Pure Love vs. Selfish Love (Rewritten).

Up to now, we tried to show that evangelical holiness is essentially the same thing as perfect love. 

Scripture makes this plain in the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself.” The moment a person begins to love, holiness begins. But holiness is complete only when love has fully overcome selfishness — when a person loves with the whole heart.

Faith, without question, comes before love. Whether we look at this biblically or psychologically, faith is the foundation and the necessary starting point. But even so, Scripture gives love the highest honor, calling it “the fulfillment of the law.” So the most important question we can ask — whether we truly belong to God and are genuinely holy — ultimately comes down to this: Are we perfected in love?

Assurance of Faith and Perfect Love (Rewritten)

Up to now we have explored how consecration relates to assurance of faith. But assurance itself doesn’t stand alone — it, too, has important relationships. One of the closest and most significant is its connection to perfect love. These two — assurance (or perfection) of faith and perfection of love — are deeply and inseparably linked. 

That raises a thoughtful and worthwhile question: what exactly is the relationship between them?

1. Faith Comes First, Love Follows

To begin, assurance of faith and perfect love relate to each other as cause and effect, or more precisely, as what comes first and what follows. Assurance of faith naturally and necessarily comes before perfect love.

Some theologians — capable thinkers, to be sure — have tried to reverse this order. They argue that love comes first, and that faith grows out of love, making perfect love the foundation of assurance. But it’s hard to see how this position holds up, either logically or biblically.

Holy Love

The love of self seeks earthly treasure,
And close in secret chambers folds it;
But HOLY LOVE, no place, no measure,
In all the universe can hold it.

Go, tread the path of secret fountains, 
And thou shalt find it shining bright; 
Go, tread the forests and the mountains, 
And there it sheds its holy light. 

Go, seek the poor man's cottage lowly; 
Ascend the monarch's lofty tower; 
And, in the bosoms of the holy, 
'Tis everywhere their life and power. 

It marches forth with banners flying; 
No sword can slay, no prisons bind it; 
No fear, no grief, no pain, no dying, 
Can mar the happy souls that find it.

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXXIX.

The Power of Love in Regulating Speech

[The person] who has faith in God, has confidence in the power of love, as well as in the power of the truth. And indeed they are closely related. True love is love without selfishness, which is always a love according to the truth. Such love will win its way against every sort of argument, which is not founded in the truth. Nothing has such efficacy in weakening prejudice, in soothing passion, and in bringing the mind of an opponent, in every respect, into a right position. If we had nothing but nature for a teacher, we could not fail to learn the lesson, that there is nothing so efficacious as the spirit of love in correcting the perversions of prejudice, and in prostrating the falsehoods of passion. But when we know from the Scriptures, that “God is love,” those who are like him can never distrust themselves in being what he is. And accordingly in a multitude of cases, holy love, having faith in God as its source, and having faith in itself as that which God will approve, will be silent, while the weakness and irritation of an unsanctified nature will fill the air with its clamors.

The Supremacy of Love.

Take to thyself celestial wings;
Go, where thou pleasest, mighty Love;
In thee are life's eternal springs;
Thou art the true, the heavenly Dove.

If there are hidden depths below.
If heights and pinnacles in heaven;
The heavenly heights 'tis thine to know,
To Thee the lowest depths are given.

If lines could bound Thee, life would die;
If bars could hold Thee, heaven would cease;
For heaven doth live with Love's supply;
And life goes out with Love's release.

Go, where Thou pleasest, heavenly Dove!
And angels, from their thrones of light,
In depths below and heights above.
Shall guard, but never bound thy flight.

Forgiveness

Let men of hatred aim the blow;
And point the cruel, jealous dart;
I will not fear, if I can know,
The power of Love's forgiving art.

Oh God! Be Thou that living power;
Make Thou my soul with pity strong;
That, in the sad and hostile hour,
Forgiving love may conquer wrong.

They smite; but grant that in return
My heart may seek to do them good;
And with its strongest impulse yearn
To show its love and brotherhood.

In vain is all their angry strife,
If God the mighty love hath given,
Which makes the soul's immortal life,
And conquers hate with power from heaven.

 — Christ in the Soul  LXXMV.

The Basis of Inward Quietness is Faith

The basis of this remarkable and interesting state of mind [that is, inward quietness] is FAITH. 

In the first place, it is faith, operating by love. That is to say, a faith in the character of God, which results in the restoration of love to God. Those, who believe God, love God; those, who believe him much, love him much; those, who believe perfectly, love perfectly. The sequence of love to faith, both in fact and degree, is not a mere matter of arbitrary choice or volition; but may rather be regarded as the result of a permanent and unchangeable law, a law which is true now and true always, which exists on earth and exists every where else. 

