part I of The Spirit of Prayer, which leads us to another
poem by Byrom, also found among Richardsons manuscripts. Based on the words
of Boehme, quoted by Law at the end of the first part of The Spirit of Prayer, it
shows Boehmes (and Laws) dismay that the heart is filled with Fancies of the
Head. Pointing again at the necessity of Regeneration, or the New Birth, it reads as
follows:

Mr. Laws Quotation from Jacob Behmen at the Conclusion of

his Treatise upon the Spirit of Prayer.

Alas that we shoud be so blindly led,

And fill the Heart with Fancies of the Head!
Truth in its Nature is as plain as Day;
But vain Conceptions still obscure its Ray:
54
Law, Works, 6:203 4.
55
Ibid., 6:208.
56
Ibid., 6:208 9.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 459

Were its illuminating Power divine,

Within the Souls internal Ground to shine
Then were God present in its Life and Will,
Which he and all his heavnly Powers, woud fill;
His manifested Love woud make it soon,
The Place and Dwelling of the great Triune:
The Temple of the Soul once freed from Sin,
God woud display his Deity therein;
The Father generate the Son, indeed,
And from them both, the Holy Ghost proceed.

Of all the World, saith Christ, I am the Light;

Who followeth me is never in the Night.
We need not go, then, for Direction, far
He is himself, the inward Morning Star,
That riseth in us, by a willing Birth;
And shineth in the Darkness of our Earth:
O! What a Triumph is there, in the Soul
When he enlightens its capacious whole!
Then a Man knows, whats hid from him before
That hes a Stranger in a foreign Shore.57

In his Journal of 27 July 1749 John Wesley dismissed the first part of Laws Spirit of
Prayer as another gospel: Laws assertion that God was only Love, and never angry,
and therefore would not need to be reconciled, was a method to convert Deists,
Wesley argued, for it gave up the very essence of Christianity.58 Wesley wrote:

I read Mr Law On the Spirit of Prayer. There are many masterly strokes therein,
and the whole is lively and entertaining; but it is another Gospel. For if God was
never angry, (as this Tract asserts,) he could never be reconciled; and, consequently,
the whole Christian doctrine of reconciliation by Christ falls to the ground at once.
An excellent method of converting Deists, by giving up the very essence of
Christianity!59

Wesley would return to the subject of the doctrine of the reconciliation by Christ in
his open letter of 1756.

57
Forster MSS, fol. xvi, nr. 46; Law, Works, 7:47.
58
Law stated in The Spirit of Prayer that God is unwearied Patience, a Meekness that cannot be provoked; he is
an ever-enduring Mercifulness; he is unmixed Goodness, impartial, universal Love; . . . He does everything that is
good, righteous, and lovely, for its own sake, because it is good, righteous, and lovely (Law, Works, 7:140). In
1740 Law had written in An Appeal that God was not like a great Prince reigning over his subjects, rewarding
mankind as their services appeared to him (Law, Works, 6:96). Law also wrote: They . . . who suppose the
Wrath and Anger of God upon fallen Man, to be a State of Mind in God himself, to be a political kind of just
Indignation, a Point of Honourable Resentment, which the Sovereign Deity, as Governor of the World, ought
not to recede from, but must have a sufficient Satisfaction done to his offended Authority, before he can,
consistently with his Sovereign Honour, receive the Sinner into his Favour, hold the Doctrine of the Necessity of
Christs atoning Life and Death in a mistaken Sense. Law added that, though this may be innocent in itself, it
ceases to be innocent, when Books are written to impose and require this Belief of others, as the only saving
Faith in the Life and Death of Christ (Law, Works, 6:139 40).
59
Wesley, Works, 2:151.
460 G. J. Joling-van der Sar

10 The Final Breach Between Law and Wesley of 1756

In 1752 Law published The Way to Divine Knowledge, as preparatory to a new
edition of the Works of Jacob Behmen: and the right use of them, printed by Samuel
Richardson. In 1752 54 followed The Spirit of Love in which Law explained the spirit
of love as God himself living and working in you.60 The Spirit of Love ended with
stating, once again, that there is only one salvation for all mankind which is the life of
God in the soul. Law writes:

There is but one possible Way for Man to attain this Life of God, not one for a Jew,
another for a Christian, and a third for a Heathen. No, God is one, and the Way to
it is one, and that is, the Desire of the Soul turned to God.61

Laws doctrine of pure and universal love was quite unattainable to a practical man
such as Wesley. After eighteen long years of silence, Wesley now decided that he
could no longer stand back.
In an open letter of 6 January 1756, Wesley attacked Law and the Boehmenite
philosophy through a method of seriatim handling of offending sentences.62 Wesleys
view of Boehme is described in the open letter as follows:

I have scarce met with a greater friend to darkness except the illuminated Jacob
Behmen. But, Sir, have you not done him an irreparable injury? I do not mean by
misrepresenting his sentiments; (though some of his profound admirers are
positive that you misunderstand and murder him throughout;) but by dragging
him out of his awful obscurity; by pouring light upon his venerable darkness. Men
may admire the deepness of the well, and the excellence of the water it contains:
But if some officious person puts a light into it, it will appear to be both very
shallow and very dirty. I could not have borne to spend so many words on so
egregious trifles, but that they are mischievous trifles: . . . bad philosophy has, by
insensible degrees, paved the way for bad divinity.63

Wesley wrote in this letter how he wished Law could be persuaded to study not the
writings of Tauler and Boehme, but those of St Paul, James, Peter, and John, and
to spew out of [his] mouth and out of [his] heart, that vain philosophy . . . to
renounce, despise, abhor all the high-flown bombast, all the unintelligible jargon of
the mystics, and to come back to the plain religion of the Bible.64
Among the many offending subjects which Wesley dealt with in his open letter,
two subjects stand out, i.e. the doctrine of the justice of God and the doctrine of the
justification by faith. The doctrine of the justice of God was, according to Wesley,

60
Law, Works, 8:31.
61
Ibid., 8:133.
62
A detailed account can be found in Brazier Green, and, somewhat less detailed, in Keith Walker.
63
Wesley, Works, 9:477 8.
64
Ibid., 9:508 9.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 461

the one main hinge upon which the controversy between Christianity and Deism
turns and Wesley accuses Law of establishing Deism while pretending to overturn it.
Wesley writes:

To convert a thousand Deists . . . by giving up this point [i.e. the justice of God],
with the doctrine of justification [by faith] which is built upon it, is little more than
it would be to convert as many Jews by allowing the Messiah is not yet come. It is
converting them by allowing all they contend for; by granting them the main point
in question. Consequently, it is no other than establishing Deism, while it pretends
to overturn it.65

Wesley argued that Law had brought the doctrine of justification by faith into
disrepute by promoting the very essence of Deism. Whether or not the doctrine of
justification by faith is the doctrine without which there can be no Christian
Church, Wesley most certainly knows that:

There can be none where the whole notion of justification is ridiculed and
exploded, unless it be such a Church as includes, according to [Laws] account,
every child of man, of which, consequently, Turks, Deists, and Pagans are as real
members as the most pious Christian under the sun. I cannot but observe, that this
is the very essence of Deism; no serious Infidel need contend for more. I would
therefore no more set one of this opinion to convert Deists, than I would set a Turk
to convert Mahometans.66

Attacking Laws concept of the Catholic Church of Christ, taking in all the world,67
Wesley replies that this would mean that Jews, Mahometans, Deists, Heathens are all
members of the Church of Christ!! Perhaps, Wesley asks, we should add devils too,
seeing these also are to dwell with us in Heaven.
Though Law never responded officially to Wesleys letter, we find his reaction
upon it in A Collection of Letters on the Most Interesting and Important Subjects,
published in 1760. In a letter to a Person of Quality, by some identified as Selina
Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon,68 Law writes on 16 February 1756 that he was
once a kind of oracle to Wesley, adding that he never expected anything bad from
him, or ever discovered any kind or degree of falseness or hypocrisy in him, but that
it was Wesleys inability to give up his own spirit which caused him to attack the
mystics:

But during all the Time of his Intimacy with me, I judged him to be much under
the Power of his own Spirit, which seemed to have the Predominancy in every good
Thing, or Way, that his Zeal carried him to. It was owing to his Unwillingness, or
inability to give up his own Spirit, that he was forced into that false, and rash
65
Ibid., 9:480.
66
Ibid., 9:493 4.
67
Law, Works, 7:29 30.
68
Talon, 282. Byrom wrote that, according to Wesley, Lady Huntingdon was ill, and a more charming woman
than ever; that she is the lady to whom Mr. Law wrote the letters in his book.
462 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
Censure which he published in print against the mystics: as Enemies to good
works, and even tending to Atheism. A Censure so false, and regardless of Right
and Wrong, as hardly any Thing can exceed it; which is to be found in a Preface of
his to a Book of Hymns. . . . But no more of this.69

Law confirmed in a letter to his friend Thomas Langcake in September 1756 that
Wesley had condemned all his books and had preached against them, adding that
Wesley and the Pope had the same reasons for condemning and anathematizing the
mystery revealed by God in Boehme:

Mr. J. W. is an ingenious Man; and the Reason why his Letter to me, is such a
juvenile Composition of Emptiness, and Pertness, as is below the Character of any
Man, who had been serious in Religion but half a Month, is because, it was not
Ability, but Necessity, that put his pen into his Hand. He had condemned my
Books, preached much against them, and to make all sure, forbid his People the use
of them. And for a Cover to all this, he promised from Time to Time to write
against them. . . . What you happen to hear of Mr. J. W. concerning me, or my
Books, let it die with you. . . . But this you may easily know, that he, and the Pope,
have the same Reasons, and are under the same Necessity of condemning and
anathematising the Mystery revealed by God, in J. B.70

The upsetting effect Wesleys letter had upon Law is testified by John Byrom and
others. Charles Wesley wrote in his Journal for 21 October 1756 that he had had tea
with John Byrom and was hard put to it to defend my brothers book against
Mr Law.71 Finally, Charles Wesley wrote, they got to a better subject and parted not
without a blessing. Brazier Green mentioned two letters of Byrom in 1757 which
point to a visit from John Wesley in that year, during which Byrom had urged Wesley
to repent of that wicked letter.72 A week before Laws death on 9 April 1761, Byrom
referred to two other visits of Wesley during which they talked about Wesleys letter,
which had no effect.73 In this letter Byrom also mentioned that six men had recently
been read out of [Wesleys] society for reading Jacob Behmen and Mr. Law.
Wesleys attitude towards Law mellowed after Laws death in 1761, for he wrote in
his Journal on 1 December 1767 that even a mystic who denies justification by faith, as
for instance, Law, may be saved.74 Yet in his sermon On Gods Vineyard John
Wesley felt the necessity to rebut any direct connection between him and William Law,
for Wesley denied Dr Trapps accusation that Law had been the parent of Methodism:

A learned man, Dr Trapp, soon after their setting out, gave a very different account
of them [the first Methodists]. When I saw, said the Doctor, . . . The Treatise on
69
Law, Works, 9:165, 168 9.
70
Ibid., 9:198 9.
71
Wesley, The Journal of Charles Wesley, 2:129.
72
Brazier Green, 162.
73
Talon, 281 2.
74
Wesley, Works, 3:308.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 463

Christian Perfection, and The Serious Call to A Holy Life, I thought, These books
will certainly do mischief. And so it proved; for presently after up sprang the
Methodists. So he (Mr Law) was their parent. Although this was not entirely true,
yet there was some truth in it. All the Methodists carefully read these books, and
were greatly profited thereby. Yet they did by no means spring from them, but from
the Holy Scriptures; being born again, as St. Peter speaks, by the word of God,
which liveth and abideth for ever.75

Wesley equally rebutted Warburtons accusation that Methodism had been the result
of both Law and the Moravian Zinzendorf:

Another learned man, the late Bishop Warburton, roundly affirms, that They were
the offspring of Mr Law and Count Zinzendorf together.76 But this was a greater
mistake still. For they [i.e. the Methodists] had met together several years before
they had the least acquaintance with Count Zinzendorf, or even knew there was
such a person in the world. And when they did know him, although they esteemed
him very highly in love, yet they did not dare follow him one step farther than they
were warranted by the Scripture.77

