Writings On Practical Divinity
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1728), together with its predecessor, A Practical Treatise Upon Christian Perfection (1726), deeply influenced the chief actors in the great Evangelical revival. John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Henry Venn, Thomas Scott, and Thomas Adam all express their deep obligation to the author. The Serious Call also affected others deeply. Samuel Johnson, Gibbon, Lord Lyttelton and Bishop Home all spoke enthusiastically of its merits; and it is still the only work by which its author is popularly known. It has high merits of style, being lucid and pointed to a degree. In a tract entitled The Absolute Unlawfulness of Stage Entertainments (1726) Law was tempted by the corruptions of the stage of the period to use unreasonable language, and incurred some effective criticism from John Dennis in The Stage Defended.
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Famous quotes containing the words writings, practical and/or divinity:
“Accursed who brings to light of day
The writings I have cast away.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Tried by a New England eye, or the more practical wisdom of modern times, they are the oracles of a race already in its dotage; but held up to the sky, which is the only impartial and incorruptible ordeal, they are of a piece with its depth and serenity, and I am assured that they will have a place and significance as long as there is a sky to test them by.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
““If she belongs to any besides the present, it is to the next world which artists want to see, when paganism will come again and we can give a divinity to every waterfall.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)