Faith and the Natural Affections

A man may make the most decided efforts and may resort to all methods, to subdue and to bring back his fallen nature within the limits of God’s appointment and law; but it will avail nothing without faith. 

We proceed now to apply [this] to the Affections. Those natural Affections, which God has implanted within us, discover the divine wisdom and goodness. The perversion, which they often exhibit, does not destroy the evidence of their original beauty. Human nature would be far less lovely than it is, far less happy than it is, if the parent did not love the child, and the child the parent; and if there were not other domestic and benevolent ties, which bind together members of the same family, and those who are otherwise closely related.

The Affections, (we speak now of the Benevolent Affections,) beautiful as they are in the place they occupy in the mental structure, and important and interesting as they are in their outward office, have felt, like every other part of our mental being, the effects of our depraved and fallen condition. They sometimes fall below their appropriate strength; but more frequently err, either in being wrongly directed, or in being inordinately strong. It is evident, from a slight inspection of what human nature every where presents to our notice, that they require a constant regulation; in other words, they need to be sanctified.

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 7.

She Now Sees God in All Things

Reflections on
the Life of
Madame Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon.

---

Reflections of her conversion.

---

Sustaining the relations of a wife, a mother, and a daughter, and seeing now more clearly into the ways and requisitions of Providence, she endeavored, from higher motives and in a better manner than ever before, to discharge the duties which she owed to her father, her husband, and her children. I speak of her duties to her children, because, previously to the time of which we are now speaking, God had been pleased to give her another son. The birth of her first son, — whom she frequently names as being made, through the perverting influence of her step-mother, a son of trial and sorrow, — has already been mentioned. The second son, who gave better promise both for himself and others, was born in 1667. We shall have occasion to recur to him again, although we have scarcely anything recorded of him, except the few painful incidents of his early death. These new and expanding relations furnished opportunities of duty and occasions of trial, which ceased from this time, at least in a great degree, to be met in the strength of worldly motives or in the arts of worldly wisdom. God, in whom alone she felt she could trust, became her wisdom and strength, as well as her consolation.

We may well and truly say, whatever allowance it may be necessary to make for human infirmity, that God was her portion. She could say with the Psalmist, "The Lord is my fortress and deliverer,— my strength in whom I will trust." The views, which she took of religious truth and duty, were of an elevated character, without being mixed and perverted, so far as we can perceive, with elements that are false and fanatical. It is true, that, even at this early period of her experience, the religious impulse, as if it had an instinctive conviction of the end to which it was tending, took a higher position than is ordinary, but without failing to be guided by the spirit of sound wisdom. If she was a woman, who both by nature and grace felt deeply, she was also a woman who thought dearly and strongly.

Among other things it is worthy of notice, that she distinctly recognized, not only intellectually, but, what is far more important, she recognized practically, that God orders and pervades our allotment in life; that God is in life, not in the mitigated and merely speculative sense of the term, but really and fully; not merely as a passive spectator, but as the inspiring impulse and soul of all that is not sin; in life, in all life, in all the situations and modifications of life, for joy or for sorrow, for good or for evil. The practical as well as speculative recognition of this principle, may be regarded as a sort of first  step towards a thorough walking with God. A heart, unsubdued, a heart in which worldly principles predominate, does not like to see God in all things, and tries unceasingly to shake off the yoke of divine providence. To the subdued heart, on the contrary,— to the heart, in which christian principles predominate, — that yoke always is, and of necessity always must be, just in proportion as such principles predominate, "the yoke which is easy and the burden which is light." Early did this Heaven-taught woman learn this. And she was willing to apply to her own situation, and to her own responsible relations, what she had thus learned.

It is one thing to have the charge of a family, and another to know and to feel, that this responsible position is the arrangement and the gift of Providence. Providence, whose eye is unerring, had placed her in that relation; and whatever cares or sorrows might attend her position, she felt that, as a woman and emphatically as a Christian woman, she must recognize it as the place which God had appointed, and as involving the sphere of duty which God had imposed.

— edited from The Life of Madame Guyon (1877) Volume 1, Chapter 8.

