The Spirit of Love

Part the First

In a Letter to a Friend

by William Law, A.M.

My Dear Friend,

[Love-1-1] You had no occasion to make any apology for the manner of
your letter to me, for though you very well know that I have as utter an
aversion to waste my time and thoughts in matters of theological debate
as in any contentions merely of a worldly nature, as knowing that the
former are generally as much, if not more, hurtful to the heart of man
than the latter; yet as your objections rather tend to stir up the
powers of love than the wrangle of a rational debate, so I consider them
only as motives and occasions of edifying both you and myself with the
truth, the power and divine blessedness of the spirit of love.

[Love-1-2] You say there is nothing in all my writings that has more
affected you than that spirit of love that breathes in them, and that
you wish for nothing so much as to have a living sensibility of the
power, life, and religion of love.  But you have these two objections
often rising in your mind: First, that this doctrine of pure and
universal love may be too refined and imaginary, because you find that
however you like it, yet you cannot attain to it, or overcome all that
in your nature which is contrary to it, do what you can; and so are only
able to be an admirer of that love which you cannot lay hold of.
Secondly, because you find so much said in scripture of a righteousness
and justice, a wrath and vengeance of God that must be atoned and
satisfied, etc., that though you are in love with that description of
the Deity which I have given, as a being that is all love, yet you have
some doubt whether the scripture will allow of it.

[Love-1-3] Thus stand your objections, which will fall into nothing as
soon as you look at them from a right point of view, which will then be,
as soon as you have found the true ground of the nature, power, and
necessity of the blessed spirit of love.

[Love-1-4] Now the spirit of love has this original.  God, as considered
in himself in his holy being, before anything is brought forth by him or
out of him, is only an eternal will to all goodness.  This is the one
eternal immutable God, that from eternity to eternity changeth not, that
can be neither more nor less nor anything else but an eternal will to
all the goodness that is in himself, and can come from him.  The
creation of ever so many worlds or systems of creatures adds nothing to,
nor takes anything from this immutable God.  He always was and always
will be the same immutable will to all goodness.  So that as certainly
as he is the creator, so certainly is he the blesser of every created
thing, and can give nothing but blessing, goodness, and happiness from
himself because he has in himself nothing else to give.  It is much more
possible for the sun to give forth darkness than for God to do, or be,
or give forth anything but blessing and goodness.  Now this is the
ground and original of the spirit of love in the creature; it is and
must be a will to all goodness, and you have not the spirit of love till
you have this will to all goodness at all times and on all occasions.
You may indeed do many works of love and delight in them, especially at
such times as they are not inconvenient to you, or contradictory to your
state or temper or occurrences in life.  But the spirit of love is not
in you till it is the spirit of your life, till you live freely,
willingly, and universally according to it.  For every spirit acts with
freedom and universality according to what it is.  It needs no command
to live its own life, or be what it is, no more than you need bid wrath
be wrathful.  And therefore when love is the spirit of your life, it
will have the freedom and universality of a spirit; it will always live
and work in love, not because of this or that, here or there, but
because the spirit of love can only love, wherever it is or goes or
whatever is done to it.  As the sparks know no motion but that of flying
upwards, whether it be in the darkness of night or in the light of day,
so the spirit of love is always in the same course; it knows no
difference of time, place, or persons, but whether it gives or forgives,
bears or forbears, it is equally doing its own delightful work, equally
blessed from itself.  For the spirit of love, wherever it is, is its own
blessing and happiness because it is the truth and reality of God in the
soul, and therefore is in the same joy of life and is the same good to
itself, everywhere and on every occasion.

[Love-1-5] Oh sir!  Would you know the blessing of all blessings?  It is
this God of love dwelling in your soul and killing every root of
bitterness which is the pain and torment of every earthly, selfish love.
For all wants are satisfied, all disorders of nature are removed, no
life is any longer a burden, every day is a day of peace, everything you
meet becomes a help to you because everything you see or do is all done
in the sweet, gentle element of love.  For as love has no by-ends, wills
nothing but its own increase, so everything is as oil to its flame.  It
must have that which it wills and cannot be disappointed, because
everything naturally helps it to live in its own way and to bring forth
its own work.  The spirit of love does not want to be rewarded, honored,
or esteemed.  Its only desire is to propagate itself and become the
blessing and happiness of everything that wants it.  And therefore it
meets wrath and evil and hatred and opposition with the same one will as
the light meets the darkness, only to overcome it with all its
blessings.  Did you want to avoid the wrath and ill will or to gain the
favor of any persons, you might easily miss of your ends; but if you
have no will but to all goodness, everything you meet, be it what it
will, must be forced to be assistant to you.  For the wrath of an enemy,
the treachery of a friend, and every other evil only helps the spirit of
love to be more triumphant, to live its own life and find all its own
blessings in a higher degree.  Whether therefore you consider perfection
or happiness, it is all included in the spirit of love and must be so
for this reason, because the infinitely perfect and happy God is mere
love, an unchangeable will to all goodness; and therefore every creature
must be corrupt and unhappy, so far as it is led by any other will than
the one will to all goodness.  Thus you see the ground, the nature, and
perfection of the spirit of love.  Let me now in a word or two show you
the necessity of it.  Now the necessity is absolute and unchangeable.
No creature can be a child of God but because the goodness of God is in
it; nor can it have any union or communion with the goodness of the
Deity till its life is a spirit of love.  This is the one only band of
union betwixt God and the creature.  All besides this, or that is not
this, call it by what name you will, is only so much error, fiction,
impurity, and corruption got into the creature, and must of all
necessity be entirely separated from it before it can have that purity
and holiness which alone can see God or find the divine life.  For as
God is an immutable will to all goodness, so the divine will can unite
or work with no creaturely will but that which willeth with him only
that which is good.  Here the necessity is absolute; nothing will do
instead of this will; all contrivances of holiness, all forms of
religious piety, signify nothing without this will to all goodness.  For
as the will to all goodness is the whole nature of God, so it must be
the whole nature of every service or religion that can be acceptable to
him.  For nothing serves God or worships and adores him but that which
wills and worketh with him.  For God can delight in nothing but his own
will and his own Spirit, because all goodness is included in it and can
be nowhere else.  And therefore everything that followeth an own will or
an own spirit forsaketh the one will to all goodness, and whilst it doth
so hath no capacity for the light and Spirit of God.  The necessity
therefore of the spirit of love is what God himself cannot dispense with
in the creature, no more than he can deny himself or act contrary to his
own holy being.  But as it was his will to all goodness that brought
forth angels and the spirits of men, so he can will nothing in their
existence but that they should live and work and manifest that same
spirit of love and goodness which brought them into being.  Everything
therefore but the will and life of goodness is an apostasy in the
creature and is rebellion against the whole nature of God.

[Love-1-6] There is no peace, nor ever can be for the soul of man but in
the purity and perfection of its first created nature; nor can it have
its purity and perfection in any other way than in and by the spirit of
love.  For as love is the God that created all things, so love is the
purity, the perfection, and blessing of all created things; and nothing
can live in God but as it lives in love.  Look at every vice, pain, and
disorder in human nature; it is in itself nothing else but the spirit of
the creature turned from the universality of love to some self-seeking
or own will in created things.  So that love alone is, and only can be,
the cure of every evil, and he that lives in the purity of love is risen
out of the power of evil into the freedom of the one spirit in heaven.
The schools have given us very accurate definitions of every vice,
whether it be covetousness, pride, wrath, envy, etc., and shown us how
to conceive them as notionally distinguished from one another.  But the
Christian has a much shorter way of knowing their nature and power and
what they all are and do in and to himself.  For call them by what names
you will, or distinguish them with ever so much exactness, they are all,
separately and jointly, just that same one thing, and all do that same
one work as the scribes, the pharisees, hypocrites, and rabble of the
Jews who crucified Christ were all but one and the same thing and all
did one and the same work, however different they were in outward names.
If you would therefore have a true sense of the nature and power of
pride, wrath, covetousness, envy, etc., they are in their whole nature
nothing else but the murderers and crucifiers of the true Christ of God;
not as the high priests did many hundred years ago, nailing his outward
humanity to an outward cross, but crucifying afresh the Son of God, the
holy Immanuel, who is the Christ that every man crucifies as often as he
gives way to wrath, pride, envy, or covetousness, etc.  For every temper
or passion that is contrary to the new birth of Christ and keeps the
holy Immanuel from coming to life in the soul is, in the strictest sense
of the words, a murderer and killer of the Lord of life.  And where
pride and envy and hatred, etc., are suffered to live, there the same
thing is done as when Christ was killed and Barabbas was saved alive.
The Christ of God was not then first crucified when the Jews brought him
to the cross but Adam and Eve were his first real murderers; for the
death which happened to them in the day that they did eat of the earthly
tree was the death of Christ of God or the divine life in their souls.
For Christ had never come into the world as a second Adam to redeem it
had he not been originally the life and perfection and glory of the
first Adam.  And he is our atonement and reconciliation with God,
because by and through him brought to life in us, we are set again in
that first state of holiness, and have Christ again in us as our first
father had at his creation.  For had not Christ been in our first father
as a birth of life in him, Adam had been created a mere child of wrath,
in the same impurity of nature, in the same enmity with God, and in the
same want of an atoning Savior as we are at this day.  For God can have
no delight or union with any creature but because his well-beloved Son,
the express image of his person, is found in it.  This is as true of all
unfallen as of all fallen creatures; the one are redeemed and the other
want no redemption, only through the life of Christ dwelling in them.
For as the Word, or Son of God, is the creator of all things, and by him
everything is made that was made, so everything that is good and holy in
unfallen angels is as much through his living and dwelling in them as
everything that is good and holy in redeemed man is through him.  And he
is just as much the preserver, the strength, and glory, and life of all
the thrones and principalities of heaven as he is the righteousness, the
peace, and redemption of fallen man.

[Love-1-7] This Christ of God hath many names in scripture, but they all
mean only this, that he is, and alone can be, the light and life and
holiness of every creature that is holy, whether in heaven or on earth.
Wherever Christ is not, there is the wrath of nature or nature left to
itself and its own tormenting strength of life, to feel nothing in
itself but the vain, restless contrariety of its own working properties.
This is the one only origin of hell, and every kind of curse and misery
in the creature.  It is nature without the Christ of God or the spirit
of love ruling over it.  And here you may observe that wrath has in
itself the nature of hell, and that it can have no beginning or power in
any creature but so far as it has lost the Christ of God.  And when
Christ is everywhere, wrath and hatred will be nowhere.  Whenever
therefore you willingly indulge wrath or let your mind work in hatred,
you not only work without Christ, but you resist him and withstand his
redeeming power over you.  You do in reality what those Jews did when
they said, "We will not have this man to reign over us."  For Christ
never was, nor can be, in any creature but purely as a spirit of love.

[Love-1-8] In all the universe of nature nothing but heaven and heavenly
creatures ever had, or could have been known, had every created will
continued in that state in which it came forth out of and from God.  For
God can will nothing in the life of the creature but a creaturely
manifestation of his own goodness, happiness and perfection.  And
therefore, where this is wanted, the fact is certain that the creature
hath changed and lost its first state that it had from God.  Everything
therefore which is the vanity, the wrath, the torment and evil of man or
any intelligent creature is solely the effect of his will turned from
God and can come from nothing else.  Misery and wickedness can have no
other ground or root, for whatever wills and works with God must of all
necessity partake of the happiness and perfection of God.

[Love-1-9] This therefore is a certain truth, that hell and death, curse
and misery, can never cease or be removed from the creation till the
will of the creature is again as it came from God and is only a spirit
of love that willeth nothing but goodness.  All the whole fallen
creation, stand it never so long, must groan and travail in pain; this
must be its purgatory till every contrariety to the divine will is
entirely taken from every creature.

[Love-1-10] Which is only saying that all the powers and properties of
nature are a misery to themselves, can only work in disquiet and wrath
till the birth of the Son of God brings them under the dominion and
power of the spirit of love.

[Love-1-11] Thus sir, you have seen the original, immutable ground and
necessity of the spirit of love.  It is no imaginary refinement or
speculative curiosity, but is of the highest reality and most absolute
necessity.  It stands in the immutability and perfection of God, and not
only every intelligent creature, be it what and where it will, but every
inanimate thing must work in vanity and disquiet till it has its state
in and works under the spirit of love.  For as love brought forth all
things, and all things were what they were and had their place and state
under the working power of love, so everything that has lost its first-
created state must be in restless strife and disquiet till it finds it
again.  There is no sort of strife, wrath, or storm in outward nature,
no fermentation, vegetation, or corruption in any elementary things but
what is a full proof and real effect of this truth, viz., that nature
can have no rest but must be in the strife of fermentation, vegetation,
and corruption, constantly doing and undoing, building and destroying,
till the spirit of love has rectified all outward nature and brought it
back again into that glassy sea of unity and purity in which St.  John
beheld the throne of God in the midst of it.  For this glassy sea, which
the beloved apostle was blessed with the sight of, is the transparent,
heavenly element in which all the properties and powers of nature move
and work in the unity and purity of the one will of God, only known as
so many endless forms of triumphing light and love.  For the strife of
properties, of thick against thin, hard against soft, hot against cold,
etc., had no existence till angels fell, that is till they turned from
God to work with nature.  This is the original of all the strife,
division, and materiality in the fallen world.

[Love-1-12] No fluid in this world ferments but because there is some
thickness and contrariety in it which it would not have.  And it
ferments only for this reason, to have a unity and clearness in itself
which its nature wants to have.  Now when you see this in any fluid, you
see the work of all fallen nature and the same that everything else is
doing as well as it can in its own way; it is in a restless working and
strife after a unity and purity which it can neither have nor forbear to
seek.  And the reason why all things are doing thus is this, because all
the elements of this world, before they were brought down into their
present state, had their birth and existence in the unity and purity of
the heavenly glassy sea, and therefore must be always in some sort of
strife and tendency after their first state, and doomed to disquiet till
it is found.

[Love-1-13] This is the desire of all fallen nature in this world.  It
cannot be separated from it but every part must work in fermentation,
vegetation, and corruption, till it is restored to its first unity and
purity under the spirit of love.

[Love-1-14] Every son of fallen Adam is under this same necessity of
working and striving after something that he neither is nor hath, and
for the same reason, because the life of man has lost its first unity
and purity and therefore must be in a working strife till all
contrariety and impurity is separated from it and it finds its first
state in God.  All evil as well as good men, all the wisdom and folly of
this life, are equally proof of this.  For the vanity of wicked men in
their various ways, and the labors of good men in faith and hope, etc.,
proceed from the same cause, viz., from a want and desire of having and
being something that they neither are nor have.  The evil seek wrong and
the good seek right, but they both are seekers, and for the same reason,
because their present state has not that which it wants to have.  And
this must be the state of human life and of every creature that has
fallen from its first state or has something in it that it should not
have.  It must do as the polluted fluid does; it must ferment and work,
either right or wrong, to mend its state.  The muddled wine always works
right to the utmost of its power because it works according to nature,
but if it had an intelligent free will it might work as vainly as man
does.  It might continually thicken itself, be always stirring up its
own dregs, just as well as the soul of man seeks happiness in the lusts
of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.  All which
must of the same necessity fall away from the heart of man before it can
find its happiness in God, as the dregs must separate from the wine
before it can have its perfection and clearness.

[Love-1-15] Purification therefore is the one thing necessary, and
nothing will do in the stead of it.  But man is not purified till every
earthly, wrathful, sensual, selfish, partial, self-willing temper is
taken from him.  He is not dying to himself till he is dying to these
tempers, and he is not alive in God till he is dead to them.  For he
wants purification only because he has these tempers, and therefore he
has not the purification which he wants till they are all separated from
him.  It is the purity and perfection of the divine nature that must be
brought again into him, because in that purity and perfection he came
forth from God and could have no less, as he was a child of God, that
was to be blessed by a life in him and from him.  For nothing impure or
imperfect in its will and working can have any union with God.  Nor are
you to think that these words, the purity and perfection of God, are too
high to be used on this occasion, for they only mean that the will of
the creature, as an offspring of the divine will, must will and work
with the will of God, for then it stands and lives truly and really in
the purity and perfection of God, and whatever does not thus is at
enmity with God and cannot have any union of life and happiness with him
and in him.

[Love-1-16] Now nothing wills and works with God but the spirit of love,
because nothing else works in God himself.  The almighty brought forth
all nature for this only end, that boundless love might have its
infinity of height and depth to dwell and work in, and all the striving
and working properties of nature are only to give essence and substance,
life and strength, to the invisible hidden spirit of love, that it may
come forth into outward activity and manifest its blessed powers, that
creatures born in the strength, and out of the powers of nature, might
communicate the spirit of love and goodness, give and receive mutual
delight and joy to and from one another.  All below this state of love
is a fall from the one life of God, and the only life in which the God
of love can dwell.  Partiality, self, mine, thine, etc., are tempers
that can only belong to creatures that have lost the power, presence,
and spirit of the universal good.  They can have no place in heaven, nor
can be anywhere but because heaven is lost.  Think not, therefore, that
the spirit of pure, universal love which is the one purity and
perfection of heaven and all heavenly natures has been or can be carried
too high or its absolute necessity too much asserted.  For it admits no
degrees of higher or lower, and is not in being till it is absolutely
pure and unmixed, no more than a line can be straight till it is
absolutely free from all crookedness.

[Love-1-17] All the design of Christian redemption is to remove
everything that is unheavenly, gross, dark, wrathful, and disordered
from every part of this fallen world.  And when you see earth and
stones, storms and tempests, and every kind of evil, misery, and
wickedness, you see that which Christ came into the world to remove, and
not only to give a new birth to fallen man, but also to deliver all
outward nature from its present vanity and evil and set it again in its
first heavenly state.  Now if you ask how came all things into this evil
and vanity, it is because they have lost the blessed spirit of love
which alone makes the happiness and perfection of every power of nature.
Look at grossness, coldness, hardness, and darkness.  They never could
have had any existence, but because the properties of nature must appear
in this manner when the light of God is no longer dwelling in them.

[Love-1-18] Nature is at first only spiritual.  It has in itself nothing
but the spiritual properties of the desire, which is the very being and
ground of nature.  But when these spiritual properties are not filled
and blessed, and all held in one will by the light and love of God
ruling in them, then something is found in nature which never should
have been found, viz., the properties of nature in a state of visible,
palpable division and contrariety to each other.  And this new state of
the properties of nature is the first beginning and birth and
possibility of all that contrariety that is to be found betwixt hot and
cold, hard and soft, thick and thin, etc., all which could have had no
existence till the properties of nature lost their first unity and
purity under the light and love of God, manifested and working in them.
And this is the one true origin of all the materiality of this earthly
system and of every struggle and contrariety found in material things.
Had the properties of nature been kept by the creature in their first
state, blessed and overcome with the light and love of heaven dwelling
and working in them, no wrath or contrariety could ever have been known
by any creature, and had not wrath and contrariety entered into the
properties of nature, nothing thick or hard or dark, etc., could ever
have been found or known in any place.  Now everything that you see and
know of the things of this world shows you that matter began only in and
from the change of the spiritual properties of nature, and that matter
is changed and altered just as the light and purity of heaven is more or
less in it.  How comes the flint to be in such a state of hard, dark
compaction?  It is because the meekness and fluidity of the light and
air and water of this world have little or no existence in it.  And
therefore, as soon as the fire has unlocked its hard compaction and
opened in it the light and air and water of this world, it becomes
transparent glass and is brought so much nearer to that first glassy sea
in which it once existed.  For the light and air and water of this
world, though all of them in a material state, yet have the most of the
first heavenly nature in them, and as these are more or less in all
material things, so are they nearer or farther from their first heavenly
state.  And as fire is the first deliverer of the flint from its hard
compaction, so the last universal fire must begin the deliverance of
this material system and fit everything to receive that spirit of light
and love which will bring all things back again to their first glassy
sea, in which the Deity dwelleth as in his throne.  And thus, as the
earthly fire turns flint into glass, so earth will become heaven and the
contrariety of four divided elements will become one transparent
brightness of glory as soon as the last fire shall have melted every
grossness into its first undivided fluidity, for the light and love and
majesty of God to be all in all in it.  How easy and natural is it to
suppose all that is earth and stones to be dissolved into water, the
water to be changed into air, the air into ether, and the ether rarefied
into light?  Is there anything here impossible to be supposed?  And how
near a step is the next, to suppose all this changed or exalted into
that glassy sea, which was everywhere before the angels fell?  What now
is become of hard, heavy, dead, divisible, corruptible matter?  Is it
annihilated?  No; and yet nothing of it is left.  All that you know of
it is gone and nothing but its shadowy idea will be known in eternity.
Now as this shows you how matter can lose all its material properties
and go back to its first spiritual state, so it makes it very
intelligible to you how the sin of angels, which was their sinful
working in and with the properties of nature, could bring them out of
their first spirituality into that darkness, grossness, and chaos out of
which God raised this material system.  See now, sir, how unreasonably
you once told me that our doctrine must suppose the eternity of matter,
for throughout the whole you might easily have seen that it neither does
nor can suppose it, but demonstrates the impossibility of it; shows the
true origin of matter, that it is no older than sin; could have no
possibility of beginning to be, but from sin, and therefore must
entirely vanish when sin is entirely done away.

[Love-1-19] If matter, said you, be not made out of nothing then it must
be eternal.  Just as well concluded as if you had said, if snow and hail
and ice are not made out of nothing, then they must be eternal.  And if
your senses did not force you to know how these things are created out
of something and are in themselves only the properties of light and air
and water, brought out of their first state into such a compaction and
creation as is called snow, hail, and ice, your rational philosophy
would stand to its noble conclusion, that they must be made out of
nothing.  Now every time you see snow or hail or ice, you see in truth
and reality the creation of matter, or how this world came from some
antecedent properties of nature by that same creating power or fiat of
God as turns the properties of light and air and water into the
different materialities of snow, hail, and ice.

[Love-1-20] The first property of nature, which is in itself a
constringing, attracting, compressing, and coagulating power, is that
working power from whence comes all thickness, darkness, coldness, and
hardness; and this is the creator of snow and hail and ice out of
something that before was only the fluidity of light, air, and moisture.
Now this same property of nature, directed by the will of God, was the
fiat and creating power which, on the first day of this world,
compacted, coagulated, or created the wrathful properties of fallen
nature in the angelic kingdom into such a new state as to become earth
and stones and water and a visible heaven.  And the new state of the
created heaven and earth and stones and water, etc., came forth by the
fiat of God, or the working of the first property of nature, from the
properties of fallen nature, just as snow and ice and hail come forth by
the same fiat from the properties of light, air, and water.  And the
created materialities of heaven, earth, stones, and water have no more
eternity in them than there is in snow or hail or ice, but are only held
for a time in their compacted or created state, by the same first
astringing property of nature which for a time holds snow and hail and
ice in their compacted state.

[Love-1-21] Now here you see with the utmost certainty that all the
matter or materiality of this world is the effect of sin and could have
its beginning from nothing else.  For as thickness, hardness, and
darkness (which is the essence of matter) is the effect of the wrathful
predominant power of the first property of nature, and as no property of
nature can be predominant or known as it is in itself till nature is
fallen from its harmonious unity under the light and love of God
dwelling in it, so you have the utmost certainty that where matter or
(which is the same thing) where thickness, darkness, hardness, etc., are
found, there the will of the creature has turned from God and opened a
disorderly working of nature without God.

[Love-1-22] Therefore, as sure as the materiality of this world standeth
in the predominant power of the first attracting, astringing property of
nature, or in other words, is a thickness, darkness, hardness, etc., so
sure is it that all the matter of this world has its beginning from sin
and must have its end as soon as the properties of nature are again
restored to their first unity and blessed harmony under the light and
Spirit of God.

[Love-1-23] It is no objection to all this that Almighty God must be
owned to be the true creator of the materiality of this world.  For God
only brought or created it into this materiality out of the fallen
sinful properties of nature, and in order to stop their sinful working
and to put them into a state of recovery.  He created the confused chaos
of the darkened, divided, contrary properties of spiritual nature into a
further, darker, harder coagulation and division, that so the fallen
angels might thereby lose all power over them, and that this new
materiality might become a theater of redemption and stand its time
under the dominion of the Lamb of God till all the wrath and grossness
and darkness, born of the sin of the angels, was fitted to return to its
first heavenly purity.

[Love-1-24] And thus, though God is the creator of the materiality of
this world, yet seeing he created it out of that wrath, division, and
darkness which sin had opened in nature, this truth stands firm, that
sin alone is the father, first cause, and beginner of all the
materiality of this world, and that when sin is removed from nature all
its materiality must vanish with it.  For when the properties of nature
are again in the unity of the one will of light and love, then hot and
cold, thick and thin, dark and hard, with every property of matter, must
give up all their distinction and all the divided elements of this world
lose all their materiality and division in that first heavenly
spirituality of a glassy sea from whence they fell.

[Love-1-25] Now as all the whole nature of matter, its grossness,
darkness, and hardness, is owing to the unequal, predominant working of
the first property of nature which is an attracting, astringing, and
compressing desire; so every spiritual evil, every wicked working and
disorderly state of any intelligent being is all owing to the same
disorderly, predominant power of the first property of nature, doing all
that inwardly in the spirit of the creature, which it does in an outward
grossness, darkness, and hardness.  Thus, when the desire (the first
property of nature) in any intelligent creature leaves the unity and
universality of the spirit of love and contracts or shuts up itself in
an own will, own love, and self-seeking, then it does all that inwardly
and spiritually in the soul, which it does in outward grossness,
hardness, and darkness.  And had not own will, own love, and self-
seeking come into the spirit of the creature, it never could have found
or felt any outward contrariety, darkness or hardness.  For no creature
can have any other outward nature but that which is in the same state
with its inward spirit, and belongs to it as its own natural growth.

[Love-1-26] Modern metaphysics has no knowledge of the ground and nature
either of spirit or body, but supposes them not only without any natural
relation, but essentially contrary to one another, and only held
together in a forced conjunction by the arbitrary will of God.  Nay, if
you was to say that God first created a soul out of nothing, and when
that is done, then takes an understanding faculty and puts it into it,
after that adds a will and then a memory, all is independently made, as
when a tailor first makes the body of a coat and then adds sleeves or
pockets to it.  Was you to say this, the schools of Descartes,
Malebranche, or Locke could have nothing to say against it.  And the
thing is unavoidable, for all these philosophers were so far from
knowing the ground of nature, how it is a birth from God, and all
creatures a birth from nature through the working will of God in and by
the powers of nature, as they were so far from knowing this as to hold a
creation out of nothing, so they were necessarily excluded from every
fundamental truth concerning the origin either of body or spirit and
their true relation to one another.  For a creation out of nothing
leaves no room for accounting why anything is as it is.  Now every wise
man is supposed to have respect to nature in everything that he would
have joined together; he cannot suppose his work to succeed unless this
be done.  But to suppose God to create man with a body and soul, not
only not naturally related but naturally impossible to be united by any
powers in either of them, is to suppose God acting and creating man into
an unnatural state, which yet he could not do unless there was such a
thing as nature antecedent to the creation of man.  And how can nature
be, or have anything but what it is and has from God?  Therefore to
suppose God to bring any creature into an unnatural state is to suppose
him acting contrary to himself and to that nature which is from him.

[Love-1-27] Yet all the metaphysics of the schools does this.  It
supposes God to bring a soul and a body together which have the utmost
natural contrariety to each other and can only affect or act upon one
another by the arbitrary will of God, willing that body and soul, held
together by force, should seem to do that to one another which they have
no natural or possible power to do.  But the true philosophy of this
matter, known only to the soul, that by a new birth from above has found
its first state in and from God is this: namely, that nature is a birth
or manifestation of the triune invisible Deity.  And as it could only
come into existence as a birth from God, so every creature or beginning
thing can only come forth as a birth from and out of nature by the will
of God, willing it to come forth in such a birth.  And no creature can
have, or be, anything but by and according to the working powers of
nature; and therefore, strictly speaking, no creature can be, or be put
into an unnatural state.  It may indeed lose or fall from its natural
perfection by the wrong use or working of its will; but then its fallen
state is the natural effect of the wrong use of its will, and so it only
has that which is natural to it.  The truth of the matter is this: There
neither is, nor can be, anything nor any effect in the whole universe of
things but by the way of birth.  For as the working will is the first
cause or beginner of everything, so nothing can proceed further than as
it is driven by the will and is a birth of it.  And therefore nothing
can be in anything but what is natural to its own working will and the
true effect of it.  Everything that is outward in any being is only a
birth of its own spirit, and therefore all body, whether it be heavenly
or earthly or hellish, has its whole nature and condition from its own
inward spirit, and no spirit can have a body of any other properties but
such as are natural to it as being its own true outward state.  For body
and spirit are not two separate, independent things, but are necessary
to each other, and are only the inward and outward conditions of one and
the same thing.

[Love-1-28] Every creaturely spirit must have its own body and cannot be
without it, for its body is that which makes it manifest to itself.  It
cannot be said to exist as a creature till in a body because it can have
no sensibility of itself, nor feel nor find either that it is or what it
is but in and by its own body.  Its body is its first knowledge of its
something and somewhere.

[Love-1-29] And now, sir, if you ask why I have gone into this detail of
the origin and nature of body and spirit when my subject was only
concerning the spirit of love, it is to show you that grossness,
darkness, contrariety, disquiet, and fermentation must be the state of
the body and spirit till they are both made pure and luminous by the
light and love of heaven manifested in them.  All darkness, grossness,
and contrariety must be removed from the body before it can belong to
heaven or be united with it; but these qualities must be in the body
till the soul is totally dead to self, partiality, and contrariety, and
breathes only the spirit of universal love, because the state of the
body has nothing of its own or from itself but is solely the outward
manifestation of nothing else but that which is inwardly in the soul.
Every animal of this world has nothing in its outward form or shape,
every spirit, whether heavenly or hellish, has nothing in the nature and
state of its body but that which is the form and growth of its own
inward spirit.  As no number can be anything else but that which the
unities contained in it make it to be, so no body of any creature can be
anything else but the coagulation of sum total of those properties of
nature that are coagulated in it.  And when the properties of nature are
formed into the band of a creaturely union, then is its body brought
forth, whether the spirit of the creature be earthly, heavenly, or
hellish.

[Love-1-30] Nature, or the first properties of life, are in a state of
the highest contrariety, and the highest want of something which they
have not.  This is their whole nature and they have nothing else in
them.  And this is their true ground and fitness to become a life of
triumphing joy and happiness, viz., when united in the possession of
that which they seek for in their contrariety.  And if life, in its
first root, was not this depth of strife, this strength of hunger, and
sensibility of want, the fullness of heavenly joy could not be
manifested in it.

[Love-1-31] You are not a stranger to the mystery of the seven
properties of nature which we have often spoken of; and therefore I
shall shorten the matter and only say so much of them as may be of
service to our present subject.

[Love-1-32] Nature, whether eternal or temporal, is that which comes not
into being for its own self or to be that which it is in itself, but for
the sake of something that it is not, and has not.  And this is the
reason why nature is only a desire; it is because it is for the sake of
something else, and is also the reason why nature in itself is only a
torment, because it is only a strong desire and cannot help itself to
that which it wants, but is always working against itself.

[Love-1-33] Now a desire that cannot be stopped nor get that which it
would have has a threefold contrariety or working in it, which you may
thus conceive as follows: The first and peculiar property or the one
only will of the desire, as such, is to have that which it has not; and
all it can do toward having it is to act as if it were seizing it; and
this is it which makes the desire to be a magic compressing, enclosing,
or astringing, because that is all that it can do toward seizing of that
which it would have.  But the desire cannot thus magically astringe,
compress, or strive to enclose without drawing and attracting: but
drawing is motion, which is the highest contrariety and resistance to
compressing or holding together.  And thus the desire, in its magical
working, sets out with two contrary properties, inseparable from one
another and equal in strength; for the motion has no strength but as it
is the drawing of the desire; and the desire only draws in the same
degree as it wills to compress and astringe; and therefore the desire,
as astringing, always begets a resistance equal to itself.  Now from
this great and equally strong contrariety of the two first properties of
the desire magically pulling, as I may say, two contrary ways, there
arises as a necessary birth from both of them a third property which is
emphatically called a wheel or whirling anguish of life.  For a thing
that can go neither inward nor outward and yet must be and move under
the equal power of both of them, must whirl or turn round; it has no
possibility of doing anything else or of ceasing to do that.  And that
this whirling contrariety of these inseparable properties is the great
anguish of life and may properly be called the hell of nature; and every
lesser torment which any man finds in this mixed world has all its
existence and power from the working of these three properties.  For
life can find no troublesome motions or sensibility of distress but so
far as it comes under their power, and enters into their whirling wheel.

[Love-1-34] Now here you may observe that as this whirling anguish of
life is a third state necessarily arising from the contrariety of the
two first properties of the desire, so in this material system every
whirling or orbicular motion of any body is solely the effect or product
of the contrariety of these two first properties.  For no material
things can whirl or move round till it is under the power of these two
properties; that is, till it can neither go inwards nor outwards and yet
is obliged to move, just as the whirling anguish of the desire then
begins when it can neither go inwards nor outwards and yet must be in
motion.

