A blog drawn from the writings of Thomas Cogswell Upham (1799-1872).
Faith is the foundation. Faith is the deeper principle; although it must be admitted, that love is a state of mind, which, generally speaking, is more distinct in our consciousness, and is more obvious to common apprehension and remark. When, therefore, we have faith, we have all that is necessary for us, provided we have all the faith, which God requires us to have.
— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.
The moment we get into this great and true Centre, every thing else falls into the right position. We love ourselves, and we love other beings just as God would have us; for we can neither approve nor disapprove, neither love nor hate, except as we receive the spring of movement from the great source. In any other position of mind, the influence of self will be felt. But in this, as the mind operates in perfect coincidence with the will of God, a will which never deviates from perfect rectitude, it can give no countenance to selfishness, which is always at variance with rectitude.
The life of God in the soul and the life of self in the soul are entirely inconsistent with each other. Where God exists, as the supreme object, self is, and must be cast out. Sensuality ceases. All our appetites, and all our propensities and affections of whatever degree will, in that case, be properly regulated. And the grace of sanctification or holiness will pervade the whole inner man.
—The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.
All such love, which thus centres
in ourselves, is wrong, and is not acceptable in the sight of God; because it is not proportioned to its object, and is inordinate.
It may be proper to add this remark here, that pure love or holy love is that love which is precisely appropriate to the object;
being such, neither more nor less, as the object is precisely entitled
to, so far as we are capable of understanding what the object is.
If our love centres in creatures inferior to God, and becomes supreme in them, it is necessarily selfish; as really so, though not so obviously so at first sight, as if it centered in ourselves. It is entirely obvious, that the motive for loving inferior beings in the highest degree, for loving them supremely, cannot be founded in their own characters. It is not a love, to which they are justly entitled. It is not right to love them in this manner.
And if the motive of this love is not founded in their characters, and is, therefore, not based upon moral rectitude, it is founded, and must necessarily be so, in some selfish modification of our own feelings. The only active principle in man, which is antagonistical to rectitude, is selfishness in some of its modifications. Whenever a moral being deviates from the right, in any and all cases where he has a perception of what the right is, it will be found to be through the influence of self. In all such cases, if a being is loved otherwise than it ought to be, and is therefore loved wrongly, selfishness will always be found at the bottom. It will sometimes be very secret and almost hidden; but it will always be there.
— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.
Of the various objects, to which love is
directed, it will always be found, that those objects will not all be
loved alike; but some will be loved more, and some less. Of two objects
or of many objects which essentially differ in their attractions, in
other words, in their power of exciting love, it can never be said that
the soul loves them both, or that it loves them all in an equal degree.
The love of the object will be in proportion to the attracting power of
the object, considered in relation to the soul.
Among these
various objects there will be some one, on which the love of the soul
will rest and satisfy itself in the highest degree; in a degree which
may be expressed by the term supremely. The soul, in the exercise of its affections, must necessarily have a centre of love somewhere: viz., in the object which is most
beloved. And that object will be the most beloved, and will constitute
the centre of love, which possesses for the soul the highest
attractions. The love of other things, which have less attractions for
the soul, cannot fail to be subordinate. It is true, that the soul may
take a degree of satisfaction in those objects, which are inferior or
subordinate in its love. But it is in the supreme object of its affections, and in that central and supreme object alone, that it will rest and delight itself with supreme satisfaction. It is there, emphatically, that the heart is. There is the centre, and it is infinitely important that every man should know what that centre is in his own case.
The centre of man’s love, (we do not say his love, but the centre of his love,) must be either in himself, or in other creatures, or in God. He may love all in different degrees; and he may love all in that manner at the same time; but he cannot have a centre or supremacy of love in all at the same time. He either loves God supremely, or he loves other beings, which are inferior to God, supremely; or he loves himself supremely. There does not seem to be any other supposition to be made in the case.
— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.
The natural tendency of love to God is to regulate and restrain all unregulated and unrestrained love of that, which is not God.
— The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 4.