Christlikeness: Personal Friendships

The Savior was susceptible of, and that he actually formed, to some extent, PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS AND INTIMACIES. It would be unreasonable to doubt, that he had a sincere affection, analogous probably in its nature to the filial and fraternal affections in other cases, to his mother, his reputed father, and his brethren and sisters after the flesh. Certainly we have an evidence of this declaration in part, not only in the fact of his dwelling so long with them as he did; but in the circumstance that, when he was suspended in the agonies of the Cross, he commended his mother to the care of the disciple John. It would hardly be consistent with the doctrine of his humanity, and would certainly be at variance with the many developments of his life as the "son of man," to suppose that he did not form a strong, personal attachment to the little company of his disciples. It  is said expressly in especial reference to his disciples, "having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them to  the end." It  is also explicitly narrated, that he loved Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus, the favored family of Bethany, whom he often visited. The disciple John, in particular, is characterized as the disciple whom Jesus loved. As he was set before us as an example, that we should follow him, this interesting trait, which resulted in the formation of friendly and affectionate intimacies, is what we should naturally expect to find in him. And furthermore, as one who came to suffer as well as to act, as a "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," had he not some need even of human sympathy? And if this suggestion be well founded, where would he be disposed to look for the consolations, which even the sympathy of men is capable of affording, except in the bosoms of those, whom he loved peculiarly and confidentially?

The Remembrance of a Godly Teacher

In all institutions [of learning]... there should be living teachers, men "full of the Holy Ghost," who should be able to explain and apply the principles which are found in the Bible.

In early life I had the privilege of being associated for a short time, in an institution, where it seemed to me that some of these views were happily illustrated. Studies always opened in the morning and closed at night with religious services. The first half hour of every morning, in particular, was devoted to the reading of the Scriptures, the explanatory and practical remarks of the worthy and learned instructor, and to prayer. And it was understood by all, whatever might be the state of their own minds, that this religious exercise was regarded by the teacher as one of preeminent importance. When he came before his pupils on this occasion, they did not doubt that he had first commended them to God in private; and that of all objects which he desired and had at heart, there was none so dear to him as their souls' salvation. Every movement was stilled; — every voice hushed; — every eye fixed. And whatever might be their creed or want of creed, their religious adhesions or aversions, such was their sympathy with his obvious sense of responsibility and his divine sincerity, that even the hearts of the infidel and the profane were cheerfully laid open before him; — so that with their own consent he was enabled, by means of his prayers and warnings, to write upon them, as it were, inscriptions for immortality. I was not a pupil in the seminary to which I refer, but an assistant teacher; and had a good opportunity to observe and to judge. My own heart never failed to be profoundly affected; — and, from what I have learned and known of his pupils since, scattered as they have been in all parts of the world, and engaged in various occupations, I have no doubt that God eminently blessed the faithful labors of this good man, and that he was permitted to realize in his instructions, to an extent not often witnessed, the beautiful union of the culture of the heart with that of the understanding.

Christ came into the world to redeem man to God; — in other words, to restore him to God by redemption; — that is to say, by the purchase of his own blood. The object is secured, and man is restored to God, whenever God becomes the in-dwelling, the universal, and permanent principle of his soul.  And the restoration of man involves the restoration of all that  pertains to man. The restoration of man is, at the same time,  the  restoration of the family and of civil society; the restoration of  art and literature. It implies the extinction of vice, the prevalence of virtue, the dignity of labor, the universality of education, and the perfection of social sympathy and intercourse. And no man is, or can be redeemed, in the truer and higher sense of the terms, without being, in his appropriate degree and place, a co-worker with God in all these respects.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 8.

The Family Will Be Sustained in Heaven

The social principle will be sustained in full exercise in heaven. It seems to us that the law of sociality, out of which spring families and societies, is universal and eternal. It would, perhaps, not be too much to say, that the perfect development of the social principle constitutes heaven; — and that, on the other hand, perfect isolation, which is the complete or perfected result of selfishness, constitutes hell. It is a great mistake, as the matter presents itself to our apprehension, to suppose that heaven is a solitary place; and much more that it is so spiritualized as to be a mere abstraction, — a place without locality, an existence without form, a form without beauty. Heaven has far more substance in it, than such shadowy conceptions would seem to imply. Heaven is not the extinction of existence, nor the mere shadow of existence, but a higher and purer state of existence; the growth and perfection of that, of which we have the obscure idea in the present life.

