William Law

William Law was a Church of England priest, spiritual writer and theologian who lived from 1686 to 1761. He lost his post at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, because his conscience would not allow him to swear allegiance to the Hanoverian King George I, and so counts as a second-generation non-juror. He then supported himself by private teaching and a long literary and devotional career. His Remarks on Mandeville's Fable of the Bees defended morality against Bernard Mandeville, and his Case of Reason answered Matthew Tindal's deist Christianity as Old as the Creation. A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life of 1729 became his best known work and shaped the evangelical revival, reaching John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield. In later years he became an admirer of the German mystic Jakob Boehme, which caused a breach with Wesley, and wrote The Spirit of Prayer and The Spirit of Love.