Law's book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life is considered a classic that all Christians should read. In the book Law suggests practices which will lead to.
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Persons that are free from the necessity of labour and employments, are to consider themselves as devoted to God in a higher degree. Containing the great obligations and the great advantages of making a wise and religious use of our estates and fortunes. How the imprudent use of an estate corrupts all the tempers of the mind, and fills the heart with poor and ridiculous passions through the whole course of life represented in the character of Flavia.
How the wise and pious use of an estate naturally carrieth us to great perfection in all the virtues of the Christian life; represented in the character of Miranda. Containing some reflections upon the life of Miranda; and showing how it may, and ought to be imitated by all her sex.
Showing how all orders and ranks of men and women of all ages are obliged to devote themselves unto God. Showing how great devotion fills our lives with the greatest peace and happiness that can be enjoyed in this world. The happiness of a life wholly devoted to God, farther proved from the vanity, the sensuality, and the ridiculous poor enjoyments, which they are forced to take up with, who live according to their own humours.
William Law - Wikipedia
This represented in various characters. That not only a life of vanity or sensuality, but even the most regular kind of life, that is not governed by great devotion, sufficiently shows its miseries, its wants, and emptiness, to the eyes of all the world. Concerning that part of devotion which relates to times and hours of prayer. Of daily early prayer in the morning. How we are to improve our forms of prayer, and how to increase the spirit of devotion. Of chanting, or singing of psalms in our private devotions. Of the excellency and benefit of this kind of devotion.
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Of the great effects it hath upon our hearts. Of the means of performing it in the beet manner. Recommending devotions at nine o'clock in the morning, called in Scripture the third hour of the day. The subject of these prayers is humility.
Showing how difficult the practice of humility is made, by the general spirit and temper of the world. How Christianity requireth us to live contrary to the world. We can plead neither ignorance nor inability, for we have the same knowledge and the same Spirit early Christians did. What prevents us, rather, is a lack of intention. Failure of intention puts us in real spiritual danger. God takes no more delight in one station or position than another. His concern, rather, is that we offer reasonable service in whatever place we occupy in singleness of heart and thus live lives of reason and piety.
A person of leisure himself after his retirement from Cambridge, Law believed such persons held a special responsibility to devote themselves to God in a higher degree. As we have always the same natures, and are everywhere the servants of the same God, as every place is equally full of his presence, and everything is equally his gift, so we must always act according to the reason of our nature; we must do everything as the servants of God; we must live in every place as in his presence; we must use everything as that ought to be used which belongs to God.
Law applied the same rationale to use of estates and fortunes, expending his own for care of others. As Flavia, a perfect example of the self-centered rich person, illustrates, the religion of such a person exists only in the head; it has no place in the heart.
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As Miranda, a perfect example of the other-directed person, shows, right stewardship of money and time will benefit both ourselves and other persons. From the beginning, Law writes, there have been two orders of Christians: Nevertheless, all orders of Christians are obliged to devote themselves to God in all things; to do otherwise is contrary Growing Spiritually with the Saints: Catherine of Genoa and William Law. Brown, a theology professor, here studies the spiritual lives of Catherine and Law, focusing on the notion of sacrificial service.