And, accordingly, reasoning from the identity of truth, which is the same above as it is below, we cannot hesitate in saying, that love is the life of heaven, as it is of earth. And such is the nature of love, that it must have objects there, as it has here. It must have its laws there, as it has here.  It  must have its great centre and also its subordinate centers there, as it has here. It must fulfill its own ends and grow up into society there, as it does here. To be in heaven, and not to be in the exercise of love, is a contradiction. Angels have their loves; — and heaven, if they were not allowed to exercise their benevolent affections there, and to group themselves together in bright clusters,  in accordance with the constitutive and eternal laws of moral beings, would cease to be heaven to them, and would become a place of sorrow. And it is one of the consolations which God allows us in the present state, in being permitted to believe that the wants of the heart here will be met and solaced hereafter; — that those suffering, but holy, ones, who have been smitten and robbed in the rights of the affections here, will find kindred spirits, (celestial stars, as it were, reflecting their own brightness,) who will mast and embrace them, and will wipe away their tears at the threshold of the New Jerusalem.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

The Family Will be Preserved in the Millennium

Some persons have supposed, (we hardly know upon what grounds,) that in the approaching and perfected period of the church, which is conveniently denominated the millennial period the family institution, admitted by these persons to be necessary until that time, will then be dispensed with. If this view were correct, it would be of but little importance to contend against those erroneous efforts for the immediate reorganization of society, to which we have just now referred.

Perhaps the idea of the millennial extinction of the family has arisen from the imperfections, the sorrows and the sins, which now attend it. But, it is hardly necessary to say, it is unsound reasoning, which condemns a good thing, especially if it be a great good, on account of the perversions to which it is sometimes liable. Undoubtedly the imperfections and perversions, with which the family is now surrounded, are all destined to cease in that better period; — but it seems to us, that nature, reason, and the Scriptures, all point to the conclusion, that the thing itself, the substance of the institution, will remain. Any other view would, of course, deprive the mind of a center of love and of spiritual rest in its appropriate sphere of life; and leave it under the necessity of wandering from object to object gratifying momentary impulses, of seeking rest and finding none. Such a view presents to us a state of things made worse, instead of being improved; — a reduction from a higher and holier state to one less perfect; — in other words, a millennium retrograde.

We admit that sin has obscured the ideal of the family, as it existed and as it still exists in the mind of God. We know, very well, that the family does not now present its true aspect. But if it is true that the divine beauty of the original conception is greatly marred, it is also true that its brightness will be restored with the extinction of the sin which has obscured it.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

The Dangers of Social Reorganization

[The] subject [of the family] throws light upon the discussions which are now held in different parts of the world on the subject of social reorganization. These discussions, which already shake society to its basis, are of immense consequence. The intellectual ability which has been brought to them is of the highest order; and it has been sustained, in many cases, by a life of benevolence and self-sacrifice. Willing as we are to do justice to the ability, and the good motives of those who agitate these great problems, it is obviously the duty of the friends of humanity to give a careful attention to their movements, and to prevent if possible the introduction of error. We are ready to give credit for many good suggestions, which will, in due time, produce their appropriate fruits. But it has attracted the painful notice of many true friends of human progress, that propositions have been started, from time to time, which affect the existence of the family.

To build up society by the abolition of the family seems to the Christian a strange idea. This is not to reorganize and to improve society, but to destroy it. As Christians, we are bound to do everything, and, what is more, we shall love to do everything, which will tend to improve the condition, and to increase the happiness, of our fellow-men. But we cannot throw away the Bible; — we cannot violate the first principles of Christianity, especially when they are confirmed by sound reasoning, have their signatures and proofs in the affections, and are strengthened by the lessons of all history. To injure the family by bringing its claims into doubt, by diminishing its purity, or weakening its authority, is to do an injury to society in general. Law, order, the state, intellectual improvement, morals, everything, would, fall with the family. And it would so, because the family is of God; and nothing which is of God can be shaken out of its position, or be lost, without causing the most disastrous results.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

