Love and Righteousness

We think it of some consequence to mention here one rule, which may aid us in determining, whether our affections, those of the most benevolent kind as well as others, are properly regulated or not. When our affections to any persons, however near and dear they may be to us, are found to be so strong at any given time or on any occasion as to disturb the clearness and precision of the intellectual action, we may be assured, that such love has become inordinate, and has some vicious element in it. A number of considerations go to show this. 

We may argue, in confirmation of what has been said, from the nature and operations of that love, which we are required to exercise towards God. It is the tendency of the true love of God, which is the same as the pure love of God, always to accommodate itself to what is right. Rectitude is the ultimate and unchangeable law of its operation. At this, by a tendency inherent in its own nature, it always aims, viz., to love rightly, to love just as it ought to love, not only the right object, but in the right degree. The right and wrong of things, the ought and the ought not, is made known to us, in connection with, and by means of the action of an enlightened moral sense. The moral sense, by a well known law of our mental constitution, demands, as the condition of its own correct action, a clear intellectual perception. The action of the intellect must be undisturbed. The pure love of God, that is to say, the love which we exercise towards God, when it is unmixed with any merely human or selfish element, never causes disturbance in the intellectual action; but, on the contrary, is highly favorable to the opposite state. Where such pure affection exists, therefore, the right or rectitude of things may be expected to be clearly perceived, as well as strongly loved. But if the love of God, (that unmixed and pure love which alone can be acceptable to him,) does not disturb the perceptive or intellectual action, but on the contrary if its very nature requires a clear and calm perception of things, then it is very obvious, that the love of our earthly friends, the love of our neighbor, cannot safely be exercised on other principles, and cannot require less.

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

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.

God Had Marked Her for God's Own

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

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It  is easy to see, in the light of these various dispensations, that God, who builds his bow of promise in the cloud, had marked her for his own. He had followed her long, and warned her often; but He did not give up the pursuit. He stopped her pathway to the world; but He left it open to heaven. He drew around her the cords of His providence closely, that she might be separated, in heart and in life, from those unsatisfying objects, which, in her early days, presented to her so many attractions. She herself, as we have already had occasion to notice, was subsequently led to view everything in this manner. It was God who was present in all these events; it was God who, through an instrumentality of his own selection, was laying his hand painfully but effectually upon the idols which she had inwardly cherished, sometimes trying her by mercies, where mercy might be supposed to affect her heart, but still more frequently and effectually by the sterner discipline of outward disappointment and of inward anguish.

It was not in vain, that He who understands the nature of the human heart, and the difficulty of subjecting it, thus adjusted every thing in great wisdom, as well as in real kindness. The trials which He had sent, were among those which work out "the peaceable fruits of righteousness." It was the result of these various providences, afflicting as they generally were, that she was led to the determination, (a determination which from this time never was abandoned,) once more to seek God. She had sought him before, but she had not found him. But, in giving up the search and in turning from God to the world, she had found that which gave no satisfaction. Bitterly had she learned, that, if there is not rest in God, there is rest nowhere. Again, therefore, she formed the religious resolve, — a resolve which God enabled her not only to form, but to keep. Her feelings at this time seem to be well expressed in a well known religious hymn, which is designed to describe the state of a sinner, who has seen the fallacy and the unsatisfying nature of all situations and of all hopes out of Christ.

"Perhaps he will admit my plea;

Perhaps will hear my prayer;

But if I perish, I will pray,

And perish only there.

"I can but perish if I go;

I am resolved to try;

For if I stay away, I know

I must forever die."

— edited from The Life of Madam Guyon Volume 1, Chapter 6.

Support in Affliction

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore will not we fear,  though  the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea." Ps. xlvi. 1, 2.

When, Father, thou dost send the chastening rod,
Oh, what am I, that I should dare reply,
Thy love arraign, thy righteousness deny,
And set the creature in array with God?
Far be it from my soul to question Thee,
For I am nought. Be this my only prayer,
That I may have due strength the rod to bear,
And bless the hand that doth environ me.
So that, what time the outward man doth perish,
Smitten with many stripes, inflicted deep,
The inward man renewed hopes may cherish,
And high above the storms in glory sweep.
We sink in the deep waters; but thy hand
Shall hold us in the waves, and bring us safe to land.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XV.

Casting Off the Broken Shield of Earth

It is, perhaps, a common idea, that humility implies weakness; and that lowliness of spirit is the same thing with spiritual imbecility. But this certainly is not a correct view. Christian humility, it is true, has nothing in itself; but it has much in God. In a word, it is the renunciation of our own wisdom, that we may receive wisdom from above; the negation and banishment of our own strength, that we may possess divine strength; the rejection of our own righteousness, that we may receive the righteousness of Christ. How, then, can it possibly be weak and imbecile, while it merely casts off the broken shield of earth, that it may put on the bright panoply of heaven?

— Religious Maxims (1846) XLII.