[Love-1-35] And this may be again another strict demonstration to you
that all the matter of this world is from spiritual properties, since
all its workings and effects are according to them.  For if matter does
nothing but according to them, it can be nothing but what it is and has
from them.

[Love-1-36] Here also, that is, in these three properties of the desire,
you see the ground and reason of the three great laws of matter and
motion lately discovered and so much celebrated, and need no more to be
told that the illustrious Sir Isaac plowed with Behmen's heifer when he
brought forth the discovery of them.  In the mathematical system of this
great philosopher these three properties, attraction, equal resistance,
and the orbicular motion of the planets as the effect of them, etc., are
only treated of as facts and appearances whose ground is not pretended
to be known.  But in our Behmen, the illuminated instrument of God,
their birth and power in eternity is opened; their eternal beginning is
shown, and how and why all worlds and every life of every creature,
whether it be heavenly, earthly, or hellish, must be in them and from
them, and can have no nature either spiritual or material, no kind of
happiness or misery but according to the working power and state of
these properties.

[Love-1-37] All outward nature, all inward life, is what it is and works
as it works from this unceasing, powerful attraction, resistance, and
whirling.

[Love-1-38] Every madness and folly of life is their immediate work and
every good spirit of wisdom and love has all its strength and activity
from them.  They equally support darkness and light.  The one could have
no powers of thickness and coldness, the other no powers of warmth,
brightness, and activity but by and through these three properties
acting in a different state.  Not a particle of matter stirs, rises, or
falls, separates from or unites with any other but under their power.
Not a thought of the mind either of love or hatred, of joy or trouble,
of envy or wrath, of pride and covetousness, can rise in the spirit of
any creature but as these properties act and stir in it.

[Love-1-39] The next and following properties, viz., the fourth, called
fire; the fifth, called the form of light and love, and the sixth, sound
or understanding, only declare the gradual effects of the entrance of
the Deity into the three first properties of nature, changing or
bringing their strong wrathful attraction, resistance, and whirling into
a life and state of triumphing joy, and fullness of satisfaction, which
state of peace and joy in one another is called the seventh property, or
state of nature.  And this is what Behmen means by his Ternarius Sanctus
which he so often speaks of as the only place from whence he received
all that he said and writ.  He means by it the holy manifestation of the
triune God in the seven properties of nature or kingdom of heaven.  And
from this manifestation of God in the seven properties of nature or
kingdom of heaven, he most wonderfully opens and accounts for all that
was done in the six first working days of the creation, showing how
every of the six active properties had its peculiar day's work till the
whole ended or rested in the sanctified, paradisiacal sabbath of the
seventh day, just as nature doth in its seventh property.

[Love-1-40] And now, sir, you may see in the greatest clearness how
everything in this world, everything in the soul and body of man,
absolutely requires the one redemption of the gospel.  There is but one
nature in all created things, whether spiritual or material; they all
stand and work upon the same ground, viz., the three first properties of
nature.  That only which can illuminate the soul, that alone can give
brightness and purity to the body.  For there is no grossness, darkness,
and contrariety in the body but what strictly proceeds from the same
cause that makes selfishness, wrath, envy, and torment in the soul; it
is but one and the same state and working of the same three first
properties of nature.  All evil, whether natural or moral, whether of
body or spirit, is the sole effect of the wrath and disorder of the
spirits of nature working in and by themselves.  And all the good,
perfection, and purity of everything, whether spiritual or material,
whether it be the body or spirit of man or angel, is solely from the
power and presence of the supernatural Deity dwelling and working in the
properties of nature.  For the properties of nature are in themselves
nothing else but a mere hunger, want, strife, and contrariety, till the
fullness and riches of the Deity entering into them unites them all in
one will and one possession of light and harmonious love, which is the
one redemption of the gospel, and the one reason why nothing else but
the heart or Son or light of God can purify nature and creature from all
the evil they are fallen into.

[Love-1-41] For nothing can possibly deliver the soul from its selfish
nature and earthly passions but that one power that can deliver matter
from its present material properties and turn earth into heaven.  And
that for this plain reason, because soul and body, outward nature and
inward life, have but one and the same evil in them and from one and the
same cause.

[Love-1-42] The Deist, therefore, who looks for life and salvation
through the use of his reason, acts contrary to the whole nature of
everything that he sees and knows of himself and of the nature and state
of this world.  For from one end of it to the other, all its material
state, all its gross divided elements declare that they are what they
are because the light and love of heaven is not working and manifest in
them, and that nothing can take darkness, materiality, rage, storms, and
tempests from them but that same heavenly light and love which was made
flesh to redeem the fallen humanity first, and after that the whole
material system.

[Love-1-43] Can the Deist with his reason bring the light of this world
into the eyes of his body?  If not, how comes it to be less absurd or
more possible for reason to bring heavenly light into the soul?  Can
reason hinder the body from being heavy, or remove thickness and
darkness from flesh and blood?  Yet nothing less than such a power can
possibly help the soul out of its fallen and earthly state.  For the
grossness of flesh and blood is the natural state of the fallen soul,
and therefore nothing can purify the soul, or raise it out of its
earthly, corrupt state, but that which hath all power over all that is
earthy and material in nature.

[Love-1-44] To pretend therefore that reason may have sufficient power
to remove all hellish depravity and earthly lusts from the soul whilst
it has not the least power over sweet or sour in any one particle of
matter in the body is as highly absurd as if a man should pretend that
he has a full power to alter the inward, invisible, vegetable life of a
plant, but none at all over its outward state, color, leaves, or fruit.
The Deist therefore, and not the Christian, stands in need of continual
miracles to make good his doctrine.  For reason can have no pretense to
amend or alter the life of the soul but so far as it can show that it
has power to amend and alter the nature and state of the body.

[Love-1-45] The unbelieving Jews said of our Lord, "How can this man
forgive sins?"  Christ showed them how by appealing to that power which
they saw he had over the body: "Whether," says he, "is it easier to say,
thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, arise, take up thy bed, and
walk?"  But the delusion of the unbelieving Deist is greater than that
of the Jew.  For the Deist sees that his reason has no power over his
body; can remove no disease, blindness, deafness, or lameness from it,
and yet will pretend to have power enough from his reason to help the
soul out of all its evil, not knowing that body and soul go hand in
hand, and are nothing else but the inward and outward state of one and
the same life, and that therefore he only, who can say to the dead body
of Lazarus, "Come forth," can say to the soul, "Be thou clean."  The
Deist therefore, if he pleases, may style himself a natural or a moral
philosopher, but with no more truth than he can call himself a healer of
all the maladies of the body.  And for a man to think himself a moral
philosopher because he has made a choice collection of syllogisms in
order to quicken and revive a divine goodness in the soul, or that no
redeemer need come from heaven because human reason when truly left to
itself has great skill in chopping of logic, may justly be deemed such
an ignorance of the nature of things as is seldom found in the
transactions of illiterate and vulgar life.  But this by the by.

[Love-1-46] To return to our chief subject, the sum of all that has been
said is this: All evil, be it what it will, all misery of every kind, is
in its birth, working and extent, nothing else but nature left to
itself, and under the divided workings of its own hunger, wrath, and
contrariety; and therefore no possibility for the natural, earthly man
to escape eternal hunger, wrath, and contrariety, but solely in the way
as the gospel teacheth, by denying and dying to self.  On the other
hand, all the goodness and perfection, all the happiness, glory, and joy
that any intelligent, divine creature can be possessed of, is, and can
be, from nothing else but the invisible uncreated light and Spirit of
God manifesting itself in the properties of the creaturely life,
filling, blessing, and uniting them all in one love and joy of life.
And thus again: no possibility of man's attaining to any heavenly
perfection and happiness, but only in the way of the gospel, by the
union of the divine and human nature, by man's being born again from
above of the Word and Spirit of God.  There is no possibility of any
other way because there is nothing that can possibly change the first
properties of life into a heavenly state but the presence and working
power of the Deity united with, and working in them.  And therefore the
"Word was made flesh," and must of all necessity be made flesh if man is
to have a heavenly nature.  Now as all evil, sin, and misery have no
beginning, nor power of working, but in the manifestation of nature in
its divided, contrary properties, so it is certain that man has nothing
to turn to, seek or aspire after but the lost spirit of love.  And
therefore it is, that God only can be his redeemer, because God only is
love, and love can be nowhere else but in God and where God dwelleth and
worketh.

[Love-1-47] Now the difficulty which you find in attaining to this
purity and universality of the spirit of love is because you seek for
it, as I once told you, in the way of reasoning.  You would be possessed
of it only from a rational conviction of the fitness and amiableness of
it.  And as this clear idea does not put you immediately into the real
possession of it, your reason begins to waver, and suggests to you that
it may be only a fine notion that has no ground but in the power of the
imagination.  But this, sir, is all your own error, and as contrary to
nature as if you would have your eyes do that which only your hands or
feet can do for you.  The spirit of love is a spirit of nature and life,
and all the operations of nature and life are according to the working
powers of nature, and every growth and degree of life can only arise in
its own time and place from its proper cause and as the genuine effect
of it.  Nature and life do nothing by chance or accidentally, but
everything in one uniform way.  Fire, air, and light do not proceed
sometimes from one thing and sometimes from another, but wherever they
are, they are always born in the same manner and from the same working
properties of nature.  So in like manner, love is an immutable birth,
always proceeding from the same cause, and cannot be in existence till
its own true parents have brought it forth.

[Love-1-48] How unreasonable would it be to begin to doubt whether
strength and health of body were real things or possible to be had
because you could not by the power of your reason take possession of
them?  Yet this is as well as to suspect the purity and perfection of
love to be only a notion, because your reason cannot bring forth its
birth in your soul.  For reason has no more power of altering the life
and properties of the soul than of altering the life and properties of
the body.  That, and that only, can cast devils and evil spirits out of
the soul, that can say to the storm, "Be still," and to the leper, "Be
thou clean."

[Love-1-49] The birth of love is a form or state of life, and has its
fixed place in the fifth form of nature.  The three first properties or
forms of nature are the ground or band of life that is in itself only an
extreme hunger, want, strife, and contrariety.  And they are in this
state, that they may become a proper fuel for the fourth form of nature,
viz., the fire, to be kindled in them.  You will perhaps say, "What is
this fire?  What is its nature?  And how is it kindled?  And how is it
that the hunger and anguishing state of the properties are a fitness to
be a fuel of this fire?"  It may be answered, This hunger and anguish of
nature, in its first forms, is its fitness to be changed into a life of
light, joy, and happiness: and that for this reason, because it is in
this hunger and anguish only because God is not in it.  For as nature
comes from God, and for this only end that the Deity may manifest heaven
in it, it must stand in any hunger and anguishing state till the Deity
is manifested in it.  And therefore its hunger and anguish is its true
fitness to be changed into a better state, and this is its fitness for
the birth of the fire.  For the fire means nothing and is nothing else
but that which changes them into a better state.  Not as if fire was a
fourth, distinct thing that comes into them from without, but is only a
fourth state, or condition into which the same properties are brought.

[Love-1-50] The fire then is that which changes the properties into a
new and heavenly state.  Therefore the fire does two things.  It alters
the state of nature and brings heaven into it, and therefore it must
work from a two-fold power: the Deity and nature must both be in it.  It
must have some strength from nature, or it could not work in nature.  It
must have some strength from the Deity or it could not overcome and
change nature into a divine life.  Now all this is only to show you that
the fire can only be kindled by the entrance of the Deity, or
supernatural God, into a conjunction or {"of" in Stanwood} union with
nature.  And this conjunction of the Deity and nature maketh, or
bringeth forth, that state or form of life which is called and truly is,
fire: first, because it does that in the spiritual properties of nature
which fire doth in the properties of material nature, and secondly,
because it is that alone from which every fire in this world, whether in
the life of animal or vegetable or inanimate matter, has its source and
power and possibility of burning.  The fire of this world overcomes its
fuel, breaks its nature, alters its state and changes it into flame and
light.  But why does it do this?  Whence has it this nature and power?
It is because it is a true outbirth of the eternal fire which overcomes
the darkness, wrath, and contrariety of nature, and changes all its
properties into a life of light, joy, and glory.  Not a spark of fire
could be kindled in this world, nor a ray of light come from any
material fire but because material nature is, in itself, nothing else
but the very properties of eternal nature, standing for a time in a
material state or condition; and therefore they must work in time as
they do in eternity; and consequently there must be fire in this world,
it must have the same birth and do the same work in its material way,
which the eternal fire hath, and doth in spiritual nature.  And this is
the true ground and reason why everything in this world is delivered as
far as it can be from its earthly impurity, and brought into its highest
state of existence only by fire.  It is because the eternal fire is the
purifier of eternal nature and the opener of every perfection, light,
and glory in it.  And if you ask why the eternal fire is the purifier of
eternal nature, the reason is plain; it is because the eternal fire has
its birth and nature and power from the entrance of the pure,
supernatural Deity into the properties of nature, which properties must
change their state and be what they were not before, as soon as the
Deity entereth into them.  Their darkness, wrath, and contrariety is
driven out of them, and they work and give forth only a life and
strength of light and joy and glory.  And this two-fold operation, viz.,
on one hand taking from nature its wrathful workings, and on the other
hand opening a glorious manifestation of the Deity in them, is the whole
nature and form of the fire, and is the reason why from eternity to
eternity it is and must be the purifier of eternal nature, namely, as
from eternity to eternity changing nature into a kingdom of heaven.  Now
every fire in this world does, and must do, the same thing in its low
way to the utmost of its power, and can do nothing else.  Kindle fire
where or in what you will, it acts only as, from, and by the power of
this eternal purifying fire; and therefore it breaks and consumes the
grossness of everything, and makes all that is pure and spirituous to
come forth out of it; and therefore purification is its one only work
through all material nature, because it is a real outbirth of that
eternal fire which purifies eternal nature, and changes it into a mere
heaven of glory.

[Love-1-51] The eternal fire is called a fourth form or state of nature
because it cannot exist but from the first three and hath its work in
the fourth place in the midst of the seven forms, changing the three
first into the three last forms of nature, that is, changing them from
their natural into a heavenly state.  So that, strictly speaking, there
are but three forms of nature in answerableness to the threefold working
of the triune Deity.  For the three last are not three new or different
properties but are only the three first brought into a new state by the
entrance of the triune Deity into conjunction with them.  Which entrance
of the supernatural Deity into them is the consuming of all that is bad
in them and turning all their strength into a working life of light,
joy, and heavenly glory; and therefore has the justest title to be
called fire, as having no other nature and operation in it but the known
nature of fire, and also as being that from which every fire in this
world has all its nature and power of doing as it doth.

[Love-1-52] You once, as I remember, objected to my speaking so much in
the Appeal, etc., of the fire of life as thinking it too gross an
expression to be taken in its literal meaning when mention is made of
the eternal fire, or the fire in animal life.  But, sir, fire has but
one nature through the whole universe of things, and material fire has
not more or less of the nature of fire in it than that which is in
eternal nature because it has nothing, works nothing but what it has,
and works from thence.  How easy was it for you to have seen that the
fire of the soul and the fire of the body had but one nature?  How else
could they unite in their heat?  How easy also to have seen that the
fire of animal life was the same fire that burns in the kitchen?  How
else could the kitchen fire be serviceable to animal life?  What good
could it do you to come to a fire of wood where you wanted to have the
heat of your own life increased?  In animal life the fire is kindled and
preserved in such a degree and in such circumstances as to be life and
the preservation of life, and this is its difference from fires kindled
in wood and burning it to ashes.  It is the same fire, only in a
different state, that keeps up life and consumes wood, and has no other
nature in the wood than in the animal.  Just as in water that has only
so much fire in it as to make it warm, and water that is by fire made
boiling hot, the same nature and power of fire is in both but only in a
different state.  Now will you say that fire is not to be literally
understood when it only makes water to be warm, because it is not red
and flaming as you see it in a burning coal?  Yet this would be as well
as to say that fire is not literally to be understood in the animal life
because it is so different from that fire which you see burning in a
piece of wood.  And thus, sir, there is no foundation for any objection
to all that has been said of fire in the Appeal, etc.  It is one and the
same great power of God in the spiritual and material world; it is the
cause of every life and the opener of every power of nature, and its one
great work through all nature and creature, animate and inanimate, is
purification and exaltation; it can do nothing else and that for this
plain reason, because its birth is from the entrance of the pure Deity
into nature, and therefore must in its various state and degrees be only
doing that which the entrance of the Deity into nature does.  It must
bring every natural thing into its highest state.  But to go back now to
the spirit of love and show you the time and place of its birth before
which it can have no existence in your soul, do what you will to have
it.

[Love-1-53] The fire, you see, is the first overcomer of the hungry,
wrathful, self-tormenting state of the properties of nature, and it only
overcomes them because it is the entrance of the pure Deity into them;
and therefore that which overcomes them is the light of the Deity.  And
this is the true ground and reason why every right-kindled fire must
give forth light and cannot do otherwise.  It is because the eternal
fire is only the effect or operation of the supernatural light of the
Deity entering into nature; and therefore fire must give forth light
because it is only a power of the light, and light can be nowhere in
nature but as a fifth form or state of nature, brought forth by the
fire.  And as light thus brought forth is the first state that is lovely
and delightful in nature, so the spirit of love has only its birth in
the light of life, and can be nowhere else.  For the properties of life
have no common good, nothing to rejoice in, till the light is found, and
therefore no possible beginning of the spirit of love till then.

[Love-1-54] The shock that is given to the three first properties of
nature by the amazing light of the Deity breaking in upon them is the
operation of the fire that consumes or takes away the wrathful strength
and contrariety of the properties, and forces each of them to shrink, as
it were, away from itself, and come under the power of this new-risen
light.  Here all strife of enmity and wrathful contrariety in the
properties must cease because all are united in the love of the light,
and all equally helping one another to a higher enjoyment and delight in
it.  They are all one triune will, all doing the same thing, viz., all
rejoicing in the one love of the light.  And here it is, in this
delightful unity of operation, that the spirit of love is born, in the
fifth property or light of life, and cannot possibly rise up in any
creature till the properties of its life are brought into this fifth
state, thus changed and exalted into a new sensibility of life.  Let me
give you this similitude of the matter: Fancy to yourself a man shut up
in a deep cave underground, without ever having seen a ray of the light,
his body all over tortured with pain, his mind distracted with rage,
himself whirling and working with the utmost fury and madness, he knows
not what; and then you have an image of the first properties of life as
they are in themselves before the fire had done its work in them.

[Love-1-55] Fancy this man suddenly struck, or all surrounded, with such
a glare of light as in the twinkling of an eye stopped or struck dead
every working of every pain and rage, both in his body and mind; and
then you have an image of the operation of the fire and what it does to
the first properties of nature.  Now as soon as the first terror of the
light has had its fiery operation, and struck nothing dead but every
working sensibility of distress, fancy this man, as you now well may, in
the sweetest peace of mind and bodily sensations, blessed in a new
region of light, giving joy to his mind and gratification to every
sense; and then the transports, the overflowings of love and delight in
this new state may give you an image how the spirit of love is and must
be born when fire and light have overcome and changed the state of the
first properties of nature, and never till then can have any existence
in any creature, nor proceed from any other cause.  Thus, sir, you may
sufficiently see how vainly you attempt to possess yourself of the
spirit of love by the power of your reason; and also what a vanity of
all vanities there is in the religion of the Deists who will have no
other perfection or divine life but what they can have from their
reason, as great a contradiction to nature as if they would have no life
or strength of body but that which can be had from their faculty of
reasoning.  For reason can no more alter or exalt any one property of
life in the soul and bring it into its perfect state than it can add one
cubit to the stature of the body.  The perfection of every life is no
way possibly to be had but as every flower comes to its perfection,
viz., from its own seed and root and the various degrees of
transmutation which must be gone through before the flower is found.  It
is strictly thus with the perfection of the soul; all its properties of
life must have their true natural birth and growth from one another.
The first, as its seed and root, must have their natural change into a
higher state; must, like the seed of the flower, pass through death into
life and be blessed with the fire and light and spirit of heaven in
their passage to it, just as the seed passes through death into life,
blessed by the fire and light and air of this world till it reaches its
last perfection and becomes a beautiful sweet-smelling flower.  And to
think that the soul can attain its perfection any other way than by the
change and exaltation of its first properties changed and exalted till
it comes to have its flower is a total ignorance of the nature of
things.  For as whatever dies cannot have a death particular to itself
but the same death in the same way and for the same reasons that any
other creature, whether animal or vegetable, ever did or can die, so
every life and degree of life must come into its state and condition of
life in the same way and for the same reasons as life and the perfection
of life comes into every other living creature, whether in heaven or on
earth.  Therefore, the Deists' religion or reason, which is to raise the
soul to its true perfection, is so far from being the religion of nature
that it is quite unnatural and declared to be so by every working in
nature.  For since reason can neither give life nor death to any one
thing in nature, but everything lives or dies according to the working
of its own properties, everything dead and alive gives forth a
demonstration that nature asks no counsel of reason, nor stays to be
directed by it.  Hold it therefore for a certain truth that you can have
no good come into your soul but only by the one way of a birth from
above, from the entrance of the Deity into the properties of your own
soulish life.  Nature must be set right, its properties must enter into
the process of a new birth, it must work to the production of light
before the spirit of love can have a birth in it.  For love is delight,
and delight cannot arise in any creature till its nature is in a
delightful state or is possessed of that in which it must rejoice.  And
this is the reason why God must become man; it is because a new birth of
Deity must be found in the soul, giving to nature all that it wants, or
the soul can never find itself in a delightful state and only working
with the spirit of love.  For whilst the soul has only its natural life,
it can only be in such a state as nature without God is in, viz., a mere
hunger, want, contrariety, and strife, for it knows not what.  Hence is
all that variety of blind, restless, contrary passions which govern and
torment the life of fallen man.  It is because all the properties of
nature must work in blindness and be doing they know not what till the
light of God is found in them.  Hence also it is that that which is
called the wisdom, the honor, the honesty, and the religion of the
natural man often does as much hurt to himself and others as his pride,
ambition, self-love, envy, or revenge, and are subject to the same humor
and caprice; it is because nature is no better in one motion than in
another, nor can be so, till something supernatural is come into it.  We
often charge men, both in church and state, with changing their
principles; but the charge is too hasty for no man ever did, or can
change his principles but by a birth from above.  The natural, called in
scripture the old man, is steadily the same in heart and spirit in
everything he does, whatever variety of names may be given to his
actions.  For self can have no motion but what is selfish, which way
soever it goes, or whatever it does, either in church or state.  And be
assured of this, that nature in every man, whether he be learned or
unlearned, is this very self and can be nothing else till a birth of the
Deity is brought forth in it.  There is therefore no possibility of
having the spirit of love or any divine goodness from any power of
nature or working of reason.  It can only be had in its own time and
place; and its time and place is nowhere but where nature is overcome by
a birth of the life of God in the properties of the soul.  And thus you
see the infallible truth and absolute necessity of Christian redemption;
it is the most demonstrable thing in all nature.  The Deity must become
man, take a birth in the fallen nature, be united to it, become the life
of it or the natural man must of all necessity be forever and ever in
the hell of his own hunger, anguish, contrariety, and self-torment; and
all for this plain reason, because nature is and can be nothing else but
this variety of self-torment, till the Deity is manifested and dwelling
in it.

[Love-1-56] And now, sir, you see also the absolute necessity of the
gospel doctrine of the cross, viz., of dying to self as the one only way
to life in God.  This cross, or dying to self, is the one morality that
does man any good.  Fancy as many rules as you will of modeling the
moral behavior of man, they all do nothing because they leave nature
still alive, and therefore can only help a man to a feigned,
hypocritical art of concealing his own inward evil and seeming to be not
under its power.  And the reason why it must be so is plain; it is
because nature is not possible to be reformed; it is immutable in its
workings and must be always as it is and never any better or worse than
its own untaught workings are.  It can no more change from evil to good
than darkness can work itself into light.  The one work therefore of
morality is the one doctrine of the cross, viz., to resist and deny
nature, that a supernatural power to divine goodness may take possession
of it and bring a new light into it.

[Love-1-57] In a word, there are in all the possibility of things but
two states or forms of life; the one is nature and the other is God
manifested in nature; and as God and nature are both within you, so you
have it in your power to live and work with which you will, but are
under a necessity of doing either the one or the other.  There is no
standing still; life goes on and is always bringing forth its realities,
which way soever it goeth.  You have seen that the properties of nature
are, and can be, nothing else in their own life but a restless hunger,
disquiet, and blind strife for they know not what, till the property of
light and love has got possession of them.  Now when you see this, you
see the true state of every natural man, whether he be Caesar or Cato,
whether he gloriously murders others or only stabs himself; blind nature
does all the work and must be the doer of it till the Christ of God is
born in him.  For the life of man can be nothing else but a hunger of
covetousness, a rising up of pride, envy, and wrath, a medley of
contrary passions, doing and undoing it knows not what because these
workings are essential to the properties of nature; they must be always
hungering and working one against another, striving to be above one
another, and all this in blindness, till the light of God has helped
them to one common good, in which they all willingly unite, rest, and
rejoice.  In a word, goodness is only a sound and virtue a mere strife
of natural passions till the spirit of love is the breath of everything
that lives and moves in the heart.  For love is the one only blessing
and goodness and God of nature; and you have no true religion, are no
worshiper of the one true God but in and by that spirit of love which is
God himself living and working in you.

[Love-1-58] But here I take off my pen and shall leave the remaining
part of your objection to another opportunity.

King's Cliffe, June 16, 1752.  I am, etc.

The Spirit of Love--continued

The Second Part

The First Dialogue between Theogenes, Eusebius, and Theophilus

[Love-2.1-1] Theogenes.  Dear Theophilus, this gentleman is Eusebius, a
very valuable and worthy curate in my neighborhood; he would not let me
wait any longer for your second letter of the spirit of love, nor be
content till I consented to our making you this visit.  And indeed, we
are both on the same errand and in equal impatience to have your full
answer to that part of my objection, which you reserved for a second
letter.

[Love-2.1-2] Theophilus.  My heart embraces you both with the greatest
affection, and I am much pleased at the occasion of your coming which
calls me to the most delightful subject in the world, to help both you
and myself to rejoice in that adorable Deity whose infinite being is an
infinity of mere love, an unbeginning, never ceasing, and forever
overflowing ocean of meekness, sweetness, delight, blessing, goodness,
patience, and mercy, and all this as so many blessed streams breaking
out of the abyss of universal love, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a
triune infinity of love and goodness, forever and ever giving forth
nothing but the same gifts of light and love, of blessing and joy,
whether before or after the fall, either of angels or men.

[Love-2.1-3] Look at all nature, through all its height and depth, in
all its variety of working powers; it is what it is for this only end,
that the hidden riches, the invisible powers, blessings, glory, and love
of the unsearchable God may become visible, sensible, and manifest in
and by it.

[Love-2.1-4] Look at all the variety of creatures; they are what they
are for this only end, that in their infinite variety, degrees, and
capacities they may be as so many speaking figures, living forms of the
manifold riches and powers of nature, as so many sounds and voices,
preachers, and trumpets, giving glory and praise and thanksgiving to
that Deity of love which gives life to all nature and creature.

[Love-2.1-5] For every creature of unfallen nature, call it by what name
you will, has its form, and power, and state, and place in nature for no
other end but to open and enjoy, to manifest and rejoice in some share
of the love and happiness and goodness of the Deity, as springing forth
in the boundless height and depth of nature.

[Love-2.1-6] Now this is the one will and work of God in and through all
nature and creature.  From eternity to eternity he can will and intend
nothing toward them, in them, or by them, but the communication of
various degrees of his own love, goodness, and happiness to them,
according to their state, and place, and capacity in nature.  This is
God's unchangeable disposition toward the creature; he can be nothing
else but all goodness toward it because he can be nothing toward the
creature but that which he is, and was, and ever shall be in himself.

[Love-2.1-7] God can no more begin to have any wrath, rage, or anger in
himself after nature and creature are in a fallen state than he could
have been infinite wrath and boundless rage everywhere and from all
eternity.  For nothing can begin to be in God, or to be in a new state
in him; everything that is in him is essential to him, as inseparable
from him, as unalterable in him as the triune nature of his deity.

[Love-2.1-8] Theogenes.  Pray, Theophilus, let me ask you, does not
patience and pity and mercy begin to be in God, and only then begin,
when the creature has brought itself into misery?  They could have no
existence in the Deity before.  Why then may not a wrath and anger begin
to be in God when the creature has rebelled against him, though it
neither had nor could have any existence in God before?

[Love-2.1-9] Theophilus.  'Tis true, Theogenes, that God can only then
begin to make known his mercy and patience when the creature has lost
its rectitude and happiness, yet nothing then begins to be in God or to
be found in him, but that which was always in him in the same infinite
state, viz., a will to all goodness, and which can will nothing else.
And his patience and mercy which could not show forth themselves till
nature and creature had brought forth misery were not new tempers or the
beginning of some new disposition that was not in God before, but only
new and occasional manifestations of that boundless eternal will to all
goodness, which always was in God in the same height and depth.  The
will to all goodness, which is God himself, began to display itself in a
new way when it first gave birth to creatures.  The same will to all
goodness began to manifest itself in another new way when it became
patience and compassion toward fallen creatures.  But neither of these
ways are the beginning of any new tempers or qualities in God, but only
new and occasional manifestations of that true eternal will to all
goodness, which always was, and always will be, in the same fullness of
infinity in God.

[Love-2.1-10] But to suppose that when the creature has abused its
power, lost its happiness and plunged itself into a misery out of which
it cannot deliver itself, to suppose that then there begins to be
something in the holy Deity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost that is not
of the nature and essence of God and which was not there before, viz., a
wrath, and fury, and vindictive vengeance, breaking out in storms of
rage and resentment because the poor creature has brought misery upon
itself, is an impiety and absurdity that cannot be enough abhorred.  For
nothing can be in God but that which he is and has from himself, and
therefore no wrath can be in the Deity itself unless God was in himself
before all nature and from all eternity an infinity of wrath.

[Love-2.1-11] Why are love, knowledge, wisdom, and goodness said to be
infinite and eternal in God, capable of no increase or decrease, but
always in the same highest state of existence?  Why is his power eternal
and omnipotent, his presence not here, or there, but everywhere the
same?  No reason can be assigned, but because nothing that is temporary,
limited, or bounded can be in God.  It is his nature to be that which he
is, and all that he is, in an infinite, unchangeable degree, admitting
neither higher, nor lower, neither here nor there, but always and
everywhere in the same unalterable state of infinity.  If therefore
wrath, rage, and resentment could be in the Deity itself, it must be an
unbeginning, boundless, never-ceasing wrath, capable of no more, or
less, no up or down, but always existing, always working, and breaking
forth in the same strength, and everywhere equally burning in the height
and depth of the abyssal Deity.  There is no medium here; there must be
either all or none, either no possibility of wrath, or no possibility of
its having any bounds.  And therefore, if you would not say that
everything that has, or can, or ever shall proceed from God are and can
be only so many effects of his eternal and omnipotent wrath, which can
never cease, or be less than infinite; if you will not hold this
monstrous blasphemy, you must stick close to the absolute impossibility
of wrath having any existence in God.  For nothing can have any
existence in God, but in the way and manner as his eternity, infinity,
and omnipotence have their existence in him.  Have you anything to
object to this?

[Love-2.1-12] Theogenes.  Indeed, Theophilus, both Eusebius and myself
have been from the first fully satisfied with what has been said of this
matter in the book of Regeneration, the Appeal, and the Spirit of
Prayer, capable of being inflamed by the weakness, and folly, and
irregularity of the creature.  We find ourselves incapable of thinking
any otherwise of God than as the one only good, or, as you express it,
"an eternal immutable will to all goodness," and which can will nothing
else to all eternity, but to communicate good, and blessing, and
happiness, and perfection to every life, according to its capacity to
receive it.

[Love-2.1-13] Had I a hundred lives, I could with more ease part with
them all by suffering a hundred deaths than give up this lovely idea of
God.  Nor could I have any desire of eternity for myself if I had not
hopes that, by partaking of the divine nature, I should be eternally
delivered from the burden and power of my own wrath and changed into the
blessed freedom of a spirit that is all love and a mere will to nothing
but goodness.  An eternity without this is but an eternity of trouble.
For I know of no hell either here or hereafter, but the power and
working of wrath, nor any heaven but where the God of love is all in
all, and the working life of all.  And therefore, that the holy Deity is
all one, and blessing, and goodness, willing and working only love and
goodness to everything as far as it can receive it, is a truth as deeply
grounded in me as the feeling of my own existence.  I ask you for no
proof of this; my only difficulty is how to reconcile this idea of God
to the letter of scripture.  First, because the scripture speaks so much
and so often of the wrath, and fury, and vindictive vengeance of God.
Secondly, because the whole nature of our redemption is so plainly
grounded on such a supposed degree of wrath and vengeance in God as
could not be satisfied and atoned by anything less than the death and
sacrifice of the only begotten Son of God.

