This melancholy fact will account for the severity of Wesley’s language in the letter he addressed to Law in 1756. Wesley begins by stating, that “there are few writers in the present age, who stand in any comparison with Mr. Law, as to beauty and strength of language; readiness, liveliness, and copiousness of thought; and, in many points, accuracy of sentiment.” He acknowledges, that Law had “long employed his uncommon abilities, not to gain either honour or preferment, but to promote the glory of God, and peace and goodwill among men.” “Several of his treatises, particularly his ‘Christian Perfection,’ and ‘Serious Call,’ must remain, as long as England stands, almost unequalled standards of the strength and purity of the English language, as well as of sound, practical divinity”; and had been of immense service “in reviving and establishing true, rational, scriptural religion” among the people. Some of his late writings, however, were not of this meritorious order; and these Wesley proceeds to criticise. Law once said to Wesley, “You would have a philosophical religion; but there can be no such thing. Religion is the most plain, simple thing in the world. It is only, ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’ So far as you add philosophy to religion, just so far you spoil it.” Wesley now retorts, and tells him there is no “writer in England, who so continually blends philosophy with religion” as himself; and, to make things worse, his philosophy is “uncertain, dangerous, irrational, and unscriptural.” “Bad philosophy, by insensible degrees, paves the way for bad divinity.” He had also done Jacob Behmen “an irreparable injury by dragging him out of his awful obscurity, and by pouring light upon his venerable darkness. Men,” says he, “may admire the deepness of the well, and the excellence of the water it contains; but, if some officious person puts a light into it, it will appear to be both very shallow and very dirty.” He concludes:— “I have now delivered my own soul. And I have used great plainness of speech; such as I could not have prevailed on myself to use to one whom I so much respect, on any other occasion. Oh that your latter works may be more and greater than your first! Surely they would, if you could ever be persuaded to study, instead of the writings of Tauler and Behmen, those of St. Paul, James, Peter, and John; to spew out of your mouth and out of your heart that vain philosophy, and speak neither higher nor lower things, neither more nor less, than the oracles of God; to renounce, despise, abhor all the highflown bombast, all the unintelligible jargon of the mystics, and come back to the plain religion of the Bible, ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’”