The Collect
ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we give
thee thanks for the purity and strength with which thou didst endow
thy servant William Law; and we pray that by thy grace we may have a
like power to hallow and conform our souls and bodies, to the purpose
of thy most holy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
William Law (1686 – 9 April 1761) was
a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College,
Cambridge when his conscience would not allow him to take the
required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, George
I. Previously William Law had given his allegiance to the House of
Stuart. Thereafter, Law continued as a simple priest and when that
too became impossible without the required oath, he taught privately
and wrote extensively. His personal integrity, as well as mystic and
theological writing greatly influenced the evangelical movement of
his day as well as Enlightenment thinkers such as the writer Samuel
Johnson and the historian Edward Gibbon.
Law's spiritual writings remain in
print today.