[Love-2.1-14] Theophilus.  I will do more for you, Theogenes, in this
matter than you seem to expect.  I will not only reconcile the letter of
scripture with the foregoing description of God but will show you that
everything that is said of the necessity of Christ's being the only
possible satisfaction and atonement of the vindictive wrath of God is a
full and absolute proof that the wrath of God spoken of never was, nor
is, or possibly can be in God.

[Love-2.1-15] Eusebius.  Oh!  Theophilus, you have forced me now to
speak, and I cannot contain the joy that I feel in this expectation
which you have raised in me.  If you can make the scriptures do all that
which you have promised to Theogenes, I shall be in paradise before I
die.  For to know that love alone was the beginning of nature and
creature, that nothing but love encompasses the whole universe of
things, that the governing hand that overrules all, the watchful eye
that sees through all, is nothing but omnipotent and omniscient love
using an infinity of wisdom to raise all that is fallen in nature, to
save every misguided creature from the miserable works of its own hands,
and make happiness and glory the perpetual inheritance of all the
creation is a reflection that must be quite ravishing to every
intelligent creature that is sensible of it.  Thus to think of God, of
providence, and eternity whilst we are in this valley and shadow of
death is to have a real foretaste of the blessings of the world to come.
Pray, therefore, let us hear how the letter of scripture is a proof of
this God of love.

[Love-2.1-16] Theophilus.  Before I do this, Eusebius, I think it
requisite to show you in a word or two the true ground and nature of
wrath in all its kinds, what it is in itself, whence it has its birth,
life, and manner of existence.  And then you will see with your own eyes
why, and how, and where wrath or rage can, or cannot be.  And until you
see this fundamentally in the nature of things, you cannot be at all
qualified to judge of the matter in question, but must only think and
speak at random, merely as your imagination is led by the sound of
words.  For until we know in the nature of the thing what wrath is in
itself, and why, and how it comes into existence wherever it is, we
cannot say where it can enter or where it cannot.  Nor can we possibly
know what is meant by the satisfaction, appeasement, or atonement of
wrath in any being but by knowing how, and why, and for what reason
wrath can rise and work in any being; and then only can we know how any
wrath, wherever raised, can be atoned or made to cease.

[Love-2.1-17] Now there are two things, both of them visible to your
outward senses, which entirely open the true ground and nature of wrath
and undeniably show what it is in itself, from whence it arises, and
wherein its life, and strength, and being consists.  And these two
things are a tempest in the elements of this world and a raging sore in
the body of man or any other animal.  Now that a tempest in the elements
is wrath in the elements, and a sore in the body of an animal a wrath in
the state of the juices of the body is a matter, I think, that needs no
proof or explication.  Consider, then, how or why a tempest arises in
the elements, or an inflamed sore in the body, and then you have the
true ground and nature of wrath.  Now a tempest does not, cannot arise
in the elements whilst they are in their right state, in their just
mixture or union with one another.  A sore does not, cannot break forth
in the body whilst the body is altogether in its true state and
temperature of its juices.  Hence you plainly see that wrath has its
whole nature and only ground of its existence in and by the disorder or
bad state of the thing in which it exists and works.  It can have no
place of existence, no power of breaking forth, but where the thing has
lost its proper perfection and is not as it ought to be.  And therefore
no good being that is in its proper state of goodness can, whilst it is
in such a state, have any wrath or rage in it.  And therefore, as a
tempest of any kind in the elements is a sure proof that the elements
are not in their right state, but under disorder, as a raging sore in
the body is impure and corrupt and not as it should be, so in whatever
mind or intelligent being wrath or rage works and breaks forth there,
there is proof enough that the mind is in that same impure, corrupt, and
disordered state as those elements that raise a tempest and that body
which gives forth an inflamed sore.  And now, gentlemen, what think you
of a supposed wrath, or rage in God; will you have such things to be in
the Deity itself as cannot have place or existence even in any creature
until it is become disordered and impure and has lost its proper state
of goodness?

[Love-2.1-18] Eusebius.  But pray, Theophilus, let me observe that it
does not yet appear to me that there is but one wrath possible to be in
nature and creature.  I grant there is such a likeness in the things you
have appealed to as is sufficient to justify poets, orators, or popular
speakers in calling a tempest wrath, and wrath a tempest.  But this will
not do in our present matter; for all that you have said depends upon
this, whether, in a philosophic strictness in the nature of the things,
there can be only one wrath, wherever it is, proceeding strictly from
the same ground, and having everywhere the same nature.  Now if you can
prove this identity or sameness of wrath, be it where it will, either in
an intelligent mind, the elements of this world, or the body of an
animal, then your point is absolutely gained, and there can be no
possibility for wrath to have any existence in the Deity.  But as body
and spirit are generally held to be quite contrary to each other in
their most essential qualities, I do not know how you can sufficiently
prove that they can only have one kind of wrath, or that wrath must have
one and the same ground and nature, whether it be in body or spirit.

[Love-2.1-19] Theophilus.  Wrath can have no better or other ground and
nature in body than it has in spirit for this reason, because it can
have no existence or manner of working in the body but what it has
directly from spirit.  And therefore, in every wrath that is visible in
any body whatever, you have a true manifestation of the ground and
nature of wrath, in whatever spirit it is.  And therefore, as there is
but one ground and nature of wrath in all outward things, whether they
be animate or inanimate, so you have proof enough that so it is with all
wrath in the spirit or mind.  Because wrath in any body or outward thing
is nothing else but the inward working of that spirit which manifests
itself by an outward wrath in the body.

[Love-2.1-20] And what we call wrath in the body is truly and strictly
speaking the wrath of the spirit in the body.

[Love-2.1-21] For you are to observe that body begins not from itself,
nor is anything of itself, but is all that it is, whether pure or
impure, has all that it has whether of light or darkness, and works all
that it works, whether of good or evil, merely from spirit.  For
nothing, my friend, acts in the whole universe of things but spirit
alone.  And the state, condition, and degree of every spirit is only and
solely opened by the state, form, condition, and qualities of the body
that belongs to it.  For the body can have no nature, form, condition,
or quality but that which the spirit that brings it forth gives to it.

[Love-2.1-22] Was there no eternal, universal spirit, there could be no
eternal or universal nature; that is, was not the Spirit of God
everywhere, the kingdom of heaven, or the visible glory of God in an
outward majesty of heaven, could not be everywhere.  Now the kingdom of
heaven is that to the Deity which every body is to the spirit, which
liveth, worketh, and manifesteth itself in it.  But the kingdom of
heaven is not God, yet all that it is, and has, and does is only an
outward manifestation of the nature, power, and working of the Spirit of
God.

[Love-2.1-23] It is thus with every creaturely spirit and its body,
which is the habitation or seat of its power; and as the spirit is in
its nature, kind and degree, whether heavenly, earthly, or hellish, so
is its body.  Was there not creaturely spirits, there could be no
creaturely bodies.  And the reason why there are creaturely bodies of
such various forms, shapes, and powers is because spirits come forth
from God in various kinds and degrees of life, each manifesting its own
nature, power, and condition by that body which proceeds from it as its
own birth, or the manifestation of its own powers.

[Love-2.1-24] Now the spirit is not body, nor is the body spirit; they
are so essentially distinct that they cannot possibly lose their
difference, or be changed into one another; and yet all that is in the
body is from the nature, will, and working of its spirit.  There is
therefore no possible room for a supposition of two kinds of wrath, or
that wrath may have two natures, the one as it is in spirit, and the
other as it is in body; first, because nothing can be wrathful but
spirit, and secondly, because no spirit can exert or manifest wrath but
in and by its body.  The kindling its own body is the spirit's only
wrath.  And therefore, through the whole universe of things, there is
and can be but one possible ground and nature of wrath, whether it be in
the sore of an animal body, in a tempest of the elements, in the mind of
a man, in an angel, or in hell.

[Love-2.1-25] Eusebius.  Enough, enough, Theophilus.  You have made it
sufficiently plain that wrath can be no more in God himself than hell
can be heaven.  And therefore we ask no more of you, but only to
reconcile this with the language and doctrine of the holy scriptures.

[Love-2.1-26] Theogenes.  You are in too much haste, Eusebius; it would
be better to let Theophilus proceed further in this matter.  He has told
us what wrath is in itself; be it where it will, I should be glad to
know its one true original, or how, and where, and why it could possibly
begin to be.

[Love-2.1-27] Theophilus.  To inquire or search into the origin of wrath
is the same thing as to search into the origin of evil and sin.  For
wrath and evil are but two words for one and the same thing.  There is
no evil in anything, but the working of the spirit of wrath.  And when
wrath is entirely suppressed, there can be no more evil, or misery, or
sin in all nature and creature.  This therefore is a firm truth, that
nothing can be capable of wrath, or be the beginning of wrath but the
creature, because nothing but the creature can be the beginner of evil
and sin.

[Love-2.1-28] Again, the creature can have no beginning, or sensibility
of wrath in itself, but by losing the living power, the living presence,
and governing operation of the Spirit of God within it, or in other
words, by its losing that heavenly state of existence in God and
influence from him which it had at its creation.

[Love-2.1-29] Now no intelligent creature, whether angel or man, can be
good and happy but by partaking of, or having in itself, a two-fold
life.  Hence so much is said in the scripture of an inward and outward,
an old and a new man.  For there could be no foundation for this
distinction but because every intelligent creature, created to be good
and happy, must of all necessity have a two-fold life in it, or it
cannot possibly be capable of goodness and happiness, nor can it
possibly lose its goodness and happiness, or feel the least want of
them, but by its breaking the union of this two-fold life in itself.
Hence so much is said in the scripture of the quickening, raising, and
reviving the inward, new man, of the new birth from above, of Christ
being formed in us as the one only redemption and salvation of the soul.
Hence also the fall of Adam was said to be a death, that he died the day
of his sin though he lived so many hundred years after it; it was
because his sin broke the union of his two-fold life and put an end to
the heavenly part of it and left only one life, the life of this
bestial, earthly world in him.

[Love-2.1-30] Now there is, in the nature of the thing, an absolute
necessity of this two-fold life in every creature that is to be good and
happy; and the two-fold life is this, it must have the life of nature,
and the life of God in it.  It cannot be a creature, and intelligent,
but by having the life and properties of nature, that is, by finding
itself to be a life of various sensibilities, that hath a power of
understanding, willing, and desiring.  This is its creaturely life,
which, by the creating power of god, it hath in and from nature.

[Love-2.1-31] Now this is all the life that is or can be creaturely, or
be a creature's natural, own life; and all this creaturely natural life,
with all its various powers and sensibilities, is only a life of various
appetites, hungers, and wants, and cannot possibly be anything else.
God himself cannot make a creature to be in itself, or as to its own
nature, anything else but a state of emptiness, of want, of appetite,
etc.  He cannot make it to be good and happy, in and from its natural
state: This is as impossible as for God to cease to be the one only
good.  The highest life, therefore, that is natural and creaturely can
go no higher than this; it can only be a bare capacity for goodness and
happiness and cannot possibly be a good and happy life, but by the life
of God dwelling in, and in union with it.  And this is the two-fold life
that of all necessity must be united in every good and perfect and happy
creature.

[Love-2.1-32] See here the greatest of all demonstrations of the
absolute necessity of the gospel redemption and salvation, and all
proved from the nature of the thing.  There can be no goodness and
happiness for any intelligent creature, but in and by this two-fold
life; and therefore the union of the divine and human life, or the Son
of God incarnate in man to make man again a partaker of the divine
nature, is the one only possible salvation for all the sons of fallen
Adam, that is, of Adam dead to or fallen from his first union with the
divine life.

[Love-2.1-33] Deism, therefore, or a religion of nature, pretending to
make man good and happy without Christ, or the Son of God entering into
union with the human nature, is the greatest of all absurdities.  It is
as contrary to the nature and possibilities of things as for mere
emptiness to be its own fullness, mere hunger to be its own food, and
mere want to be its possession of all things.  For nature and creature,
without the Christ of God or the divine life in union with it, is and
can be nothing else but this mere emptiness, hunger, and want of all
that which can alone make it good and happy.  For God himself, as I
said, cannot make any creature to be good and happy by anything that is
in its own created nature; and however high and noble any creature is
supposed to be created, its height and nobility can consist in nothing
but its higher capacity and fitness to receive a higher union with the
divine life, and also a higher and more wretched misery when left to
itself, as is manifest by the hellish state of the fallen angels.  Their
high and exalted nature was only an enlarged capacity for the divine
life; and therefore, when this life was lost, their whole created nature
was nothing else but the height of rage, and hellish distraction.

[Love-2.1-34] A plain demonstration that there can be no happiness,
blessing, and goodness for any creature in heaven or on earth but by
having, as the gospel saith, Jesus Christ made unto it, wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and peace with God.

[Love-2.1-35] And the reason is this; it is because goodness and
happiness are absolutely inseparable from God, and can be nowhere but in
God.  And on the other hand, emptiness, want, insufficiency, etc., are
absolutely inseparable from the creature, as such; its whole nature
cannot possibly be anything else, be it what or where it will, an angel
in heaven, or a man on earth; it is and must be in its whole creaturely
nature and capacity a mere hunger and emptiness, etc.  And therefore all
that we know of God, and all that we know of the creature, fully proves
that the life of God in union with the creaturely life (which is the
gospel salvation) is the one only possibility of goodness and happiness
in any creature, whether in heaven or on earth.

[Love-2.1-36] Hence also it is enough certain that this two-fold life
must have been the original state of every intelligent creature at its
first coming forth from God.  It could not be brought forth by God to
have only a creaturely life of nature, and be left to that; for that
would be creating it under a necessity of being in misery, in want, in
wrath, and all painful sensibilities.  A thing more unworthy of God, and
more impossible for him to do, than to create numberless earthly animals
under a necessity of being perpetually pained with hunger and thirst,
without any possibility of finding anything to eat or to drink.

[Love-2.1-37] For no creaturely life can in itself be any higher, or
better, than a state of want or a seeking for something that cannot be
found in itself; and therefore, as sure as God is good, as sure as he
would have intelligent beings live a life of goodness and happiness, so
sure is it that such beings must of all necessity in their first
existence have been blessed with a two-fold life, viz., the life of God
dwelling in and united with the life of nature or created life.

[Love-2.1-38] Eusebius.  What an important matter have you here proved
in the necessity and certainty of this two-fold life in every
intelligent being that is to be good and happy?  For this great truth
opens and asserts the certain and substantial ground of the spiritual
life and shows that all salvation is and can be nothing else but the
manifestation of the life of God in the soul.  How clearly does this
give the solid distinction between inward holiness and all outward,
creaturely practices.  All that God has done for man by any particular
dispensations, whether by the law or the prophets, by the scriptures, or
ordinances of the church, are only as helps to a holiness which they
cannot give, but are only suited to the death and darkness of the
earthly, creaturely life, to turn it from itself, from its own workings,
and awaken in it a faith and hope, a hunger and thirst after that first
union with the life of the Deity, which was lost in the fall of the
first father of mankind.

[Love-2.1-39] How unreasonable is it to call perpetual inspiration
fanaticism and enthusiasm when there cannot be the least degree of
goodness or happiness in any intelligent being, but what is in its whole
nature, merely and truly the breathing, the life, and the operation of
God in the life of the creature?  For if goodness can only be in God, if
it cannot exist separate from him, if he can only bless and sanctify not
by a creaturely gift, but by himself becoming the blessing and
sanctification of the creature, then it is the highest degree of
blindness to look for any goodness and happiness from anything but the
immediate indwelling, union, and operation of the Deity in the life of
the creature.  Perpetual inspiration, therefore, is in the nature of the
thing as necessary to a life of goodness, holiness, and happiness, as
the perpetual respiration of the air is necessary to animal life.

[Love-2.1-40] For the life of the creature, whilst only creaturely and
possessing nothing but itself, is hell; that is, it is all pain and want
and distress.  Now nothing in the nature of the thing can make the least
alteration in this creaturely life, nothing can help it to be in light
and love, in peace and goodness, but the union of God with it, and the
life of God working in it, because nothing but God is light, and love,
and heavenly goodness.  And therefore, where the life of God is not
become the life and goodness of the creature, there the creature cannot
have the least degree of goodness in it.

[Love-2.1-41] What a mistake is it, therefore, to confine inspiration to
particular times and occasions, to prophets and apostles and
extraordinary messengers of God, and to call it enthusiasm when the
common Christian looks and trusts to be continually led and inspired by
the Spirit of God.  For though all are not called to be prophets or
apostles, yet all are called to be holy as he who has called them is
holy, to be perfect as their heavenly father is perfect, to be like-
minded with Christ, to will only as God wills, to do all to his honor
and glory, to renounce the spirit of this world, to have their
conversation in heaven, to set their affections on things above, to love
God with all their heart, soul, and spirit, and their neighbor as
themselves.

[Love-2.1-42] Behold a work as great, as divine and supernatural as that
of a prophet and an apostle.  But to suppose that we ought and may
always be in this spirit of holiness, and yet are not and ought not to
be always moved and led by the breath and Spirit of God within us, is to
suppose that there is a holiness and goodness which comes not from God,
which is no better than supposing that there may be true prophets and
apostles who have not their truth from God.

[Love-2.1-43] Now the holiness of the common Christian is not an
occasional thing that begins and ends, or is only for such a time, or
place, or action, but is the holiness of that which is always alive and
stirring in us, namely, of our thoughts, wills, desires, and affections.
If therefore these are always alive in us, always driving or governing
our lives, if we can have no holiness or goodness but as this life of
thought, will, and affection works in us, if we are all called to this
inward holiness and goodness, then a perpetual, always-existing
operation of the Spirit of God within us is absolutely necessary.  For
we cannot be inwardly led and governed by a spirit of goodness, but by
being governed by the Spirit of God himself.  For the Spirit of God and
the spirit of goodness are not two spirits, nor can we be said to have
any more of the one than we have of the other.

[Love-2.1-44] Now if our thoughts, wills, and affections need only be
now and then holy and good, then indeed the moving and breathing Spirit
of God need only now and then govern us.  But if our thoughts and
affections are to be always holy and good, then the holy and good Spirit
of God is to be always operating as a principle of life within us.

[Love-2.1-45] The scripture saith, "We are not sufficient of ourselves
to think a good thought."  If so, then we cannot be chargeable with not
thinking and willing that which is good but upon this supposition, that
there is always a supernatural power within us, ready and able to help
us to the good which we cannot have from ourselves.

[Love-2.1-46] The difference then of a good and a bad man does not lie
in this, that the one wills that which is good, and the other does not,
but solely in this, that the one concurs with the living inspiring
Spirit of God within him and the other resists it, and is and can be
only chargeable with evil because he resists it.

[Love-2.1-47] Therefore whether you consider that which is good or bad
in a man, they equally prove the perpetual indwelling and operation of
the Spirit of God within us since we can only be bad by resisting, as we
are good by yielding to the Spirit of God, both which equally suppose a
perpetual operation of the Spirit of God within us.

[Love-2.1-48] How firmly our Established Church adheres to this doctrine
of the necessity of the perpetual operation of the Holy Spirit as the
one only source and possibility of any degree of divine light, wisdom,
virtue, and goodness in the soul of man, how earnestly she wills and
requires all her members to live in the most open profession of it and
in the highest conformity to it may be seen by many such prayers as
these in her common, ordinary, public service.

[Love-2.1-49] "O God, forasmuch as without thee, we are not able to
please thee, grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and
rule our hearts."  Again, "We pray thee, that thy grace may always
prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good
works."  Again, "Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think
and do always such things as be rightful, that we, who cannot do
anything that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live
according to thy will."  Again, "Because the frailty of man without thee
cannot but fall, keep us ever, by thy help from all things hurtful, and
lead us to all things profitable to our salvation," etc.  Again, "O God,
from whom all good things do come, grant to us thy humble servants that
by thy holy inspiration we may think those things that be good, and by
thy merciful guiding may perform the same."  But now the true ground of
all this doctrine of the necessity of the perpetual guidance and
operation of the Holy Spirit lies in what has been said above of the
necessity of a two-fold life in every intelligent creature, that is, to
be good and happy.  For if the creaturely life whilst alone or left to
itself can only be want, misery, and distress, if it cannot possibly
have any goodness or happiness in it till the life of God is in union
with it as one life, then everything that you read in the scripture of
the Spirit of God as the only principle of goodness opens itself to you
as a most certain and blessed truth, about which you can have no doubt.

[Love-2.1-50] Theophilus.  Let me only add, Eusebius, to what you have
said, that from this absolute necessity of a two-fold life in every
creature, that is, to be good and happy, we may in a still greater
clearness see the certainty of that which we have so often spoken of at
other times, namely, that the inspoken Word in paradise, the bruiser of
the serpent, the seed of the woman, the Immanuel, the holy Jesus (for
they all mean the same thing) is and was the only possible ground of
salvation for fallen man.  For if the two-fold life is necessary and man
could not be restored to goodness and happiness but by the restored
union of this two-fold life into its first state, then there was an
absolute necessity in the nature of the thing that every son of Adam
should have such a seed of heaven in the birth of his life, as could by
the mediation of Christ be raised into a birth and growth of the first
perfect man.  This is the one original power of salvation without which
no external dispensation could have done anything toward raising the
fallen state of man.  For nothing could be raised but what there was to
be raised, nor life be given to anything but to that {which--Spencer}
was capable of life.  Unless, therefore, there had been a seed of life
or a smothered spark of heaven in the soul of man which wanted to come
to the birth, there had been no possibility for any dispensation of God
to bring forth a birth of heaven in fallen man.

[Love-2.1-51] The faith of the first patriarchs could not have been in
being; Moses and the prophets had come in vain had not the Christ of God
lain in a state of hiddenness in every son of man.  For faith, which is
a will and hunger after God, could not have begun to be, or have any
life in man but because there was something of the divine nature
existing and hid in man.  For nothing can have any longing desire but
after its own likeness, nor could anything be made to desire God but
that which came from him and had the nature of him.

[Love-2.1-52] The whole mediatorial office of Christ, from his birth to
his sitting down in power at the right hand of God, was only for this
end, to help man to a life that was fallen into death and insensibility
in him.  And therefore his mediatorial power was to manifest itself by
way of a new birth.  In the nature of the thing nothing else was to be
done, and Christ had no other way to proceed, and that for this plain
reason, because life was the thing that was lost, and life wherever it
is must be raised by a birth, and every birth must and can only come
from its own seed.

[Love-2.1-53] But if Christ was to raise a new life like his own in
every man, then every man must have had, originally, in the inmost
spirit of his life, a seed of Christ, or Christ as a seed of heaven,
lying there as in a state of insensibility or death, out of which it
could not arise but by the mediatorial power of Christ, who as a second
Adam was to regenerate that birth of his own life, which was lost in all
the natural sons of Adam the first.

[Love-2.1-54] But unless there was this seed of Christ or spark of
heaven hidden in the soul, not the least beginning of man's salvation or
of Christ's mediatorial office could be made.  For what could begin to
deny self if there was not something in man different from self?  What
could begin to have hope and faith and desire of a heavenly life if
there was not something of heaven hidden in his soul, and lying therein
as in a state of inactivity and death till raised by the mediation of
Christ into its first perfection of life, and set again in its true
dominion over flesh and blood?

[Love-2.1-55] Eusebius.  You have, Theophilus, sufficiently proved the
certainty and necessity of this matter.  But I should be glad if you
knew how to help me to some more distinct idea and conception of it.

[Love-2.1-56] Theophilus.  An idea is not the thing to be here sought
for; it would rather hinder than help your true knowledge of it.  But
perhaps the following similitude may be of some use to you.

[Love-2.1-57] The Ten Commandments when written by God on tables of
stone and given to man did not then first begin to belong to man; they
had their existence in man, were born with him, they lay as a seed and
power of goodness hidden in the form and make of his soul and altogether
inseparable from it before they were shown to man on tables of stone.
And when they were shown to man on tables of stone, they were only an
outward imitation of that which was inwardly in man, though not legible
because of that impurity of flesh and blood in which they were drowned
and swallowed up.  For the earthly nature, having overcome the divinity
that was in man, it gave commandments of its own to man and required
obedience to all the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the
pride of life.

[Love-2.1-58] Hence it became necessary that God should give an outward
knowledge of such commandments as were become inwardly unknown, unfelt,
and, as it were, shut up in death in the soul.

[Love-2.1-59] But now, had not all that is in these commandments been
really and antecedently in the soul as its own birth and nature, had
they not still lain therein, and although totally suppressed yet in such
a seed or remains as could be called forth into their first living
state, in vain had the tables of stone been given to man; and all
outward writing or teaching of the commandments had been as useless as
so many instructions given to beasts or stones.  If therefore you can
conceive how all that is good and holy in the commandments lay hid as an
unfelt, unactive power or seed of goodness till called into sensibility
and stirring by laws written on tables of stone, this may help your
manner of conceiving and believing how Christ as a seed of life or power
of salvation lies in the soul as its unknown, hidden treasure till
awakened and called forth into life by the mediatorial office and
process of the holy Jesus.

[Love-2.1-60] Again, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as
thyself."  Now these two precepts, given by the written word of God, are
an absolute demonstration of the first original perfection of man and
also a full and invincible proof that the same original perfection is
not quite annihilated but lies in him as a hidden, suppressed seed of
goodness capable of being raised up to its first perfection.  For had
not this divine unity, purity, and perfection of love toward God and man
been man's first natural state of life, it could have nothing to do with
his present state.  For had any other nature, or measure, or kind of
love began in the first birth of his life, he could only have been
called to that.  For no creature has or can have a call to be above, or
act above its own nature.  Therefore, as sure as man is called to this
unity, purity, and perfection of love, so sure is it that it was at
first his natural, heavenly state, and still has its seed, or remains
within him as his only power and possibility of rising up to it again.
And therefore, all that man is called to, every degree of a new and
perfect life, every future exaltation and glory he is to have from the
mediation of Christ, is a full proof that the same perfection was
originally his natural state and is still in him in such a seed or
remains of existence as to admit of a perfect renewal.

[Love-2.1-61] And thus it is that you are to conceive of the holy Jesus,
or the Word of God, as the hidden treasure of every human soul, born as
a seed of the Word in the birth of the soul, immured under flesh and
blood till as a daystar it arises in our hearts and changes the son of
an earthly Adam into a son of God.

[Love-2.1-62] And was not the Word and Spirit of God in us all,
antecedent to any dispensation or written word of God as a real seed of
life in the birth of our own life, we could have no more fitness for the
gospel redemption than the animals of this world which have nothing of
heaven in them.  And to call us to love God with all our hearts, to put
on Christ, to walk according to the Spirit, if these things had not
their real nature and root within us, would be as vain and useless as to
make rules and orders how our eyes should smell and taste, or our ears
should see.

[Love-2.1-63] Now this mystery of an inward life hidden in man as his
most precious treasure, as the ground of all that can be great or good
in him and hidden only since his fall, and which only can be opened and
brought forth in its first glory by him to whom all power in heaven and
on earth is given, is a truth to which almost everything in nature bears
full witness.  Look where you will, nothing appears or works outwardly
in any creature or in any effect of nature but what is all done from its
own inward invisible spirit, not a spirit brought into it, but its own
inward spirit which is an inward invisible mystery till made known or
brought forth by outward appearances.

[Love-2.1-64] The sea neither is nor can be moved and tossed by any
other wind than that which hath its birth, and life, and strength in and
from the sea itself as its own wind.  The sun in the firmament gives
growth to everything that grows in the earth, and life to everything
that lives upon it, not by giving or imparting a life from without, but
only by stirring up in everything its own growth and its own life which
lay as in a seed or state of death till helped to come out of it by the
sun, which as an emblem of the redeemer of the spiritual world helps
every earthly thing out of its own death into its own highest state of
life.

[Love-2.1-65] That which we call our sensations, as seeing, hearing,
feeling, tasting, and smelling, are not things brought into us from
without, or given unto us by any external causes, but are only so many
inborn, secret states of the soul which lie in their state of hiddenness
till they are occasionally awakened and brought forth into sensibility
by outward occurrences.  And were they not antecedently in the soul as
states and forms of its own life, no outward objects could bring the
soul into a sensibility of them.  For nothing can have or be in any
state of sensation but that which it is and hath from itself, as its own
birth.  This is as certain as that a circle hath only its own roundness.

[Love-2.1-66] The stinking gum gives nothing to the soul, nor brings
anything into sensibility but that which was before in the soul; it has
only a fitness to awaken and stir up that state of the soul which lay
dormant before, and which when brought into sensibility is called the
sensation of bad smelling.  And the odoriferous gum hath likewise but
the same power, viz., a fitness to stir up that state of sensation in
the soul which is called its delightful smelling.  But both these
sensations are only internal states of the soul which appear, or
disappear, are found, or not found, just as occasions bring them into
sensibility.

[Love-2.1-67] Again, the greatest artist in music can add no sound to
his instrument, nor make it give forth any other melody but that which
lieth silently hidden in it as its own inward state.

[Love-2.1-68] Look now at what you will, whether it be animate, or
inanimate: All that it is, or has, or can be, it is and has in and from
itself, as its own inward state; and all outward things can do no more
to it than the hand does to the instrument, make it show forth its own
inward state, either of harmony or discord.

[Love-2.1-69] It is strictly thus with ourselves.  Not a spark of joy,
of wrath, of envy, of love or grief can possibly enter into us from
without, or be caused to be in us by any outward thing.  This is as
impossible as for the sound of metals to be put into a lump of clay.
And as no metal can possibly give forth any other or higher sound than
that which is enclosed within it, so we, however struck, can give forth
no other or higher sound either of love, hatred, wrath, etc., than that
very degree which lay before shut up within us.

[Love-2.1-70] The natural state of our tempers has variety of covers
under which they lie concealed at times, both from ourselves and others;
but when this or that accident happens to displace such or such a cover,
then that which lay hid under it breaks forth.  And then we vainly think
that this or that outward occasion has not shown us how we are within,
but has only infused or put into us a wrath, or grief, or envy which is
not our natural state or of our own growth, or has all that it has from
our own inward state.

[Love-2.1-71] But this is mere blindness and self-deceit, for it is as
impossible for the mind to have any grief, or wrath, or joy, but what it
has all from its own inward state, as for the instrument to give forth
any other harmony or discord but that which is within and from itself.

[Love-2.1-72] Persons, things, and outward occurrences may strike our
instrument improperly and variously, but as we are in ourselves, such is
our outward sound, whatever strikes us.

[Love-2.1-73] If our inward state is the renewed life of Christ within
us, then every thing and occasion, let it be what it will, only makes
the same life to sound forth and show itself; then if one cheek is
smitten, we meekly turn the other also.  But if nature is alive and only
under a religious cover, then every outward accident that shakes or
disturbs this cover gives leave to that bad state, whether of grief, or
wrath, or joy that lay hid within us to show forth itself.

[Love-2.1-74] But nothing at any time makes the least show or sound
outwardly, but only that which lay ready within us for an outward birth,
as occasion should offer.

[Love-2.1-75] What a miserable mistake is it therefore to place
religious goodness in outward observances, in notions and opinions which
good and bad men can equally receive and practice, and to treat the
ready real power and operation of an inward life of God in the birth of
our souls as fanaticism and enthusiasm, when not only the whole letter
and spirit of scripture, but every operation in nature and creature
demonstrates that the kingdom of heaven must be all within us, or it
never can possibly belong to us.  Goodness, piety, and holiness can only
be ours, as thinking, willing, and desiring are ours, by being in us as
a power of heaven in the birth and growth of our own life.

[Love-2.1-76] And now, Eusebius, how is the great controversy about
religion and salvation shortened.

[Love-2.1-77] For since the one only work of Christ as your redeemer is
only this, to take from the earthly life of flesh and blood its usurped
power and to raise the smothered spark of heaven out of its state of
death into a powerful governing life of the whole man, your one only
work also under your redeemer is fully known.  And you have the utmost
certainty what you are to do, where you are to seek, and in what you are
to find your salvation.  All that you have to do, or can do, is to
oppose, resist, and, as far as you can, to renounce the evil tempers and
workings of your own earthly nature.  You are under the power of no
other enemy, are held in no other captivity, and want no other
deliverance but from the power of your own earthly self.  This is the
one murderer of the divine life within you.  It is your own Cain that
murders your own Abel.  Now everything that your earthly nature does is
under the influence of self-will, self-love, and self-seeking, whether
it carries you to laudable or blamable practices, all is done in the
nature and spirit of Cain and only helps you to such goodness as when
Cain slew his brother.  For every action and motion of self has the
spirit of anti-Christ and murders the divine life within you.

[Love-2.1-78] Judge not therefore of yourself by considering how many of
those things you do which divines and moralists call virtue and
goodness, nor how much you abstain from those things which they call sin
and vice.