And we may add, that those, who love God as they ought to love him, cannot love other things otherwise than they ought to. The love of God in the heart, existing in accordance with the commandment, viz., thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, cannot fail to bring every desire, every affection, which has relation either to ourselves or to others, into subjection. Every desire, every affection, every tendency of our nature which is susceptible of a moral character, resumes, from that memorable moment, its true position. And when order is thus restored to the mind, by the reduction of every thing to its proper place, quietness of spirit exists and prevails as a necessary result. It is true it is no common love, which can effect this; and consequently it is no common degree of faith which gives rise to such love. But a grace so eminent as that of true quietness of spirit cannot be expected to exist where faith is weak.

In the second place, the grace of quietness of spirit is sustained by faith in God’s providences; or perhaps we should say more specifically, by faith in God’s presence in his providences. We have already had occasion to refer to this great practical doctrine, that, in the succession of God’s providences, God himself is hidden in the bosom of every event. He is there, although he is not always seen. He is there to watch and control, if he is not there to originate. So that we can truly say, that no event in his providence happens, without bringing God with it, and without laying his hand upon us. The man of faith, therefore, knows, (and he cannot know it without bringing it home to his own case,) that he, who is impatient with events, is impatient with God; he who frets at events frets at God; he, who is not acquiescent in events, is at war with God. In such a position he cannot, he dare not place himself.

— from The Life of Faith, Part 2, Chapter 13.

Oh Loved! But Not Enough...

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

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Oh loved! but not enough...

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Oh loved! but not enough — though dearer far
Than self and its most loved enjoyments are;
None duly loves thee, but who, nobly free
From sensual objects, finds his all in thee.
 
Glory of God! thou stranger here below,
Whom man nor knows, nor feels a wish to know;
Our faith and reason are both shocked to find
Man in the post of honour—Thee behind.

An Affectionate Submission to God

The subjection or submission of the will, for which we contend, is an affectionate submission, a submission which has some elements of the heart in it, a submission of love. We do not mean to say, that the submission of the will is, psychologically or mentally, the same thing, with love; but that it is a state of mind which implies love. And furthermore, the existence of love, as a necessary attendant upon it, gives to it one of its marked peculiarities, and a great share of its exceeding value. And it is this submission, therefore, the submission of the will in love, which God desires, and which he demands. But it is well understood, that the love of God, implies faith in God. To love him without having faith in his character as a good and holy being would be an impossibility. And, accordingly, looking at the subject in this point of view, we may confidently say the will is never truly subjected to God, is never subjected in that sense which alone God can accept, without faith.

The Divine Life

Oh, sacred union with the Perfect Mind!

Transcendent bliss, which Thou alone canst give!

How blest are they, this pearl of price who find,

And dead to earth have learnt in Thee to live.

Thus, in thine arms of love, Oh God, I lie,

Lost, and forever lost, to all but Thee.

My happy soul, since it hath learnt to die,

Hath found new life in thine Infinity.

Oh, go and learn this lesson of the Cross;

And tread the way which saints and prophets trod,

Who, counting life, and self, and all things loss,

Have found in inward death the life of God.

— Religious Maxims (1846).

Avoid Inordinate Partialities

We may love wrongly also, when we knowingly place our love upon wrong objects; or perhaps we should rather say in this case, upon wrong persons. And accordingly it is a part of Christian duty to avoid wrongly placed and inordinate partialities; those particular attachments to certain persons, which generally exist without adequate reason, and which are apt to be attended with corresponding dislikes to other persons. We do not mean to say, that we are bound to bestow an equal confidence and an equal affection upon all persons alike; but true Christianity requires, that, where we make a difference, we should do it for reasons and on grounds, which God can approve. It ought to be more generally remembered than it is, that we have no more right to place our affections on objects or persons, irrespective of God’s will, than we have to regulate and control our outward actions in disregard of his will. And it is implied in regarding his will in this case as well as in others, that we must have a heart humbly acquiescent in his providences, and must look to him in the exercise of faith, in order that we may be guided right. It is proper, therefore, to say to all, who desire to do what God would have them do, choose your friends in the Lord. Or rather look to the Lord, to choose them for you. And then you will be likely, not only to choose them right, but to keep them long. And what otherwise would fail to be the case, it will be a friendship hallowed by the divine blessing.

