“An Appeal to All that Doubt”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

An Appeal to all that Doubt or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel, whether they be Deists, Arians, Socinians, or nominal Christians, or short An Appeal was written by William Law in 1742. Law lived in the Age of Enlightenment centering on reason in which there were controversies between Catholics and Protestants, Deists, Socinians, Arians etc. which caused conflicts that worried him. The Appeal was heavily influenced by the works of the seventeenth-century German philosopher, Lutheran theologian and mystic writer Jakob Boehme.

Jakob Boehme’s works appeared between 1612 and 1624, the year of his death, and the sixth year into the Thirty Years’ War, an very destructive conflict in Central Europe between 1618-1648, which had initially been a war between various Catholic and Protestant states. It became however more a war fought for political superiority. It was ended by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

Boehme’s books were translated by John Sparrow and John Ellistone into English between 1645 and 1662, right in the middle of the English Civil War (1642-1651) and the trial and execution of King Charles I.

The first edition An Appeal was printed in 1742 for the distinguished William Innys, bookseller in London. It contains a statement of William Law’s mystical theology and consists of three chapters filled with beautiful prose.

Introduction to An Appeal

Hobhouse mentioned several possibly bewildering passages in Law’s books, which are also found in the works of Boehme. Hobhouse refers here to Boehme’s concept of the “seven forms or properties of nature”, to the mythology of the fall of the angels from heaven and to Adam’s fall from “a first perfect and androgynous life.^[5] Hobhouse’s advice is therefore to skip these passages in Law’s works, for the fine spirituality of Boehme was often obscured by the “physico-chemical, medical, alchemistic, and astrological language which [Boehme] often employed”.^[6]

Reception of An Appeal

An Appeal was well received by many of Law’s contemporaries and his friends. There is a letter from the physician and Behmenist George Cheyne to the printer and novelist Samuel Richardson, dated March 9, 1742 in which Cheyne enthusiastically asked Richardson whether he had “seen Law's Appeal?" and Cheyne described The Appeal as "admirable and unanswerable".^[7]^[8] An Appeal is divided into three chapters each of which is preceded by a short summary.

Chapter I

At the beginning of the first chapter of An Appeal Law wrote the following summary:

Some essential words need some further explanation, such as “spirit” (spiritus: breath, air or wind, symbolic of the third person of the Trinity) and “spark” (scintilla animae) used by many mystics as a spark in the soul which may catch fire from the flame of God’s love and goodness, if so desired.^[10]

One Religion Common To All Mankind

For Law there was, is and will always be just one religion for all mankind, as we all have the same nearness to God and as we are all equally His children. The modern reader has to bear in mind that with “Man” and “Mankind” Law refers to both men and women, since according to Law there is no difference between men and women for God. The same applies to the word “son” or “sons” which Law sometimes uses in his texts.

Law’s View of Evil

Law wrote that it was evident that there was evil in this world in all its parts, but he was convinced that God did not create evil, neither natural or moral. Therefore, he argued, that this world in its current state and condition was not the first and original creation of God:

Qualities that are good, or even perfect, become evil when they are separated from light and love (God) with which they should be united, argues Law. This is according to him the true origin of all evil in the creation, without the least imputation upon God. ^[12] He compares it with fruit:

The Ground of the Most Fundamental Doctrine of Scripture

For William Law the most fundamental doctrine of the Scripture is that the Father is the Creator, the Son the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier. As there are three in God, there must be three in the creature, and here one finds, so argues Law, the “true, and easy, and sound, and edifying knowledge and belief of the mystery of a Trinity in Unity”.^[14]

The Fall of Man Necessitates a New Birth (a Regeneration)

Law believed that Man was created in his original perfection and that the Holy Trinity was his Creator; but when Man was fallen, or had lost his first divine life, there began a new language of a redeeming religion. As a result, according to “the very outward letter and inward truth of the most important articles of the Christian Religion” man has to “born again of the Word, or Son of God, being born of the Spirit of God” in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And this means, so writes Law, that the “triune Life of God” must first be born in us before “we can enter into the triune, beatific Life, or Presence of God”. This Law compares with the state of the penitent returning prodigal son, “weary of his own sinful, shameful nature and desiring to renounce the world, the flesh and the devil.”.^[15]