[Love-2.1-79] But daily and hourly, in every step that you take, see to
the spirit that is within you whether it be heaven or earth that guides
you.  And judge everything to be sin and Satan in which your earthly
nature, own love, or self-seeking has any share of life in you; nor
think that any goodness is brought to life in you but so ar as it is an
actual death to the pride, the vanity, the wrath, and selfish tempers of
your fallen, earthly life.

[Love-2.1-80] Again, here you see where and how you are to seek your
salvation, not in taking up your traveling staff, or crossing the seas
to find out a new Luther or a new Calvin to clothe yourself with their
opinions.  No.  The oracle is at home that always and only speaks the
truth to you because nothing is your truth but that good and that evil
which is yours within you.  For salvation or damnation is no outward
thing that is brought into you from without, but is only that which
springs up within you as the birth and state of your own life.  What you
are in yourself, what is doing in yourself, is all that can be either
your salvation or damnation.

[Love-2.1-81] For all that is our good and all that is our bad has no
place nor power but within us.  Again, nothing that we do is bad but for
this reason, because it resists the power and working of God within us;
and nothing that we do can be good but because it conforms to the Spirit
of God within us.  And therefore, as all that can be good and all that
can be evil in us necessarily supposes a God working within us, you have
the utmost certainty that God, salvation, and the kingdom of heaven are
nowhere to be sought, or found, but within you, and that all outward
religion from the fall of man to this day is not for itself, but merely
for the sake of an inward and divine life which was lost when Adam died
his first death in paradise.  And therefore it may well be said that
circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, because nothing
is wanted, and therefore nothing can be available but the new creature
called out of its captivity under the death and darkness of flesh and
blood into the light, life, and perfection of its first creation.

[Love-2.1-82] And thus also you have the fullest proof in what your
salvation precisely consists.  Not in any historic faith, or knowledge
of anything absent or distant from you, not in any variety of
restraints, rules, and methods of practicing virtues, not in any
formality of opinion about faith and works, repentance, forgiveness of
sins, or justification and sanctification, nor in any truth or
righteousness that you can have from yourself, from the best of men or
books, but wholly and solely in the life of God, or Christ of God
quickened and born again in you, or in other words in the restoration
and perfect union of the first two-fold life in the humanity.

[Love-2.1-83] Theogenes.  Though all that has passed betwixt you and
Eusebius concerns matters of the greatest moment, yet I must call it a
digression and quite useless to me.  For I have not the least doubt
about any of these things you have been asserting.  It is visible enough
that there can be no medium in this matter; either religion must be all
spiritual or all carnal, that is, we must either take up with the
grossness of the Sadducees who say there is neither angel nor spirit, or
with such purification as the Pharisees had from their washing of pots
and vessels and tithing their mint and rue; we must, I say, either
acquiesce in all this carnality, or we must profess a religion that is
all spirit and life, and merely for the sake of raising up an inward
spiritual life of heaven that fell into death in our first father.

[Love-2.1-84] I consent also to everything that you have said of the
nature and origin of wrath.  That it can have no place nor possibility
of beginning but solely in the creaturely nature, nor even any
possibility of beginning there till the creature has died to or lost its
proper state of existence in God, that is, till it has lost that life
and blessing and happiness which it had in and from God at its first
creation.

[Love-2.1-85] But I still ask, what must I do with all those scriptures
which not only make God capable of being provoked to wrath and
resentment, but frequently inflamed with the highest degrees of rage,
fury, and vengeance that can be expressed by words?

[Love-2.1-86] Theophilus.  I promised, you know, to remove this
difficulty, and will be as good as my word.  But I must first tell you
that you are in much more distress about it than you need to be.  For in
the little book of Regeneration, in the Appeal, in the Spirit of Prayer,
etc., which you read with such entire approbation, the whole matter is
cleared up from its true ground, how wrath in the scriptures is ascribed
to God and yet cannot belong to the nature of the Deity.

[Love-2.1-87] Thus you are told in the Appeal, after these two falls of
two orders of creatures (that is, of angels and man), the Deity itself
came to have new and strange names, new and unheard of tempers and
inclinations of wrath, fury, and vengeance ascribed to it.  I call them
new because they began at the fall; I call them strange because they
were foreign to the Deity and could not belong to God in himself.  Thus,
God is said to be a consuming fire.  But to whom?  To the fallen angels
and lost souls.  But why, and how is he so to them?  It is because those
creatures have lost all that they had from God but the fire of their
nature, and therefore God can only be found and manifested in them as a
consuming fire.  Now is it not justly said that God, who is nothing but
infinite love, is yet in such creatures only a consuming fire?  And
though God be nothing but love, yet they are under the wrath and
vengeance of God because they have only that fire in them which is
broken off from the light and love of God and so can know or feel
nothing of God but his fire of nature in them.  As creatures, they can
have no life but what they have in and from God; and therefore that
wrathful life which they have is truly said to be a wrath or fire of God
upon them.  And yet it is still strictly true that there is no wrath in
God himself, that he is not changed in his temper toward the creatures,
that he does not cease to be one and the same infinite fountain of
goodness, infinitely flowing forth in the riches of his love upon all
and every life.  (Now, sir, mind what follows as the true ground, how
wrath can and cannot be ascribed to God.)  God is not changed from love
to wrath, but the creatures have changed their own state in nature, and
so the God of nature can only be manifested in them according to their
own state in nature.  And, N.B., this is the true ground of rightly
understanding all that is said of the wrath and vengeance of God in and
upon the creatures.  It is only in such a sense as the curse of God may
be said to be upon them, not because anything cursed can be in or come
from God, but because they have made that life which they must have in
God to be a mere curse to themselves.  For every creature that lives
must have its life in and from God, and therefore God must be in every
creature.  This is as true of devils as of holy angels.  But how is God
in them?  N.B. Why, only as he is manifested in nature.  Holy angels
have the triune life of God as manifested in nature, so manifested also
in them, and therefore God is in them all love, goodness, majesty, and
glory, and theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[Love-2.1-88] Devils have nothing of this triune life left in them but
the fire or wrath of eternal nature broken off from all light and love;
and therefore the life that they can have in and from God is only and
solely a life of wrath, rage, and darkness, and theirs is the kingdom of
hell.

[Love-2.1-89] And because this life (though all rage and darkness) is a
strength and power of life, which they must have in and from God, and
which they cannot take out of his hands, therefore is their cursed,
miserable, wrathful life truly and justly said to be the curse and
misery, and wrath, and vengeance of God upon them, though God himself
can no more have curse, misery, wrath, and vengeance than he can have
mischief, malice, or any fearful tremblings in his holy triune Deity.

[Love-2.1-90] See now, Theogenes, what little occasion you had for your
present difficulty.  For here, in the above cited words, which you have
been several years acquainted with, the true ground and reason is
plainly shown you, how and why all the wrath, rage, and curse that is
anywhere stirring in nature or breaking forth in any creature is and
must be in all truth called by the scriptures the wrath, and rage, and
vengeance of God, though it be the greatest of all impossibilities for
rage and wrath to be in the holy Deity itself.

[Love-2.1-91] The scriptures therefore are literally true in all that
they affirm of the wrath, etc., of God.  For is it not as literally true
of God that hell and devils are his, as that heaven and holy angels are
his?  Must not therefore all the wrath and rage of the one be as truly
his {rage and--in Stanwood, but not Spencer} in them, as the light and
joy and glory of the other is only his goodness opened and manifested in
them, according to their state in nature?

[Love-2.1-92] Take notice of this fundamental truth.

[Love-2.1-93] Everything that works in nature and creature, except sin,
is the working of God in nature and creature.  The creature has nothing
else in its power but the free use of its will; and its free will hath
no other power but that of concurring with or resisting the working of
God in nature.  The creature with its free will can bring nothing into
being, nor make any alteration in the working of nature, and so feel and
find something in its state that it did not feel or find before.

[Love-2.1-94] Thus God, in the manifestation of himself in and by
nature, sets before every man fire and water, life and death; and man
has no other power but that of entering into and uniting with either of
these states, but not the least power of adding to, or taking anything
from them, or of making them to be otherwise than he finds them.

[Love-2.1-95] For this fire and water, this life and death are nature,
and have their unchangeable state in the uniform working of God in
nature.  And therefore, whatever is done by this fire and water, this
life and death in any creature may, nay must in the strictest truth be
affirmed of God as done by him.  And consequently every breathing forth
of fire, or death, or rage, or curse, wherever it is, or in whatever
creature, must be said, in the language of scripture, to be a provoked
wrath, or fiery vengeance of God, poured forth upon the creature.  And
yet, everything that has been said in proof of the wrath of God shows
and proves to you at the same time that it is not a wrath in the holy
Deity itself.

[Love-2.1-96] For you see, as was said above, that God sets before man
fire and water, life and death; now these things are not God, nor
existent in the Deity itself; but they are that which is, and is called
nature, and as they are the only things set before man, so man can go no
further, reach no further, nor find, nor feel, nor be sensible of
anything else but that which is to be felt or found in this nature, or
fire and water, life and death which is set before him.  And therefore
all that man can find or feel of the wrath and vengeance of God can only
be in this fire and this death, and not in the Deity itself.

[Love-2.1-97] Theogenes.  Oh Theophilus, you have given me the utmost
satisfaction on this point, and in a much better way than I imagined.  I
expected to have seen you glossing and criticizing away the literal
expression of scriptures that affirm the wrath of God, in order to make
good your point that the Deity is mere love.

[Love-2.1-98] But you have done the utmost justice to the letter of
scripture, you have established it upon a firm and solid foundation and
shown that the truth of things require it to be so, and that there can
be no wrath anywhere, but what is and must be called the wrath and
vengeance of God, and yet is only in nature.

[Love-2.1-99] What you have here said seems as if it would clear up many
passages of scripture that have raised much perplexity.  Methinks I
begin to see how the hardness of Pharaoh's heart, how eyes that see not
and ears that hear not, may in the strictest truth be said to be of or
from God, though the Deity in itself stands in the utmost contrariety to
all these things, and in the utmost impossibility of willing or causing
them to be.

[Love-2.1-100] But I must not draw you from our present matter.  You
have shown from the letter of scripture that nothing else is set before
man but fire and water, life and death; and therefore, no possibility of
wrath or love, joy or sorrow, curse or happiness to be found by man but
in this state of nature set before him, or into which at his creation he
is introduced as into a region of various sensibilities where all that
he finds, or feels is truly God's, but not God himself, who has his
supernatural residence above and distinct from everything that is
nature, fire or water, life or death.

[Love-2.1-101] But give me leave to mention one word of a difficulty
that I yet have.  You have proved that wrath, rage, vengeance, etc., can
only exist or be found in nature and not in God; and yet you say that
nature is nothing else but a manifestation of the hidden, invisible
powers of God.  But if so, must not that which is in nature be also in
God?  How else could nature be a manifestation of God?

[Love-2.1-102] Theophilus.  Nature is a true manifestation of the
hidden, invisible God.  But you are to observe that nature, as it is in
itself, in its own state, cannot have the least possible spark, or
stirring of wrath, or curse, or vengeance in it, but on the contrary is
from eternity to eternity a mere infinity of heavenly light, love, joy,
and glory; and thus it is a true manifestation of the hidden Deity, and
the greatest of proofs that the Deity itself can have no wrath in it
since wrath only then begins to be in nature when nature has lost its
first state.

[Love-2.1-103] Theogenes.  This is answer enough.  But now another thing
starts up in my mind.  For if the Deity in itself, in its supernatural
state, is mere love, and only a will to all goodness, and if nature in
itself is only a manifestation of this Deity of love in heavenly light
and glory, if neither God nor nature have or can give forth wrath, how
then can fire and water, life and death be set before man?  What can
they come from, or where can they exist, since God in himself is all
love; and nature, which is kingdom of heaven, is an infinity of joy,
blessing, and happiness?

[Love-2.1-104] Theophilus.  I will open to you all this matter to the
bottom in as few words as I can.

[Love-2.1-105] Before God began any creation or gave birth to any
creature, he was only manifested or known to himself in his own glory
and majesty; there was nothing but himself in his own glory and majesty;
there was nothing but himself beholding himself in his own kingdom of
heaven, which was, and is, and ever will be as unlimited as himself.

[Love-2.1-106] Nature as well as God is and must be antecedent to all
creature.  For as no seeing eye could be created unless there was
antecedently to it a natural visibility of things, so no creature could
come into a sensibility of any natural life unless such a state of
nature was antecedent to it.  For no creature can begin to be in any
world or state of nature, but by being created out of that world or
state of nature into which it is brought to have its life.  For to live
in any world is the same thing as for a creature to have all that it is
and has, in and from that world.  And, therefore, no creature can come
into any other kind of existence and life but such as can be had out of
that world in which it is to live.  Neither can there possibly be any
other difference between created beings whether animate or inanimate but
what arises from that out of which they were created.  Seeing then that
before the existence of the first creatures there was nothing but God
and his kingdom of heaven, the first creatures could receive no other
life but that which was in God because there was nothing living but God
nor any other life but his, nor could they exist in any other place or
outward state but the kingdom of heaven because there was none else in
existence; and therefore, the first creatures must, of all necessity, be
divine and heavenly, both in their inward life and outward state.

[Love-2.1-107] Theogenes.  Here then, Theophilus, comes my question.
Where is that fire and water, that life and death that is set before the
creature?  For as to these first creatures, nothing is set before them,
nothing is within them or without them but God and the kingdom of
heaven.

[Love-2.1-108] Theophilus.  You should not have said there is nothing
within them but God and the kingdom of heaven.  For that which is their
own creaturely nature within them is not God, nor the kingdom of heaven.

[Love-2.1-109] It has been already proved to your satisfaction that no
creature can be divine, good, and happy, but by having a two-fold life
united in it.  And in this two-fold life of the creature is fire and
water, life and death unavoidably set before it.  For as its will
worketh with either of these lives, so will it find either fire or
water, life or death.  If its will turneth from the life of God into the
creaturely life, then it enters into a sensibility of that which is
meant by death and fire, viz., a wrathful misery.  But if the will keeps
steadily given up to the Deity, then it lives in possession of that life
and water which was its first and will be its everlasting heavenly joy
and happiness.

[Love-2.1-110] But to explain this matter something deeper to you
according to the mystery of all things opened by God in his chosen
instrument, Jacob Behmen.

[Love-2.1-111] You know we have often spoken of eternal nature, that so
sure as there is an eternal God, so sure is it that there is an eternal
nature, as universal, as unlimited as God himself, and everywhere
working where God is and therefore everywhere equally existent, as being
his kingdom of heaven or outward manifestation of the invisible riches,
powers, and glories of the Deity.

[Love-2.1-112] Before or without nature, the Deity is an entire hidden,
shut up, unknown, and unknowable abyss.  For nature is the only ground
or beginning of something; there is neither this nor that, no ground for
conception, no possibility of distinction or difference; there cannot be
a creature to think, nor anything to be thought upon till nature is in
existence.  For all the properties of sensibility and sensible life,
every mode and manner of existence, all seeing, hearing, tasting,
smelling, feeling, all inclinations, passions, and sensations of joy,
sorrow, pain, pleasure, etc., are not in God but in nature.  And
therefore, God is not knowable, not a thought can begin about him till
he manifests himself in and through and by the existence of nature, that
is, till there is something that can be seen, understood, distinguished,
felt, etc.

[Love-2.1-113] And this eternal nature or the outbirth of the Deity,
called the kingdom of heaven, viz., an infinity, or boundless opening of
the properties, powers, wonders, and glories of the hidden Deity, and
this not once done but ever doing, ever standing in the same birth,
forever and ever breaking forth and springing up in new forms and
openings of the abyssal Deity in the powers of nature.  And out of this
ocean of manifested powers of nature, the will of the Deity created
hosts of heavenly beings, full of the heavenly wonders introduced into a
participation of the infinity of God, to live in an eternal succession
of heavenly sensations, to see and feel, to taste and find new forms of
delight in an inexhaustible source of ever-changing and never-ceasing
wonders of the divine glory.

[Love-2.1-114] Oh Theogenes!  What an eternity is this, out of which and
for which thy eternal soul was created?  What little, crawling things
are all that an earthly ambition can set before thee?  Bear with
patience for a while the rags of thy earthly nature, the veil and
darkness of flesh and blood as the lot of thy inheritance from father
Adam, but think nothing worth a thought but that which will bring thee
back to thy first glory and land thee safe in the region of eternity.

[Love-2.1-115] But to return.  Nothing is before this eternal nature but
the holy, supernatural Deity; and everything that is after it is
creature and has all its creaturely life and state in it and from it,
either mediately or immediately.

[Love-2.1-116] This eternal nature hath seven chief or fountain
properties that are the doers or workers of everything that is done in
it and can have neither more nor less because it is a birth from or a
manifestation of the Deity in nature.  For the perfection of nature (as
was before said of every divine and happy creature) is a union of two
things, or is a two-fold state.  It is nature, and it is God manifested
in nature.  Now God is triune and nature is triune, and hence there
arises the ground of properties, three and three; and that which brings
those three and three into union, or manifests the triune God in the
triune nature, is another property, so that the glorious manifestation
of the Deity in nature can have neither more nor less than seven chief
or fountain properties from which everything that is known, found, and
felt in all the universe of nature, in all the variety of creatures
either in heaven or on earth, hath its only rise, or cause, either
mediately or immediately.

[Love-2.1-117] Theogenes.  You say, Theophilus, that the triune Deity is
united or manifested in triune nature, and that thence comes the
glorious manifestation of God in seven heavenly properties called the
kingdom of heaven.  But how does it appear that this nature,
antecedently to the entrance of the Deity into it, is triune?  Or what
is this triune nature before God is supposed to be in union with it?

[Love-2.1-118] Theophilus.  It is barely a desire.  It neither is, nor
has, nor can be anything else but a desire.  For desire is the only
thing in which the Deity can work and manifest itself; for God can only
come into that which wants and desires him.

[Love-2.1-119] The Deity is an infinite plenitude, or fullness of riches
and powers in and from itself; and it is only want and desire that is
excluded from it and can have no existence in it.  And here lies the
true, immutable distinction between God and nature and shows why neither
can ever be changed into the other; it is because God is a universal
all; and nature or desire is a universal want, viz., to be filled with
God.

[Love-2.1-120] Now as nature can be nothing but a desire, so nothing is
in or done in any natural way but as desire does it, because desire is
the all of nature.  And therefore, there is no strength or substance, no
power or motion, no cause or effect in nature but what is in itself a
desire or the working and effect of it.

[Love-2.1-121] This is the true origin of attraction and all its powers
in this material world.  It gives essence and substance to all that is
matter and the properties of matter; it holds every element in its
created state, and not only earth and stones, but light and air and
motion are under its dominion.  From the center to the circumference of
this material system, every motion, separation, union, vegetation, or
corruption begins no sooner, goes on no further than as attraction
works.

[Love-2.1-122] Take away attraction from this material system, and then
it has all the annihilation it can ever possibly have.

[Love-2.1-123] Whence now has attraction this nature?

[Love-2.1-124] It is solely from hence because all nature from its
eternity hath been, is, and forever can be only a desire and hath
nothing in it but the properties of desire.

[Love-2.1-125] Now the essential, inseparable properties of desire are
the three and can be neither more nor less; and in this you have that
tri-unity of nature which you asked after and in which the triune Deity
manifesteth itself.  I shall not now prove these three properties of the
desire because I have done it at large and plainly enough elsewhere.

[Love-2.1-126] But to go back now to your question where or how this
fire and water, etc., can be found since God is all love and goodness
and his manifestation in nature is a mere kingdom of heaven.  They are
to be found in the two-fold state of heaven and the two-fold state of
every heavenly creature.

[Love-2.1-127] For seeing that the perfection of nature and the
perfection of the intelligent creature consists in one and the same two-
fold state, you have here the plainest ground and reason why and how
every good and happy and new created being must of all necessity have
fire and water, life and death set before it or put into its choice.

[Love-2.1-128] Because it has it in its power to turn and give up its
will to either of these lives, it can turn either to God or nature and
therefore must have life and death, fire or water in its choice.

[Love-2.1-129] Now this two-fold life which makes the perfection of
nature and creature is, in other words, signified by the seven heavenly
properties of nature; for when God is manifested in nature, all its
seven properties are in a heavenly state.

[Love-2.1-130] But in these seven properties, though all heavenly, lieth
the ground of fire and water, etc., because a division or separation can
be made in them by the will of the creature.  For the three first
properties are as distinct from the four following ones as God is
distinct from that which wants God.  And these three first properties
are the essence or whole being of that desire which is and is called
nature, or that which wants God.

[Love-2.1-131] When, therefore, the will of the creature turns from God
into nature, it breaks or looses the union of the seven heavenly
properties because nature, as distinct from God, has only the three
first properties in it.  And such a creature, having broke {broken--
Spencer} or lost the union of the seven properties, is fallen into the
three first, which is meant by fire and death.  For when the first three
properties have lost God or their union with the four following ones,
then they are mere nature, which in its whole being is nothing else but
the strength and rage of hunger, an excess of want, of self-torment, and
self-vexation.  Surely now, my friend, this matter is enough explained.

[Love-2.1-132] Theogenes.  Indeed, Theophilus, I am quite satisfied; for
by this account which you have given of the ground of nature and its
true and full distinction from God, you have struck a most amazing light
into my mind.

[Love-2.1-133] For if nature is mere want and has nothing in it but a
strength of want generated from the three self-tormenting properties of
a desire, if God is all love, joy, and happiness, an infinite plenitude
{plentitude, Stanwood} of all blessings, then the limits and bounds of
good and evil, of happiness and misery are made as visibly distinct and
as certainly to be known as the difference between a circle and a
straight line.

[Love-2.1-134] To live to desire, that is, to nature, is unavoidably
entering into the region of all evil and misery because nature has
nothing else in it, but on the other hand, to die to desire, that is, to
turn from nature to God, is to be united with the infinite source of all
that is good and blessed and happy.

[Love-2.1-135] All that I wanted to know is now cleared up in the
greatest plainness.  And I have no difficulty about those passages of
scripture which speak of the wrath, and fury, and vengeance of God.
Wrath is his, just as all nature is his, and yet God is mere love that
only rules and governs wrath as he governs the foaming waves of the sea
and the madness of storms and tempests.

[Love-2.1-136] The following propositions are as evidently true as that
two and two are four.

[Love-2.1-137] First, that God in his holy Deity is as absolutely free
from wrath and rage and as utterly incapable of them as he is of
thickness, hardness, and darkness because wrath and rage belong to
nothing else, can exist in nothing else, have life in nothing else but
in thickness, hardness, and darkness.

[Love-2.1-138] Secondly, that all wrath is disorder and can be nowhere
but in nature and creature because nothing else is capable of changing
from right to wrong.

[Love-2.1-139] Thirdly, that wrath can have no existence even in nature
and creature till they have lost their first perfection which they had
from God and are become that which they should not have been.

[Love-2.1-140] Fourthly, that all the wrath and fury and vengeance that
ever did or can break forth in nature and creature is according to the
strictest truth to be called and looked upon as the wrath and vengeance
of God, just as the darkness as well as the light is, and is to be
called his.

[Love-2.1-141] Oh!  Theophilus, what a key have you given me to the
right understanding of scripture!

[Love-2.1-142] For when nature and creature are known to be the only
theater of evil and disorder, and the holy Deity as that governing love
which wills nothing but the removal of all evil from everything as fast
as infinite wisdom can find ways of doing, then whether you read of the
raining of fire and brimstone or only showers of heavenly manna falling
upon the earth, it is only one and the same love working in such
different ways and diversity of instruments as time and place and
occasion had made wise and good and beneficial.

[Love-2.1-143] Pharaoh with his hardened heart and St.  Paul with his
voice from heaven, though so contrary to one another, were both of them
the chosen vessels of the same God of love because both miraculously
taken out of their own state and made to do all the good to a blind and
wicked world which they were capable of doing.

[Love-2.1-144] And thus, sir, are all the treasures of the wisdom and
goodness of God hidden in the letter of scripture made the comfort and
delight of my soul, and everything I read turns itself into a motive of
loving and adoring the wonderful working of the love of God over all the
various changings of nature and creature till all evil shall be
extinguished and all disorder go back again to its first harmonious
state of perfection.

[Love-2.1-145] Depart from this idea of God as an infinity of mere love,
wisdom, and goodness, and then everything in the system of scripture and
the system of nature only helps the reasoning mind to be miserably
perplexed, as well with the mercies as with the judgments of God.

[Love-2.1-146] But when God is known to be omnipotent love that can do
nothing but works of love, and that all nature and creature are only
under the operation of love as a distempered person under the care of a
kind and skillful physician who seeks nothing but the perfect recovery
of his patient, then whatever is done, whether a severe caustic or a
pleasant cordial is ordered, that is, whether because of its difference
it may have the different name of mercy or judgment, yet all is equally
well done because love is the doer of both and does both from the same
principle and for the same end.

[Love-2.1-147] Theophilus.  Oh Theogenes, now you are according to your
name, you are born of God.  For when love is the triune God that you
serve, worship, and adore, the only God in whom you desire to live and
move and have your being, then of a truth God dwelleth in you, and you
in God.

[Love-2.1-148] I shall now only add this one word more to strengthen and
confirm your right understanding of all that is said of the wrath, or
rage of God in the scriptures.

[Love-2.1-149] The psalmist, you know, saith thus of God, "He giveth
forth his ice like morsels, and who is able to abide his frosts."  Now,
sir, if you know how to explain this scripture and can show how ice and
frost can truly be ascribed to God as his, though absolutely impossible
to have any existence in him, then you have an easy and unerring key how
the wrath and fury and vengeance that anywhere falls upon any creature
is and may be truly ascribed to God as his, though fury and vengeance
are as inconsistent with and as impossible to have any existence in the
Deity as lumps of ice, or the hardness of intolerable frosts.

[Love-2.1-150] Now in this text setting forth the horror of God's ice
and frost, you have the whole nature of divine wrath set before you.
Search all the scriptures and you will nowhere find any wrath of God but
what is bounded in nature, and is so described as to be itself a proof
that it has no existence in the holy supernatural Deity.

[Love-2.1-151] Thus says the psalmist again, "The earth trembled and
quaked, the very foundations also of the hills shook, and were removed,
because he was wroth."  No wrath here but in the elements.

[Love-2.1-152] Again,"There went a smoke out in his presence, and a
consuming fire out of his mouth, so that coals were kindled at it.  The
springs of water were seen and the foundations of the round world were
discovered at thy chiding, O Lord, at the blasting of the breath of thy
displeasure."

[Love-2.1-153] Now every working of the wrath of God described in
scripture is strictly of a piece with this, it relates to a wrath solely
confined to the powers and working properties of nature that lives and
moves only in the elements of the fallen world, and no more reaches the
Deity than ice or frost do.

[Love-2.1-154] The apostle saith, "Avenge not yourselves, for it is
written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord."

[Love-2.1-155] This is another full proof that wrath or vengeance is not
in the holy Deity itself as a quality of the divine mind; for if it was,
then vengeance would belong to every child of God that was truly born of
him or he could not have the spirit of his Father, or be perfect as his
Father in heaven is perfect.

[Love-2.1-156] But if vengeance only belongs to God and can only be so
affirmed of him as ice and frost are his and belong to him, if it has no
other manner of working than as when it is said, "He sent out his arrows
and scattered them, he cast forth lightnings and destroyed them," then
it is certain that the divine vengeance is only in fallen nature and its
disordered properties and is no more in the Deity itself than hailstones
and coals of fire.

[Love-2.1-157] And here you have the true reason why revenge or
vengeance is not allowed to man; it is because vengeance can only work
in the evil or disordered properties of fallen nature.  But man being
himself a part of fallen nature and subject to its disordered properties
is not allowed to work with them because it would be stirring up evil in
himself, and that is his sin of wrath or revenge.

[Love-2.1-158] God therefore reserves all vengeance to himself, not
because wrathful revenge is a temper or quality that can have any place
in the holy Deity but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free
from all the properties of nature whence partial love and hatred spring
and being in himself nothing but an infinity of love, wisdom, and
goodness, he alone knows how to overrule the disorders of nature and so
to repay evil with evil that the highest good may be promoted by it.

[Love-2.1-159] To say therefore that vengeance is to be reserved to God
is only saying in other words that all the evils in nature are to be
reserved and turned over to the love of God to be healed by his
goodness.  And every act of what is called divine vengeance recorded in
scripture may, and ought with the greatest strictness of truth, be
called an act of the divine love.

[Love-2.1-160] If Sodom flames and smokes with stinking brimstone, 'tis
the love of God that kindled it, only to extinguish a more horrible
fire.  It was one and the same infinite love when it preserved Noah in
the ark, when it turned Sodom into a burning lake, and overwhelmed
Pharaoh in the Red Sea.  And if God commanded the waters to destroy the
old world, it was as high an act of the same infinite love toward that
chaos as when it said to the first darkness upon the face of the deep,
"Let there be light, and there was light."

[Love-2.1-161] Not a word in all scripture concerning the wrath or
vengeance of God but directly teaches you these two infallible truths.
First, that all the wrath spoken of worketh nowhere but in the wrathful,
disordered elements and properties of fallen nature.  Secondly, that all
the power that God exercises over them, all the he doth at any time or
on any occasion with or by them is only and solely the one work of his
unchangeable love toward man.

[Love-2.1-162] Just as the good physician acts from only one and the
same good will toward his patient when he orders bitter and sour, as
when he gives the pleasant drafts.

[Love-2.1-163] Now suppose the good physician to have such intense love
for you as to disregard your aversion toward them and to force such
medicines down your throat as can alone save your life, suppose he
should therefore call himself your severe physician and declare himself
so rigid toward you that he would not spare you, nor suffer you, go
where you would, to escape his bitter drafts till all means of your
recovery were tried, then you would have a true and just though low
representation of those bitter cups which God in his wrath forceth
fallen man to drink.

[Love-2.1-164] Now as the bitter, sour, hot, etc., in the physician's
draft are not declarations of any the like bitterness, heat, or sourness
in the spirit of the physician that uses them but are things quite
distinct from the state and spirit of his mind and only manifest his
care and skill in the right use of such materials toward the health of
his patient, so in like manner, all the elements of fallen nature are
only so many outward materials in the hands of God formed and mixed into
heat and cold, into fruitful and pestilential effects, into serenity of
seasons and blasting tempests, into means of health and sickness, of
plenty and poverty, just as the wisdom and goodness of providence sees
to be {the--Spencer} fittest to deliver man from the miserable malady of
his earthly nature and help him to become heavenly minded.

[Love-2.1-165] If therefore it would be great folly to suppose
bitterness, or heat, etc., to be in the spirit of the physician when he
gives a hot or bitter medicine, much greater folly surely must it be to
suppose that wrath, vengeance, or any pestilential quality is in the
spirit of the holy Deity when a wrath, a vengeance, or pestilence is
stirred up in the fallen elements by the providence of God as a proper
remedy for the evil of this or that time or occasion.

[Love-2.1-166] Hear these decisive words of scripture, viz., "Whom the
Lord loveth, he chasteneth."  What a grossness therefore of mistake is
it to conclude that wrath must be in the Deity because he chastens and
threatens chastisement when you have God's own word for it that nothing
but his love chasteneth.  Again, thus saith the Lord, "I have smitten
you with blasting and mildew.  Your vineyards, and your fig trees, and
your olive yards did the palmerworm devour," and then the love that did
this makes this complaint, "Yet ye have not returned to me."  Again,
"Pestilence have I sent amongst you; I have made the stink of your tents
come up even into your nostrils," etc.  And then the same love that did
this, that made this use of the disordered elements, makes the same
complaint again, "Yet have ye not returned to me" (Amos 4:9-10).

[Love-2.1-167] Now, sir, how is it possible for words to give stronger
proof that God is mere love, that he has no will toward fallen man but
to bless him with works of love, and this as certainly when he turns the
air into a pestilence as when he makes the same air rain down manna upon
the earth?  Since neither the one nor the other are done but as time and
place and occasion render them the fittest means to make man return and
adhere to God, that is, to come out of all the evil and misery of his
fallen state.  What can infinite love do more, or what can it do to give
greater proof that all that it does proceeds from love?  And here you
are to observe that this is not said from human conjecture or any
imaginary idea of God, but is openly asserted, constantly affirmed and
repeated in the plainest letter of scripture.  But this conversation has
been long enough.  And I hope we shall meet again tomorrow.

The End of the First Dialogue

The Spirit of Love--continued

The Second Dialogue

[Love-2.2-1] Eusebius.  There is no occasion to resume anything of our
yesterday's discourse.  The following propositions are sufficiently
proved.

[Love-2.2-2] First, that God is an abyssal infinity of love, wisdom, and
goodness, that he ever was and ever will be one and the same
unchangeable will to all goodness and works of love, as incapable of any
sensibility of wrath or acting under it as of falling into pain or
darkness and acting under their direction.

