The Book of Nature Translated and Epitomized, Chapter 9
CHAP. VIII.
The nature, conditions, force, properties and fruit of love.
LOve is the only treasure man has, properly, to dispose of. If it be rightly bestow'd, 'tis good, and the man so too; if wrongly, evil. When 'tis given, the thing chiefly beloved obteins dominion over it, and so over the whole man. The will is the ruling power in man, commands all the rest of him. To whom or whatsoever a man's whole love is given, his whole will is given; and consequently, the whole man. As the chief love is, so is the man, good or evil. Nothing better then a right love, nothing worse then a wrong. Love, being all we can properly call our own, when we give that, we give all we have. If then we mis bestow and lose that, we lose all. We are undone. We lose it, when we give it where it is not due; whereby we dishonour and provoke him, to whom alone it is due. Good love is the root of all other vertues; evil love, the root of all other vices. He that has a right knowledg of love, know's the whole good of man. He that know's not the nature of love, is ignorant of the whole good of man. The proper nature and inseperable condition of love, is, that thereby the lover is tranformed into and united with the thing loved. The lover and chiefly beloved are of two things, made one, by love. The thang brought upon the lover by the beloved, through the transforming, assimilating property of love, is not forc'd, violent, painful, or laborious; but free, voluntary, pleasant and delightfull. The will, and so the whole man is denominated from the thing chiefly loved. If earthly things be chiefly loved, he is an earthly man; has an earthly will. If god be his chief beloved, he is a heavenly man, has a heavenly will. By love a man is capable of being transformed and brought into union with another thing, better then himself, as god; or equal to himself, as man; or inferiour to himself, as earth, gold, beasts, houses, lands, &c. The first union advances him, the last degrades him. Through love, as wel or ill plac'd, is man capable of ascending and being exalted above himself; or of being vilified, degraded, corrupted, and so of descending below his own natural dignity in the universe. He ascend's or descend's, is advanced or depressed, enobled or abased, accordingly as the thing chiefly loved by him, is more or lesse worthy then himself. If he place his chief love on what's equal to him, he ascend's not, nor advantages himself, at all; but indeed, does deprave and abase himself, because he sin's, in giving away god's peculiar due, to any creature whatsoever. God alone, who is infinitly above us, and infinitly deserv's our chief love, does undispensably require it; and by having it, will unspeakably advance us. Those that so honour him, he will honour. 1 Sam. 2. 30.
The chiefly beloved, is to the will of man, by love, as the bridegroom to the bride. There's a kind of matrimonial union, contracted by love, between the will and its chiefly beloved; the thing so loved, becomming the husband; and the will, the wife. And as the woman, ought to have but one husband, the will can have but one chiefly beloved.
If a poor mean man should have eight daughters, and one of them should marry a man of like meaness with herself; the second, a gentleman; the third, an esquire; the fourth, a knight; the fift, and earl; the sixt, a duke; the seventh, a king; the eighth, an emperour; they would ascend one over the head of another, according to the several dignities of their husbands. But though we may find many husbands, or chiefly beloveds (of different degrees) amongst creatures, for the will of man; there is, indeed, none but God himself, the universal emperour and king of kings, who can truly dignify, ennoble, and advāce our will, by its being brought into a state of unchangable marriage-union with his. To a greater dignity it cannot ascend, then is so atteinable. But the wills of men, which are equal by nature, contract some gradual difference in dignity, within the compass of creature-beloveds. They are called earthly, brutish, or humane, accordingly as their husband or chief-beloved is. But there is no creature-beloved, nothing below God, which finally rested in, and fixed on, will not leave the will and whole person exposed to eternal confusion. We can never attein any true hapines, but by the marriage-union of our will with God's. Nothing is worthy to be our chief beloved, that cannot truly meliorate and ennoble us. God only can do thi…, who is infinitly lovely, and can render all that love him, everlastingly and unspeakably blessed. He that finally fail's, as to the performance of this highest duty, by placing his chief love on any thing below god, will sink down into the u…most ex…rdainity of vileness, misery, and confusion, for ever.
A woman joyn'd to a husband that's good, rich, valiant, powerful, and wife; has proportionably, a temporary peace, security, rest, comfort, and joy: if joyn'd to an ill-natur'd, perverse, miserable, poor, conceited, foolish man, she is like to know sorrow, misery, and tribulation by himelf the will of man be joyned to a husband that's infinitly good, rich, powerful, and wise, it hath serenity, peace, rest, joy, unspeakable and glosious. Nothing can hurt that beloved, or separate us from his love; neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers; nor things present, nor things to come; nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature. Rom. 8. 38, 39. But if our will be joyned to some poor, weak, slight, feeble, indigent, variable, insufficient thing, as its chiefly beloved; it is in continual tribulation; or, at best, can have no true and wel-grounded security, rest, peace, or comfort, at all.
This doctrine about the right transmutation of mā's will (by resignation to, and union with god's, to his unspeakable advantage) is signified to him by such natural and advantageous transmutations as are observable in inferiour creatures. Things of the lowest degree, are changed or tranform'd into things of the second: things of the second, into those of the third; and all, into man, the only creature in the fourth. The elements are transform'd, as they run-together into the composition of trees and plants. These, with their fruits, roots, &c. are transform'd into things of the third degree, whereby they receive a more noble being, in the life of sense. And all are farther advanc'd, by way of transformation, into the life of man, in whom they do attein a yet more noble and excellent kind of being. And man, by rightly placing his love upon God, so as to live in his will, advances all, in his own person and nature, into unchāgable union with God. By this last transformation, do all things, in man, attein the most excellent kind of being that is possible for them to have. If man be not induced freely to yield up himself to the will of God, by this last and utmost transformation, he thwart's the naturall order and course of the whole universe, to his own destruction. Inferiour things do most orderly attein their advance, by quitting their own form's, and ascending into personal union with rational nature, in him. If he refuse to quit the naturall activity, life, and freedom of his rationall powers, to live in the transcendently more excellent freedom and power of the mind and will of God, as partaker of the divine nature, he, for whom all the rest were made, is the only disorderly creature, to his own eternal damage and confusion.