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

The Love of God as Example

It is obvious, that love can never exist in any higher degree than in the Divine Mind; but it is certain that it never exists there in such a degree as to perplex, even to the smallest extent, the action of God’s percipient or intellectual nature. God loves deeply and perfectly, for the very reason that he perceives clearly and perfectly. To love an object, without a clear perception of the nature of the object and of its claims to love, would involve the hazard of loving imperfectly or wrongly; a risk which can never, by any possibility, exist on the part of a perfect and holy being. Now it must be obvious, that love, in those who bear the divine image, will sustain the same relation to other acts and affections of the mind, as it does in God. To be born in the divine image always implies this, and implies it in the real and strict sense. If we love like God, our love will operate by the same law, which regulates God’s love; that is to say, we shall love both in such a manner and such degree as to leave the intellect unembarrassed and clear in the perception and estimate of the character of the object and of its claims to our love. When, therefore, in the exercise of our benevolent affections, the actual affection exists in such a degree as to perplex the perceptive and intellectual action, and to render our appreciation of the merits or demerits of the object confused and doubtful, we may be certain that we are wrong, that we are jostled out of the true centre, and that we have not God with us.

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

To Love Wrongly

In the exercise of those benevolent affections, which our heavenly Father has implanted within us, we love wrongly, when we place our love on wrong objects. We love wrongly also, when we love in an inordinate degree. The love, which is inordinate in degree, arises chiefly from the fact of our regarding the objects of it, such as parents, children, and other near relatives and friends, out of their due relation to God. Faith in God, especially assured or perfect faith, reestablishes the relation; and requires us to love them in God’s will, and according to God’s law; with an affection, which is neither wrong by its weakness nor wrong by its inordinate strength. As God, in the perceptions and estimate of an assured faith, is the sum of all beings, inasmuch as all are from him and in him; so we are naturally and rightly required to love him with the sum, the wholeness or entireness, if we may so speak, of all our powers. And so long as we love God in this manner, God will help us to love all beings subordinate to him, at the right time and in the right degree. But we ought not to forget, that it is faith, which places God in the right relative position; and it is faith, which opens the strong fountain of love such as his infinite nature claims; and it is faith, therefore, indirectly at least, which distributes this fountain to all subordinate beings from God downward to the lowest insect.

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

Inordinate Love

I recollect to have noticed a remark, made in connection with the religious experience of Francis de Sales, which is worthy of serious consideration. It is found in one of the religious works of Liguori, entitled the Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ, as follows. 

He was obliged to struggle hard to overcome his two predominant passions, anger and love. To overcome the former, he labored for twelve successive years, and to check the consequences of the latter, he changed the object of his affections, by transferring them from creatures to God.

In order to possess a mind continually and entirely right with God, which seems to have been the great object of his efforts, we are informed, that he was obliged to struggle hard, not merely to regulate and overcome his anger, but to overcome his love; a statement, which implies, and as it seems to us very correctly implies, that there is no small degree of danger in the exercise even of this benevolent and ennobling affection. We all know, that there is danger of being inordinately angry; but it does not so often occur to us, (which nevertheless is the fact,) that there is danger, if not equally great yet equally real, of being inordinately and wrongly affectionate. Against this danger, therefore, supposing it to exist, as it undoubtedly does exist, we are to guard with the same care, with which we guard against others.

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

Faith is the Foundation of the Love of God

Love, which in being supreme makes God its centre, never exists, and it is not possible that it should ever exist except in connection with and as the consequent of a faith, which has the same centre, and exists in the same degree. 

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.

God Alone is the Proper Center of Human Love

God alone is the proper centre of love. God alone, in consequence of the exalted nature of his perfections, is the object, to which our highest affections can properly attach themselves. If God is not loved supremely, something else is, because the nature of love is such as to require some highest object. And if God is the centre, (an expression, which implies, that our love is essentially, if not absolutely proportioned to its object,) then he is so in such a degree and manner, that all other beings are regarded and loved in their relation to him. Being not only the highest or supreme object, but being so beyond any and all comparison with other objects, he is properly the centre of centres. Consequently, receiving all our springs of action from him, as the great object of our affections, we shall regard objects, so far as we are capable of understanding their nature, just as he regards them; we shall love what he loves; hate what he hates; rejoice in what he rejoices in.

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.

 

In What Does Human Love Center?

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." —  Matthew 6:2.

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.

