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.

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 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.

The Sanctifying Influences of Faith

The outline of the scriptural doctrine on the subject of faith seems to be; FIRST, that men are justified by faith, and second, that, being justified, they live by faith. And accordingly it is said in one place, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;” and in another, “the just shall live by faith.” So much has been said on the subject of justification by faith, it having been almost from the commencement of the christian era, a leading subject of discussion, that it has not seemed to us necessary to occupy much time with it. And accordingly it will be noticed, that ... the attention of the reader is designed to be directed, not so much to the justifying, as to the sanctifying influences of faith. 

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. Without faith, (not merely that faith which justifies but that which sanctifies,) the Appetites, which are not too low and degraded to become purified and holy, always exhibit an action, which is disorderly, uncontrolled, and evil. Without faith, the Propensive principles, which may be regarded higher in their position and influence than the Appetites, although lower than the affections, run into various forms and degrees of unauthorized irregularity and excess. And we may add, without going into particulars, that without faith in God, and without faith in Christ as the mediator between God and man, man’s whole moral nature will inevitably show itself, as it always has shown itself, rebellious, perverse, and evil.

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

The Need to Believe That Holiness is Attainable

It becomes a very important inquiry, whether holiness, in any strict and proper sense of that term, is something attainable in the present life. Among other reasons it is important to be able to answer properly this question, because, unless we believe in the attainableness of holiness, we shall not be likely, such are the laws of the human mind, to attain it. Perhaps we may say, that without this belief it will be impossible to attain it. And without holiness, without a heart thoroughly purified from the stains of voluntary transgression, we may be assured that we shall not enter into the secrets of the Most High; the Hidden Life will be hidden to us: and there will be many things in the Christian’s privileges, more precious than rubies, which will never, in the present state of being, come within the range of our experience.

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

Holiness in This Life

The Gospel evidently contemplates, in the case of every individual, a progress from the incipient condition of mere forgiveness and acceptance, immensely important as it is, to the higher state of interior renovation and sanctification throughout. The Apostle appears to have reference to this onward progress of the soul in the expressions he employs in the commencement of the sixth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. “Therefore, leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith towards God; of the doctrine of baptism and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.” What direction, then, shall we take? What course shall we pursue, that we may rise above the merely initiatory principles and feelings of the gospel life, and enjoy the delightful privilege of walking in close and uninterrupted communion with God? In answer to this general inquiry we remark, that the first and indispensable prerequisite is HOLINESS OF HEART. It is generally supposed, that God may exhibit pity and pardon to those in whom there still exist some relics and stains of inward corruption; in other words, that those, may be forgiven or pardoned, who are not entirely sanctified. But those, who would walk acceptably with their Maker, who would receive from him his secret communications and enjoy the hidden embraces of his love, must see to it, first of all, that they are pure in heart; that they have a present, as well as a prospective salvation; in other words, that they are holy.

We are aware, that, in the view of some, this condition of realizing the full life of God in the soul is an impracticable one. They regard holiness in this life, as a thing unattainable; or, what seems to me to be practically the same view, as a thing never attained. The persons, to whom we now allude, seem to look upon holiness as a sort of intangible abstraction, as something placed high and remotely in the distance, as designed to be realized by angels and by the just made perfect in heaven, but situated far beyond mere human acquisition. Hence it is, that followed and scourged by an inward condemnation, they remain in the condition of servants, and do not cheerfully and boldly take that of sons. They wander about, oftentimes led captive by Satan, in the low grounds of the gospel life, amid marshes and tangled forests; and do not ascend into the pleasant hills and that emblematical land of Beulah, where are spicy breezes and perpetual sunshine.

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