THE

WORKS

Of the REVEREND

WILLIAM LAW, M.A.,

Sometime Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

In Nine Volumes

Volume I

Three LETTERS to the Bishop of Bangor

LONDON: Printed for J. Richardson, 1762. Privately Reprinted for G. Moreton, Setley, Brockenhurst, New Forest, Hampshire. 1892

Prefatory Memoir

THE ‘Life’ of the Rev. William Law has been fully, even diffusively, set forth in his Biography written by Canon Overton and published by Longmans in the year 1881: and to that work—of which the more interesting particulars are drawn from the late Mr. Walton’s* Collections—such readers of Law’s Works who desire to obtain some general idea of their Writer’s life, are referred.

Unfortunately, Canon Overton’s Work, excellent and painstaking as is its compilation, conveys to the earnest reader only a very vague and unsatisfactory impression of William Law himself: being composed chiefly of well-selected extracts from Law’s publications with criticisms thereon and numerous explanations and conjectures in well-meant but misplaced, elucidations of motives and actions. In fact, Canon Overton has performed a kind of literary autopsy upon William Law: quite in the manner of biographical writing of the day; unimpeachable, indeed, in respect of ‘scholarly’ execution, although occasionally lapsing into ill-chosen expressions as when he describes his subject as a ‘grand specimen of Humanity,’ instead of example; as if poor Law were some Museum specimen to be gazed at and remarked upon, with due pedantry accordingly. This too, in the absence of any authentic portrait of William Law, represses the curiosity of the expectant reader who, abandoning the biography, consoles himself with the remark made by Miss Hester Gibbon—when requested to write a ‘Life’ of William Law—that his Life was in his Works.

William Law was born at King’s Cliffe a considerable Village in Northamptonshire so long ago as the year 1686, in the Reign of James the Second. His father was a ‘Grocer and Chandler’ in the Village, residing in a house of his own; but, Canon Overton tells us ‘his social standing was different from that of an ordinary Village tradesman of the present day.’ From various evidence it appears that the Laws were not of humble origin in respect of ‘Gentility’; and mention is made by Walton of a Tradesman’s token, dated 1659, which bore their ‘Coat of Arms’—an evidence of ‘Gentility’ of more account at that time of ‘Heraldic Visitations’ than it would be at the present. It may be remembered that Law’s great Contemporary Bishop Butler, was the son of a Linen-Draper; and other instances might be recalled—Shakespeare for example—of what has been accomplished by members of that class.

William Law was the fourth son of a family of eight sons and three daughters. His early disposition appears to have been noticed by his father, who alone of all his sons, sent William to the University; and he entered as a Sizar of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in the year 1705. He proceeded to the Arts Degrees ...