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The love which we practise in hope goes indeed to
God, Theotimus, but it returns to us; its sight is
turned upon the divine goodness, yet with some
respect to our own profit; it tends to that supreme
perfection, but aiming at our own satisfaction. That
is to say, it bears us to God, not because he is
sovereignty good in himself, but because he is
sovereignty good to us, in which as you see there is
something of the our and the us, so that this love is
truly love, but love of cupidity and self-interest.
Yet I do not say that it does in such sort return
to ourselves that it makes us love God only for the
love of ourselves; O God! no: for the soul which
should only love God for the love of herself, placing
the end of the love which she bears to God in her own
interest, would, alas! commit an extreme sacrilege.
If a wife loved her husband only for the love of his
servant, she would love her husband as a servant, and
his servant as a husband: and the soul that only
loves God for love of herself, loves herself as she
ought to love God, and God as she ought to love
herself.
But there is a great difference between this
expression: I love God for the good which I expect
from him, and this: I only love God for the good
which I expect from him: as again it is a very
different thing to say: I love God for myself: and I
love God for the love of myself. For when I say I
love God for myself, it is as if I said: I love to
have God, I love that God should be mine, should be
my sovereign good; which is a holy affection of the
heavenly spouse, who a hundred times in excess of
delight protests: My beloved to me, and I to him, who
feedeth among the lilies.(1) But to say: I love God
for love of myself, is as if one should say; the love
which I bear to myself is the end for which I love
God; in such sort that the love of God would be
dependent, subordinate, and inferior to self-love, to
our love for ourselves, which is a matchless impiety.
This love, then, which we term hope, is a love of
cupidity, but of a holy and well-ordered cupidity, by
means whereof we do not draw God to us nor to our
utility, but we adjoin ourselves unto him as to our
final felicity. By this love we love ourselves
together with God, yet not preferring or equalizing
ourselves to him ; in this love the love of ourselves
is mingled with that of God, but that of God floats
on the top; our own love enters indeed, but as a
simple motive, not as a principal end; our own
interest has some place there, but God holds the
principal rank. Yes, without doubt, Theotimus: for
when we love God as our sovereign good, we love him
for a quality by which we do not refer him to us but
ourselves to him.
We are not his end, aim, or perfection, but he is
ours; he does not appertain to us, but we to him; he
depends not on us but we on him; and, in a word, by
the quality of sovereign good for which we love him,
he receives nothing of us, but we receive of him. He
exercises towards us his affluence and goodness, and
we our indigence and scarcity; so that to love God
under the title of sovereign good is to love him
under an honourable and respectful title, by which we
acknowledge him to be our perfection, repose and end,
in the fruition of which our felicity consists.
Some goods there are which we use for ourselves
when we employ them, as our slaves, servants, horses,
clothes: and the love which we bear unto them is a
love of pure cupidity, since we love them only for
our own profit. Other goods there are which we
possess, but with a possession which is reciprocal
and equal on each side, as in the case of our
friends: for the love we have unto them inasmuch as
they content us is indeed a love of cupidity, yet of
an honest cupidity, by which they are ours and we
similarly theirs, they belong to us and we equally to
them. But there are yet other goods which we possess
with a possession of dependence, participation and
subjection, as we do the benevolence, or presence, or
favour of our pastors, princes, father, mother: for
the love which we bear unto them is then truly a love
of cupidity, when we love them in that they are our
pastors, our prince, our fathers, our mothers, since
it is not precisely the quality of pastor, nor of
prince, nor of father, nor of mother, which is the
cause of our affection towards them, but the fact
that they are so to us and in our regard.
Still this cupidity is a love of respect,
reverence and honour; for we love our father, for
example, not because he is ours but because we are
his; and after the same manner it is that we love and
aspire to God by hope, not to the end he may become
our good, but because he is it; not to the end he may
become ours, but because we are his; not as though he
existed for us, but inasmuch as we exist for him.
And note, Theotimus, that in this love, the reason
why we love (that is, why we apply our heart to the
love of the good which we desire) is because it is
our good; but the measure and quantity of this love
depend on the excellence and dignity of the good
which we love. We love our benefactors because they
are such to us, but we love them more or less as they
are more or less our benefactors. Why then do we love
God, Theotimus, with this love of cupidity ? Because
he is our good. But why do we sovereignly love him?
Because he is our sovereign good.
But when I say we love God sovereignly, I do not
therefore say that we love him with sovereign love.
Sovereign love is only in charity, whereas in hope
love is imperfect, because it does not tend to his
infinite goodness as being such in itself, but only
because it is such to us. Still, because in this kind
of love there is no motive more excellent than that
which proceeds from the consideration of the
sovereign good, we say that by it we love
sovereignly, though in real truth no one is able by
virtue of this love either to keep God's
commandments, or obtain life everlasting, because it
is a love that yields more affection than effect,
when it is not accompanied with charity.
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