Free Choice

Law believed that every creature must have a “power of joining with or departing from God ... therefore no creature can have its state or condition fixed, till it gives itself up either wholly unto God, or turns wholly from him”. And this is the cause and origin of evil, viz. being absolutely and eternally separated from God.^[16]

Address to Arians and Deists

The Difference between a Fallen Soul and a Lost Soul

For Law there is only one difference between a fallen soul and a lost soul, they are both in the same need of a Saviour which leads to a new birth or regeneration, but the one [the fallen soul] has the offer of the Saviour, whereas the other (the lost soul) has refused to accept Him. The rebirth or regeneration will bring his soul back into the Kingdom of Heaven.^[18] He adds later that:

Since there is “no partiality in God”, this salvation through Jesus Christ, so argues Law, was given “through all ages, and in all countries, from the first Patriarchs to the end of the world”. He is the “Light that lights every man that comes into the world, and therefore when people consider the Gospel as “narrowing the way of Salvation”, they misunderstand “the whole nature of the Christian redemption”.^[20]

Creatures [Animals], Angels and Men

Law explains that every free creature (animals) must have and find its own nature in this or that state, “as a birth from the free working of his own will” as a result of which “no creature [animal] of this world can commit sin, ... because (animals) have no will that is superior to nature”. Their will is the will of nature and they are always doing what comes natural to them, as a result of which they are not sinful. But, so argues Law, the will of angels and men is an “offspring or ray” which is derived from the will of God and this will of God is superior to nature. Therefore, the nature of the devil and the nature of fallen man is imputed to both of them as their sin ... because their will was uncontrollable.” ^[21]

Chapter II

At the beginning of the second chapter of An Appeal Law wrote the following summary:

This Temporal World Is a Poor, Miserable Mixture of Good and Evil

An important question that Law set forth is why “eternal nature was so degraded, debased and changed from its eternal state of perfection”. He cannot imagine anyone saying that God of his own will changed eternal nature, “his majestic Kingdom of Heaven”, into this “poor, miserable mixture of good and evil, into this poor state of division, grossness, death and darkness”.^[24] Law explained the answer why there is “good and evil throughout all temporal nature and creature” as follows:

This is why one has to resist evil “in any kind, under every shape and colour”, so that the life and light of heaven may rise up in oneself and God’s Kingdom may come “and His will be done in all nature and creature”.^[26]

Chapter III

At the beginning of the third chapter of An Appeal Law wrote the following summary:

The Atonement (Redemption) and the Eucharist (The Holy Sacrament of the Lord’s or Last Supper)

In this third chapter Law shows the reader all the objections which “Deists, Arians and Socinians have brought against the first articles of Christian faith”, but he will also explain his own view of the suffering of Christ. It is not by an “arbitrary discretionary pleasure of God” who would accept the sufferings of an innocent person as a “sufficient amends or satisfaction for the sins of criminals”. God is reconciled to us, so Law argues, through Jesus Christ in sofar as we are newly born, newly created in Jesus Christ. He saved us not by “giving the merit of his innocent sufferings as a full payment for our [sins]” but by enabling us to come out of our “guilt and iniquities” by having his nature reborn into us.^[29] To be redeemed, Law is convinced that there is an absolute necessity that “our souls [will be] clothed again with this first paradisaical or heavenly flesh and blood” without which we can never enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This heavenly flesh and blood must be born again in us, or derived again into us from this blood of Christ. This drinking of the blood of Christ, the second Adam,^[30] is only saying that it “must do that for us and in us, which the first Adam^[31] should have done”.^[32] Law admonishes the reader not to look for a figurative meaning of the words “flesh and blood”. The flesh and blood does not refer to the “outward, visible, mortal flesh and blood of Christ, but a heavenly, immortal flesh and blood which “came down from heaven” and which has the nature, qualities and life of heaven in it, the “flesh and blood of eternal life” which brings heaven and immortality again into us.^[33] Law warns:

This is according to Law the plain and full truth of the “most mysterious part” of the Holy Sacrament, disentangled by him from the tedious strife of words and that “thickness of darkness” which so many learned contenders on all sides brought into it. Law preserved the letter and the spirit of Scripture.^[35] And here Law ends An Appeal to All Who Doubt or Disbelieve the Truth of the Gospel.