The Power of God Manifested Through the Family

In the progress of religion in the world, it may reasonably be expected that the power of God will be especially manifested in families. Each household, linked together by peculiar and strong ties, will constitute practically a church of God. The holy man, at the head of his family, stands forth in a special sense the representative of his heavenly Father. Such is the peculiar nature and the importance of his position, that he speaks, if he is a man of true religion, with an authority which belongs to no other. He is a priest, —  not, indeed, by the forms of earthly ordination, — but still a priest, like Christ himself, by the inspiration of God, and after the "order of Melchisedek." It is from him and through him, if he sets a good example, and fulfills his office of teacher or priest of his household,  that  the child obtains, more distinctly than in any other way, his first ideas of our Father in heaven. And then add to the example and influence of the father, that of the mother, (for the father is not the completed or perfect man without the mother,) — an influence so gentle, so constant, so effective, — and it will be difficult to exaggerate the importance of the family constitution, considered in its relation to human virtue and happiness.

I am reminded, in these remarks, of a passage in the beautiful poem of the Cotter's Saturday Night:­

"Then, kneeling down to heaven's eternal King,

The saint, the father, and the husband prays;

Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,

That thus they all shall meet in future days:

There ever bask in uncreated rays,

"No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,

There ever hymning their Creator's praise,

In such society, yet  still more dear,

While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere."

Within a few days, and since commencing the writing of these remarks, an incident has come to my knowledge, which illustrates the subject. A young man not far distant, having arrived at an age when it seemed to be proper for him to do so, left his father's house to engage in some business in another place. He was soon exposed to unforeseen temptations, and fell into great sin.  He not only sinned, but became hardened and desperate in sin. His friends followed him, reasoned with him, entreated him, but all in vain. The victory of the great adversary, who had entangled him in his toils, seemed to be complete. They then made one request; — that, fixed and desperate as he was in his vicious course, he would so far yield to the common claims of humanity as to visit once more his father's house, and permit his aged parents to look upon him before they died.  It was with great reluctance that he consented.  As he came back, the home of his youth rose before him. The fields, where he had wandered in the delightful days of childhood, expanded in his sight; — beautiful in themselves, but, alas, how changed to him, who had lost the mirror of beauty in his own darkened heart! All received him with those unaffected tokens of benevolent interest, which are the natural language of love. There were no reproofs, no remonstrances. They understood that he came back professedly a sinner, — and a sinner by choice. And having already exhausted their efforts for his recovery, they had no courage to do or say anything more.

Accordingly, the day of his return passed away without any visible signs of penitence and returning union. And yet he was a son and a brother. The bright sun went down over the hills; and the various members of the family, resting from their labors, shared in each other's society. At the usual hour in the evening, they gathered around the domestic hearth, as had ever been their custom, that they might pray together, and mingle their hearts in penitence and faith, in the presence of their Maker, before they slept. The father read the Bible, and prayed; and they sang their evening hymn. This affecting scene, that Bible which had warned and instructed his childhood, a parent's supplication, that sacred song in which brothers and sisters joined, the presence of so many beloved objects, the peace and purity of the dear and sacred heaven of home, presented in contrast with the wretchedness and sin of the scenes to which he had recently been accustomed, broke the barrier of his rebellious spirit; the tears of true penitence and love fell from his eyes; and he was rendered doubly happy by being restored, at the same time, to the center of affections in God, and the center of affections on earth.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

Marriage Should be Under the Guidance of the Spirit

The union of souls in the marriage state, like everything else, ought to be under the guidance of the Spirit of God. The first work, both of man and of woman, is the recovery of their own souls, their spiritual sanctification. Until this is done, they are not fitted, — certainly not in the full sense of the terms, — for anything else. And especially do they fail of being fitted for true mental union.

In the present state of the world, and in the imperfect condition of human things, it will often be the case, that those who are brought into the marriage state by human arrangements, and under the forms of human law, have not been united by spiritual attraction. Such marriages cannot be happy; — certainly not in the highest degree. It will be very different, in proportion as holiness advances in the world. In a purified, or millennial state of the race, the first step towards the finite marriage will be the marriage union with the Infinite. This, as we have already intimated, is the first great work of man under all circumstances; a work which cannot be superseded by any other; and without which no other can be perfectly done. When the soul is once united with God, it becomes the subject of the divine guidance; and while it loves all, and seeks the good of all, it enters into the state of perfect union only with that soul which develops most perfectly corresponding traits of character. The instinct of holiness will lead together kindred hearts; and the truth of spiritual union will take the place of the falsehood and misery of that union which merely allies the body without the union of the mind.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

