On Loving Our Neighbor — and Ourselves (Rewritten)

We now turn to a topic that naturally follows from the previous post: love for our neighbor, and more broadly, love for all created beings. The central idea is this: if our love for God is pure, unselfish, and rightly placed above everything else, then every other form of love will fall into its proper place beneath it. 

When we love God in the highest and fullest sense, all other loves become secondary and take their direction from that primary love. In that case, we come to share God’s own way of loving. We begin to care about what God cares about. Our love flows along the same path as God's love. Whatever God values — whether great or small, material or spiritual — will matter to us in proportion to how well we perceive it and how capable we are of loving it.

Reflections on the Life of Faith (Rewritten)

“The just shall live by faith.”

“The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God.”

These and similar passages point to a central truth: the Christian life is meant to be lived by faith, not by constant, visible certainty. It is a life shaped by trust rather than by open vision.

Faith itself takes many forms, each valuable in its proper place, and all connected — more or less closely — to the life of faith. But the particular kind of faith that most directly sustains this life is the one that makes God present in every moment and in every event. The absence of this kind of faith is a major source of spiritual weakness. Because of this lack, many people who genuinely believe in God, in Christ, and even in their own final salvation still make very little progress in holiness.

They tend to hold to a general, abstract faith — one that deals in broad ideas rather than specific realities. By doing so, they place God at a distance. In contrast, a faith that is concrete and particular brings God near. It makes Him present and personal in every concern of life and establishes a continuous, living relationship between God and the soul.

A Spirit of Watchfulness

Be not disheartened because the eye of the world is constantly and earnestly fixed upon you, to detect your errors and to rejoice in your halting. But rather regard this state of things, trying though it may be, as one of the safeguards, which a kind Father has placed around you to keep alive in your own bosom an antagonist spirit of watchfulness, and to prevent those very mistakes and transgressions, which your enemies eagerly anticipate.

— from Religious Maxims (1846), V.

God and Nothing

We conquer ill and all distress,
By sinking into Nothingness;
For in our Nothing we are such,
That nothing can our Nothing touch.

Our enemies their arms prepare;
They smite, but find us empty air;
For when we see the lifted rod,
We leave ourselves, and hide in God.

We always know which way to run,
And thus all threatening dangers shun;
In vain they seek; they cannot find
Our hiding place in God's great Mind.

And when they undertake to smite,
They find that God is in the fight;
And God and Nothing make them know
A great and sudden overthrow.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXX.

Energy and Faith

Religious faith, in perfect analogy to that which is natural, brings personal and mighty energy to its possessor; and places in his hand, in the sharp contest with sin and Satan, the shield of victory. It does this, among other things, and on the same principle that natural faith does, by giving exceeding power to his religious volitions or determinations.

The man, who has no faith, is necessarily powerless. He is smitten by the irreversible law of nature, as well as by the present and special frown of God. He lies prostrate upon the ground, a mere imbecile, useless and impracticable alike to good and evil; but he, who has faith, acts, and acts vigorously. Faith diffuses a calm but effective energy through the whole man: especially is this true of religious faith. Natural faith gives power in the subjection of natural enemies; religious faith gives power and victory over enemies that are spiritual.

Natural faith is patient, persevering, and successful in ascertaining natural truths, and in extending the boundaries of natural knowledge. Religious faith sits patiently at the fountains of religious instruction; and holding inward intercourse, and being powerful with God, it obtains knowledge of those higher things of a moral and religious nature, which even the angels desire to look into. Natural faith passes over natural barriers, over barren wastes and tangled forests, over valleys and mountains, over rivers and oceans; but religious faith, coming in conflict with religious or spiritual obstacles, resists and conquers all hindrances, whatever they be, which stand between the soul and the possession of the true spiritual kingdom; contending against sin original and sin practical, against temptations from within and temptations from without, against Satan invisible and Satan embodied in human agency, and crying with the victorious voice of the one in the wilderness, “make straight the way of the Lord.” Natural faith unites together families, stretches abroad the connecting links of neighborhoods, constitutes corporations, and in the greatest extent of its power lays the foundation of states and nations. Religious faith, distrustful of its own power of vision, looks at things with God’s eye; and viewing them in the higher and divine light, expands the limits of social connection and identifies them with the limits of the universe. It places God at the head. It unites in the sweep of its broad view not only individuals and families, not only neighborhoods and nations, but the inhabitants of distant worlds, and all higher orders and classes of beings into one, binding all to the great center, and constituting universal harmony.

— edited from The Life of Faith (1852) Part 1, Chapter 3.

We Love Our Enemies Because God Loves Them

On the principles which have been laid down, we see how we may fulfill the command of our Savior to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, and to do good to them that hate and persecute us. Instead of being a very difficult thing, as is commonly supposed, and as it would undoubtedly be on natural principles, it becomes easy, because, in the language of Francis De Sales, "We cannot love God as we ought, without adopting his sentiments and LOVING WHAT HE LOVES." Now we know  that God loves those who do not love Him. He loved us, even when we were his enemies.  He so loved a rebellious and disobedient world, as to give his Son to die for it. And if we are in the same spirit, loving only what He loves and hating what He hates, we shall find no difficulty in loving our enemies, and in praying for those who "despitefully entreat us." No matter how unlovely they may be in themselves, no matter how cruel and unjust their treatment be to us, the consideration, that our heavenly Father loves them and requires us to love them, lays all things even, and opens the full channels of the heart, as if there were no obstacles existing.

