Disinterested Love is the Only Proper Homage to God

The character of God is so pure, so exalted, that the claims of right and justice cannot be satisfied with any homage which it may receive, short of pure, disinterested love. God contains in himself the sum of all conceivable excellence. If there is any being who is to be loved for himself, because he contains in himself every thing that is lovely, it is God. If human beings reject with an instinctive contempt, any love which is found to be based upon selfish considerations, how can God, who has so much higher claims, receive it? Upon this point all language fails. The tongues of angels cannot describe the divine excellence. It is because God is what He is, and will continue to be what he has been, that He is the true and only proper object of the heart' s highest homage. The divine character stands forth, in the view of the universe, as the natural, the appropriate, and ever sufficient object of pure love.

But the question may be asked here with some degree of force, Is not God's benevolence towards ourselves to be taken into view, and to have some effect upon our feelings? Undoubtedly it is. We shall love God, if we fulfill the divine requisition in its entire extent, as he is, and not otherwise than he is. And this implies, that we are to take into view every part of his character and of his acts. It is true, it is impossible to love him with that kind of love which is called pure love, for the simple and exclusive reason, that he has been good to us. Pure love, which does not confine itself to any personal or interested view of things, necessarily requires a wider basis of movement than this. But we love him with entire purity of love, because, while He has been good to us, He has sustained, in every other respect, the perfection of his character and acts. In other words, there has been a diffusion of truth, purity, and righteousness over his whole character and administration; including what he has done for ourselves as well as his acts in other respects. And it is his character and acts, as thus presented in their entireness, and not in partial glimpses, which command the homage of pure love.

— adapted from The Interior or Hidden Life (1844) Part1, Chapter 12.

Finding an Adequate Center of Love

The nature of the human mind is such, being limited and dependent, that it evidently requires an adequate centre of love, on which it can rest. No being, that is weak and dependent, and is conscious, as man is, of this weakness and dependence, can find a safe and satisfactory centre in itself. Accordingly the man, whose love reverts wholly or chiefly to himself, is always found to be more or less anxious and unhappy. And if our love fixes upon any being out of ourselves, but short of God and to the exclusion of God, it soon finds a weakness there, and becomes uneasy, and has a sort of instinctive consciousness, that the true centre is not yet found. Hence if our souls would find rest, they can find it only by an alienation of self and of all subordinate creatures, and by union with God. And what has now been said is not only obvious in itself, but it is believed, it will be found to be confirmed by the testimony of those, who have made the greatest advancement in holiness. In the transition they have passed through from the natural life to the true life of God in the soul, they have attached themselves, as it was perhaps natural they should do, to various inferior objects, to outward forms, to ministers, to church organization and ceremonies, to christian friends; and have endeavored for a time to find a rest of soul in these inferior things. But it has always eluded them. They have felt the foundation shake. They have realized an inward disquietude and weakness, till, leaving every thing else, however desirable in many respects and for many purposes it might be, they have reached the strong rock of salvation in God alone.

— The Interior of Hidden Life (1844), Part 1, Chapter 12.

The Nature of Christian Perfection

What, then, ... is the nature of Christian perfection, or of that holiness, which, as fallen and as physically and intellectually imperfect creatures, we are imperatively required and expected to exercise; and to exercise not merely in the “article of death,” but at the present moment and during every succeeding moment of our lives? It is on a question of this nature, if on any one which can possibly be proposed to the human understanding, that we must go to the Bible; and must humbly receive, irrespective of human suggestions and human opinions, the answer which the word of God gives. Happily for us, and happily for the world, this question is answered by the Savior himself; and in such a way as to leave the subject clear and satisfactory to humble and candid minds. When the Savior was asked, Which is the great commandment in the Law, he answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” Matthew 22:37–39. And it is in accordance with the truth, involved in this remarkable passage, that the apostle asserts, Romans 13:10, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.”

He, therefore, who loves God with his whole heart and his neighbor as himself, although his state may in some incidental respects be different from that of Adam, and especially from that of the angels in heaven, and although he may be the subject of involuntary imperfections and infirmities, which, in consequence of his relation to Adam, require confession and atonement, is, nevertheless, in the gospel sense of the terms, a holy or sanctified person. He has that love, which is the “fulfilling of the law.” He bears the image of Christ. It is true, he may not have that physical or intellectual perfection which the Savior had; but he bears his moral image. And of such an one can it be said in the delightful words of the Saviour, John 14:23: “If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

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