The Publication Date of the First Edition of An Appeal is 1742

There has been some confusion as to the publication date of the first edition of William Law’s An Appeal as a result of which for a long time 1740 has been assumed to have been the publication date for the first edition. However, the first edition appeared in 1742, a second edition in 1756 and a third edition in 1768. This confusion was probably caused by John Henry Overton (1835–1903). He was an English cleric and a church historian who, together with his college friend Charles John Abbey, published in 1878 The English Church in the Eighteenth Century, in two volumes. Overton also published William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic, in 1881 in which he gave 1740 as the publication date of the first edition of the Appeal. He wrote:

The Moreton edition of The Works of William Law in nine volumes of 1892-1893 by G. Moreton also used 1740 as the date of the first edition of An Appeal. Subsequently, Stephen Hobhouse using the “Moreton edition” as a “trustworthy reprint … following the original editions” for his Selected Mystical of William Law (1938), equally quoted 1740 as the publication date of the first edition of An Appeal.^[37]

Publication dates of An Appeal

The first edition of William Law’s Appeal appeared in 1742. It was printed for W. Innys who was a bookseller at the West-End of St. Paul’s, London. The second edition of 1756 was printed for W. Innys and J. Richardson, in Pater-Noster Row, London. The third edition of 1768 was printed for Robinson and Roberts at 25 Pater-Noster Row, London. The complete Works of William Law which appeared in nine volumes were printed for J. Richardson, 1762, London. This collected work consists of various editions of the individual books of William Law. The dates on the individual title pages range from 1753 to 1776.^[38] The sixth Volume contained the third edition of An Appeal from 1768 which had been printed for Robinson and Roberts, 25 Pater-Noster Row, London. There also was a later edition of The Works of 1762 published in 1780, consisting of various other editions of Law’s Works.

References

Notes

1. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, p. ix.
2. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, p. xiv.
3. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, p. 298.
4. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, p. 299.
5. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, p. 344.
6. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, pp. 345; 357.
7. ^Charles F. Mullett, The Letters of Doctor George Cheyne to Samuel Richardson (1733-1743), Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Columbia, 1943, p. 88.
8. ^Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 117.
9. ^An Appeal, The Works, Vol. VI, p. 57.
10. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, 1949, pp. 249-250.
11. ^An Appeal, The Works, Vol. VI, p. 59.
12. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 68-69.
13. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 69.
14. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 73.
15. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 80; 83.
16. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 85.
17. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 87.
18. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 92.
19. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 93; 95.
20. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 102.
21. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 105.
22. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 106; 107.
23. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 107-108.
24. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 110-111.
25. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 114; 115.
26. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 116.
27. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 116-117.
28. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 136.
29. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 136; 148.
30. ^Jesus Christ is often referred to as the second Adam (with two natures: divine and human) to redeem mankind.
31. ^Adam (the first Adam) is the name used in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis for the first man created by God, also used as "mankind" and as "a human". Biblical Adam (man, mankind) is created from adamah (earth). Adam is fallen through his disobedience.
32. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, pp. 149; 151.
33. ^An Appeal, Works, p. 153.
34. ^An Appeal, Works, Vol. VI, p. 154.
35. ^An Appeal, Works, p. 154.
36. ^John Henry Overton, William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic, Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1881, p. 304.
37. ^Stephen Hobhouse, Selected Mystical Writings of William Law, edited with notes and twenty-four studies in the mystical theology of William Law and Jacob Boehme and an enquiry into the influence of Jacob Boehme on Isaac Newton, (1938), with an introduction by Aldous Huxley, London, 1949, pp. xxi; 249.
38. ^The British Library, London.

Introduction to An Appeal