[Love-2.2-3] Secondly, that all wrath, strife, discord, hatred, envy, or
pride, etc., all heat and cold, all enmity in the elements, all
thickness, grossness, and darkness are things that have no existence but
in and from the sphere of fallen nature.

[Love-2.2-4] Thirdly, that all the evils of contrariety and disorder in
fallen nature are only as so many materials in the hands of infinite
love and wisdom, all made to work in their different ways as far as is
possible to one and the same end, viz., to turn temporal evil into
eternal good.

[Love-2.2-5] So that whether you look at light or darkness, at night or
day, at fire or water, at heaven or earth, at life or death, at
prosperity or adversity, at blasting winds or heavenly dews, at sickness
or health, you see nothing but such a state of things in and through
which the supernatural Deity wills and seeks the restoration of fallen
nature and creature to their first perfection.

[Love-2.2-6] It now only remains that the doctrine of scripture
concerning the atonement necessary to be made by the life, sufferings,
and death of Christ be explained, or in other words, the true meaning of
that righteousness of {or--Spencer} God that must have satisfaction done
to it before man can be reconciled to God.

[Love-2.2-7] For this doctrine is thought by some to favor the opinion
of a wrath and resentment in the Deity itself.

[Love-2.2-8] Theophilus.  This doctrine, Eusebius, of the atonement made
by Christ, and the absolute necessity and real efficacy of it to satisfy
the righteousness or justice of God, is the very ground and foundation
of Christian redemption and the life and strength of every part of it.
But then, this very doctrine is so far from favoring the opinion of a
wrath in the Deity that it is an absolute full denial of it and the
strongest of demonstrations that the wrath or resentment that is to be
pacified or atoned cannot possibly be in the Deity itself.

[Love-2.2-9] For this wrath that is to be atoned and pacified is in its
whole nature nothing else but sin, or disorder in the creature.  And
when sin is extinguished in the creature, all the wrath that is between
God and the creature is fully atoned.  Search all the Bible from one end
to the other, and you will find that the atonement of that which is
called the divine wrath or justice and the extinguishing of sin in the
creature are only different expressions for one and the same individual
thing.  And therefore, unless you will place sin in God, that wrath that
is to be atoned or pacified cannot be placed in him.

[Love-2.2-10] The whole nature of our redemption has no other end but to
remove or extinguish the wrath that is between God and man.  When this
is removed, man is reconciled to God.  Therefore, where the wrath is, or
where that is which wants to be atoned, there is that which is the
blamable cause of the separation between God and man; there is that
which Christ came into the world to extinguish, to quench or atone.  If,
therefore, this wrath, which is the blamable cause of the separation
between God and man, is in God himself, if Christ died to atone or
extinguish a wrath that was got into the holy Deity itself, then it must
be said that Christ made an atonement for God and not for man, and that
which is called our redemption ought rather to be called the redemption
of God, as saving and delivering him and not man from his own wrath.

[Love-2.2-11] This blasphemy is unavoidable if you suppose that wrath
for which Christ died to be a wrath in God himself.

[Love-2.2-12] Again, the very nature of atonement absolutely shows that
that which is to be atoned cannot possibly be in God nor even in any
good being.  For atonement implies the alteration or removal of
something that is not as it ought to be.  And therefore, every creature,
so long as it is good and has its proper state of goodness, neither
wants nor can admit of any atonement because it has nothing in it that
wants to be altered or taken out of it.  And therefore, atonement cannot
possibly have any place in God because nothing in God either wants or
can receive alteration; neither can it have place in any creature but so
far as it has lost or altered that which it had from God and is fallen
into disorder, and then, that which brings this creature back to its
first state, which alters that which is wrong in it and takes its evil
out of it, is its true and proper atonement.

[Love-2.2-13] {THIS PARAGRAPH IS MISSING FROM STANWOOD, PRESENT IN
SPENCER.} Water is the proper atonement of the rage of fire; and that
which changes a tempest into a calm is its true atonement.  And,
therefore, as sure as Christ is a propitiation and atonement, so sure is
it, that that which he does, as a propitiation and atonement, can have
no place, but in altering that evil and disorder which, in the state and
life of the fallen creature, wants to be altered.

[Love-2.2-14] Suppose the creature not fallen, and then there is no room
nor possibility for atonement, a plain and full proof that the work of
atonement is nothing else but the altering or quenching that which is
evil in the fallen creature.

[Love-2.2-15] Hell, wrath, darkness, misery, and eternal death mean the
same thing through all scripture, and these are the only things from
which we want to be redeemed; and where there is nothing of hell, there
there is nothing of wrath, nor anything that wants or can admit of the
benefits of the atonement made by Christ.

[Love-2.2-16] Either, therefore, all hell is in the essence of the holy
Deity, or nothing that wants to be atoned by the merits and death of
Christ can possibly be in the Deity itself.

[Love-2.2-17] The apostle saith that we are by nature children of wrath,
the same thing as when the psalmist saith,"I was shapen in wickedness,
and in sin hath my mother conceived me."  And therefore, that wrath
which wants the atonement of the sufferings, blood, and death of Christ
is no other than that sin or sinful state in which we are naturally
born.  But now, if this wrath could be supposed to be in the Deity
itself, then it would follow that by being by nature children of wrath,
we should thereby be the true children of God; we should not want any
atonement or new birth from above to make us partakers of the divine
nature because that wrath that was in us would be our dwelling in God
and he in us.

[Love-2.2-18] Again, all scripture teaches us that God wills and desires
the removal or extinction of that wrath which is betwixt God and the
creature, and therefore all scripture teaches that the wrath is not in
God, for God cannot will the removal or alteration of anything that is
in himself; this is as impossible as for him to will the extinction of
his own omnipotence.  Nor can there be anything in God contrary to, or
against his own will; and yet, if God wills the extinction of a wrath
that is in himself, it must be in him, contrary to or against his own
will.

[Love-2.2-19] This, I presume, is enough to show you that the atonement
made by Christ is itself the greatest of all proofs that it was not to
atone or extinguish any wrath in the Deity itself, nor, indeed, any way
to affect or alter any quality or temper in the divine mind, but purely
and solely to overcome and remove all that death and hell, and wrath,
and darkness that had opened itself in the nature, birth, and life of
fallen man.

[Love-2.2-20] Eusebius.  The truth of all this is not to be denied.  And
yet it is as true that all our systems of divinity give quite another
account of this most important matter.  The satisfaction of Christ is
represented as a satisfaction made to a wrathful Deity, and the merits
of the sufferings and death of Christ as that which could only avail
with God to give up his own wrath and think of mercy toward man.  Nay,
what is still worse, if possible, the ground, and nature, and efficacy
of this great transaction between God and man is often explained by
debtor and creditor.  Man as having contracted a debt with God that he
could not pay, and God as having a right to insist upon the payment of
it, and therefore only to be satisfied by receiving the death and
sacrifice of Christ as a valuable consideration instead of the debt that
was due to him from man.

[Love-2.2-21] Theophilus.  Hence you may see, Eusebius, how unreasonably
complaint has been sometimes made against the Appeal, the Spirit of
Prayer, etc., as introducing a philosophy into the doctrines of the
gospel not enough supported by the letter of scripture, though
everything there asserted has been over and over shown to be well
grounded on the letter of scripture and necessarily included in the most
fundamental doctrines of the gospel.

[Love-2.2-22] Yet they who make this complaint blindly swallow a vanity
of philosophy in the most important part of gospel religion, which not
only has less scripture for it than the infallibility of the Pope, but
is directly contrary to the plain letter of every single text of
scripture that relates to this matter, as I will now show you.

[Love-2.2-23] First, the apostle saith, "God so loved the world, that he
gave his only begotten Son, that all who believe in him should not
perish but have everlasting life."  What becomes now of the philosophy
of debtor and creditor, of a satisfaction made by Christ to a wrath in
God?  Is it not the grossest of all fictions and in full contrariety to
the plain written word of God?  "God so loved the world"; behold the
degree of it.  But when did he so love it?  Why, before it was redeemed,
before he sent or gave his only Son to be the redeemer of it.  Here you
see that all wrath in God antecedent to our redemption or the sacrifice
of Christ for us is utterly excluded; there is no possibility for the
supposition of it, it is as absolutely denied as words can do it.  And
therefore the infinite love, mercy, and compassion of God toward fallen
man is not purchased, or procured for us by the death of Christ, but the
incarnation and sufferings of Christ come from and are given to us by
the infinite antecedent love of God for us and are the gracious effects
of his own love and goodness toward us.

[Love-2.2-24] It is needless to show you how constantly this same
doctrine is asserted and repeated by all the apostles.

[Love-2.2-25] Thus says St.  John again, "In this was manifested the
love of God toward us, because he sent his only begotten Son into the
world, that we might live through him."  Again, "this is the record that
God hath given unto us, eternal life; and this life is in his Son."
Again, "God," saith St.  Paul, "was in Christ, reconciling the world
unto himself, not imputing their trespasses to them."  Which is repeated
and further opened in these words, "Giving thanks unto the Father, who
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in
light, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son" (Col.  1:12-13). And
again, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath
blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ"
(Eph.  1:3).

[Love-2.2-26] How great therefore, Eusebius, is the error, how total the
disregard of scripture, and how vain the philosophy which talks of a
wrath in God antecedent to our redemption, or of a debt which he could
not forgive us till he had received a valuable consideration for it when
all scripture from page to page tells us that all the mercy and blessing
and benefits of Christ as our savior are the free antecedent gift of God
himself to us, and bestowed upon us for no other reason, from no other
motive but the infinity of his own love toward us, agreeable to what the
evangelical prophet saith of God, "I am he that blotteth out
transgressions for my own sake" (Isa.  43:25), that is, not for any
reason or motive that can be laid before me but because I am love
itself, and my own nature is my immutable reason why nothing but works
of love, blessing, and goodness can come from me.

[Love-2.2-27] Look we now at the scripture account of the nature of the
atonement and satisfaction of Christ, and this will further show us that
it is not to atone or alter any quality or temper in the divine mind,
nor for the sake of God, but purely and solely to atone, to quench, and
overcome that death and wrath and hell under the power of which man was
fallen.

[Love-2.2-28] "As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive."  This is the whole work, the whole nature, and the sole end of
Christ's sacrifice of himself; and there is not a syllable in scripture
that gives you any other account of it.  It all consists from the
beginning to the end, in carrying on the one work of regeneration; and
therefore the apostle saith, the first Adam was made a living soul, but
the last or second Adam was made a quickening spirit because sent into
the world by God to quicken and revive that life from above which we
lost in Adam.  And he is called our ransom, our atonement, etc., for no
other reason but because that which he did and suffered in our fallen
nature was as truly an efficacious means of our being born again to a
new heavenly life of him and from him, as that which Adam did was the
true and natural cause of our being born in sin and the impurity of
bestial flesh and blood.

[Love-2.2-29] And as Adam by what he did may be truly said to have
purchased our misery and corruption, to have bought death for us, and to
have sold us into a slavery under the world, the flesh, and the devil,
though all that we have from him or suffer by him is only the inward
working of his own nature and life within us, so according to the plain
meaning of the words, Christ may be said to be our price, our ransom,
and atonement; though all that he does for us as buying, ransoming, and
redeeming us is done wholly and solely by a birth of his own nature and
spirit brought to life in us.

[Love-2.2-30] The apostle saith, "Christ died for our sins."  Thence it
is that he is the great sacrifice for sin and its true atonement.  But
how and why is he so?  The apostle tells you in these words, "The sting
of death is sin; but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ"; and therefore Christ is the atonement of our
sins when by and from him living in us we have victory over our sinful
nature.

[Love-2.2-31] The scriptures frequently say Christ gave himself for us.
But what is the full meaning, effect, and benefit of his thus giving
himself for us?  The apostle puts this out of all doubt when he says,
"Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people...that he might
deliver us from this present world...from the curse of the law...from
the power of Satan...from the wrath to come"; or as the apostle saith in
other words, "that he might be made unto us wisdom, righteousness, and
sanctification."

[Love-2.2-32] The whole truth therefore of the matter is plainly this.
Christ given for us is neither more nor less than Christ given into us.
And he is in no other sense our full, perfect, and sufficient atonement
than as his nature and spirit is born and formed in us, which so purgeth
us from our sins that we are thereby in him, and by him dwelling in us
become new creatures having our conversation in heaven.

[Love-2.2-33] As Adam is truly our defilement and impurity by his birth
in us, so Christ is our atonement and purification by our being born
again of him and having thereby quickened and revived in us that first
divine life which was extinguished in Adam.  And therefore, as Adam
purchased death for us, just so in the same manner, in the same degree,
and in the same sense, Christ purchases life for us.  And each of them
only, and solely by their own inward life within us.

[Love-2.2-34] This is the one scripture account of the whole nature, the
sole end, and full efficacy of all that Christ did and suffered for us.
It is all comprehended in these two texts of scripture: (1) "That Christ
was manifested to destroy the works of the devil; (2) That as in Adam
all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive."  From the beginning to
the end of Christ's atoning work, no other power is ascribed to it,
nothing else is intended by it as an appeaser of wrath but the
destroying of all that in man which comes from the devil, no other
merits, or value, or infinite worth than that of its infinite ability
and sufficiency to quicken again in all human nature that heavenly life
that died in Adam.

[Love-2.2-35] Eusebius.  Though all that is here said seems to have both
the letter and the spirit of scripture on its side, yet I am afraid it
will be thought not enough to assert the infinite value and merits of
our savior's sufferings.  For it is the common opinion of doctors that
the righteousness or justice of God must have satisfaction done to it.
And that nothing could avail with God as a satisfaction but the infinite
worth and value of the sufferings of Christ.

[Love-2.2-36] Theophilus.  It is true, Eusebius, that this is often, and
almost always thus asserted in human writers, but it is neither the
language nor the doctrine of scripture.

[Love-2.2-37] Not a word is there said of a righteousness or justice as
an attribute of God that must be satisfied or that the sacrifice of
Christ is that which satisfies the righteousness that is in God himself.

[Love-2.2-38] It has been sufficiently proved to you that God wanted not
to be reconciled to fallen man; that he never was anything else toward
him but love; and that his love brought forth the whole scheme of his
redemption.  Thence it is that the scriptures do not say that Christ
came into the world to procure us the divine favor and good will for to
{in order to--Spencer; note in Stanwood that "for to" means "in order
to"} put a stop to antecedent righteous wrath in God toward us.  No, the
reverse of all this is the truth, viz., that Christ and his whole
mediatorial office came purely and solely from God, already so
reconciled to us as to bestow an infinity of love upon us.  "The God of
all grace," saith the apostle, "who hath called us to his eternal glory
by Jesus Christ" (1 Pet.  5:10). Here you see Christ is not the cause or
motive of God's mercy toward fallen man, but God's own love for us, his
own desire of our eternal glory and happiness hath for that end given us
Christ that we may be made partakers of it.  The same as when it is
again said, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself," that
is, calling and raising it out of its ungodly and miserable state.

[Love-2.2-39] Thus all the mystery of our redemption proclaims nothing
but a God of love toward fallen man.  It was the love of God that could
not behold the misery of fallen man without demanding and calling for
his salvation.  It was love alone that wanted to have full satisfaction
done to it and such a love as could not be satisfied till all that glory
and happiness that was lost by the death of Adam was fully restored and
regained again by the death of Christ.

[Love-2.2-40] Eusebius.  But is there not some good sense in which
righteousness or justice may be said to be satisfied by the atonement
and sacrifice of Christ?

[Love-2.2-41] Theophilus.  Yes, most certainly there is.  But then it is
only that righteousness or justice that belongs to man and ought to be
in him.  Now righteousness, wherever it is to be, has no mercy in
itself; it makes no condescension; it is inflexibly rigid; its demands
are inexorable; prayers, offerings, and entreaties have no effect upon
it; it will have nothing but itself, nor will it ever cease its demands
or take anything in lieu of them as a satisfaction instead of itself.
Thus, "Without holiness," saith the apostle, "no man shall see the
Lord."  And again, "Nothing that is defiled or impure can enter into the
kingdom of heaven."  And this is meant by righteousness being rigid and
having no mercy; it cannot spare, or have pity, or hear entreaty because
all its demands are righteous and good and therefore must be satisfied
or fulfilled.

[Love-2.2-42] Now righteousness has its absolute demands upon man
because man was created righteous and has lost that original
righteousness which he ought to have kept in its first purity.  And this
is the one only righteousness or justice which Christ came into the
world to satisfy, not by giving some highly valuable thing as a
satisfaction to it, but by bringing back or raising up again in all
human nature that holiness or righteousness which originally belonged to
it.  For to satisfy righteousness means neither more nor less than to
fulfill it.  Nor can righteousness want to have satisfaction in any
being but in restoring or fulfilling righteousness in that being which
had departed from it.  And therefore the apostle saith that we are
created again unto righteousness in Christ Jesus.  And this is the one
and only way of Christ's expiating or taking away the sins of the world,
namely, by restoring to man his lost righteousness.  For this end, saith
the scripture, "Christ gave himself for the church, that he might
sanctify and cleanse it, that he might present it to himself a glorious
church not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it
should be holy and without blemish" (Eph.  5:25-27).

[Love-2.2-43] This is the one righteousness which Christ came into the
world to satisfy by fulfilling it himself and enabling man by a new
birth from him to fulfill it.  And when all unrighteousness is removed
by Christ from the whole human nature, then all that righteousness is
satisfied, for the doing of which Christ poured out his most precious,
availing, and meritorious blood.

[Love-2.2-44] Eusebius.  Oh Theophilus, the ground on which you stand
must certainly be true.  It so easily, so fully solves all difficulties
and objections and enables you to give so plain and solid an account of
every part of our redemption.  This great point is so fully cleared up
to me that I don't desire another word about it.

[Love-2.2-45] Theophilus.  However, Eusebius, I will add a word or two
more upon it that there may be no room left either for misunderstanding
or denying what has been just now said of the nature of that
righteousness which must have full satisfaction done to it by the
atoning and redeeming work of Christ.  And then you will be fully
possessed of these two great truths.  First, that there is no righteous
wrath in the Deity itself and therefore none to be atoned there.
Secondly, that though God is in himself a mere infinity of love from
whom nothing else but works of love and blessing and goodness can
proceed, yet sinful men are hereby not at all delivered from that which
the apostle calls the terrors of the Lord, but that all the threatenings
of woe, misery, and punishment denounced in scripture against sin and
sinners both in this world and that which is to come stand all of them
in their full force, and are not in the least degree weakened, or less
to be dreaded because God is all love.

[Love-2.2-46] Everything that God hath created is right and just and
good in its kind and hath its own righteousness within itself.  The
rectitude of its nature is its only law, and it hath no other
righteousness but that of continuing in its first state.  No creature is
subject to any pain or punishment or guilt of sin but because it has
departed from its first right state, and only does and can feel the
painful loss of its own first perfection.  And every intelligent
creature that departs from the state of its creation is unrighteous,
evil, and full of its own misery.  And there is no possibility for any
disordered, fallen creature to be free from its own misery and pain till
it is again in its first state of perfection.  This is the certain and
infallible ground of the absolute necessity either of a perfect holiness
in this life, or of a further purification after death before man can
enter into the kingdom of heaven.

[Love-2.2-47] Now this pain and misery which is inseparable from the
creature that is not in that state in which it ought to be and in which
it was created is nothing else but the painful state of the creature for
want of its own proper righteousness, as sickness is the painful state
of the creature for want of its own proper health.

[Love-2.2-48] No other righteousness, no other justice, no other severe
vengeance demands satisfaction or torments the sinner but that very
righteousness which once was in him, which still belongs to him, and
therefore will not suffer him to have any rest or peace till it is again
in him as it was at the first.  All, therefore, that Christ does as an
atonement for sin or as a satisfaction to righteousness is all done in
and to and for man, and has no other operation but that of renewing the
fallen nature of man and raising it up into its first state of original
righteousness.  And if this righteousness which belongs solely to man
and wants no satisfaction but that of being restored and fulfilled in
the human nature is sometimes called the righteousness of God, it is
only so called because it is a righteousness which man had originally
from God, in and by his creation; and, therefore, as it comes from God,
has its whole nature and power of working as it does from God, it may
very justly be called God's righteousness.

[Love-2.2-49] Agreeably to this way of ascribing that to God which is
only in the state and condition of man, the psalmist saith of God,
"Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore."  And yet
nothing else or more is meant by it than when he saith, "My sins have
taken such hold of me that I am not able to look up...My wickednesses
are gone over my head, and are like a sore burden too heavy for me to
bear."

[Love-2.2-50] Now whether you call this state of man the burden of his
sins and wickednesses or the arrows of the almighty and the weight of
God's hand, they mean but one and the same thing which can only be
called by these different names for no other reason but this, because
man's own original righteousness which he had from God makes his sinful
state a pain and torment to him and lies heavy upon him in every
commission of sin.  And when the psalmist again saith, "Take thy plague
away from me, I am even consumed by means of thy heavy hand," it is only
praying to be delivered from his own plague, and praying for the same
thing as when he saith in other words, "Make me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me."

[Love-2.2-51] Now this language of scripture which teaches us to call
the pains and torments of our sins the arrows, darts, and strokes of
God's hand upon us, which calls us to own the power, presence, and
operation of God in all that we feel and find in our own inward state,
is the language of the most exalted piety and highly suitable to that
scripture which tells us that in God we live, and move, and have our
being.  For by teaching us to find and own the power and operation of
God in everything that passes within us, it keeps us continually turned
to God for all that we want and by all that we feel within ourselves,
and brings us to this best of all confessions, that pain as well as
peace of mind is the effect and manifestation of God's infinite love and
goodness toward us.

[Love-2.2-52] For we could not have this pain and sensibility of the
burden of sin but because the love and goodness of God made us
originally righteous and happy; and therefore, all the pains and
torments of sin come from God's first goodness toward us and are in
themselves merely and truly the arrows of his love and his blessed means
of drawing us back to that first righteous state in and for which his
first and never ceasing love created us.

[Love-2.2-53] Eusebius.  The matter, therefore, plainly stands thus.
There is no righteous wrath or vindictive justice in the Deity itself,
which as a quality or attribute of resentment in the divine mind wants
to be contented, atoned, or satisfied; but man's original righteousness
which was once his peace, and happiness, and rest in God is by the fall
of Adam become his tormentor, his plague that continually exercises its
good vengeance upon him till it truly regains its first state in him.

[Love-2.2-54] Secondly, man must be under this pain, punishment, and
vengeance to all eternity; there is no possibility in the nature of the
thing for it to be otherwise though God be all love unless man's lost
righteousness be fully again possessed by him.  And, therefore, the
doctrine of God's being all love, of having no wrath in himself, has
nothing in it to abate the force of those scriptures which threaten
punishment to sinners, or to make them less fearful of living and dying
in their sins.

[Love-2.2-55] Theophilus.  What you say, Eusebius, is very true; but
then it is but half the truth of this matter.  You should have added
that this doctrine is the one ground and only reason why the scriptures
abound with so many declarations of woe, misery, and judgments sometimes
executed and sometimes only threatened by God, and why all sinners to
the end of the world must know and feel "that the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness, and
that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish must be upon every
soul of man that doth evil" (Rom.  2:8-9).

[Love-2.2-56] For all these things, which the apostle elsewhere calls
the terrors of the Lord, have no ground, nothing that calls for them,
nothing that vindicates the fitness and justice of them either with
regard to God or man but this one truth, viz., that God is in himself a
mere infinity of love from whom nothing but outflowings of love and
goodness can come forth from eternity to eternity.  For if God is all
love, if he wills nothing toward fallen man but his full deliverance
from the blind slavery and captivity of his earthly, bestial nature,
then every kind of punishment, distress, and affliction that can
extinguish the lusts of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride
of this life may and ought to be expected from God merely because he is
all love and good will toward fallen man.

[Love-2.2-57] To say, therefore, as some have said, if God is all love
toward fallen man, how can he threaten or chastise sinners is no better
than saying, if God is all goodness in himself and toward man, how can
he do that in and to man which is for his good?  As absurd as to say, if
the able physician is all love, goodness, and good will toward his
patients, how can he blister, purge, or scarify them, how can he order
one to be trepanned and another to have a limb cut off?  Nay, so absurd
is this reasoning that if it could be proved that God had no
chastisement for sinners, the very want of this chastisement would be
the greatest of all proofs that God was not all love and goodness toward
man.

[Love-2.2-58] The meek, merciful, and compassionate Jesus who had no
errand in this world but to bless and save mankind said, if thy right
eye or thy right hand offend thee, pluck out the one, cut off the other,
and cast them from thee.  And that he said all this from mere love he
adds, it is better for thee to do this than that thy whole body should
be cast into hell; therefore, if the holy Jesus had been wanting in this
severity, he had been wanting in true love toward man.

[Love-2.2-59] And therefore, the pure, mere love of God is that alone
from which sinners are justly to expect from God that no sin will pass
unpunished, but that his love will visit them with every calamity and
distress that can help to break and purify the bestial heart of man and
awaken in him true repentance and conversion to God.  It is love alone
in the holy Deity that will allow no peace to the wicked, nor ever cease
its judgments till every sinner is forced to confess that it is good for
him that he has been in trouble, and thankfully own that not the wrath
but the love of God has plucked out that right eye, cut off that right
hand which he ought to have done but would not do for himself and his
own salvation.

[Love-2.2-60] Again, this doctrine that allows of no wrath in the divine
mind but places it all in the evil state of fallen nature and creature
has everything in it that can prove to man the dreadful nature of sin
and the absolute necessity of totally departing from it.  It leaves no
room for self-delusion, but puts an end to every false hope or vain
seeking for relief in anything else but the total extinction of sin.
And this it effectually does by showing that damnation is no foreign,
separate, or imposed state that is brought in upon us or adjudged to us
by the will of God, but is the inborn, natural, essential state of our
own disordered nature, which is absolutely impossible in the nature of
the thing to be anything else but our own hell both here and hereafter,
unless all sin be separated from us and righteousness be again made our
natural state by a birth of itself in us.  And all this, not because God
will have it so by an arbitrary act of his sovereign will, but because
he cannot change his own nature or make anything to be happy and
blessed, but only that which has its proper righteousness and is of one
will and spirit with himself.

[Love-2.2-61] If then every creature that has lost or is without the
true rectitude of its nature must as such be of all necessity absolutely
separated from God and necessarily under the pain and misery of a life
that has lost all its own natural good, if no omnipotence or mercy or
goodness of God can make it to be otherwise or give any relief to the
sinner but by a total extinction of sin, by a birth of righteousness in
the soul, then it fully appears that according to this doctrine,
everything in God, and nature, and creature calls the sinner to an
absolute renunciation of all sin as the one only possible means of
salvation and leaves no room for him to deceive himself with the hopes
that anything else will do instead of it.  Vainly therefore is it said
that if God be all love, the sinner is let loose from the dreadful
apprehensions of living and dying in his sins.

[Love-2.2-62] On the other hand, deny this doctrine and say with the
current of scholastic divines that sin must be doomed to eternal pain
and death unless a supposed wrath in the mind of the Deity be first
atoned and satisfied, and that Christ's death was that valuable gift or
offering made to God by which alone he could be moved to lay aside or
extinguish his own wrath toward fallen man, say this; and then you open
a wide door for licentiousness and infidelity in some and superstitious
fears in others.

[Love-2.2-63] For if the evil, the misery, and sad effects of sin are
placed in a wrath in the divine mind, what can this beget in the minds
of the pious but superstitious fears about a supposed wrath in God which
they can never know when it is, or is not, atoned?  Every kind of
superstition has its birth from this belief and cannot well be
otherwise.  And as to the licentious, who want to stifle all fears of
gratifying all their passions, this doctrine has a natural tendency to
do this for them.  For if they are taught that the hurt and misery of
sin is not its own natural state, not owing to its own wrath and
disorder but to a wrath in the Deity, how easy is it for them to believe
either that God may not be so full of wrath as is given out or that he
may overcome it himself and not keep the sinner eternally in a misery
that is not his own but wholly brought upon him from without by a
resentment in the divine mind.

[Love-2.2-64] Again, this account which the schools give of the
sacrifice of Christ made to atone a wrath in the Deity by the infinite
value of Christ's death is that alone which helps Socinians, Deists, and
infidels of all kinds to such cavils and objections to the mystery of
our redemption as neither have nor can be silenced by the most able
defenders of that scholastic fiction.  The learning of a Grotius or
Stillingfleet when defending such an account of the atonement and
satisfaction rather increases than lessens the objections to this
mystery.  But if you take this matter as it truly is in itself, viz.,
that God is in himself all love and goodness, therefore can be nothing
else but all love and goodness toward fallen man, and that fallen man is
subject to no pain or misery either present or to come but what is the
natural, unavoidable, essential effect of his own evil and disordered
nature impossible to be altered by himself, and that the infinite, never
ceasing love of God has given Jesus Christ in all his process as the
highest and only possible means that heaven and earth can afford to save
man from himself, from his own evil, misery, and death, and restore to
him his original divine life.  When you look at this matter in this true
light, then a God all love and an atonement for sin by Christ, not made
to pacify a wrath in God but to bring forth, fulfill, and restore
righteousness in the creature that had lost it, has everything in it
that can make the providence of God adorable and the state of man
comfortable.

[Love-2.2-65] Here all superstition and superstitious fears are at once
totally cut off, and every work of piety is turned into a work of love.
Here every false hope of every kind is taken from the licentious; they
have no ground left to stand upon.  Nothing to trust to as a deliverance
from misery but the one total abolition of sin.

[Love-2.2-66] The Socinian and the infidel are here also robbed of all
their philosophy against this mystery; for as it is not founded upon,
does not teach an infinite resentment that could only be satisfied by an
infinite atonement, as it stands not upon the ground of debtor and
creditor, all their arguments which suppose it to be such are quite
beside the matter and touch nothing of the truth of this blessed
mystery.  For it is the very reverse of all this, it declares a God that
is all love and the atonement of Christ to be nothing else in itself but
the highest, most natural and efficacious means through all the
possibility of things that the infinite love and wisdom of God could use
to put an end to sin, and death, and hell and restore to man his first
divine state or life.  I say the most natural, efficacious means through
all the possibilities of nature; for there is nothing that is
supernatural, however mysterious, in the whole system of our redemption;
every part of it has its ground in the workings and powers of nature,
and all our redemption is only nature set right, or made to be that
which it ought to be.

[Love-2.2-67] There is nothing that is supernatural but God alone;
everything besides him is from and subject to the state of nature.  It
can never rise out of it, or have anything contrary to it.  No creature
can have either health or sickness, good or evil, or any state either
from God or itself but strictly according to the capacities, powers, and
workings of nature.

[Love-2.2-68] The mystery of our redemption, though it comes from the
supernatural God, has nothing in it but what is done and to be done
within the sphere and according to the powers of nature.  There is
nothing supernatural in it or belonging to it but that supernatural love
and wisdom which brought it forth, presides over it, and will direct it
till Christ as a second Adam has removed and extinguished all that evil
which the first Adam brought into the human nature.

[Love-2.2-69] And the whole process of Jesus Christ, from his being the
inspoken Word or bruiser of the serpent given to Adam, to his birth,
death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven has all its ground and
reason in this because nothing else in all the possibilities of nature,
either in heaven or on earth could begin, carry on, and totally effect
man's deliverance from the evil of his own fallen nature.

[Love-2.2-70] Thus is Christ the one, full, sufficient atonement for the
sin of the whole world because he is the one only natural remedy and
possible cure of all the evil that is broke {broken--Spencer; note in
Stanwood, broke = broken} forth in nature, the one only natural life and
resurrection of all that holiness and happiness that died in Adam.  And
seeing all this process of Christ is given to the world from the
supernatural, antecedent, infinite love of God, therefore is it that the
apostle saith God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.  And
Christ in God is nothing else in his whole nature but that same,
certain, and natural parent of a redemption to the whole human nature,
as falling Adam was the certain and natural parent of a miserable life
to every man that is descended from him.  With this only difference,
that from fallen Adam we are born in sin whether we will or no, but we
cannot have the new birth which Christ has all power to bring forth in
us unless the will of our heart closes with it.

[Love-2.2-71] But as nothing came to us from Adam but according to the
powers of nature, and because he was that which he was with relation to
us, so it is with Christ and our redemption by him: All the work is
grounded in and proceeds according to the powers of nature or in a way
of natural efficacy or fitness to produce its effects; and everything
that is found in the person, character, and condition of Christ is only
there as his true and natural qualification to do all that he came to do
in us and for us.  That is to say, Christ was made to be that which he
was; he was a seed of life in our first fallen father; he lived as a
blessing of promise in the patriarchs, prophets, and Israel of God; he
was born as a man of a pure virgin; he did all that he did whether as
suffering, dying, conquering, rising, and ascending into heaven only as
so many things which as naturally and as truly, according to the nature
of things, qualified him to be the producer or quickener of a divine
life in us, as the state and condition of Adam qualified him to make us
the slavish children of earthly, bestial flesh and blood.

