A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life

It is William Law's 1728 masterpiece, an earnest summons to make the whole of one's life — not just times of worship — an offering to God. Law's question is disarmingly simple: if we call ourselves Christians, why do our ordinary lives look so little different from those who are not? He presses the reader toward a devotion that governs how they spend their time, money, and every common hour.

William Law was an English clergyman and devotional writer of the eighteenth century, a non-juror who forfeited advancement rather than swear an oath against his conscience. A Serious Call is his most famous book, and it became one of the most influential devotional works in the English language, admired long after his death.

Remarkably many. A Serious Call turned or deeply shaped the hearts of John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Samuel Johnson, among others; Wesley acknowledged its power in awakening him to seek a holy life. Through such readers its influence ran into the whole eighteenth-century revival, making it one of the seed-books of the evangelical awakening.

That true religion is not confined to church or to devout feelings but must govern the whole of ordinary life. Law argues that a Christian's use of time, money, work, and leisure should all be ordered to God's glory, and that a life not so ordered is not really Christian, however correct its beliefs. Devotion, for Law, means a life wholly intended for God.

Because Law illustrates his argument with vivid portraits of imagined people — such as Miranda, who orders her whole life and fortune to God, and others who waste theirs on trifles. These memorable characters bring his call down to earth, showing concretely what a devout life and a worldly one each look like, and they have delighted readers for centuries.

No — and it is not meant to be. Law writes to disturb the half-hearted Christian out of complacency, pressing uncomfortable questions about how one actually lives. Yet it is not harsh for its own sake; the severity serves a loving end, to wake the reader to the seriousness and the joy of a life wholly given to God.

Yes — its central challenge is timeless: whether our everyday lives match our profession of faith. Law's specific eighteenth-century examples are dated, but his searching question about the use of time and money, and his call to make all of life devout, speak as directly to a modern reader as they did to Wesley and Johnson.

At the beginning, and slowly — the book is meant to search the conscience, not to be rushed. Law builds his case chapter by chapter, and the famous character sketches help the argument land. A reader willing to be questioned will find it one of the most bracing and clarifying devotional books ever written.