Perfection of Love is Willing God's Will

We may, perhaps, illustrate [our view of perfect love], by what we sometimes notice in the various forms and degrees of filial love. We will take, in the first place, the case of a child, who is sincerely attached to his father, but who, as we sometimes express it, exhibits a "will of his own." This child, undoubtedly, loves his father very much; but at the same. time he does not always do, with entire pleasure and readiness, what his father wishes him to do. He sometimes hesitates, exhibits a clouded brow, or utters an impatient expression when certain things are required of him. He has certain little objects of his own, which he is very much attached to; and if his father's plans happen to cross and oppose them, he exhibits, in a greater or less degree, a disposition to set up for himself and to rebel. And when he outwardly obeys, it is found that he does it reluctantly, and not with a will harmonizing and blending with the paternal will. Now we may say very truly, that this child loves his father — perhaps he loves him very much — and yet it is clear he does not love him perfectly. But when we see a child who is happy only when he sees his father happy; whose delight it is to anticipate the father's wishes; whose will, by a sort of instinctive tendency, is invariably and powerfully united and blended with the paternal will, so that the least opposition between the two wills is a source of the greatest grief to him, we at once feel, and cannot help feeling, that the love of such a child may properly be called perfect. And in accordance with this view, it is said to have been one of the sayings of the devout Francis Xavier, that "the perfection of the creature consists in willing nothing but the will of the Creator."

What other idea of perfection of love can we have than this? The heart of such a person is made one with another heart, and what could we ask for more? This, then, more than any thing else, is the decisive mark of perfection in Christian love, viz. an entire coincidence of our own wills with the divine will; in other words, the rejection of the natural principle of life, which may be described as love terminating in self and constituting self-will; and the adoption of the heavenly principle of life, which is love terminating and fulfilled in the will of God. And this view, which is practically, as well as theologically, a very important one, seems to be confirmed by what the Savior says of himself in a number of passages. John 6. 38, "For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." John 4. 34, "Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." Heb. 10. 9, "Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God." The same idea, viz. that perfection of Christian love exists, and exists only in connection with a will united to and perfectly coincident with the will of God, is conveyed in that interesting passage, Mark 3. 34, 35, "And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." Matt. 7. 21, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 1, Chapter 17.