[Love-2.2-72] This is the comfortable doctrine of our redemption:
nothing in God but an infinity of love and goodness toward our fallen
condition; nothing in Christ but that which had its necessity in the
nature of things to make him able to give, and us to receive, our full
salvation from him.

[Love-2.2-73] I will now only add that from the beginning of Deism and
from of Socinus to this day, not a Socinian or Deist have {has--Spencer}
ever seen or opposed this mystery in its true state as is undeniably
plain from all their writings.

[Love-2.2-74] A late writer, who has as much knowledge and zeal and wit
in the cause of Deism as any of his predecessors, is forced to attack
our redemption by giving this false following account of it.

[Love-2.2-75] "That a perfectly innocent being of the highest order
among intelligent natures should personate the offender and suffer in
his place and stead in order to take down the wrath and resentment of
the Deity against the criminal and dispose God to show mercy to him, the
Deist conceives to be both unnatural and improper and therefore not to
be ascribed to God without blasphemy."

[Love-2.2-76] And again, "The common notion of redemption among
Christians seems to represent the Deity in a disagreeable light, as
implacable and revengeful," etc.

[Love-2.2-77] What an arrow is here, I will not say, shot beside the
mark, but shot at nothing.  {!--Spencer} Because nothing of that which
he accuses is to be found in our redemption.  The God of Christians is
so far from being, as he says, implacable and revengeful that you have
seen it proved from text to text that the whole form and manner of our
redemption comes wholly from the free, antecedent, infinite love and
goodness of God toward fallen man.  That the innocent Christ did not
suffer to quiet an angry Deity but merely as cooperating, assisting, and
uniting with that love of God which desired our salvation.  That he did
not suffer in our place or stead but only on our account, which is a
quite different matter.  And to say that he suffered in our place or
stead is as absurd, as contrary to scripture, as to say that he rose
from the dead and ascended into heaven in our place and stead that we
might be excused from it.  For his sufferings, death, resurrection, and
ascension are all of them equally on our account, for our sake, for our
good and benefit, but none of them possible to be in our stead.

[Love-2.2-78] And as scripture and truth affirm that he ascended into
heaven for us, though neither scripture nor truth will allows it to be
in our place and stead, so for the same reasons it is strictly true that
he suffered and died for us, though no more in our place or stead nor
any more desirable to be so than his ascension into heaven for us should
be in our place and stead.

[Love-2.2-79] I have quoted the above passage only to show you that a
defender of Deism, however acute and ingenious, has not one objection to
the doctrine of our redemption but what is founded on the grossest
ignorance and total mistake of the whole nature of it.  But when I lay
this gross ignorance to the Deists' charge, I don't mean any natural
dullness, want of parts, or incapacity in them to judge aright, but only
that something or other, either men or books or their own way of life
has hindered their seeing the true ground and real nature of
Christianity as it is in itself.

[Love-2.2-80] Eusebius.  I would fain hope, Theophilus, that from all
that has been said in the Demonstration of the Fundamental Errors of the
Plain Account, the Appeal to all that Doubt, etc., and the rest that
follow, to these dialogues in all which Christianity and Deism, with
their several merits are so plainly and with so much good will and
affection toward all unbelievers represented to them, all that are
serious and well-minded amongst the Deists will be prevailed upon to
reconsider the matter.  For though some people have been hasty enough to
charge those writings with fanaticism or enthusiasm as disclaiming the
use of our reason in religious matters, yet this charge can be made by
none but those who, having not read them, take up with hearsay censures.

[Love-2.2-81] For in those books, from the beginning to the end, nothing
is appealed to but the natural light of the mind and the plain, known
nature of things, no one is led or desired to go one step further.  The
use of reason is not only allowed, but asserted and proved to be of the
same service to us in things of religion as in things that relate to our
senses in this world (Demonstration of Errors of the Plain Account).

[Love-2.2-82] The true ground, nature, and power of faith is opened by
fully proving that this saying of Christ, "According to thy faith, so be
it done unto thee," takes in every individual of human nature; and that
all men, whether Christians, Deists, idolaters, or atheists are all of
them equally men of faith, all equally and absolutely governed by it and
therefore must have all that they have, salvation or damnation, strictly
and solely according to their faith (Way to Divine Knowledge). All this
is so evidently proved that I can't help thinking but that every
considerate reader must be forced to own it.

[Love-2.2-83] Theogenes.  All this is well said.  But let us now return
to the finishing of our main point which was to show that the doctrine
of a God all love does not only not destroy the necessity of Christ's
death and the infinite value and merits of it but is itself the fullest
proof and strongest confirmation of both.

[Love-2.2-84] Theophilus.  How it could enter into anyone's head to
charge this doctrine with destroying the necessity and merits of
Christ's death is exceeding strange.

[Love-2.2-85] For look where you will, no other cause or reason of the
death of Christ can be found but in the love of God toward fallen man.
Nor could the love of God will or accept of the death of Christ but
because of its absolute necessity and availing efficacy to do all that
for fallen man which the love of God would have to be done for him.

[Love-2.2-86] God did not, could not, have or like or desire the
sufferings and death of Christ for what they were in themselves or as
sufferings of the highest kind.  No, the higher and greater such
sufferings had been, were they only considered in themselves, the less
pleasing they had been to a God that wills nothing but blessing and
happiness to everything capable of it.

[Love-2.2-87] But all that Christ was and did and suffered was
infinitely prized and highly acceptable to the love of God because all
that Christ was, and did, and suffered in his own person was that which
gave him full power to be a common father of life to all that died in
Adam.

[Love-2.2-88] Had Christ wanted anything that he was or did or suffered
in his own person, he could not have stood in that relation to all
mankind as Adam had done.  Had he not been given to the first fallen man
as a seed of the woman, as a light of life, enlightening every man that
comes into the world, he could not have had his seed in every man as
Adam had, nor been as universal a father of life as Adam was of death.
Had he not in the fitness or fullness of time become a man born of a
pure virgin, the first seed of life in every man must have lain only as
a seed and could not have come to the fullness of the birth of a new man
in Christ Jesus.  For the children can have no other state of life but
that which their father first had.  And therefore Christ, as the father
of a regenerated human race, must first stand in the fullness of that
human state which was to be derived from him into all his children.

[Love-2.2-89] This is the absolute necessity of Christ's being all that
he was before he became man, a necessity arising from the nature of the
thing.  Because he could not possibly have had the relation of a father
to all mankind, nor any power to be a quickener of a life of heaven in
them, but because he was both God in himself and a seed of God in all of
them.

[Love-2.2-90] Now all that Christ was, and did, and suffered after he
became man is from the same necessity founded in the nature of the
thing.  He suffered on no other account but because that which he came
to do in and for the human nature was and could be nothing else in
itself but a work of sufferings and death.

[Love-2.2-91] A crooked line cannot become straight but by having all
its crookedness given up or taken from it.  And there is but one way
possible in nature for a crooked line to lose its crookedness.

[Love-2.2-92] Now the sufferings and death of Christ stand in this kind
of necessity.  He was made man for our salvation, that is, he took upon
him our fallen nature to bring it out of its evil crooked state and set
it again in that rectitude in which it was created.

[Love-2.2-93] Now there was no more two ways of doing this than there
are two ways of making a crooked line to become straight.

[Love-2.2-94] If the life of fallen nature which Christ had taken upon
him was to be overcome by him, then every kind of suffering and dying
that was a giving up or departing from the life of fallen nature was
just as necessary in the nature of the thing as that the line to be made
straight must give up and part with every kind and degree of its own
crookedness.

[Love-2.2-95] And therefore the sufferings and death of Christ were, in
the nature of the thing, the only possible way of his acting contrary to
and overcoming all the evil that was in the fallen state of man.

[Love-2.2-96] The apostle saith, "The captain of our salvation was to be
made perfect through sufferings."  This was the ground and reason of his
sufferings.  Had he been without them, he could not have been perfect in
himself as a son of man nor the restorer of perfection in all mankind.
But why so?  Because his perfection as a son of man, or the captain of
human salvation, could only consist in his acting in and with a spirit
suitable to the first created state of perfect man; that is, he must in
his spirit be as much above all the good and evil of this fallen world
as the first man was.

[Love-2.2-97] But now, he could not show that he was of this spirit,
that he was under no power of fallen nature, but lived in the perfection
of the first created man.  He could not do this but by showing that all
the good of the earthly life was renounced by him and that all the evil
which the world, the malice of men and devils could bring upon him could
not hinder his living wholly and solely to God and doing his will on
earth with the same fullness as angels do it in heaven.

[Love-2.2-98] But had there been any evil in all fallen nature, whether
in life, death, or hell that had not attacked him with all its force, he
could not have been said to have overcome it.  And therefore so sure as
Christ the son of man was to overcome the world, death, hell, and Satan,
so sure is it that all the evils which they could possibly bring upon
him were to be felt and suffered by him as absolutely necessary in the
nature of the thing, to declare his perfection and prove his superiority
over them.  Surely, my friend, it is now enough proved to you how a God
all love toward fallen man must love, like, desire, and delight in all
the sufferings of Christ which alone could enable him as a son of man to
undo and reverse all that evil which the first man had done to all his
posterity.

[Love-2.2-99] Eusebius.  Oh, sir, in what an adorable light is this
mystery now placed.  And yet in no other light than that in which in the
plain letter of all scripture sets it.  No wrath in God, no fictitious
atonement, no folly of debtor and creditor, no suffering in Christ for
suffering's sake, but a Christ suffering and dying as his same victory
over death and hell as when he rose from the dead and ascended into
heaven.

[Love-2.2-100] Theophilus.  Sure now, Eusebius, you plainly enough see
wherein the infinite merits, or the availing efficacy and glorious power
of the sufferings and death of Christ consist since they were that in
and through which Christ himself came out of the state of fallen nature
and got power to give the same victory to all his brethren of the human
race.

[Love-2.2-101] Wonder not therefore that the scriptures {scripture--
Stanwood} so frequently ascribe all our salvation to the sufferings and
death of Christ, that we are continually referred to them as the wounds
and stripes by which we are healed, as the blood by which we are washed
from our sins, as the price (much above gold and precious stones) by
which we are bought.

[Love-2.2-102] Wonder not also that in the Old Testament, its service,
sacrifices, and ceremonies were instituted to typify and point at the
great sacrifice of Christ, and to keep up a continual hope, strong
expectation, and belief of it.  And that in the New Testament, the
reality, the benefits, and glorious effects of Christ our Passover being
actually sacrificed for us are so joyfully repeated by every apostle.

[Love-2.2-103] It is because Christ, as suffering and dying, was nothing
else but Christ conquering and overcoming all the false good and the
hellish evil of the fallen state of man.

[Love-2.2-104] His resurrection from the grave and ascension into
heaven, though great in themselves and necessary parts of our
deliverance, were yet but the consequences and genuine effects of his
sufferings and death.  These were in themselves the reality of his
conquest; all his great work was done and effected in them and by them,
and his resurrection and ascension was only his entering into the
possession of that which his sufferings and death had gained for him.

[Love-2.2-105] Wonder not then that all the true followers of Christ,
the saints of every age, have so gloried in the cross of Christ, have
imputed such great things to it, have desired nothing so much as to be
partakers of it, to live in constant union with it.  It is because his
sufferings, his death and cross were the fullness of his victory over
all the works of the devil.  Not an evil in flesh and blood, not a
misery of life, not a chain of death, not a power of hell and darkness,
but were all baffled, broken, and overcome by the process of a suffering
and dying Christ.  Well therefore may the cross of Christ be the glory
of Christians.

[Love-2.2-106] Eusebius.  This matter is so solidly and fully cleared up
that I am almost ashamed to ask you anything further about it.  Yet
explain a little more, if you please, how it is that the sufferings and
death of Christ gave him power to become a common father of life to all
that died in Adam.  Or how it is that we, by virtue of them, have
victory over all the evil of our fallen state.

[Love-2.2-107] Theophilus.  You are to know, Eusebius, that the
Christian religion is no arbitrary system of divine worship, but is the
one true, real, and only religion of nature, that is, it is wholly
founded in the nature of things, has nothing in it supernatural or
contrary to the powers and demands of nature, but all that it does is
only in and by and according to the workings and possibilities of
nature.

[Love-2.2-108] A religion that is not founded in nature is all fiction
and falsity and as mere a nothing as an idol.  For as no creature can be
or have anything in it but what it is and has from the nature of things
nor have anything done to it good or harm but according to the
unalterable workings of nature, so no religion can be of any service but
that which works with and according to the demand of nature.  Nor can
any fallen creature be raised out of its fallen state, even by the
omnipotence of God but according to the nature of things, or the
unchangeable powers of nature; for nature is the opening and
manifestation of the divine omnipotence; it is God's power-world, and
therefore all that God doth is and must be done in and by the powers of
nature.  God though omnipotent can give no existence to any creature but
it must have that existence in space and time.  Time cometh out of the
eternity, and space cometh out of the infinity of God--God hath an
omnipotent power over them, in them, and with them, to make both of them
set forth and manifest the wonders of his supernatural Deity.

[Love-2.2-109] Yet time can only be subservient to the omnipotence of
God according to the nature of time, and space can only obey his will
according to the nature of space; but neither of them can by any power
be made to be in a supernatural state or be anything but what they are
in their own nature.

[Love-2.2-110] Now right and wrong, good and evil, true and false,
happiness and misery, are as unchangeable in nature as time and space.
And every state and quality that is creaturely, or that can belong to
any creature, has its own nature as unchangeably as time and space have
theirs.

[Love-2.2-111] Nothing, therefore, can be done to any creature
supernaturally, or in a way that is without or contrary to the powers of
nature; but every thing or creature that is to be helped, that is to
have any good done to it, or any evil taken out of it, can only have it
done so far as the powers of nature are able and rightly directed to
effect it.

[Love-2.2-112] And this is the true ground of all divine revelation, or
that help which the supernatural Deity vouchsafes to the fallen state of
man.  It is not to appoint an arbitrary system of religious homage to
God, but solely to point out and provide for man blinded by his fallen
state that one only religion that, according to the nature of things,
can possibly restore to him his lost perfection.  This is the truth, the
goodness, and the necessity of the Christian religion; it is true and
good and necessary because it is as much the one only natural and
possible way of overcoming all the evil of fallen man as light is the
one only natural, possible thing that can expel darkness.

[Love-2.2-113] And therefore it is that all the mysteries of the gospel,
however high, are yet true and necessary parts of the one religion of
nature because they are no higher nor otherwise than the natural state
of fallen man absolutely stands in need of.  His nature cannot be helped
or raised out of the evils of its present state by anything less than
these mysteries; and therefore, they are in the same truth and justness
to be called his natural religion as that remedy which alone has full
power to remove all the evil of a disease may be justly called its
natural remedy.

[Love-2.2-114] For a religion is not to be deemed natural because it has
nothing to do with revelation; but then is it the one true religion of
nature when it has everything in it that our natural state stands in
need of, everything that can help us out of our present evil and raise
and exalt us to all the happiness which our nature is capable of having?
{.--Spencer} Supposing, therefore, the Christian scheme of redemption to
be all that and nothing else in itself but that which the nature of
things absolutely requires it to be, it must for that very reason have
its mysteries.

[Love-2.2-115] For the fallen, corrupt, mortal state of man absolutely
requires these two things as its only salvation.  First, the divine life
or the life of God must be quickened again or revived in the soul of
man.  Secondly, there must be a resurrection of the body in a better
state after death.  Now nothing in the power of man or in the things of
this world can effect this salvation.  If, therefore, this is to be the
salvation of man, then some interposition of the Deity is absolutely
necessary in the nature of the thing, or man can have no religion that
is sufficiently natural, that is to say, no religion that is sufficient
or equal to the wants of his nature.

[Love-2.2-116] Now this necessary interposition of the Deity though
doing nothing but in a natural way, or according to the nature of
things, must be mysterious to man because it is doing something more and
higher than his senses or reason ever saw done or possible to be done,
either by himself or any of the powers of this world.

[Love-2.2-117] And this is the true ground and nature of the mysteries
of Christian redemption.  They are in themselves nothing else but what
the nature of things requires them to be, as natural, efficacious means
of our salvation, and all their power is in a natural way, or true
fitness of cause for its effect, but they are mysterious to man because
brought into the scheme of our redemption by the interposition of God to
work in a way and manner above and superior to all that is seen and done
in the things of the world.

[Love-2.2-118] The mysteries, therefore, of the gospel are so far from
showing the gospel not to be the one true religion of nature that they
are the greatest proof of it since they are that alone which can help
man to all that good which his natural state wants to have done to it.

[Love-2.2-119] For instance, if the salvation of man absolutely requires
the revival or restoration of the divine life in the human nature, then
nothing can be the one, sufficient, true religion of nature,but that
which has a natural power to do this.

[Love-2.2-120] What a grossness of error is it, therefore, to blame that
doctrine which asserts the incarnation of the Son of God, or the
necessity of the Word being made flesh, when in the nature of the thing
nothing else but this very mystery can be the natural, efficacious cause
of the renewal of the divine life in the human nature, or have any
natural efficacy to effect our salvation?

[Love-2.2-121] Having now, Eusebius, established this ground, that
nothing is or can be a part of true, natural religion or have any real
efficacy in and from the nature of things or in the natural fitness of
cause to produce its effect, you are brought into the clear view of this
truth, viz., that the religion of Deism is false, and vain, and
visionary, and to be rejected by every man as the mere enthusiastic,
fanatic product of pure imagination, and all for this plain reason,
because it quite disregards the nature of things, stands wholly upon a
supernatural ground and goes as much above and as directly contrary to
the powers of nature as that faith that trusts in and prays to a wooden
god.

[Love-2.2-122] I say not this (as is too commonly done) in the spirit of
accusation, or to raise an odium.  No, by no means.  I have the utmost
aversion to such a procedure; I would no more bring a false charge
against the Deist than I would bear false witness against an apostle.
And I desire to have no other temper, spirit or behavior toward them but
such as the loving God with all my heart, and loving them as I love
myself requires of me.  And in this spirit of love, I charge them with
visionary faith and enthusiastic religion, and only so far as I have
from time to time proved that they trust to be saved by that which,
according to the unchangeable nature of things, can have no power of
salvation in it.

[Love-2.2-123] For a religion not grounded in the power and nature of
things is unnatural, supernatural, superrational, and is rightly called
either enthusiasm, vision, fanaticism, superstition, or idolatry, just
as you please.  For all these are but different names for one and the
same religious delusion.  And every religion is this delusion but that
one religion which is required by and has its efficacy in and from the
unchangeable nature of things.

[Love-2.2-124] And thus stands the matter betwixt the Deists and myself.
If I knew how to do them or the subject more justice, I would gladly do
it; having no desire either for them or myself but that we may all of us
be delivered from everything that separates us from God, all equal
sharers of every blessing that he has for human nature, all united in
that spirit of love and goodness for which he created us, and all
blessed with that faith and hope to which the God of love has called us
as the one, only, possible, natural, and full means of ever finding
ourselves saved and redeemed from all the evils both of time and
eternity.

[Love-2.2-125] And now, Eusebius, upon this ground, viz., (1) That there
is but one true religion, and that it is the religion of nature.  (2)
That a religion has no pretense to be considered as the religion of
nature because it rejects divine revelation and has only human reason
for its guide, but wholly and solely because it has every good in it
that the natural state of man wants and can receive from religion.  (3)
That nothing can be any religious good, or have any real efficacy as a
means of salvation, but only that which has its efficacy in and from the
natural power of things, or the fitness and sufficiency of cause to
produce its effect.  (4) That the religion of the gospel, in all its
mysteries and doctrines, is wholly grounded in the natural powers of
things and their fitness to produce their effects.  Upon this ground I
come to answer your question, viz., how it is that the sufferings and
death of Christ gave him full power to become a common father of life to
all those that died in Adam.  Or how it is that we by virtue of them are
delivered out of all the evils of our fallen state.

[Love-2.2-126] The sufferings and death of Christ have no supernatural
effect, or that is above, or contrary to nature.  Because the thing
itself is impossible; for a thing is only therefore impossible because
the nature of things will not allow it.

[Love-2.2-127] The fall of all mankind in Adam is no supernatural event
or effect, but the natural and necessary consequence of our relation to
him.  Could Adam at his fall into this earthy {earthly--Spencer; note on
"earthy" in Stanwood} life have absolutely overcome every power of the
world, the flesh, and the devil in the same spirit as Christ did, he had
been his own redeemer, had risen out of his fall, and ascended into
paradise and been the father of a paradisiacal offspring, just as Christ
when he had overcome them all rose from the dead and ascended into
heaven.  But Adam did not do this because it was as impossible in the
nature of the thing as for a beast to raise itself into an angel.  If
therefore man is to come out of his fallen state, there must be
something found out that, according to the nature of things, hath power
to effect it.  For it can no more be done supernaturally by anything
else than it could by Adam.

[Love-2.2-128] Now the matter stood thus: The seed of all mankind was in
the loins of fallen Adam.  This was unalterable in the nature of the
thing and therefore all mankind must come forth in his fallen state.

[Love-2.2-129] Neither can they ever be in any state whatever, whether
earthly or heavenly, but by having an earthly man or a heavenly man for
their father.  For mankind as such must of all necessity be born of and
have that nature which it hath from a man.  And this is the true ground
and absolute necessity of the one mediator, the man Christ Jesus.  For
seeing mankind as such must have that birth and nature which they have
from man, seeing they never could have had any relation to paradise or
any possibility of partaking of it but because they had a paradisiacal
man for their father, never could have had any relation to this earthly
world, or any possibility of being born earthly but because they had an
earthly man for their father; and seeing all this must be unalterably so
forever, it plainly follows that there was an utter impossibility for
the seed of Adam ever to come out of its fallen state or ever have
another or better life than they had from Adam unless such a son of man
could be brought into existence as had the same relation to all mankind
as Adam had, was as much in them all as Adam was, and had as full power
according to the nature of things to give a heavenly life to all the
seed in Adam's loins as Adam had to bring them forth in earthly flesh
and blood.

[Love-2.2-130] And now, sir, that Christ was this very son of man,
standing in the same fullness of relation to all mankind as Adam did,
having his seed as really in them all as Adam had, and as truly and
fully qualified according to the nature of things to be a common and
universal father of life as Adam was of death to all the human race,
shall in a word or two be made as plain and undeniable as that two and
two are four.

[Love-2.2-131] The doctrine of our redemption absolutely asserts that
the seed of Christ was sown into the first fallen father of mankind
called the seed of the woman, the bruiser of the serpent, the ingrafted
Word of life, called again in the gospel that light which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world.  Therefore, Christ was in all men in
that same fullness of relation of a father to all mankind as Adam the
first was.  Secondly, Christ was born of Adam's flesh and blood, took
the human nature upon him and therefore stood as a human creature in the
same relation to mankind as Adam did.  Nothing therefore was further
wanting in Christ to make him as truly a natural father of life to all
mankind as Adam was at first, but God's appointment of him to that end.

[Love-2.2-132] For as Adam could not have been the natural father of
mankind but because God created and appointed him for that end, so
Christ could not have been the natural regenerator or redeemer of a
heavenly life that was lost in all mankind but because God had appointed
and brought him into the world for that end.  Now that God did this,
that Christ came into the world by divine appointment to be the savior,
the resurrection and life of all mankind is a truth as evident from
scripture as that Adam was the first man.

[Love-2.2-133] And thus it appears in the utmost degree of plainness and
certainty that Christ in his single person was, according to the nature
of things, as fully qualified to be a common redeemer as Adam was in his
single person to be a common father of all mankind.  He had his seed in
all mankind as Adam had; he had the human nature as Adam had; and he had
the same divine appointment as Adam had.  But Christ, however qualified
to be our redeemer, could not be actually such till he had gone through
and done all that by which our redemption was to be effected.

[Love-2.2-134] Adam, however qualified, yet could not be the father of a
paradisiacal offspring till he had stood out his trial and fixed himself
victorious over everything that could make trial of him.  In like
manner, Christ, however qualified, could not be the redeemer of all
mankind till he had also stood out his trial, had overcome all that by
which Adam was overcome and had fixed himself triumphantly in that
paradise which Adam had lost.

[Love-2.2-135] Now as Adam's trial was whether he would keep himself in
his paradisiacal state, above and free from all that was good and evil
in this earthly world, so Christ's trial was whether, as a son of man
and loaded with the infirmities of fallen Adam, sacrificed to all that
which the rage and malice of the world, hell, and devils could possibly
do to him, whether he in the midst of all these evils could live and die
with his spirit as contrary to them, as much above them, as unhurt by
them, as Adam should have lived in paradise.

[Love-2.2-136] And then it was that everything which had overcome Adam
was overcome by Christ, and Christ's victory did in the nature of the
thing as certainly and fully open an entrance for him and all his seed
into paradise as Adam's fall cast him and all his seed into the prison
and captivity of this earthly, bestial world.

[Love-2.2-137] Nothing supernatural came to pass in either case but
paradise lost and paradise regained according to the nature of things,
or the real efficacy of cause to produce its effect.

[Love-2.2-138] Thus is your question fully answered, viz., how and why
the sufferings and death of Christ enabled him to be the author of life
to all that died in Adam.  Just as the fall of Adam into this world
under the power of sin, death, hell, and the devil enabled him to be the
common father of death, that is, was the natural, unavoidable cause of
our being born under the same captivity, just so that life and
sufferings and death of Christ which declared his breaking out from them
and superiority over them must in the nature of the thing as much enable
him to be the common author of life, that is, must as certainly be the
full, natural, efficacious cause of our inheriting life from him.
Because by what Christ was in himself, by what he was in us by his whole
state, character, and the divine appointment, we all had that natural
union with him and dependence upon him as our head in the way of
redemption, as we had with Adam as our head in the way of our natural
birth.  So that as it must be said that because Adam fell, we must of
all necessity be heirs of his fallen state, so with the same truth and
from the same necessity of the thing, it must be said that because
Christ our head is risen victorious out of our fallen state we as his
members and having his seed within us must be and are made heirs of all
his glory.  Because in all respects we are as strictly, as intimately
connected with and related to him as the one redeemer as we are to Adam
as the one father of all mankind.  So that Christ by his sufferings and
death become in all of us our wisdom, our righteousness, our
justification and redemption is the same sober and solid truth as Adam
by his fall become in all of us our foolishness, our impurity, our
corruption, and death.

[Love-2.2-139] And now, my friends, look back upon all that has been
said and then tell me, is it possible more to exalt or magnify the
infinite merits and availing efficacy of the sufferings and death of
Christ than is done by this doctrine?  Or whether everything that is
said of them in scripture is not here proved from the very nature of the
thing to be absolutely true?  And again, whether it is not sufficiently
proved to you that the sufferings and death of Christ are not only
consistent with the doctrine of a God all love, but are the fullest and
most absolute proof of it?

[Love-2.2-140] Eusebius.  Indeed, Theophilus, you have so fully done for
us all that we wanted to have done that we are now ready to take leave
of you.  As for my part, I want to return home to enjoy my Bible and
delight myself with reading it in this comfortable light in which you
have set the whole ground and nature of our redemption.  I am now in
full possession of this glorious truth that God is mere love, the most
glorious truth that can possess and edify the heart of man.  It drives
every evil out of the soul and gives life to every spark of goodness
that can possibly be kindled in it.  Everything in religion is made
amiable by being a service of love to the God of love.

[Love-2.2-141] No sacrifices, sufferings, and death have any place in
religion but to satisfy and fulfill that love of God which could not be
satisfied without our salvation.  If the Son of God is not spared, if he
is delivered up to the rage and malice of men, devils, and hell, it is
because, had we not had such a captain of our salvation made perfect
through sufferings, it never could have been sung, "Oh death, where is
thy sting, Oh grave, where is thy victory!"  It never could have been
true that "as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin,
so by one man came the resurrection of the dead."  It never could have
been said " that as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made
alive."

[Love-2.2-142] Therefore, dear Theophilus, adieu.  God is love, and he
that hath learnt to live in the spirit of love hath learnt to live and
dwell in God.  Love was the beginner of all the works of God, and from
eternity to eternity nothing can come from God but a variety of wonders
and works of love over all nature and creature.

[Love-2.2-143] Theophilus.  God prosper, Eusebius, this spark of heaven
in your soul; may it, like the seraphim's coal taken from the altar,
purify your heart from all its uncleanness.  But before you leave me, I
beg one more conversation to be on the practical part of the spirit of
love, that so doctrine and practice, hearing and doing, may go hand in
hand.

The End of the Second Dialogue

The Spirit of Love--continued

The Third Dialogue

[Love-2.3-1] Eusebius.  You have shown great good will toward us,
Theophilus, in desiring another meeting before we leave you.  But yet I
seem to myself to have no need of that which you have proposed by this
day's conversation.  For this doctrine of the spirit of love cannot have
more power over me or be more deeply rooted in me than it is already.
It has so gained and got possession of my whole heart that everything
else must be under its dominion.  I can do nothing else but love; it is
my whole nature, I have no taste for anything else.  Can this matter be
carried higher in practice?

[Love-2.3-2] Theophilus.  No higher, Eusebius.  And was this the true
state of your heart, you would bid fair to leave the world as Elijah
did; or like Enoch to have it said of you that you lived wholly to love,
and was not.  For was there nothing but this divine love alive in you,
your fallen flesh and blood would be in danger of being quite burnt up
by it.  What you have said of yourself, you have spoken in great
sincerity but in a total ignorance of yourself and the true nature of
the spirit of divine love.  You are as yet only charmed with the sight,
or rather the sound of it; its real birth is as yet unfelt and unfound
in you.  Your natural complexion has a great deal of the animal meekness
and softness of the lamb and the dove, your blood and spirit are of this
turn; and therefore a God all love and a religion all love quite
transport you; and you are so delighted with it that you fancy you have
nothing in you but this God and religion of love.  But, my friend, bear
with me if I tell you that all this is only the good part of the spirit
of this bestial world in you and may be in any unregenerate man that is
of your complexion.  It is so far from being a genuine fruit of divine
love that if it be not well looked to, it may prove a real hindrance of
it as it oftentimes does by its appearing to be that which it is not.

[Love-2.3-3] You have quite forgot all that was said in the letter to
you on the spirit of love, that it is a birth in the soul that can only
come forth in its proper time and place and from its proper causes.  Now
nothing that is a birth can be taken in or brought into the soul by any
notional conception or delightful apprehension of it.  You may love it
as much as you please, think it the most charming thing in the world,
fancy everything but dross and dung in comparison of it, and yet have no
more of its birth in you than the blind man has of that light of which
he has got a most charming notion.  His blindness still continues the
same; he is at the same distance from the light because light can only
be had by a birth of itself in seeing eyes.  It is thus with the spirit
of love; it is nowhere, but where it rises up as a birth.

[Love-2.3-4] Eusebius.  But if I am got no further than this, what good
have I from giving in so heartily to all that you have said of this
doctrine?  And to what end have you taken so much pains to assert and
establish it?

[Love-2.3-5] Theophilus.  Your error lies in this; you confound two
things which are entirely distinct from each other.  You make no
difference betwixt the doctrine that only sets forth the nature,
excellency, and necessity of the spirit of love, and the spirit of love
itself, which yet are two things so different that you may be quite full
of the former and at the same time quite empty of the latter.  I have
said everything that I could to show you the truth, excellency, and
necessity of the spirit of love.  It is of infinite importance to you to
be well established in the belief of this doctrine.  But all that I have
said of it is only to induce and encourage you to buy it at its own
price and to give all that for it which alone can purchase it.  But if
you think (as you plainly do) that you have got it because you are so
highly pleased with that which you have heard of it, you only embrace
the shadow instead of the substance of that which you ought to have.

[Love-2.3-6] Eusebius.  What is the price that I must give for it?

[Love-2.3-7] Theophilus.  You must give up all that you are, and all
that you have from fallen Adam, for all that you are and have from him
is that life of flesh and blood which cannot enter into the kingdom of
God.

[Love-2.3-8] Adam, after his fall, had nothing that was good in him,
nothing that could inherit an eternal life in heaven but the bruiser of
the serpent or the seed of the Son of God that was inspoken into him.
Everything else in him was devoted to death, that this incorruptible
seed of the Word might grow up into a new name in Christ Jesus.

[Love-2.3-9] All the doctrine of God's reprobation and election relates
wholly and solely to these two things, viz., the earthly, bestial nature
from Adam, and the incorruptible seed of the Word, or Immanuel in every
man.

[Love-2.3-10] Nothing is elected, is foreseen, predestinated, or called
according to the purpose of God, but this seed of the new man.  Because
the one eternal, unchangeable purpose of God toward man is only this,
namely, that man should be a heavenly image or son of God; and therefore
nothing can be elected or called according to the purpose of God but
this seed of a heavenly birth, because nothing else is able to answer
and fulfill the purpose of God; but everything else that is in man, his
whole earthly, bestial nature, is from sin and is quite contrary to
God's purpose in the creation of man.

