come, and distant in time, so that is the union and knitting of things absent, and distant in place. But then, much more doth presence to the goodness of an object loved, increase and exercise our love; because it gives us a more complete sight of it, and union unto it. And therefore St. John speaks of a perfection', and St. Paul of a perpetuity of our love unto God", and grounded on the fulness of the beatifical vision, when we shall be for ever with the Lord Whereas now, 'seeing only in a glass darkly,' as we know,' so likewise we love but in part.' And Aristotle makes mutual conversation and society, one of the greatest bonds of love; because thereby is a more immediate exercise, and from thence, a greater increase of affection. X As living creatures, so affections, are nourished after the same manner as they are produced. Now it is necessary, for the first working of love, that the object have some manner of presence with the affection, either by a knowledge of vision, or of faith. And therefore St. Paul saith, "If they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory":" their ignorance and hatred of him went both together, "Simul ut desinunt ignorare, cessant et odisse:" as soon, saith Tertullian, as they ceased to be ignorant of Christ, they ceased to hate him. And usually, in the phrase of Scripture, knowledge and love are identical. So then, all love proceeding from knowledge, and all knowledge presupposing some presence of the thing known, it appeareth that the presence of the object begetteth, and therefore, by proportion, it nourisheth, this affection. The last cause or inducement to this passion (which I will but name) is an aggregate of divers beautiful and amiable qualities in the object, as, namely, sympathy, justice, industry, temperance, ingenuity, facility, pleasantness, and innocency of wit, meekness, yieldingness, patience, sweetness of behaviour and disposition, without closeness, suspicion, intermeddling, inquisitiveness, morosity, contempt, dissension : in all which, men are either injusti,' or pugnaces,' do 1. c. 2. b2 Tim. ii. 19. Mar. vii. 23. Jobn ix. 21. Psalm i. 6. xxxvii. 18. either wrong us, or cross us; which two, the philosopher makes the general opposites of love. On which I shall forbear to insist, as also upon the circumstances of the act of this passion itself, in the quantity and quality thereof; and shall proceed, in brief, to the consequents or effects of this passion. CHAP. XI. Of the effects of Love, union to the object, stay and immoration of the mind upon it, rest in it, zeal, strength, and tenderness towards it, condescension unto it, liquefaction and languishing for it. THE first which I shall observe is union, occasioned both by the love which we have to a thing for its own sake, and likewise for the love of ourselves, that there may be a greater mutual interest each in other. Wherever love is, it stirreth up an endeavour to carry the heart unto the thing which it loveth. "Where the treasure is, there will the heart be." Hence none are said to love God, but those that are some way united to him. And therefore, as God's first love to man was, in making man like himself; so his second great love was, in making himself like man. Hence we read so often of that mystical inhabitation of Christ in his church; of that more peculiar union and presence with his people; of a spiritual implantation into him by faith; of those near relations of filiation and fraternity, of mutual interest each in other. "I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine;" importing an inseparable union of the church to Christ. And this may be the reason of that order in St. Paul's solemn benediction, "The grace of Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Spirit:" for as the grace of Christ only taketh away that enmity which was between sinners and God, and is the only means of our reconciliation unto him; so the love of God is the only bond of that communion, which we have with him and his Holy Spirit. Union is of divers sorts. One, such whereby divers things Rhet. 1. 1. c. 4. are made simply one, either by the conversion of one into the other, or by the composition or constitution of a third out of the things united; as of mixed bodies out of united elements, or of the whole substance out of the essential parts. Another, such whereby things united are made one after a sort, either by an accidental aggregation, as divers stones make one heap; or by an orderly and artificial distribution, as divers materials make one house. Or by either a natural or moral inclination and sympathy which one thing beareth unto another. And of this sort is that union which ariseth out of love, tending first unto a mutual similitude and conformity in the same desires; and next unto a mutual possession, fruition, and propriety, whereby the mind loving, longeth to be seized of the thing which it loveth, and cannot endure to be deprived of it. So Moses prayed, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory:" for