Guard Against the Habits of Unbelief

Those, who are in assurance of faith, or who are aiming at and approximating that state, should guard against the influence of former habits of unbelief. The fact, that they have given themselves wholly to God, and that he has promised to accept them, and that he does now accept them, while it furnishes ample basis of the assured belief of their acceptance with God, is not inconsistent with strong temptations to unbelief. Against the influence of these temptations they would do well carefully to guard. They should resist them, not only by prayers to God, but by fixed resolutions, by strong purposes; remembering that the doubts, which are thus suggested, and which they are thus called upon to resist, do not spring from real evidence adverse to their acceptance with God, but chiefly from the influence of a species of infirmity and vacillation of mind resulting from former habits of unbelief.

Love and Justice

They tell us, we must first do right,
And not leave JUSTICE out of sight.
We answer, look below, above;
and what is justice but to LOVE?

God's law is full of righteousness
All truth, all justice; nothing less;
So just, it fills the world with awe;
And yet 'tis "Love fulfills the law."

We LOVE,  because we would be just;
We LOVE, because in God we trust;
We LOVE, because we would fulfill
His holy law, his holy will.

And he, who walks not in the light,
Of Love, leaves justice out of sight:
Look where thou wilt, below, above,
And what is Justice but to LOVE?

— Christ in the Soul (1872) LXXXI.

Domestic Sorrows

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

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Reflections on her conversion.

 

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The sorrow, therefore, which pained her life before her conversion, remained afterward. It was a wound of the heart, deep and terrible, but which cannot well be appreciated or expressed. To a woman who possesses those confiding and affectionate inclinations which characterize and adorn the sex, there is no compensation, there can be no compensation, for an absence of love, — least of all, in that sacred and ennobling relation, in which she gives up her heart, in the fond expectation of a heart's return. It is true, that it was a marriage, in the first instance, without much acquaintance; but still it was not without some degree of confidence, and still less without hope. But it ought to be said that Madame Guyon always refers to this painful subject with dignity and candor, — not condemning others with severity; and willing to take a full share of blame to herself. These trials would never have been known from her pen, had they not been written at the express and positive command of her Spiritual Director, whom she regarded it a religious duty to obey. At the time of her writing she had no expectation that her statements would be made public. We do not think it necessary to repeat every thing that is said on this subject in her Life; it is perhaps best, that it should pass away and be forgotten. Only one or two statements more will be given.

The waiting-maid, who had gained so much influence over her husband,

...became, every day more haughty. It seemed as if Satan were in her, to incite her to torment me. And what enraged her most of all was, that her vexatious treatment, her fretfulness, and her impertinent complaints and rebukes, had ceased to trouble me as they once did. Inwardly supported, I remained silent. It was then that she thought, that if she could hinder me from going to partake of the holy Sacrament, she would give me the greatest of all vexations. She was not mistaken, O divine Spouse of holy souls! since the only satisfaction of my life was to receive and honor Thee. The church at which I worshiped, was called the Magdalen Church. I loved to visit it. I had done something to ornament it, and to furnish it with the silver plates and chalices of the Communion service. It was there, when things were in such a situation at my house as to allow me to do it, that I retired and spent hours in prayer. It was there, with a heart filled with love, that I  partook of the holy Sacrament. This girl, who knew where my affections were and how to wound them, took it into her head to watch me daily. Sometimes I evaded her, and had my seasons of retirement .and prayer. Whenever it was otherwise, and she discovered my going thither, she immediately ran to tell my mother-in-law and my husband.

One of their alleged grounds of complaint was the length of time which I spent in religious services. Accordingly, when the maid servant informed them, that I had gone to the church, it was enough to excite their angry feelings. Whenever this took place, I had no rest from their reproofs and invectives that day. If I said anything in my own justification, it was enough to make them speak against me as guilty and sacrilegious, and to cry out against all devotion. If I remained silent and made no answer at all, the result was merely to heighten their indignation, and to make them say the most unpleasant things they could devise. If I were out of health, which was not unfrequently the case, they took occasion to come and quarrel with me at my bedside, saying that my prayers and my sacramental communions were the occasions of my sickness. As if there were nothing else which could make me ill, but my devotions to Thee, O my Lord!

The efforts of the step-mother were not limited to attempts to dissociate the affections of her husband; she endeavored also to alienate from her the respect and affections of her eldest son. And she too well succeeded; although there is reason to think that he came to better dispositions in after life. There was something in this, so deep and sacred is a mother's love, which seems to have affected the feelings of Madame Guyon more keenly than anything else in her domestic afflictions.

The heaviest cross, which I was called to bear, was the loss of my eldest son's affections and his open revolt against me. He exhibited so great disregard and contempt of me, that I could not see him without causing me severe grief.

She says, that she conversed with one of her pious friends in relation to this strange and heavy trial, whose advice was, that since she could not remedy it, she must suffer it patiently, and leave every thing to God.

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