[Love-2.3-11] On the other hand, nothing is reprobated, rejected, or
cast out by God but the earthly nature which came from the fall of Adam.
This is the only vessel of wrath, the son of perdition, that can have no
share in the promises and blessings of God.

[Love-2.3-12] Here you have the whole unalterable ground of divine
election and reprobation; it relates not to any particular number of
people or division of mankind, but solely to the two natures that are,
both of them without exception, in every individual of mankind.  All
that is earthly, serpentine, and devilish in every man is reprobated and
doomed to destruction; and the heavenly seed of the new birth in every
man is that which is chosen, ordained, and called to eternal life.

[Love-2.3-13] Election therefore and reprobation as respecting salvation
equally relate to every man in the world because every man as such hath
that in him which only is elected, and that in him which only is
reprobated, namely, the earthly nature and the heavenly seed of the Word
of God.

[Love-2.3-14] Now all this is evident from the very nature of the thing;
as soon as you but suppose man at his fall to have a power of redemption
or deliverance from the evil of his fallen nature engrafted into him,
you then have the first unchangeable ground of election and reprobation;
you are infallibly shown what it is that God elects and reprobates and
the absolute impossibility of anything else being reprobated by God but
that fallen, evil nature from which he is to be redeemed or of anything
else being elected by God, but that seed of a new birth which is to
bring forth his redemption.

[Love-2.3-15] Here therefore you have a full deliverance from all
perplexity upon this matter and may rest yourself upon this great,
comfortable, and most certain truth, that no other election or
reprobation with regard to salvation ever did or can belong to any one
individual son of Adam, but that very same election and reprobation
which both of them happened to and took place in Adam's individual
person.  For all that which was in Adam, both as fallen and redeemed,
must of all necessity be in every son of Adam; and no man can possibly
stand in any other relation to God than Adam did, and therefore cannot
have either more or less, or any other divine election and reprobation
than Adam had.  For from the moment of man's redemption which began at
the fall when the incorruptible seed of the Word was given into Adam,
every son of Adam to the end of the world must come into it under one
and the same election and reprobation with regard to God.  Because the
whole earthly nature from which man was to be redeemed, and the seed of
the Word by which he was to be redeemed, were both of them in every man,
one as certainly as the other.

[Love-2.3-16] Now this being the inward, essential state of every man
born into the world, having in himself all that is elected and all that
is reprobated by God, hence it is that in order to publish the truth and
certainty of such election and reprobation and the truth and certainty
of that two-fold nature in man on which it is grounded, hence it is that
the Spirit of God in holy scripture represents this matter to us by such
outward figures as are yet in themselves not figurative but real proofs
of it.

[Love-2.3-17] This is first of all done under the figures of Cain and
Abel, the two first births from Adam, where the one is murdered by the
other hereby demonstrating to us by this contrariety and difference of
these two births the inward real state of the father of them, namely,
that the same two-fold nature was in him that discovered itself in these
two first births from him.

[Love-2.3-18] The same thing is age after age set forth in variety of
figures, more especially Ishmael and Isaac, in Esau and Jacob.  And all
this, only further to confirm and establish this great truth, viz., that
such strife and contrariety as appeared in the sons of the same father
were not only outward representations, but full proofs of that inward
strife and contrariety which not only existed in their fathers but
universally in every human creature.  For Cain and Abel had not come
from Adam but because both their natures were antecedently in him and in
the same state of opposition and contrariety to each other.  Cain and
Abel were no other than the genuine effects of the two-fold state which
Adam as fallen and redeemed was then in, so every man, descended from
Adam, is in himself infallibly all that which Adam was, and has as
certainly his own Cain and Abel within himself as Adam had.  And from
the beginning to the end of the human race, all that which came to pass
so remarkably in the births of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau
and Jacob, all that same some way or other more or less comes to pass in
every individual of mankind.  In one man, his own Abel is murdered by
his own Cain, and in another his own Jacob overcomes his own Esau that
was born with him.

[Love-2.3-19] And all the good or the evil that we bring forth in our
lives is from nothing else but from the strife of these two natures
within us and their victory over one another.  Which strife no son of
Adam could ever have known anything of had not the free grace and mercy
of God chosen and called all mankind to a new birth of heaven in and out
of their corrupt and fallen souls.  No possible war or strife of good
against evil could be in fallen man but by his having from God a seed of
life in him, ordained and predestinated to overcome his earthly nature.
For that which is put into him by God as the power of his redemption
must be contrary to that from which he is to be redeemed.

[Love-2.3-20] And thus a war of good against evil set up within us by
the free grace and mercy of God to us is the greatest of all
demonstrations that there is but one election and but one reprobation,
and that all that God rejects and reprobates is nothing else but that
corrupt nature which every individual man, Abel as well as Cain, has in
himself from Adam as fallen; and that all that God elects,
predestinates, calls, justifies, and glorifies is nothing else but that
heavenly seed which every individual man, Pharaoh as well as Moses, has
in himself from Adam as redeemed.

[Love-2.3-21] And thus you have an unerring key to all that is said in
scripture of the election falling upon Abel, Isaac, and Jacob, etc., and
of the reprobation falling upon Cain, Ishmael, and Esau, not because God
has respect to persons or that all men did not stand before him in the
same covenant or redemption; but the scriptures speak thus, that the
true nature of God's election and reprobation may thereby be made
manifest to the world.

[Love-2.3-22] For the earthly nature, which God only reprobates, having
broke forth in predominancy in Cain, Ishmael, and Esau, they became
proper figures of that which God reprobates and were used by God as
such.  And the heavenly seed, which is alone elected to eternal glory,
having broke forth in predominancy in Abel, Isaac, Jacob, etc., they
became proper figures of that which God only elects and were used by God
as such.

[Love-2.3-23] Nothing is here to be understood personally or according
to the flesh of these persons on either side, but all that is said of
them is only as they are figures of the earthly nature and heavenly seed
in every man.  For nothing is reprobated in Cain but that very same
which is reprobated in Abel, viz., the earthly nature, nor is anything
elected in Jacob but that very same which is equally elected in Esau,
viz., the heavenly seed.

[Love-2.3-24] And now, gentlemen, you may easily apprehend how and why a
God in whose holy Deity no spark of wrath or partiality can possibly
arise, but who is from eternity to eternity only flowing forth in love,
goodness, and blessing to everything capable of it, could yet say of the
children before they were born, or had done either good or evil, Jacob
have I loved, and Esau have I hated.  It is because Esau signifies the
earthly, bestial nature that came from sin, and Jacob signifies the
incorruptible seed of the Word that is to overcome Esau and change his
mortal into immortality.

[Love-2.3-25] But now I stop, for you may perhaps think that I have here
made a digression from our proposed subject.

[Love-2.3-26] Eusebius.  A digression you may call it, if you please,
Theophilus, but it is such a digression as has entirely prevented my
ever having one more anxious thought about God's decrees of election and
reprobation.

[Love-2.3-27] The matter now stands in open daylight, notwithstanding
that thickness of learned darkness under which it has been hidden from
the time of St.  Austin to this day.  And now, sir, proceed as you
please to lay open all my defects in the spirit of love; for I am
earnestly desirous of being set right in so important a matter.

[Love-2.3-28] Theogenes.  Let me first observe to Theophilus that I am
afraid the matter is much worse with me that it is with you.  For though
this doctrine seems to have got all my heart as it is a doctrine, yet I
am continually thrown out of it in practice and find myself as daily
under the power of my old tempers and passions as I was before I was so
full of this doctrine.

[Love-2.3-29] Theophilus.  You are to know, my friends, that every kind
of virtue and goodness may be brought into us by two different ways.
They may be taught us outwardly by men, by rules and precepts, and they
may be inwardly born in us, as the genuine birth of our own renewed
spirit.  In the former way, as we learn them only from men by rules and
documents of instruction, they at best only change our outward behavior
and leave our heart in its natural state and only put our passions under
a forced restraint which will occasionally break forth in spite of the
dead letter of precept and doctrine.  Now this way of learning and
attaining goodness, though thus imperfect, is yet absolutely necessary
in the nature of the thing, and must first have its time, and place, and
work in us; yet it is only for a time, as the law was a schoolmaster to
the gospel.  We must first be babes in doctrine as well as in strength
before we can be men.  But of all this outward instruction whether from
good men or the letter of scripture, it must be said as the apostle
saith of the law, "that it maketh nothing perfect," and yet is highly
necessary in order to perfection.

[Love-2.3-30] The true perfection and profitableness of the holy written
word of God is fully set forth by St.  Paul to Timothy: "From a child,"
saith he, "thou hast known the scriptures which are able to make thee
wise unto salvation, which is by faith in Christ Jesus."  Now these
scriptures were the law and the prophets, for Timothy had known no other
from his youth.  And as they, so all other scriptures since have no
other good or benefit in them but as they lead and direct us to a
salvation that is not to be had in themselves but from faith in Christ
Jesus.  Their teaching is only to teach us where to seek and to find the
fountain and source of all light and knowledge.

[Love-2.3-31] Of the law, saith the apostle, "it was a schoolmaster to
Christ."  Of the prophets, he saith the same.  "Ye have," says he, "a
more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well, that ye take heed as
unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn, and the
daystar ariseth in your hearts."  The same thing is to be affirmed of
the letter of the New Testament; it is but our schoolmaster unto Christ,
a light like that of prophecy to which we are to take great heed until
Christ as the dawning of the day or the daystar ariseth in our hearts.
Nor can the thing possibly be otherwise; no instruction that comes under
the form of words can do more for us than sounds and words can do; they
can only direct us to something that is better than themselves, that can
be the true light, life, spirit, and power of holiness in us.

[Love-2.3-32] Eusebius.  I cannot deny what you say, and yet it seems to
me to derogate from scripture.

[Love-2.3-33] Theophilus.  Would you then have me to say that the
written word of God is that Word of God which liveth and abideth
forever; that was with God, which was God by whom all things were made;
that Word of God, which was made flesh for the redemption of the world;
that Word of God, of which we must be born again; that Word which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world; that Word, which in
Christ Jesus is become wisdom and righteousness and sanctification in
us; would you have me say that all this is to be understood of the
written word of God?  But if this cannot possibly be, then all that I
have said is granted, namely, that Jesus is alone that Word of God that
can be the light, life, and salvation of fallen man.  Or how is it
possible more to exalt the letter of scripture than by owning it to be a
true, outward, verbal direction to the one only true light and salvation
of man?

[Love-2.3-34] Suppose you had been a true disciple of John the Baptist
whose only office was to prepare the way to Christ, how could you have
more magnified his office or declared your fidelity to him than by going
from his teaching to be taught by that Christ to whom he directed you?
The Baptist was indeed a burning and a shining light, and so are the
holy scriptures; "but he was not that light, but was sent to bear
witness to that light.  That was the true light, which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world."

[Love-2.3-35] What a folly would it be to say that you had undervalued
the office and character of John the Baptist because he was not allowed
to be the light itself but only a true witness of it and guide to it?
Now if you can show that the written word in the Bible can have any
other or higher office or power than such a ministerial one as the
Baptist had, I am ready to hear you.

[Love-2.3-36] Eusebius.  There is no possibility of doing that.

[Love-2.3-37] Theophilus.  But if that is not possible to be done, then
you are come to the full proof of this point, viz., that there are two
ways of attaining knowledge, goodness, virtue, etc., the one by the
ministry of outward, verbal instruction either by men or books, and the
other by an inward birth of divine light, goodness, and virtue in our
own renewed spirit, and that the former is only in order to the latter
and of no benefit to us but as it carries us further than itself, to be
united in heart and spirit with the light and Word and Spirit of God.
Just as the Baptist had been of no benefit to this disciples unless he
had been their guide from himself to Christ.

[Love-2.3-38] But to come now closer to our subject in hand.

[Love-2.3-39] From this two-fold light or teaching there necessarily
arises a two-fold state of virtue and goodness.  For such as the teacher
or teaching is, such is the state and manner of the goodness that can be
had from it.  Every effect must be according to the cause that produces
it.  If you learn virtue and goodness only from outward means, from men,
or books, you may be virtuous and good according to time and place and
outward forms; you may do works of humility, works of love and
benevolence, use times and forms of prayer; all this virtue and goodness
is suitable to this kind of teaching and may very well be had from it.
But the spirit of prayer, the spirit of love, and the spirit of humility
or of any other virtue are only to be attained by the operation of the
light and Spirit of God, not outwardly teaching but inwardly bringing
forth a newborn spirit within us.

[Love-2.3-40] And now let me tell you both, that it is much to be feared
that you as yet stand only under this outward teaching; your good works
are only done under obedience to such rules, precepts, and doctrines as
your reason assents to, but are not the fruits of a newborn spirit
within you.  But till you are thus renewed in the spirit of your minds,
your virtues are only taught practices and grafted upon a corrupt
bottom.  Everything you do will be a mixture of good and bad; your
humility will help you to pride, your charity to others will give
nourishment to your own self-love, and as your prayers increase, so will
the opinion of your own sanctity.  Because till the heart is purified to
the bottom and has felt the ax at the root of its evil (which cannot be
done by outward instruction) everything that proceeds from it partakes
of its impurity and corruption.

[Love-2.3-41] Now that Theogenes is only under the law or outward
instruction is too plain from the complaint that he made of himself.
For notwithstanding his progress in the doctrine of love, he finds all
the passions of his corrupt nature still alive in him, and himself only
altered in doctrine and opinion.

[Love-2.3-42] The same may well be suspected of you Eusebius, who are so
mistaken in the spirit of love that you fancy yourself to be wholly
possessed of it from no other ground but because you embrace it, as it
were, with open arms, and think of nothing but living under the power of
it.  Whereas if the spirit of love was really born in you from its own
seed, you would account for its birth and power in you in quite another
manner than you have here done; you would have known the price that you
had paid for it, and how many deaths you had suffered before the spirit
of love came to life in you.

[Love-2.3-43] Eusebius.  But surely, sir, imperfect as our virtues are,
we may yet, I hope, be truly said to be in a state of grace; and if so,
we are under something more than mere outward instruction.  Besides you
very well know that it is a principle with both of us to expect all our
goodness from the Spirit of God dwelling and working in us.  We live in
faith and hope of the divine operation; and therefore I must needs say
that your censure upon us seems to be more severe than just.

[Love-2.3-44] Theophilus.  Dear Eusebius, I censure neither of you, nor
have I said one word by way of accusation.  So far from it that I love
and approve the state you both are in.  It is good and happy for
Theogenes that he feels and confesses that his natural tempers are not
yet subdued by doctrine and precept.  It is good and happy for you also
that you are so highly delighted with the doctrine of love, for by this
means each you have your true preparation for further advancement.  And
though your state has this difference, yet the same error was common to
both of you.  You both of you thought you had as much of the spirit of
love as you could, or ought to have; and therefore Theogenes wondered he
had no more benefit from it, and you wondered that I should desire to
lead you further into it.  And therefore, to deliver you from this
error, I have desired this conference upon the practical ground of the
spirit of love that you may neither of you lose the benefit of that good
state in which you stand.

[Love-2.3-45] Eusebius.  Pray therefore proceed as you please.  For we
have nothing so much at heart as to have the truth and purity of this
divine love brought forth in us.  For as it is the highest perfection
that I adore in God, so I can neither wish nor desire anything for
myself but to be totally governed by it.  I could as willingly consent
to lose all my being as to find the power of love lost in my soul.
Neither doctrine, nor mystery, nor precept has any delight for me but as
it calls forth the birth, and growth, and exercise of that spirit which
doth all that it doth toward God and man under the one law of love.
Whatever therefore you can say to me, either to increase the power,
manifest the defects, or remove the impediments of divine love in my
soul will be heartily welcome to me.

[Love-2.3-46] Theophilus.  I apprehend that you don't yet know what
divine love is in itself, nor what is its nature and power in the soul
of man.  For divine love is perfect peace and joy, it is a freedom from
all disquiet, it is all content and mere happiness and makes everything
to rejoice in itself.  Love is the Christ of God; wherever it comes, it
comes as the blessing and happiness of every natural life, as the
restorer of every lost perfection, a redeemer from all evil, a fulfiller
of all righteousness, and a peace of God which passeth all
understanding.  Through all the universe of things, nothing is uneasy,
unsatisfied, or restless, but because it is not governed by love, or
because its nature has not reached or attained the full birth of the
spirit of love.  For when that is done, every hunger is satisfied, and
all complaining, murmuring, accusing, resenting, revenging, and striving
are as totally suppressed and overcome as the coldness, thickness, and
horror of darkness are suppressed and overcome by the breaking forth of
the light.  If you ask why the spirit of love cannot be displeased,
cannot be disappointed, cannot complain, accuse, resent, or murmur, it
is because divine love desires nothing but itself; it is its own good,
it has all when it has itself because nothing is good but itself and its
own working; for love is God, and he that dwelleth in God, dwelleth in
love; tell me now, Eusebius, are you thus blessed in the spirit of love?

[Love-2.3-47] Eusebius.  Would you have me tell you that I am an angel?
And without the infirmities of human flesh and blood?

[Love-2.3-48] Theophilus.  No, but I would have you judge of your state
of love by these angelic tempers and not by any fervor or heat that you
find in yourself.  For just so much and so far as you are freed from the
folly of all earthly affections, from all disquiet, trouble, and
complaint about this or that, just so much and so far is the spirit of
love come to life in you.  For divine love is a new life and new nature
and introduces you into a new world; it puts an end to all your former
opinions, notions, and tempers; it opens new senses in you and makes you
see high to be low, and low to be high, wisdom to be foolishness, and
foolishness wisdom; it makes prosperity and adversity, praise and
dispraise to be equally nothing.  "When I was a child," saith the
apostle, "I thought as a child, I spake as a child, but when I became a
man, I put away childish things."  Whilst man is under the power of
nature, governed only by worldly wisdom, his life (however old he may
be) is quite childish; everything about him only awakens childish
thoughts and pursuits in him; all that he sees and hears, all that he
desires or fears, likes or dislikes; that which he gets and that which
he loses; that which he hath and that which he hath not serve only to
carry him from this fiction of evil to that fiction of good, from one
vanity of peace to another vanity of trouble.  But when divine love is
born in the soul, all childish images of good and evil are done away and
all the sensibility of them is lost, as the stars lose their visibility
when the sun is risen.

[Love-2.3-49] Theogenes.  That this is the true power of the spirit of
divine love, I am fully convinced from my own uneasiness at finding that
my natural tempers are not overcome by it.  For whence could I have this
trouble but because that little dawning that I have of the spirit of
love in me maketh just demands to be the one light, breath, and power of
my life and to have all that is within me overcome and governed by it.
And therefore I find I must either silence this small voice of new-risen
love within me or have no rest from complaints and self-condemnation
till my whole nature is brought into subjection to it.

[Love-2.3-50] Theophilus.  Most rightly judged, Theogenes; and now we
are fairly brought to the one great practical point on which all our
proficiency in the spirit of love entirely depends.  Namely, that all
that we are, and all that we have from Adam as fallen, must be given up,
absolutely denied and resisted, if the birth of divine love is to be
brought forth in us.  For all that we are by nature is in full
contrariety to this divine love, nor can it be otherwise; a death to
itself is its only cure, and nothing else can make it subservient to
good, just as darkness cannot be altered or made better in itself or
transmuted into light; it can only be subservient to the light by being
lost in it and swallowed up by it.

[Love-2.3-51] Now this was the first state of man; all the natural
properties of his creaturely life were hid in God, united in God, and
glorified by the life of God manifested in them, just as the nature and
qualities of darkness are lost and hid when enlightened and glorified by
the light.  But when man fell from, or died to the divine life, all the
natural properties of his creaturely life, having lost their union in
and with God, broke forth in their own natural division, contrariety,
and war against one another, just as the darkness, when it has lost the
light, must show forth its own coldness, horror, and other uncomfortable
qualities.  And as darkness, though in the utmost contrariety to light,
is yet absolutely necessary to it and without which no manifestation or
visibility of light could possibly be, so it is with the natural
properties of the creaturely life; they are in themselves all
contrariety to the divine life, and yet the divine life cannot be
communicated but in them and by them.

[Love-2.3-52] Eusebius.  I never read or heard of the darkness being
necessary to light.  It has been generally considered as a negative
thing that was nothing in itself and only signified an absence of light;
but your doctrine not only supposes darkness to be something positive
that has a strength and substantiality in itself, but also to be
antecedent to the light because necessary to bring it into
manifestation.  I am almost afraid to hear more of this doctrine.  It
sounds harsh to my ears.

[Love-2.3-53] Theophilus.  Don't be frightened, Eusebius.  I will lead
you into no doctrine but what is strictly conformable to the letter of
scripture and the most orthodox piety.  The scripture saith, "God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all"; therefore the scripture
affirmeth light to be superior, absolutely separate from, and eternally
antecedent to darkness; and so do I. In this scripture you have a noble
and true account of light, what it is, where it is and was, and always
must be.  It can never change its state or place, be altered in itself,
be anywhere or in another manner than as it was and will be from and to
all eternity.  When God said, "Let there be light, and there was light,"
no change happened to eternal light itself, nor did any light then begin
to be; but the darkness of this world then only began to receive a power
or operation of the eternal light upon it, which it had not before; or
eternity then began to open some resemblance of its own glory in the
dark elements and shadows of time.  And thus it is that I assert the
priority and glory of light and put all darkness under its feet, as
impossible to be anything else but its footstool.

[Love-2.3-54] Eusebius.  I am quite delighted with this.  But tell me
now how it is that light can only be manifested in and by darkness.

[Love-2.3-55] Theophilus.  The scripture saith that "God dwelleth in the
light to which no man can approach": therefore the scripture teacheth
that light in itself is and must be invisible to man, that it cannot be
approached or made manifest to him but in and by something that is not
light.  And this is all that I said, and the very same thing that I
said, when I affirmed that light cannot be manifested or have any
visibility to created eyes, but in and through and by darkness.

[Love-2.3-56] Light as it is in itself is only in the supernatural
Deity; and that is the reason why no man or any created being can
approach to it or have any sensibility of it, as it is in itself.  And
yet no light can come into this world but that in which God dwelt before
any world was created.  No light can be in time but that which was the
light of eternity.  If therefore the supernatural light is to manifest
something of its incomprehensible glory, and make itself in some degree
sensible and visible to the creature, this supernatural light must enter
into nature, it must put on materiality.  Now darkness is the one only
materiality of light, in and through which it can become the object of
creaturely eyes, and till there is darkness, there is no possible medium
or power through which the supernatural light can manifest something of
itself or have any of its glory visible to created eyes.  And the reason
why darkness can only be the materiality of light is this, it is because
darkness is the one only ground of all nature and of all materiality,
whether in heaven or on earth.  And therefore everything that is
creaturely in nature, that has any form, figure, or substance from the
highest angel in heaven to the lowest thing upon earth, hath all that it
hath of figure, form, or substantiality only and solely from darkness.
Look at the glittering glory of the diamond and then you see the one
medium through which the glory of the incomprehensible light can make
some discovery or manifestation of itself.  It matters not whether you
consider heaven or earth, eternal or temporal nature, nothing in either
state can be capable of visible glory, brightness, or illumination but
that which standeth in the state of the diamond and has its own
thickness of darkness.  And if the universe of eternal and temporal
nature is everywhere light, it is because it has darkness everywhere for
its dwelling place.  Light, you know, is by variety of modern
experiments declared to be material; the experiments are not to be
disputed.  And yet all these experiments are only so many proofs, not of
the materiality of light, but of our doctrine, viz., that materiality is
always along with visible light, and also that light can only open and
display something of itself in and by darkness as its body of
manifestation and visibility.  But light cannot possibly be material
because all materiality as such, be it what and where it will, is
nothing else but so much darkness.  And therefore to suppose light to be
material is the same absurdity as to suppose it to be darkness; for so
much materiality is so much darkness, and it is impossible to be
otherwise.  Again, all matter has but one nature; it admits of neither
more nor less, but wherever it is, all that is material is equally
there.  If therefore light was material, all the materiality in the
world must be light, and equally so.  For no materiality could be light
unless light was essential to matter as such, no more than any
materiality could be extended unless extension was essential to matter
as such.

[Love-2.3-57] Eusebius.  What is it then that you understand by the
materiality of light?

[Love-2.3-58] Theophilus.  No more than I understand by the materiality
of the wisdom, mercy, and goodness of God when they are made
intelligible and credible to me by the materiality of paper and ink,
etc.  For light is as distinct from and superior to all that
materiality, in and by which it gives forth some visibility of itself,
as the wisdom, mercy, and goodness of God are distinct from and superior
to all that written materiality, in and through which they are made in
some degree intelligible and credible to human minds.

[Love-2.3-59] The incomprehensible Deity can make no outward revelation
of his will, wisdom, and goodness but by articulate sounds, voices, or
letters written on tables of stone or such like materiality.  Just so
the invisible, inaccessible, supernatural light can make no outward
visibility of itself but through such darkness of materiality as is
capable of receiving its illumination.  But as the divine will, wisdom,
and goodness, when making outward revelation of themselves by the
materiality of things, are not therefore material, so neither is the
light material when it outwardly reveals something of its invisible,
incomprehensible splendor and glory by and through the materiality of
darkness.

[Love-2.3-60] All light then that is natural and visible to the
creature, whether in heaven or on earth, is nothing else but so much
darkness illuminated; and that which is called the materiality of light
is only the materiality of darkness in which the light incorporateth
itself.

[Love-2.3-61] For light can be only that same invisible, unapproachable
thing which it always was in God from all eternity.  And that which is
called the difference of light is only the difference of that darkness
through which the light gives forth different manifestations of itself.
It is the same, whether it illuminates the air, water, a diamond, or any
other materiality of darkness.  It has no more materiality in itself
when it enlightens the earth than when it enlightens the mind of an
angel, when it gives color to bodies than when it gives understanding to
spirits.

[Love-2.3-62] Sight and visibility is but one power of light, but light
is all power; it is life and every joyful sensibility of life is from
it.  "In him," says the apostle, "was light, and the light was the life
of men."  Light is all things, and nothing.  It is nothing because it is
supernatural; it is all things because every good power and perfection
of everything is from it.  No joy or rejoicing in any creature, but from
the power and joy of light.  No meekness, benevolence, or goodness in
angel, man, or any creature, but where light is the Lord of its life.
Life itself begins no sooner, rises no higher, has no other glory than
as the light begins it and leads it on.  Sounds have no softness,
flowers and gums have no sweetness, plants and fruits have no growth but
as the mystery of light opens itself in them.

[Love-2.3-63] Whatever is delightful and ravishing, sublime and glorious
in spirits, minds or bodies, either in heaven or on earth, is from the
power of the supernatural light, opening its endless wonders in them.
Hell has no misery, horror, or distraction but because it has no
communication with the supernatural light.  And did not the supernatural
light stream forth its blessings into this world through the materiality
of the sun, all outward nature would be full of the horror of hell.

[Love-2.3-64] And hence are all the mysteries and wonders of light in
this material system so astonishingly great and unsearchable; it is
because the natural light of this world is nothing else but the power
and mystery of the supernatural light breaking forth and opening itself
according to its omnipotence in all the various forms of elementary
darkness which constitute this temporary world.

[Love-2.3-65] Theogenes.  I could willingly hear you, Theophilus, on
this subject till midnight, though it seems to lead us away from our
proposed subject.

[Love-2.3-66] Theophilus.  Not so far out of the way, Theogenes, as you
may imagine; for darkness and light are the two natures that are in
every man, and do all that is done in him.

[Love-2.3-67] The scriptures, you know, make only this division: The
works of darkness are sin, and they who walk in the light are the
children of God.  Therefore light and darkness do everything, whether
good or evil, that is done in man.

[Love-2.3-68] Theogenes.  What is this darkness in itself, or where is
it?

[Love-2.3-69] Theophilus.  It is everywhere, where there is nature and
creature.  For all nature, and all that is natural in the creature, is
in itself nothing else but darkness, whether it be in soul or body, in
heaven or on earth.  And therefore, when the angels (though in heaven)
had lost the supernatural light, they became imprisoned in the chains of
their own natural darkness.  If you ask why nature must be darkness, it
is because nature is not God and therefore can have no light as it is
nature.  For God and light are as inseparable as God and unity are
inseparable.  Everything, therefore, that is not God is and can be
nothing else in itself but darkness, and can do nothing but in, and
under, and according to the nature and powers of darkness.

[Love-2.3-70] Theogenes.  What are the powers of darkness?

[Love-2.3-71] Theophilus.  The powers of darkness are the workings of
nature or self; for nature, darkness, and self are but three different
expressions for one and the same thing.

[Love-2.3-72] Now every evil, wicked, wrathful, impure, unjust thought,
temper, passion, or imagination that ever stirred or moved in any
creature; every misery, discontent, distress, rage, horror, and torment
that ever plagued the life of fallen man or angel are the very things
that you are to understand by the powers or workings of darkness,
nature, or self.  For nothing is evil, wicked, or tormenting, but that
which nature or self doth.

[Love-2.3-73] Theogenes.  But if nature is thus the seat and source of
all evil, if everything that is bad is in it and from it, how can such a
nature be brought forth by God who is all goodness?

[Love-2.3-74] Theophilus.  Nature has all evil, and no evil in itself.
Nature, as it comes forth from God, is darkness without any evil of
darkness in it; for it is not darkness without or separate from light,
nor could it ever have been known to have any quality of darkness in it,
had it not lost that state of light in which it came forth from God only
as a manifestation of the goodness, virtues, and glories of light.
Again, it is nature, viz., a strife and contrariety of properties for
this only end, that the supernatural good might thereby come into
sensibility, be known, found, and felt, by its taking all the evil of
strife and contrariety from them and becoming the union, peace, and joy
of them all.  Nor could the evil of strife and contrariety of will ever
have had a name in all the universe of nature and creature had it all
continued in that same state in which it came forth from God.  Lastly,
it is self, viz., an own life, that so through such an own life, the
universal, incomprehensible goodness, happiness, and perfections of the
Deity might be possessed as properties and qualities of an own life in
creaturely, finite beings.

[Love-2.3-75] And thus, all that is called nature, darkness, or self has
not only no evil in it, but is the only true ground of all possible
good.

[Love-2.3-76] But when the intelligent creature turns from God to self
or nature, he acts unnaturally, he turns from all that which makes
nature to be good, he finds nature only as it is in itself and without
God.  And then it is that nature or self hath all evil in it.  Nothing
is to be had from it or found in it but the work and working of every
kind of evil, baseness, misery, and torment, and the utmost contrariety
to God and all goodness.  And thus also you see the plainness and
certainty of our assertion that nature or self hath all evil and no evil
in it.

[Love-2.3-77] Theogenes.  I plainly enough perceive that nature or self
without God manifested in it is all evil and misery.  But I would, if I
could, more perfectly understand the precise nature of self, or what it
is that makes it to be so full of evil and misery.

[Love-2.3-78] Theophilus.  Covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath are the
four elements of self, or nature, or hell, all of them inseparable from
it.  And the reason why it must be thus and cannot be otherwise is
because the natural life of the creature is brought forth for the
participation of some high, supernatural good in the creator.  But it
could have no fitness or possible capacity to receive such good unless
it was in itself both an extremity of want and an extremity of desire of
some high good.  When, therefore, this natural life is deprived of or
fallen from God, it can be nothing else in itself but an extremity of
want continually desiring, and an extremity of desire continually
wanting.  And hence it is that its whole life can be nothing else but a
plague and torment of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath, all which is
precisely nature, self, or hell.

[Love-2.3-79] Now covetousness, pride, and envy are not three different
things, but only three different names for the restless workings of one
and the same will or desire which, as it differently torments itself,
takes different names; for nothing is in any of them but the working of
a restless desire, and all this because the natural life of the creature
can do nothing else but work as a desire.  And therefore, when fallen
from God its three first births, and which are quite inseparable from
it, are covetousness, envy, and pride.  It must covet because it is a
desire proceeding from want; it must envy because it is a desire turned
to self; it must assume and arrogate because it is a desire founded on a
real want of exaltation, or a higher state.

[Love-2.3-80] Now wrath, which is a fourth birth from these three, can
have no existence till some or all of these three are contradicted or
have something done to them that is contrary to their will; and then it
is that wrath is necessarily born, and not till then.

[Love-2.3-81] And thus you see in the highest degree of certainty what
nature or self is as to its essential, constituent parts.  It is the
three forementioned, inseparable properties of a desire thrown into a
fourth of wrath that can never cease because their will can never be
gratified.  For these four properties generate one another, and
therefore generate their own torment.  They have no outward cause, nor
any inward power of altering themselves.  And therefore, all self, or
nature, must be in this state till some supernatural good comes into it
or gets a birth in it.  And therefore, every pain or disorder in the
mind or body of any intelligent creature is an undeniable proof that it
is in a fallen state and has lost that supernatural good for which it
was created.  So certain a truth is the fallen state of all mankind.
And here lies the absolute, indispensable necessity of the one Christian
redemption.  Till fallen man is born again from above, till such a
supernatural birth is brought forth in him by the eternal Word and
Spirit of God, he can have no possible escape or deliverance from these
four elements of self or hell.