The Bible's Teachings on Marriage and Family

The language of the Savior is this:

"The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

"They said unto him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so." [Matt 19:3]

The form of the original institution, established in infinite wisdom, was not only that of correspondent spirits, of soul formed and mated to soul, but that of permanent as well as perfect union. Those facts of mental and providential correspondence, which led to the union in the first instance, necessarily involved and established its permanency. Various expressions in the New Testament conform to and strengthen these views. Everywhere are denunciations uttered against the violation of this bond of the heart. Everywhere are encouragements uttered to the preservation of its purity, and the increase of its strength. "Husbands," says the apostle Paul, "love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it." [Eph 5:25] These are remarkable expressions. Christ's love is perfect. Christ’s love never changes. The expressions of the apostle, therefore, harmonize well with the declaration of the Savior, that in the beginning, the husband and wife were not allowed to be separated; that the union, when made in the truth, and as it ought to be, is of God, and that no human power has authority to rend it asunder. 

The Idea of Marriage in the Old Testament

The Bible, in the primitive records on the subject, represents that man was created in God's image.  It also represents, that man and woman were one; and that woman was made from man; — the two existing henceforth in a diversity, but correspondence of form, and with an unity of life.  If the passages to which we refer, do not expressly state it, it is obvious that they naturally imply and involve the doctrine of correspondent or mated spirits, of duality in unity, to the exclusion of all affections to others which are inconsistent with such unity. There is a passage in the prophet Malachi, in reproof of the conduct of the Israelites, which throws some light upon this subject. The Israelites had become dissolute in principles and manners; — a state of things, which showed itself in violations of conjugal fidelity, and in frequent divorces. "The Lord," says the prophet, "hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did he not make one? Yet  had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? [That is to say, wherefore did he create one only? And the answer is,] that he might seek, [that is, prepare or secure to himself,] a godly seed. Therefore, [he adds,] take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously again the wife of his youth."

The Eternal Nature of the Family Relation

We cannot deny our own conviction, founded upon such considerations as we have been able to give to the subject, that the family relation, as it is recognized and established in the New Testament, has its  foundation in the nature of things, and is eternal. This, it will be perceived, is a very different doctrine from that which makes it a mere positive institution, founded upon arbitrary command. It will be conceded, I suppose, that God never mends his own work. His conceptions, founded upon, or rather involving, the fact of a knowledge and comparison of all possibilities of being and action, are always perfect. And, consequently, when we ascertain what his views and plans of things are, we ascertain that which is unchangeable.

The idea of the family, namely, of duality in unity, reproducing itself in a third, which combines the image of both, is entitled, if we are correct in what has been said, to be regarded as a plan or arrangement of things which God has adopted as the best possible to be carried out and realized. And if so, it bears the stamp of divine perpetuity, as well as of divine wisdom. 

The Godhead is the Antetype of the Family

The Godhead itself, mysterious and unsearchable as it is, is the fore-shadowing, the antetype of the family. Man is said to be created in the divine image;  but the combined man, which constitutes the family, far more than the solitary man or woman, is the true image of God. And the reason is, "God is love.” And if he is so, then there must have been an eternal Beloved. Otherwise, he would have been the most miserable of beings. Absolute solitude is inconsistent with happiness. What could be more miserable than a being, the very essence of whose nature is love, without an object to meet and to satisfy its unalienable and mighty tendencies? And that object, to meet the ends for which it exists, must be as infinite as the love of which it is the subject.  And if it must be infinite, because nothing short of infinite would be an appropriate object of the divine affections, it must also have been eternal, because otherwise the divine affection, through countless ages, would have had no object at all. And hence, there is, and must be, innate in the Godhead, the infinitely beloved, the Chosen and Anointed of the Father, the Eternal Word, the Immanuel. But this duality of existence, which is constituted into unity by the unchangeable bond of the affections, cannot be perfectly happy except in some object possessing a like infinity of character, which may be regarded, speaking after the manner of men, as "a procession or emanation" from the two. And this re-production of itself, infinite in its nature, perfect in its love and by "an everlasting generation," constitutes and completes the adorable family of the Trinity.

