The Classic Christian Writers Podcast no. 6 will feature a reading of the first chapter of William Law’s classic, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.

William Law lived from 1686 to 1761 and has been called “one of the most eminent English writers on practical divinity in the eighteenth century” (Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge [1882] 2:1288). His refusal to take the oath of allegiance on the accession of George I eliminated all his hopes for advancement in the Church. Instead he gave himself to seclusion and meditation and writing. In a very rationalistic age, he was a “genuine mystic.” One biographer said of Law,

“To come across such a man in the midst of his surroundings is like coming across an old Gothic cathedral, with its air of calm grandeur and mellowed beauty” (Overton).

The importance of A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life should not be underestimated. Gibbon, Johnson, Doddridge, and Wesley all praised it. It is said to have had a great affect on the men influential in the First Great Awakening.

I am very pleased to announce that Wm Law’s Serious Call will be read by my good friend Pastor Todd Mitchell, who ministers at First Baptist Church in Granite Falls, Minnesota. For more information about Pastor Mitchell and his ministry, please visit his church's website.

The music which bookends Pastor Mitchell’s reading has been used by permission from http://maltedmedia.com/rucc/. The particular piece highlighted is "David's Lamentation," by William Billings, sung by the Roxbury Union Congregational Church Choir, directed by Dennis Báthory-Kitsz. Other music, as usual, comes from the gracious permission given by the folks at http://www.johann-sebastian-bach.org.