A Serious Call

William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729)

William Law — a nonjuring clergyman who lost his Cambridge fellowship rather than swear allegiance to George I

Catch rate: 60 / 255
Base research: 240
Stat total: 350

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina92

Contend82

Defend90

Popularity86

Total350

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 92

STAMINA — High. Twenty-four chapters, and every one asks the same question of a different part of the day.

Contend 82

CONTEND — Middling. Law persuades with portraits of people rather than with arguments.

Defend 90

DEFEND — High. It is hard to argue with a book that only asks whether you meant what you said on Sunday.

Popularity 86

POPULARITY — High. John Wesley and George Whitefield both said it changed them, and Samuel Johnson said it was the first book that made him think in earnest about religion.

Cited for this book

William Law wrote A Serious Call in 1729. He said devotion is a whole life given to God, not only prayers kept apart from it. Wesley, Whitefield and Samuel Johnson all said it moved them.

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
30	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
38	All of Common Life	Ethics	Argument	80	100%	15
42	You Never Thoroughly Intended It	Spirituality	Argument	86	100%	10

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“Devotion signifies a life given, or devoted, to God. He, therefore, is the devout man, who lives no longer to his own will, or the way and spirit of the world, but to the sole will of God, who considers God in everything, who serves God in everything, who makes all the parts of his common life parts of piety”
William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729), ch. 1, public domain.public domain

All of Common Life

EthicsArgument · power 80 · 100% accurate

In the gameLaw’s definition of devotion. It is not a set of prayers kept apart from the rest of the day. It is the whole day given to God, the work and the meals included.

Strong against

×2Wesley’s Journala book · why?

Wesley read Law’s Serious Call as a young man and credited it with showing him that every part of daily life belongs to God.

“And if you will here stop, and ask yourselves, why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.”
William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729), ch. 2, public domain.public domain

You Never Thoroughly Intended It

SpiritualityArgument · power 86 · 100% accurate

In the gameWilliam Law asks why his readers are not as devoted as the first Christians. His answer is blunt: they know how, and they could. They never meant to.

Strong against

×2.5Wesley’s Journala book · why?

Wesley wrote that Law’s Serious Call convinced him he could not be half a Christian, and he set out to give God all of himself.