Man, created in the divine image, is male and female; and these two are one. And their united existence, deriving a new power from their union, multiplies and images itself in a third, which is also a part of itself. It is man, therefore, in his threefold nature, — the father, the mother, and the child,— the beautiful trinity of the family, and yet so constituted that in man's unfallen state it would never have suggested the idea of a weakened or discordant unity, — which may be regarded as the earthly representation, the visible, though dim,  shadowing  forth of the divine personalities existing in the unity of the Godhead. The original type is in the infinite; but it is reproduced and reflected with greater or less degrees of distinctness in all orders of moral beings. 

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 6.

Mutual Love as the Basis of Marriage and Family

Happiness must be the result of a divinely ordered and perfect constitution of things. It is true, as we have had frequent occasion to say, that love is, and must be, the life;  that is to say, the central and moving principle of such a divine constitution. But love is not necessarily free from sorrow; — although it must be admitted, that true happiness cannot exist without love. The love, which good men have to erring and fallen sinners, is necessarily more or less mixed with grief. This being the case, the question naturally arises, — When can a truly holy or love being be said to be a happy being; — not only happy, but enjoying happiness in the highest degree?  This is a question, which it is obviously necessary to solve, in ascertaining the true constitution of an order of moral beings. That is to say, it is necessary to answer the question, — Under what circumstances can the highest happiness be secured to such an order of beings? And the answer, as it seems to us, is this. A moral being is happy in the highest degree, when it meets with another being, constituted on the same principles of holy love; and meets with it under such circumstances as to behold the unspeakable beauty of its own benevolent nature reflected back upon itself in the mirror of the other's loving heart. Seeing itself in another, and therefore, feeling another in itself, it not only recognizes but realizes, by the necessities of its nature, the eternal law of unity. 

The Everlasting Basis of the Family

We proceed now, in the natural order of these inquires, from the individual to the family.

Holiness does not annul, or even alter, the laws of nature, but only restores and perfects their action. And, accordingly, we shall be united with our heavenly Father in the great work of restoring and perfecting the family, when we endeavor to ascertain and to aid in the fulfillment of the intentions of nature.

Every being must have its home. By home, we do not mean simply a locality, a place of residence. The man, who is banished from his native land, and is confined to some rocky isle in the ocean, has his locality, but it is not his home. If it is so, why does he so often cast his streaming eye over the broad ocean, as if to catch the glance of some other land? Home, therefore, in being something more than simple locality, is that locality where the affections find their center and are at rest. 

Our Loves Must Also be Surrendered to God

It cannot be doubted, that it is right for a man to love the members of his family, and that it is his duty to do so; but if his domestic attachments become from any cause so strong as to annul or to vitiate his love to men generally or to God, or on the other hand if they become so weakened as to fall short of the divine requirements, they are wrong.

Immutable right has a claim and a power, which entitle it to regulate every thing else. Even LOVE itself, an element so essential to all moral goodness that it gives a character and name to God himself, ceases to be love, the moment it ceases to be in conformity with justice. Love, that is not just, is not holy; and love, that is not holy, is selfishness under the name of love. Every affection, therefore, however amiable and honorable it may be when it is in a right position, is wrong and is at variance with inward holiness of life, which is not in conformity with the rule of right. And in hearts unsanctified, just so far as there is a defect or want of sanctification, in other words just so far as the love of God fails to regulate such affections, this is always the case.

— edited from The interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 2, Chapter 9.

Sexual Desire

One of the principles, coming under the denomination of the Appetites, is that, which results from the relation of the sexes. A serious mind, certainly, one that is disposed to recognize the benevolent hand of God in all his works, will not be inclined to speak in terms of disparagement of this appetite, which, in an important sense, is the foundation of the family state. But sin, which has spread its poison every where, has converted that, which was designed for good, and nothing but good, into a source of evil. Every desire, founded upon the relation of the sexes, which is not in accordance with the providence and the will of God, leaves a stain upon the mind's purity, and is at war with holiness. But it is necessary merely to allude to the dangers from this source. The holy mind, which appreciates the importance of watchfulness in every direction, will not be inattentive to the perplexities and hazards which exist here. A single emotion, at variance with entire purity of heart, is inconsistent, so long as it exists, with communion with God, and with his favor.

— The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part 2, Chapter 3.