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Until we are renewed in the spirit of our mind and illumined in every part, our very virtues are but taught practices grafted upon a corrupt bottom

William Law

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William Law
Age: 75 †
Born: 1686
Born: January 1
Died: 1761
Died: April 9
Theologian
Writer
King's Cliffe
Northamptonshire
Every
Temptation
Mind
Bottom
Taught
Grafted
Virtue
Illumined
Practice
Renewed
Upon
Corrupt
Spirit
Practices
Part
Virtues

More quotes by William Law

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Perhaps there cannot be a better way of judging of what manner of spirit we are of, than to see whether the actions of our life are such as we may safely commend them to God in our prayers.
William Law
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He that rightly understands the reasonableness and Excellency of charity will know that it can never be excusable to waste any of our money in pride and folly.
William Law
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Ask what Time is, it is nothing else but something of eternal duration become finite, measurable and transitory.
William Law
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Follow Christ in the denial of all the wills of self, and then all is put away that separates you from God the heaven born new creature will come to life in you, which alone knows and enjoys the things of God, and has his daily food of gladness in that manifold blessed, and blessed, which Christ preached on the mount.
William Law
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He who has learned to pray has learned the greatest secret of a holy and happy life.
William Law
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We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.
William Law
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The eyes of our souls only then begin to see when our bodily eyes are closing.
William Law
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The merit of persons is to be no rule of our charity, but we are to do acts of kindness to those that least deserve it.
William Law
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If, therefore, a man will so live as to show that he feels and believes the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity, he must live above the world.
William Law
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A revelation is to be received as coming from God, not because of its internal excellence, or because we judge it to be worthy of God but because God has declared it to be His in as plain and undeniable a manner as He has declared creation and providence to be His.
William Law
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Feasts and business and pleasure and enjoyments seem great things to us, whilst we think of nothing else but as soon as we add death to them they all sink into an equal littleness.
William Law
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The more we pay for any truth, the better is our bargain.
William Law
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You are to think of yourself as only existing in this world to do God's will. To think that you are your own is as absurd as to think you are self-created. It is an obvious first principle that you belong completely to God.
William Law
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Men are not in hell because God is angry with them. They are in wrath and darkness because they have done to the light , which infinitely flows forth from God , as that man does to the light who puts out his own eyes .
William Law
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Receive every day as a resurrection from death, as a new enjoyment of life meet every rising sun with such sentiments of God's goodness, as if you had seen it, and all things, new-created upon your account: and under the sense of so great a blessing, let your joyful heart praise and magnify so good and glorious a Creator.
William Law
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The Prophet had made dishonorable proposals to my wife... under cover of his asserted 'Revelation.'... Smith told his wife Jane the Lord had commanded that he should take plural wives, to add to his glory... Joseph asked her to give him half her love she was at liberty to keep the other half for her husband.
William Law
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All people desire what they believe will make them happy. If a person is not full of desire for God, we can only conclude that he is engaged with another happiness.
William Law
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No education can be of true advantage to young women but that which trains them up in humble industry, in great plainness of living, in exact modesty of dress.
William Law
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When therefore the first spark of a desire after God arises in thy soul, cherish it with all thy care, give all thy heart into it it is nothing less than a touch of the divine loadstone, that is to draw thee out of the vanity of time, into the riches of eternity.
William Law
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Reading is good, hearing is good, conversation and meditation are good but then, they are only good at times and occasions, in a certain degree, and must be used and governed with such caution as we eat and drink and refresh ourselves, or they will bring forth in us the fruits of intemperance.
William Law