the vision of God is the possession of him: And so David, "My soul thirsteth for God: when shall I come and appear before him?" And this is the foundation of all sorrow, when the soul is dispossessed of that which it loved, and wherein it rested. And this desire of possession is so great, that love contenteth itself not with the presence, but even then putteth out its endeavour unto a nearer, and more real union, as if it would become really one with the thing which it loveth; which is seen in embracings, kisses, in the exiliency and egress of the spirits, in the expansion of the heart, in the simplicity and naturalness of all mutual carriages, as if a present friend were not yet present enough. Which kind of expressions of love are thus elegantly described by Homer, when Eumæus saw Telemachus safely returned home from sea: Ταφὼν δ' ἀνόρουσε συβώτης Ἐκ δ' ἄρα οἱ χειρῶν πέσεν ἄγγεα, τοῖς ἐπονεῖτο, Eumæus, all amaz'd, sprang to the door; The pots of wine, which his hands mixt before, Arist. Rhetor. lib. 2. cap. 4. Diog. Laert. in Zenon. 1. 7. b Hedera Amor. Plutarch. de Aud.-Scal. de subtilitate.-Arist. Polit. lib. 2. c. 4.-Vel Præsentem desideramus. Plin. Paneg. c Odyss. П. 12. Did both fall from them: he ran on to meet, The like elegant description we have of the love of Penelope, when Ulysses, after his return, was perfectly known unto her: d Δακρύσασα δ' ἔπειτ' ἰθὺς δράμεν, ἀμφὶ δὲ χεῖρας She wept and ran straight on; her hands she spread, Love hath, in moral and divine things, the same effect, which fire hath in natural,-to congregate homogeneal, or things of the same kind, and to separate heterogeneal, or things differing: as we see in the love of God; the deeper that is, the more is the spiritual part of man collected together, and raised from the earth. And therefore in heaven, where love shall be perfect, all things shall be harmonious and homogeneal; not in regard of natural properties, but in a pure and unmixed spiritualness of affection, in a perfect unity of minds and motions. e From the union of love proceeds another secret effect, namely, a resting of the mind in the thing loved. In which respect the philosopher calleth knowledge the rest of the understanding.' And this can only be total and perfect in the union of the soul with God, the chiefest good thereof. Whence some have made the threefold appetite in man, concupiscible, rational, and irascible, to have their final perfection and quiet by a distinct union to the Three Persons in the Trinity for the concupiscible power is carried 'ad bonum,' to good, which, they say, is the attribute of the Holy Spirit; the rational, ad verum,' to that which is true, which is the attribute of the Son; and the irascible, ad arduum,' to power, which is the attribute of the Father. But to let that pass for a spider's web, (curious, but thin) certain it is, that God only is that end, who can fully accomplish the perfection, and terminate the desires of those creatures, whom he made, after a peculiar manner, to know and d Odys.. 208. • Gerson. de Myster. Theol. enjoy him. But proportionably there ariseth from the union unto any other object of love, a satiating and quieting of the faculty; which, in a word, is then only (in objects of inferior order and goodness) regular, when the object is natural, and the action limited. Disproportion and enormity are the two corruptions in this particular. A third effect, which I shall observe of love, is stay, and immoration of the mind upon the object loved, and a diverting of it from all others; as we observe in Eumæus, when he saw Telemachus, he threw away the business which he was about before. And the woman of Samaria, being transported with the love of Christ, left her pitcher, which she brought to the well, that she might go and call others unto his doctrine. And Mary left the thought of entertaining Christ at the table, out of an extraordinary desire to entertain him in her heart. And this effect the poet hath excellently described in Dido, who having before showed a marvellous princely wisdom and sedulity in fortifying her new kingdom, and viewing the works herself (as he had before described) as soon as she was once transported with the love of Æneas, then all stood still on a sudden : "Non cœptæ assurgunt turres; non arina juventus Tuta parant; pendent opera interrupta."f The towers, long since begun, rose up no more, But all their works hang broken, and half done. Thus, as Plutarch hath observed, the images of things in the fancies of other men, are like words written in water, which suddenly vanish: but the impressions which love makes, are, as it were, written with a hot iron, which leaveth fixed and abiding prints in the memory. Love and knowledge have mutual sharpening and causality. each on other for as knowledge doth generate love, so love doth nourish and exercise knowledge. The reason whereof, is that unseparable union, which is in all things between the truth and goodness of them. For it being the property of f Æneid. 1. 1. |