When we love our fellow-men in this way, we love with a perseverance and constancy, which could not be realized under other circumstances. Our love is not subject to those breaks and variations, which characterize it when it is based upon the uncertainties of the creature, instead of the immutability of the divine will. On the contrary, it continually flows on and flows on, whether it meets with any favorable return or not, partaking, in no small measure, of the unchangeableness of the divine nature.

— edited from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 1, Chapter 13.

A Faith That Makes God Present

The form of faith, which is especially necessary, in order to live the life of faith, is that, which makes God present, moment by moment, in any and all events which take place. The want of this form of faith is one great source of evil. It is owing to a defect here, in a great part at least, that many persons, who believe, to some extent, in God, and in Christ, and perhaps in their own final acceptance, nevertheless make but little progress in sanctification. Adhesive in a general faith, which looks at things in masses, and rejecting that which is particular, they necessarily place God at a great distance; while, on the other hand, that faith, which is specific and particular, brings him near; makes him present and intimate in all our concerns, and establishes between him and our own souls a perpetual and happy relationship. We hope we shall not be misunderstood. We admit that other modifications of faith are important in their place. We know them to be so. But we cannot doubt, that the true life of God in the soul must be sustained, in a very considerable degree, by means of that specific form of faith, which recognizes God, AS PRESENT, NOT ONLY IN EVERY MOMENT OF TIME, BUT AS PRESENT, EITHER PERMISSIVELY OR CAUSATIVELY, IN EVERY EVENT THAT TAKES PLACE.

God is the Guide to Love's Direction

The union of God and man in love implies that man's love, in its particular directions, namely, as it flows out to his fellow-men in general, or to particular classes of persons, or to any created objects whatever, must be subjected to a divine regulation. In other words, it is to be regarded as a fundamental principle in the life of God in the soul, and in the doctrines of divine union, that God must not only give us the power to love, but that he must tell us whom to love. We have no more right to say whom we shall love out of God, than we have to do anything else out of God. In our character of dependent creatures, who have nothing of our own, and who do not know how to use even that which is given us, we have no other resource but to trust God equally for the gift and for the regulation of it. And this is particularly true as respects the affection which we are now considering. Love is not only the highest, the most ennobling, and the most sacred principle of our nature, but it is the most powerful. All history, religious as well as profane, is a testimony to the immensity of its power. Whether for good or for evil, it is the true life of the soul; making it satanic by its alliance with Satan, or divine by its participation in God. Such a principle, which carries with it immortal destinies, should enfold God in it, not only as the source of its life, but as the guide of its movement.

It is the tendency of all rivers to flow to the ocean, but they do not flow there in a straight line; on the contrary, they are continually diversified in accordance with the laws of nature. The rule, applicable in this case to a holy mind, is, that we must leave this tendency under the direction of Providence, and not direct it in our own will. It is true we cannot rightfully be deprived of our own choice; but we are bound to make a right choice, and our choice ought always to be, to let the movements of our hearts be guided by God's choice. The will of the creature is as disastrous here as anywhere else. Let our love, then, flow where Providence indicates that it ought to flow. God, who reveals himself in his providences, and acts through them, and God only, should choose for us.

But supposing that the Providence of God places before us, as the objects of our love, those who are exceedingly depraved and vicious, are we bound to love them in that case? Most certainly we are. They are appropriate objects of [that] love... which loves existences simply because they have an existence....

As the appropriate object of this form of love is existence in distinction from character, it will naturally direct itself, in an especial manner, towards those whom Providence has particularly associated with us, no matter what their characters may be. The mere fact of sentient existence, presented before us as an object of contemplation, will stir up the waters at the heart's fountain; but the relations of Providence will indicate the channels in which they must flow. Our relatives and others, with whom we are particularly associated in providence, may be very wicked. But the fact of their wickedness does not destroy the other and everlasting fact, that they are accountable existences; that they have immortal souls; that they are capable of great happiness or great misery. Fallen, degraded, miserable, they may be; but if we are like God, how can we help loving them? God is a fountain of love, flowing out continually towards all his creatures, sparing not even his own Son to save and bless them, and showing, more than in any other way, his love to those who are his enemies.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 6.

The Image of Christ

The height and sum of religion is to bear the image of Christ. But can those flatter themselves that they bear the Savior's image, who are overcome and are rendered impatient by every trifling incident of an adverse nature? O, remember that the life of Christ was from beginning to end a life of trouble. He was often misunderstood and ill-treated by all classes; he was persecuted by the Pharisees; sold by the traitor whom he had chosen as one of his disciples; reviled by the thief on the cross; put to death. But he was far more desirous of the salvation and good of his enemies, than he was of personal exemption from their persecutions. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

— Religious Maxims (1846), LXXIV.

Loving Our Enemies

It is right and reasonable that we should be required to love our enemies.  There are no passages of Scripture which have perplexed the unbelieving world more than those which have relation to this subject. "But I say unto you," says the Savior, "love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you."

It  will be noticed, that we are not commanded to love their enmity,— to love their detractions and ill usage, — but to love that which has enmity; the subject rather than the attribute; namely, their existence, their immortal natures. In the exercise of holy love, we may not only forgive them, but may earnestly seek their happiness; while, at the same time, we condemn their characters. Their characters may change, but not the essence of their being. Their enmity may die, but their nature is eternal.

We repeat, however. that this love cannot be  exercised  in its full extent, unless the soul has first passed into divine unity and become a partaker of the divine nature. It was this love, resting upon the principle of faith, which constituted Christ the true Son of God. And it is this love, resting upon the same principle of faith, which constitutes the sons of God in all times and all places. "Love your enemies," says the Saviour. And what is the reason which he assigns? "That  ye may be the children of your Father which it in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so?  Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as  your  Father, which is in heaven, is perfect."

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 4, Chapter 3.