Sunday, October 17, 2010

quote of the week, october 17-23, 2010

Consider now with yourself, how unreasonably it is pretended that a life of strict piety must be a dull and anxious state. For can it, with any reason, be said that the duties and restraints of religion must render our lives heavy and melancholy, when they only deprive us of such happiness, as has been here laid before you [that of false and superficial happiness apart from God and His ways]?
Must it be tedious and tiresome to live in the continual exercise of charity, devotion, and temperance, to act wisely and virtuously, to do good to the utmost of your power, to imitate the Divine perfections, and prepare yourself for the enjoyment of God? Must it be dull and tiresome to be delivered from blindness and vanity, from false hopes and vain fears, to improve in holiness, to feel the comforts of conscience in all your actions, to know that God is your Friend, that all must work for your good, that neither life nor death, neither men nor devils, can do you any harm; but that all your sufferings and doings that are offered unto God, all your watchings and prayers, and labors of love and charity, all your improvements, are in a short time to be rewarded with everlasting glory in the presence of God [...]? (Law 2009 [1728]:135)


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References:
Law, William. (2009). A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers. (Original work published 1728)

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