A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection
William Law, Part 1
This is seriously one of the most convicting and challenging Christian classics I have ever read. In fact, it may be the most challenging and convicting one ever. It could be dangerous for a legalist, but it also offers some helpful and much need pushback for cheap grace Christianity, easy-believism, and compromising believers.
This summary is designed more to encapsulate Law’s words than to offer my own critique. More than this is a “review,” it’s a summary, though I’ll throw in a few editorial thoughts now and then.
I hope, as we go along (it’s going to take many weeks to get through this) that some of you will pick up this book and read it along with me so that we can interact and share what we are learning in the comments section of each blog. Here’s the version I read, A Practical Treatise upon Christian Perfection, Volume 3 (Gary Thomas is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program and Church Source Affiliates Program, advertising programs designed to provide a means for Gary to earn fees through customized links to these sites.) I’ll try to go back to earlier blog posts (of this book) to keep the discussion going as we move along.
First, a quick bio: William Law (1686-1761) initially served as a priest in the Anglican Church, but he lost his post at Cambridge when he refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to George I. This forced him into a more localized, smaller ministry setting, which also gave him more time to produce the beloved classic writings we enjoy today. He ministered in a small spiritual community and served as a religious guide to a wealthy family. As a spiritual director, he personally discipled both John and Charles Wesley. His best known work is A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. That one is also well-worth reading. If you haven’t read Law at all, I might even recommend that you start with that one.
The Introduction
It is beyond bold to title a book A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection. Today’s believers hate the word “perfection.” John Wesley is more famous for picking it up from his spiritual director (Wesley wrote perhaps the better known A Plain Account of Christian Perfection), and spent much of his career defending his use of the word.
Can we just get over a semantic battle and try to understand what these two believers were talking about? By “perfection” Law means the “holy and religious conduct of ourselves in every state of life.” Later in the book, he makes it clear he does not believe any of us reach a sinless “perfect” state as we usually think “perfection” means. However, he does believe that we should earnestly pursue the highest degree and expression of holiness with which we are able. Thus Law begins his book with a strong warning against lukewarm believers who don’t earnestly pursue holiness in all walks of life.
Today’s church needs to heed this message, without fighting about the word “perfection.” We have fallen far off onto the other side, being more suspicious of earnestly pursuing holiness (mistakenly calling it legalism) than we are of being comfortable in our sin. It’s not as if we either achieve complete sinlessness or don’t care about sin at all, but some theological arguments seem to push people toward one of two ends. Grace brings continuing forgiveness and effective grace breeds holiness. It’s both/and. We need this ancient message to live obedient lives today.
Chapter 1
Christianity’s End is to Deliver us from the Misery and Disorder of our Present State and Raise us to a Blissful Enjoyment of Divine Nature
“All the precepts and doctrines of the Gospel are founded on these two great truths: the deplorable corruption of human nature and its new birth in Christ Jesus.”
Christianity goes off the rail when it forgets either our corruption or our new nature. Present corruption makes mortification and self-denial absolutely necessary in this life. Our new birth in Christ invites us to participate in the sacraments and experience new life. To live and act like Christians,we have to participate in both the death of our disorder and the cultivation of new life, “cherishing the secret inspirations of the Holy Spirit, opening our minds to the reception of the divine light, and pressing after all the graces and perfections of our new birth.”
We could summarize it this way: we are deeply fallen and radically changed. Those two truths mark the tension of the Christian life. Earnestly keep on killing the old nature. Zealously pursue the renewed life.
If we become too attached to this world’s cares and enjoyments, we may forget about the new life Christ calls us to. We must become so attuned to God that we find everything about sin miserable, and every happiness found only in the things of God. We are not in Christ if we are not showing the purity of Christ: “He that liveth in pleasure is dead while he lives.”
As the author of Pure Pleasure: Why Do Christians Feel So Bad About Feeling So Good? let me offer a tiny little critique here, not just of Law but of those who followed in his path. The “things of God” are limited by some authors to refer almost exclusively to things related to religion. I believe we can find happiness in things of the earth (celebrating God’s work as creator), but must guard our hearts against the things of the world (a system in rebellion against God). We can enjoy a good meal as “the things of God,” but we should beware of gluttony (the things of the world). We can rightly enjoy sexual pleasure in marriage (which God created). We must not lapse into lust (sex that is in rebellion to God’s created order). I go into this in much more detail in Pure Pleasure if you want to check it out HERE.
Law warns against Christians who try to circumvent the danger of the world by suggesting that they enjoy sinful pleasures in smaller quantities or lesser ways than do those who don’t follow Christ. But Law counters that a “little” enjoyment of the world is no different than someone who likes to wear beads instead of diamonds; they are both of the world, and one is no nobler than the other. His point is that you’re still striving after vanity if you use either; that your accoutrements are a little cheaper doesn’t change the root desire.
This is what I mean when I say this book could be dangerous for a legalist. My wife wears jewelry, and I like to see her in it. But still, I’m challenged by the way Law urges me to search my heart and to reconsider a perhaps thoughtless compromise (I’m not talking about my wife’s earrings here; I’m thinking of other things).
Law’s challenging take is that the difference isn’t how much of the world we should crave, or what part of the world, but whether we should crave it at all. It’s not enough to avoid great vanity or great materialism; we must seek instead the full humility and poverty of Jesus. “Nothing concerns thee, but what concerns an everlasting Spirit that is going to God; and that there are no enjoyments here that are worth a thought, but such as may make thee more perfect in those holy tempers which will carry thee to heaven.”
That’s enough for now; this book will take us four or five weeks to get through.
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