11 Conclusion
We have seen that, apart from a brief period between 1732 and 1735 during which
they met several times, William Law and John Wesley were involved in a long and
bitter quarrel. Even though Dr Trapp and Bishop Warburton accused Law of
responsibility for the Methodist movement, both Law and Wesley rejected Laws
responsibility. John Wesley strongly disliked Laws mysticism and his admiration for
Jacob Boehme in particular. According to Law three doctrines were a scandal of the
Reformation, that is, faith without works, the outward imputation of Christs merits,
and absolute election and reprobation. Wesley only agreed with Law in rejecting the
third doctrine, whereas Wesley was a strong champion of the first two. Though
Wesley admired Laws Christian Perfection (1726) and A Serious Call (1728), he
dismissed, even condemned, Laws later works.
It is therefore wrong for modern critics to associate Law with Methodism or to
claim that Law defended Methodism in any of his works. Law most strongly
advocated the universal Love of God and was dismayed at the disputes among the
various sects of Christianity, as expressed in Byroms poem A Catholic Christians
Dying Speech. Law believed that the four elements of mans fallen nature were,
firstly, a restless selfishness, secondly, a restless envy, thirdly, a restless pride, and
fourthly, a restless wrath or anger. These are also the four elements of hell. According
to Law, Regeneration or the New Birth consists in replacing these four elements by

75
Wesley, Works, 7:203 4.
76
Maslen established the fact that in 1749 Richardson printed for the Moravian Brethren the Acta Fratrum
Unitatis in Anglia (Maslen, nr. 515, 111). For Richardsons connections with the Moravians, see Joling-van der
Sar, 25 8.
77
Wesley, Works, 7:203 4.
464 G. J. Joling-van der Sar
humility, meekness and universal love, which are the elements of heaven, or the
Kingdom of God, the precious Pearl.78
As we have seen, the controversy between Law and Wesley involved quite a few
eminent people, such as George Cheyne and Samuel Richardson. Especially John
Byrom was a vociferous advocate of Law. Their friendship was strong and Law
addressed him in a letter of 26 March 1757 as his dear laureate, whom he loved and
esteemed with all the truth of Christian friendship.79
Yet, Laws spirituality estranged many of his contemporaries. This attitude is
expressed by Thomas Patten, a friend of Samuel Johnson. Shortly after Laws death,
Patten wrote to Byrom on 25 April 1761 that inconsistency was a common foible of
mankind and he distinguished between three kinds of inconsistencies.80 The first
consisted in going over from false or foolish conceits to the side of truth and
sobriety. The second consisted in a continual oscillation from one extreme of folly
to another, and the third was the falling off from wisdom to folly. Patten wrote
that Law had been accused of inconsistency more than any other man, but that Law
had proved upon the head of the arch-heretic [Benjamin Hoadly] as well as upon
that of . . . W. W.[arburton] that he was the best reasoner as well as the best writer
of the age he lived in.
The question whether Law had to be ranked in the first or third class of
inconsistents would bear some dispute in a council of modern scholars, but
Patten feared that the majority would carry it for the latter. As an example, Patten
describes Lord Lytteltons reaction to Laws Serious Call. Lyttelton had been
astonished to find that one of the finest books that had ever been written had been
penned by a crack-brained enthusiast.81
However, Patten himself pronounced Law to be the greatest restorer of true,
spiritual Christianity, which was almost lost in the metaphysical mist of modern
theologians. He wrote:

Law hath evidently shown (what few even attempted) the Scripture-necessity of our
being partakers of the Divine nature, and made like unto God by the Spirit of
Christ dwelling in us, in order to eternal blessedness. And if, following his dark
theosopher, he hath erred in attempting to account for the necessity by a kind of
physical theory, I think it would be very unjust to condemn his excellent writings in
the gross.82

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78
Law, Works, 5:150 1.
79
Talon, 274.
80
Ibid., 283 5.
81
Ibid., 285.
82
Ibid., 284.
 The Controversy Between William Law and John Wesley 465

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