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Love being the first complacency which we take in
good, as we shall presently show, it of course
precedes desire; and indeed what other thing do we
desire, but that which we love? It precedes
delectation, for how could we rejoice in the
enjoyment of a thing if we loved it not? It precedes
hope, for we hope only for the good which we love: it
precedes hatred, for we hate not evil, except for the
love we have for good: nor is evil evil but because
it is contrary to good. And, Theotimus, it is the
same with all the other passions and affections; for
they all proceed from love, as from their source and
root.
For which cause the other passions and affections,
are good or bad, vicious or virtuous, according as
the love whence they proceed is good or bad; for love
so spreads over them her own qualities, that they
seem to be no other than this same love.
S. Augustine reducing all these passions and
affections to four, as did also Boetius, Cicero,
Virgil, with the greatest part of the ancients:-"
Love," says he, "tending to the possession of what it
loves, is termed concupiscence or desire; having and
possessing it it is called joy; flying that which is
contrary to it, it is named fear; but if this really
seizes it and it feels it, love is named grief, and
consequently these passions are evil if the love be
evil, good if it be good. The citizens of the
heavenly city fear, desire, grieve, love, and because
their love is just, all their affections are also
just. Christian doctrine subjects the reason to God
that he may guide and help it, and subjects all these
passions to the spirit, that it may bridle and
moderate them and so convert them to the service of
justice and virtue. The right will is good love, the
bad will is evil love;"(1) that is to say, in a word,
Theotimus, love has such dominion over the will as to
make it exactly such as it is itself.
The wife ordinarily changes her condition into
that of her husband, becoming noble if he be noble,
queen if he be king, duchess if he be duke. The will
also changes her condition according to the love she
espouses; if this be carnal she becomes carnal, if
this be spiritual she is spiritual, and all the
affections of desire, joy, hope, fear, grief, as
children born of the marriage between love and the
will, consequently receive their qualities from love.
In short, Theotimus, the will is only moved by her
affections, amongst which love, as the primum mobile
and first affection, gives motion to all the rest,
and causes all the other motions of the soul.
But it does not follow hence that the will does
not also rule over love, seeing that the will only
loves while willing to love, and that of many loves
which present themselves she can apply herself to
which she pleases, otherwise there would be no love
either forbidden or commanded.
She is then mistress over her loves as a maiden
over her suitors, amongst whom she may make election
of which she pleases. But as after marriage she loses
her liberty and of mistress becomes subject to her
husband's power, remaining taken by him whom she
took, so the will which at her own pleasure made
election of love, after she has chosen one remains
subject to it.
And as the wife is always subject to the husband
whom she has chosen as long as he lives, and if he
die regains her former liberty to marry another, so
while a love lives in the will it reigns there, and
the will is subject to its movements, but if this
love die she can afterwards take another.
And again there is a liberty in the will which the
wife has not, and it is that the will can reject her
love at her pleasure, by applying her understanding
to motives which make it displeasing, and by taking a
resolution to change the object.
For thus, to make divine love live and reign in
us, we kill selflove, and if we cannot entirely
annihilate it at least we weaken it in such a way
that though it lives yet it does not reign in us. As,
on the contrary, in forsaking divine love we may
adhere to that of creatures, which is the infamous
adultery with which the Divine lover so often
reproaches sinners.
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