[Love-2.3-82] Whilst man, indeed, lives amongst the vanities of time,
his covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath may be in a tolerable state,
may help him to a mixture of peace and trouble; they may have at times
their gratifications, as well as their torments.  But when death has put
an end to the vanity of all earthly cheats, the soul that is not born
again of the supernatural Word and Spirit of God must find itself
unavoidably devoured or shut up in its own, insatiable, unchangeable,
self-tormenting covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath.  Oh!  Theogenes,
that I had power from God to take those dreadful scales from the eyes of
every Deist which hinder him from seeing and feeling the infinite
importance of this most certain truth!

[Love-2.3-83] Theogenes.  God give a blessing, Theophilus, to your good
prayer.  And then let me tell you that you have quite satisfied my
question about the nature of self.  I shall never forget it, nor can I
ever possibly have any doubt of the truth of it.

[Love-2.3-84] Theophilus.  Let me however go a little deeper in the
matter.  All life, and all sensibility of life, is a desire; and nothing
can feel or find itself to exist, but as it finds itself to have and be
a desire; and therefore, all nature is a desire, and all that nature
does or works is done by the working of desire.  And this is the reason
why all nature and the natural life of every creature is a state of
want, and therefore must be a state of misery and self-torment, so long
as it is mere nature or left to itself.  For every desire as such is and
must be made up of contrariety, as is sufficiently shown elsewhere.  And
its essential contrariety, which it has in itself, is the one and only
possible {beginning or ground of its sensibility.  For nothing can be
felt, but because of contrariety to that which feels.  And therefore no
creaturely desire can be brought into existence or have any possible--
Spencer} sensibility of itself but because desire as such is unavoidably
made up of that contrariety whence comes all feeling and {the capacity
of being--Spencer} felt.

[Love-2.3-85] Again, all natural life is nothing else but a mere desire
founded in want; now want is contrary to desire, and, therefore, every
natural life as such is in a state of contrariety and torment to itself.
It can do nothing but work in and feel its own contrariety, and so be
its own unavoidable, incessant tormentor.

[Love-2.3-86] Hence we may plainly see that God's bringing a sensible
creature into existence is his bringing the power of desire into a
creaturely state; and the power and extent of its own working desire is
the bounds or limits of its own creaturely nature.  And, therefore,
every intelligent creature, of whatever rank in the creation, is and can
be nothing else in its creaturely or natural state but a state of want;
and the higher its natural state is supposed to be, the higher is its
want and the greater its torment if left only in its natural state.  And
this is the reason of the excessive misery and depravity of the fallen
angels.

[Love-2.3-87] Now the contrariety that is in desire and must be in it
because it is a desire and the only ground of all sensibility is plainly
shown you by the most undeniable appearance in outward or material
nature.  All that is done in outward nature is done by working of
attraction.  And all attraction is nothing else but an inseparable
combination and incessant working of three contrary properties or laws
of motion.  It draws, it resists its own drawing; and from this drawing
and resisting, which are necessarily equal to one another, it becomes an
orbicular or whirling motion, and yet draws and resists, just as it did
before.

[Love-2.3-88] Now this threefold contrariety in the motions or
properties of attraction and by which all the elements of this material
world are held and governed and made to bring forth all the wonders in
all kinds of animate and inanimate things, this contrariety being the
only possible ground of all material nature is a full demonstration (1)
that contrariety is the one only possible ground of nature and all
natural life, whether it be eternal or temporal, spiritual or material;
(2) that no other contrariety is or can be in the properties or laws of
attraction in this material nature but that one and the same contrariety
which was from eternity in spiritual nature, is inseparable from it, and
can be nowhere but in it.  For time can only partake of eternity, it can
have nothing in it but the working of eternity, nor be anything but what
it is by the working of eternity in it.  It can have nothing that is its
own or peculiar to it but its transitory state, and form, and nature.
It is a mere accident, has only an occasional existence; and whatever is
seen or done in it is only so much of the working of eternity seen and
done in it.

[Love-2.3-89] For attraction in the material world has not only nothing
material in it but is impossible to be communicated to matter, or rather
matter has no possible capacity to receive attraction.  It can no more
receive or obey the laws of attraction than it can make laws for angels.
It is as incapable of moving or stirring itself as it is of making
syllogisms.  For matter is in itself only death, darkness, and
inactivity and is as utterly incapable of moving itself as it is of
illuminating or creating itself; nothing can be done in it and by it but
that which is done by something that is not material.

[Love-2.3-90] Therefore, that which is called the attraction of
materiality is in itself nothing else but the working of the spiritual
properties of desire which has in itself those very three inseparable
contrarieties which make the three contrarieties in the motions of
attraction.  Material nature, being an accidental, temporary, transitory
outbirth from eternal nature and having no power of existing but under
it and in dependence upon it, the spiritual properties of eternal nature
do, as it were, materialize themselves for a time in their temporary
outbirth and force matter to work as they work and to have the same
contradictory motions in it which are essential to eternal nature.

[Love-2.3-91] And thus the three inseparable, contrary motions of matter
are in the same manner and for the same reason a true ground of a
material nature in time, as the three inseparable, contrary,
contradictory workings of desire are a true ground of spiritual nature
in eternity.  And you are to observe that all that is done in matter and
time is done by the same agents or spiritual properties which do all
that is naturally done in eternity, in heaven or in hell.  For nothing
is the ground of happiness and glory in heaven, nothing is the ground of
misery, woe and distraction in hell, but the working of these same
contrary properties of desire which work contrariety in the attraction
of matter and bring forth all the changes of life and death in this
material system.  They are unchangeable in their nature and are
everywhere the same; they are spiritual in hell and on earth as they are
in heaven.  Considered as in themselves, they are everywhere equally
good and equally bad because they are everywhere equally the ground and
the only ground for either happiness or misery.  No possible happiness
or sensibility of joy for any creature but where these contrary
properties work, nor any possibility of misery but from them.

[Love-2.3-92] Now attraction, acting according to its three invariable,
inseparable contrarieties of motion, stands in this material nature,
exactly in the same place and for the same end and doing the same office
as the three first properties of desire do in eternal or spiritual
nature.  For they can be or do nothing with regard to earth and time but
that same which they are and do in heaven and eternity.

[Love-2.3-93] In eternal nature, the three contrary properties of
desire, answering exactly to the three contrary motions of material
attraction, are in themselves only resistance, rage, and darkness and
can be nothing else till the supernatural Deity kindles its fire of
light and love in them; and then all their raging contrarieties are
changed into never-ceasing sensibilities of unity, joy, and happiness.

[Love-2.3-94] Just so, in this material system, suppose there to be
nothing in it but the contrary motions of attraction, it could be
nothing else but rage against rage in the horror of darkness.

[Love-2.3-95] But when the same supernatural light which turns the first
fighting properties of nature into a kingdom of heaven gives forth
something of its goodness into this world through the kindled body of
the sun, then all the fighting, contradictory motions of attraction
serve only to bring new joys into the world and open every life and
every blessing of life that can have birth in a system of transitory
matter.

[Love-2.3-96] Theogenes.  Oh Theophilus, you quite surprise me by thus
showing me with so much certainty how the powers of eternity work in the
things of time.  Nothing is done on earth but by the unchangeable
workings of the same spiritual powers which work after the same manner,
both in heaven and in hell.  I now sufficiently see how man stands in
the midst of heaven and hell under an absolute necessity of belonging
wholly to the one, or wholly to the other, as soon as this cover of
materiality is taken off from him.

[Love-2.3-97] For matter is his only wall of partition between them, he
is equally nigh to both of them; and as light and love make all the
difference there is between heaven and hell, so nothing but a birth of
light and love in the properties of his soul can possibly keep hell out
of it or bring heaven into it.

[Love-2.3-98] I now also see the full truth and certainty of what you
said of the nature and power of divine love, viz., "that it is perfect
peace and joy, a freedom from all disquiet, making everything to rejoice
in itself.  That it is the Christ of God, and wherever it comes, it
comes as the blessing and happiness of every natural life; as the
restorer of every lost perfection; a redeemer from all evil; a fulfiller
of all righteousness; and a peace of God, which passes all
understanding."  So that I am now a thousand times more than ever
athirst after the spirit of love.  I am willing to sell all and buy it;
its blessing is so great and the want of it so dreadful a state that I
am even afraid of lying down in my bed till every working power of my
soul is given up to it, wholly possessed and governed by it.

[Love-2.3-99] Theophilus.  You have reason for all that you say,
Theogenes; for were we truly affected with things, as they are our real
good or real evil, we should be much more afraid of having the serpents
of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath well nourished and kept alive
within us than of being shut up in a pest house, or cast into a dungeon
of venomous beasts.  On the other hand, we should look upon the lofty
eloquence and proud virtue of a Cicero but as the blessing of storm and
tempest when compared with the heavenly tranquillity of that meek and
lowly heart to which our redeemer has called us.

[Love-2.3-100] I said the serpents of covetousness, envy, pride, and
wrath because they are alone the real, dreadful, original serpents; and
all earthly serpents are but transitory, partial, and weak outbirths of
them.  All evil, earthly beasts are but short-lived images or creaturely
eruptions of that hellish disorder that is broke out from the fallen
spiritual world; and by their manifold variety, they show us that
multiplicity of evil that lies in the womb of that abyss of dark rage
which (N.B.) has no maker but the three first properties of nature
fallen from God and working in their darkness.

[Love-2.3-101] So that all evil, mischievous, ravenous, venomous beasts,
though they have no life but what begins in and from this material world
and totally ends at the death of their bodies, yet have they no
malignity in their earthly, temporary nature but from those same
wrathful properties of fallen nature which live and work in our eternal
fallen souls.  And therefore, though they are as different from us as
time from eternity, yet wherever we see them we see so many infallible
proofs of the fall of nature and the reality of hell.  For was there no
hell broke out in spiritual nature, not only no evil beast but no
bestial life could ever have come into existence.

[Love-2.3-102] For the origin of matter and the bestial, earthly life
stands thus.  When the fall of angels had made their dwelling place to
be a dark chaos of the first properties of nature left to themselves,
the infinite wisdom and goodness of God created or compacted this
spiritual chaos into a material heaven and a material earth and
commanded the light to enter into it.  Hence this chaos became the
ground or the materiality of a new and temporary nature in which the
heavenly power of light and the properties of darkness, each of them
materialized, could work together, carrying on a war of heaven against
earth so that all the evil workings of fallen spiritual nature and all
the good that was to overcome it might be equally manifested both by the
good and bad state of outward nature, and by that variety of good and
bad living creatures that sprung up out of it.  To stand in this state,
viz., of a spiritual chaos changed into a materiality of light striving
against darkness till the omnipotent wisdom and goodness of God, through
the wonders of a first and second Adam, had made this chaotic earth to
send as many angels into the highest heaven as fell with Lucifer into
the hellish chaos.

[Love-2.3-103] But to return.  I have, I hope, sufficiently opened unto
you the malignant nature of that self which dwells in and makes up the
working life of every creature that has lost its right state in God,
viz., that all the evil that was in the first chaos of darkness or that
still is in hell and devils, all the evil that is in material nature and
material creatures whether animate or inanimate is nothing else, works
in, and with nothing else but those first properties of nature which
drive on the life of fallen man in covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath.

[Love-2.3-104] Theogenes.  I could almost say that you have shown me
more than enough of this monster of self, though I would not be without
this knowledge of it for half the world.  But now, sir, what must I do
to be saved from the mouth of this lion, for he is the depth of all
subtlety, the Satan that deceiveth the whole world.  He can hide himself
under all forms of goodness, he can watch and fast, write and instruct,
pray much, and preach long, give alms to the poor, visit the sick, and
yet often gets more life and strength and a more unmovable abode in
these forms of virtue than he has in publicans and sinners.

[Love-2.3-105] Enjoin me therefore whatever you please; all rules,
methods, and practices will be welcome to me if you judge them to be
necessary in this matter.

[Love-2.3-106] Theophilus.  There is no need of a number of practices or
methods in this matter.  For to die to self or to come from under its
power is not, cannot be done by any active resistance we can make to it
by the powers of nature.  For nature can no more overcome or suppress
itself than wrath can heal wrath.  So long as nature acts, nothing but
natural works are brought forth; and therefore the more labor of this
kind, the more nature is fed and strengthened with its own food.

[Love-2.3-107] But the one true way of dying to self is most simple and
plain, it wants no arts or methods, no cells, monasteries, or
pilgrimages, it is equally practicable by everybody, it is always at
hand, it meets you in everything, it is free from all deceit, and is
never without success.

[Love-2.3-108] If you ask what this one, true, simple, plain, immediate
and unerring way is, it is the way of patience, meekness, humility, and
resignation to God.  This is the truth and perfection of dying to self;
it is nowhere else nor possible to be in anything else but in this state
of heart.

[Love-2.3-109] Theogenes.  The excellency and perfection of these
virtues I readily acknowledge; but alas, sir, how will this prove the
way of overcoming self to be so simple, plain, immediate, and unerring
as you speak of?  For is it not the doctrine of almost all men and all
books, and confirmed by our own woeful experience, that much length of
time and exercise and variety of practices and methods are necessary and
scarce sufficient to the attainment of any one of these four virtues?

[Love-2.3-110] Theophilus.  When Christ our savior was upon earth, was
there anything more simple, plain, immediate, unerring, than the way to
him?  Did scribes, pharisees, publicans, and sinners want any length of
time or exercise of rules and methods before they could have admission
to him, or have the benefit of faith in him?

[Love-2.3-111] Theogenes.  I don't understand why you put this question,
nor do I see how it can possibly relate to the matter before us.

[Love-2.3-112] Theophilus.  It not only relates to, but is the very
heart and truth of the matter before us.  It is not appealed to by way
of illustration of our subject, but is our subject itself, only set in a
truer and stronger light.  For when I refer you to patience, meekness,
humility, and resignation to God as the one simple, plain, immediate,
and unerring way of dying to self or being saved from it, I call it so
for no other reason but because you can as easily and immediately,
without art or method, by the mere turning and faith of your mind, have
all the benefit of these virtues, as publicans and sinners by their
turning to Christ could be helped and saved by him.

[Love-2.3-113] Theogenes.  But, good sir, would you have me then believe
that my turning and giving up myself to these virtues is as certain and
immediate a way of my being directly possessed and blessed by their good
power as when sinners turned to Christ to be helped and saved by him?
Surely this is too short a way and has too much of miracle in it to be
now expected.

[Love-2.3-114] Theophilus.  I would have you strictly to believe all
this in the fullest sense of the words.  And also to believe that the
reasons why you or anyone else are for a long time vainly endeavoring
after and hardly ever attaining these first-rate virtues is because you
seek them in the way they are not to be found, in a multiplicity of
human rules, methods, and contrivances, and not in that simplicity of
faith in which those who applied to Christ immediately obtained that
which they asked of him.

[Love-2.3-115] "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and
I will refresh you."  How short and simple and certain a way to peace
and comfort from the misery and burden of sin!  What becomes now of your
length of time and exercise, your rules and methods and roundabout ways
to be delivered from self, the power of sin, and find the redeeming
power and virtue of Christ?  Will you say that turning to Christ in
faith was once indeed the way for Jews and heathens to enter into life
and be delivered from the power of their sins, but that all this
happiness was at an end as soon as Pontius Pilate had nailed this good
redeemer to the cross, and so broke off all immediate union and
communion between faith and Christ?

[Love-2.3-116] What a folly would it be to suppose that Christ, after
his having finished his great work, overcome death, ascended into heaven
with all power in heaven and on earth, was become less a savior and gave
less certain and immediate helps to those that by faith turn to him now
than when he was clothed with the infirmity of our flesh and blood upon
earth?  Has he less power after he has conquered than whilst he was only
resisting and fighting our enemies?  Or has he less good will to assist
his church, his own body, now he is in heaven than he had to assist
publicans, sinners, and heathens before he was glorified as the redeemer
of the world?  And yet this must be the case if our simply turning to
him in faith and hope is not as sure a way of obtaining immediate
assistance from him now as when he was upon earth.

[Love-2.3-117] Theogenes.  You seem, sir, to me to have stepped aside
from the point in question which was not whether my turning or giving
myself up to Christ in faith in him would not do me as much good as it
did to them who turned to him when he was upon earth, but whether my
turning in faith and desire to patience, meekness, humility, and
resignation to God would do all that as fully for me now as faith in
Christ did for those who became his disciples.

[Love-2.3-118] Theophilus.  I have stuck closely, my friend, to the
point before us.  Let it be supposed that I had given you a form of
prayer in these words: "O Lamb of God, that takest away the sins of the
world, or O thou bread that camest down from heaven, or thou that art
the resurrection and the life, the light and peace of all holy souls,
help me to a living faith in thee."  Would you say that this was not a
prayer of faith in and to Christ because it did not call him Jesus, or
the Son of God?  Answer me plainly.

[Love-2.3-119] Theogenes.  What can I answer you but that this is a most
true and good prayer to Jesus, the Son of the living God?  For who else
but he was the Lamb of God, and the bread that came down?

[Love-2.3-120] Theophilus.  Well answered, my friend.  When therefore I
exhort you to give up yourself in faith and hope, to patience, meekness,
humility, and resignation to God, what else do I do but turn you
directly to so much faith and hope in the true Lamb of God?  For if I
ask you what the Lamb of God is and means, must you not tell me that it
is and means the perfection of patience, meekness, humility, and
resignation to God?  Can you say it is either more or less than this?
Must you not therefore say that a faith of hunger and thirst and desire
of these virtues is, in spirit and truth, the one very same thing as a
faith of hunger and thirst and desire of salvation through the Lamb of
God?  And consequently that every sincere wish and desire, every inward
inclination of your heart that presses after these virtues and longs to
be governed by them, is an immediate direct application to Christ, is
worshipping and falling down before him, is giving up yourself unto him
and the very perfection of faith in him?

[Love-2.3-121] If you distrust my words, hear the words of Christ
himself.  "Learn of me," he says, "for I am meek and lowly of heart, and
ye shall find rest unto your souls."  Here you have the plain truth of
our two points fully asserted, first, that to be given up to, or stand
in a desire of, patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God is
strictly the same thing as to learn of Christ, or to have faith in him.
Secondly, that this is the one simple, short, and infallible way to
overcome or be delivered from all the malignity and burden of self
expressed in these words, "and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

[Love-2.3-122] And all this because this simple tendency or inward
inclination of your heart to sink down into patience, meekness,
humility, and resignation to God is truly giving up all that you are and
all that you have from fallen Adam; it is perfectly leaving all that you
have to follow and be with Christ, it is your highest act of faith in
him and love of him, the most ardent and earnest declaration of your
cleaving to him with all your heart and seeking for no salvation but in
him, and from him.  And therefore all the good, and blessing, pardon,
and deliverance from sin that ever happened to anyone from any kind or
degree of faith and hope and application to Christ is sure to be had
from this state of heart which stands continually turned to him in a
hunger and desire of being led and governed by his spirit of patience,
meekness, humility, and resignation to God.  Oh Theogenes, could I help
you to perceive or feel what a good there is in this state of heart, you
would desire it with more eagerness than the thirsty hart desireth the
water brooks, you would think of nothing, desire nothing but constantly
to live in it.  It is a security from all evil and all delusion; no
difficulty or trial either of body or mind, no temptation either within
you or without you but what has its full remedy in this state of heart.
You have no questions to ask of anybody, no new way that you need
inquire after, no oracle that you need to consult, for whilst you shut
up yourself in patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God, you
are in the very arms of Christ, your whole heart is his dwelling place
and he lives and works in you as certainly as he lived and governed that
body and soul which he took from the Virgin Mary.

[Love-2.3-123] Learn whatever else you will from men and books, or even
from Christ himself besides or without these virtues, and you are only a
poor wanderer in a barren wilderness where no water of life is to be
found.  For Christ is nowhere but in these virtues, and where they are
there is he in his own kingdom.  From morning to night, let this be the
Christ that you follow, and then you will fully escape all the religious
delusions that are in the world, and what is more, all the delusions of
your own selfish heart.

[Love-2.3-124] For to seek to be saved by patience, meekness, humility,
and resignation to God is truly coming to God through Christ; and when
these tempers live and abide in you as the spirit and aim of your life,
then Christ is in you of a truth and the life that you then lead is not
yours but Christ that liveth in you.  For this is following Christ with
all your power.  You cannot possibly make more haste after him, you have
no other way of walking as he walked, no other way of being like him, of
truly believing in him, of showing your trust in him and dependence upon
him but by wholly giving up yourself to that which he was, viz., to
patience, meekness, humility, and resignation to God.

[Love-2.3-125] Tell me now, have I enough proved to you the short,
simple, and certain way of destroying that body of self which lives and
works in the four elements of covetousness, envy, pride, and wrath?

[Love-2.3-126] Theogenes.  Enough of all reason.  But as to
covetousness, I thank God I cannot charge myself with it, it has no
power over me, nay I naturally abhor it.  And I also now clearly see why
I have been so long struggling in vain against other selfish tempers.

[Love-2.3-127] Theophilus.  Permit me, my friend, to remove your
mistake.  Had covetousness no power over you, you could have no other
selfish tempers to struggle against.  They are all dead as soon as
covetousness has done working in you.  You take covetousness to relate
only to the wealth of this world.  But this is but one single branch of
it, its nature is as large as desire, and wherever selfish desire is,
there is all the evil nature of covetousness.

[Love-2.3-128] Now envy, pride, hatred, or wrath can have no possibility
of existence in you but because there is some selfish desire alive in
you that is not satisfied, not gratified, but resisted and disappointed.
And therefore so long as any selfish tempers, whether of envy,
uneasiness, complaint, pride, or wrath are alive in you, you have the
fullest proof that all these tempers are born and bred in and from your
own covetousness, that is, from that same selfish bad desire which, when
it is turned to the wealth of this world, is called covetousness.  For
all these four elements of self or fallen nature are tied together in
one inseparable band, they mutually generate and are generated from one
another, they have but one common life and must all of them live, or all
die together.  This may show you again the absolute necessity of our one
simple and certain way of dying to self and the absolute insufficiency
of all human means whatever to effect it.

[Love-2.3-129] For consider only this, that to be angry at our own
anger, to be ashamed of our own pride and strongly resolve not to be
weak, is the upshot of all human endeavors, and yet all this is rather
the life than the death of self.  There is no help but from a total
despair of all human help.  When a man is brought to such an inward,
full conviction as to have no more hope from all human means than he
hopes to see with his hands or hear with his feet, then it is that he is
truly prepared to die to self, that is, to give up all thoughts of
having or doing anything that is good in any other way but that of a
meek, humble, patient, total resignation of himself to God.  All that we
do before this conviction is in great ignorance of ourselves and full of
weakness and impurity.  Let our zeal be ever so wonderful, yet if it
begins sooner or proceeds further, or to any other matter or in any
other way than as it is led and guided by this conviction, it is full of
delusion.  No repentance, however long or laborious, is conversion to
God till it falls into this state.  For God must do all, or all is
nothing; but God cannot do all, till all is expected from him; and all
is not expected from him till by a true and good despair of every human
help, we have no hope, or trust, or longing after anything but a
patient, meek, humble, total resignation to God.

[Love-2.3-130] And now, my dear friends, I have brought you to the very
place for which I desired this day's conversation, which was to set your
feet upon sure ground with regard to the spirit of love.  For all that
variety of matters through which we have passed has been only a variety
of proofs that the spirit of divine love can have no place or
possibility of birth in any fallen creature till it wills and chooses to
be dead to all self in a patient, meek, humble resignation to the good
power and mercy of God.

[Love-2.3-131] And from this state of heart also it is that the spirit
of prayer is born, which is the desire of the soul turned to God.
Stand, therefore, steadfastly in this will, let nothing else enter into
your mind, have no other contrivance but everywhere and in everything to
nourish and keep up this state of heart, and then your house is built
upon a rock; you are safe from all danger; the light of heaven and the
love of God will begin their work in you, will bless and sanctify every
power of your fallen soul, you will be in a readiness for every kind of
virtue and good work and will know what it is to be led by the Spirit of
God.

[Love-2.3-132] Theogenes.  But, dear Theophilus, though I am so
delighted with what you say that I am loath to stop you, yet permit me
to mention a fear that rises up in me.  Suppose I should find myself so
overcome with my own darkness and selfish tempers as not to be able to
sink from them into a sensibility of this meek, humble, patient, full
resignation to God; what must I then do, or how shall I have the benefit
of what you have taught me?

[Love-2.3-133] Theophilus.  You are then at the very time and place of
receiving the fullest benefit from it and practicing it with the
greatest advantage to yourself.  For though this patient, meek
resignation is to be exercised with regard to all outward things and
occurrences of life, yet it chiefly respects our own inward state, the
troubles, perplexities, weaknesses, and disorders of our own fallen
souls.  And to stand turned to a patient, meek, humble resignation to
God when your own impatience, wrath, pride, and irresignation attacks
yourself is a higher and more beneficial performance of this duty than
when you stand turned to meekness and patience when attacked by the
pride or wrath or disorderly passions of other people.  I say, stand
turned to this patient, humble resignation, for this is your true
performance of this duty at that time; and though you may have no
comfortable sensibility of your performing it, yet in this state you may
always have one full proof of the truth and reality of it, and that is
when you seek for help no other way, nor in anything else, neither from
men nor books, but wholly leave and give up yourself to be helped by the
mercy of God.  And thus, be your state what it will, you may always have
the full benefit of this short and sure way of resigning up yourself to
God.  And the greater the perplexity of your distress is, the nearer you
are to the greatest and best relief, provided you have but patience to
expect it all from God.  For nothing brings you so near to divine relief
as the extremity of distress; for the goodness of God hath no other name
or nature but the helper of all that wants to be helped; and nothing can
possibly hinder your finding this goodness of God and every other gift
and grace that you stand in need of; nothing can hinder or delay it but
your turning from the only fountain of life and living water to some
cracked cistern of your own making, to this or that method, opinion,
division, or subdivision amongst Christians, carnally expecting some
mighty things either from Samaria or Jerusalem, Paul or Apollos, which
are only and solely to be had by worshipping the Father in spirit and in
truth, which is then only done when your whole heart and soul and spirit
trusts wholly and solely to the operation of that God within you, in
whom we live, move, and have our being.  And be assured of this as a
most certain truth that we have neither more nor less of the divine
operation within us because of this or that outward form or manner of
our life but just and strictly in that degree, as our faith and hope and
trust and dependence upon God is more or less in us.

[Love-2.3-134] What a folly then to be so often perplexed about the way
to God?  Nothing is the way to God, but our heart; God is nowhere else
to be found, and the heart itself cannot find him or be helped by
anything else to find him but by its own love of him, faith in him,
dependence upon him, resignation to him, and expectation of all from
him.

[Love-2.3-135] These are short but full articles of true religion which
carry salvation along with them, which make a true and full offering and
oblation of our whole nature to the divine operation and also a true and
full confession of the Holy Trinity in unity.  For as they look wholly
to the Father as blessing us with the operation of his own Word and
Spirit, so they truly confess and worship the Holy Trinity of God.  And
as they ascribe all to, and expect all from this Deity alone, so they
make the truest and best of all confessions, that there is no God but
one.

[Love-2.3-136] Let then Arians, semi-Arians, and Socinians who puzzle
their laborious brains to make paper images of a trinity for themselves
have nothing from you but your pity and prayers; your foundation
standeth sure whilst you look for all your salvation through the Father
working life in your soul by his own Word and Spirit which dwell in him
and are one life, both in him and you.

[Love-2.3-137] Theogenes.  I can never enough thank you, Theophilus, for
this good and comfortable answer to my scrupulous fear.  It seems now as
if I could always know how to find full relief in this humble, meek,
patient, total resignation of myself to God.  It is, as you said, a
remedy that is always at hand, equally practicable at all times, and
never in greater reality than when my own tempers are making war against
it in my own heart.

[Love-2.3-138] You have quite carried your point with me; the God of
patience, meekness, and love is the one God of my heart.  It is now the
whole bent and desire of my soul to seek for all my salvation in and
through the merits and mediation of the meek, humble, patient, resigned,
suffering Lamb of God who alone hath power to bring forth the blessed
birth of these heavenly virtues in my soul.  He is the bread of God that
came down from heaven, of which the soul must eat, or perish and pine in
everlasting hunger.  He is the eternal love and meekness that left the
bosom of his Father, to be himself the resurrection of meekness and love
in all the darkened, wrathful souls of fallen men.  What a comfort is it
to think that this Lamb of God, Son of the Father, light of the world,
who is the glory of heaven and joy of angels is as near to us, as truly
in the midst of us as he is in the midst of heaven.  And that not a
thought, look, and desire of our heart that presses toward him, longing
to catch, as it were, one small spark of his heavenly nature but is in
as sure a way of finding him, touching him, and drawing virtue from him
as the woman who was healed by longing but to touch the border of his
garment.

[Love-2.3-139] This doctrine also makes me quite weary and ashamed of
all my own natural tempers, as so many marks of the beast upon me; every
whisper of my soul that stirs up impatience, uneasiness, resentment,
pride, and wrath within me shall be rejected with a "get thee behind me,
Satan," for it is his and has its whole nature from him.  To rejoice in
a resentment gratified appears now to me to be quite frightful.  For
what is it, in reality, but rejoicing that my own serpent of self has
new life and strength given to it, and that the precious Lamb of God is
denied entrance into my soul.  For this is the strict truth of the
matter.  To give into resentment and go willingly to gratify it is
calling up the courage of your own serpent and truly helping it to be
more stout and valiant and successful in you; on the other hand, to give
up all resentment of every kind and on every occasion, however artfully,
beautifully, outwardly colored, and to sink down into the humility of
meekness under all contrariety, contradiction, and injustice, always
turning the other cheek to the smiter, however haughty, is the best of
all prayers, the surest of all means to have nothing but Christ living
and working in you as the Lamb of God that taketh away every sin that
ever had power over your soul.

[Love-2.3-140] What a blindness was it in me to think that I had no
covetousness because the love of self {pelf?--suggested in Stanwood
note} was not felt by me!  For to covet is to desire; and what can it
signify whether I desire this or that?  If I desire anything but that
which God would have me to be and do, I stick in the mire of
covetousness and must have all that evil and disquiet living and working
in me, which robs misers of their peace both with God and man.

[Love-2.3-141] Oh sweet resignation of myself to God, happy death of
every selfish desire, blessed unction of a holy life, the only driver of
all evil out of my soul, be thou my guide and governor wherever I go!
Nothing but thee can take me from myself, nothing but thee can lead me
to God; hell has no power where thou art; nor can heaven hide itself
from thee.  Oh may I never indulge a thought, bring forth a word, or do
anything for myself or others but under the influence of thy blessed
aspiration.

[Love-2.3-142] Forgive, dear Theophilus, this transport of my soul; I
could not stop it.  The sight, though distant, of this heavenly Canaan,
this Sabbath of the soul, freed from the miserable labor of self to rest
in meekness, humility, patience, and resignation under the Spirit of
God, is like the joyful voice of the bridegroom to my soul and leaves no
wish in me but to be at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

[Love-2.3-143] Theophilus.  Thither, Theogenes, you must certainly come
if you keep to the path of meekness, humility, and patience under a full
resignation to God.  But if you go aside from it, let the occasion seem
ever so glorious, or the effects ever so wonderful to you, it is only
preparing for yourself a harder death.  For die you must to all and
everything that you have worked or done under any other spirit but that
of meekness, humility, and true resignation to God.  Everything else, be
it what it will, hath its rise from the fire of nature, it belongs to
nothing else and must of all necessity be given up, lost, and taken from
you again by fire, either here or hereafter.

[Love-2.3-144] For these virtues are the only wedding garment; they are
the lamps and vessels well furnished with oil.

[Love-2.3-145] There is nothing that will do in the stead of them; they
must have their own full and perfect work in you, if not before yet
certainly after the death of the body, or the soul can never be
delivered from its fallen wrathful state.  And all this is no more than
is implied in this scripture doctrine, viz., that there is no
possibility of salvation but in and by a birth of the meek, humble,
patient, resigned Lamb of God in our souls.  And when this Lamb of God
has brought forth a real birth of his own meekness, humility, and full
resignation to God in our souls, then are our lamps trimmed and our
virgin hearts made ready for the marriage feast.

[Love-2.3-146] This marriage feast signifies the entrance into the
highest state of union that can be between God and the soul in this
life.  Or in other words, it is the birthday of the spirit of love in
our souls, which whenever we attain will feast our souls with such peace
and joy in God as will blot out the remembrance of everything that we
called peace or joy before.

[Love-2.3-147] In the "Letter" on the Spirit of Love, you have been
shown, according to the mystery of all things opened by the goodness of
God in the blessed Behmen, the time and place of its birth.  That it
neither does nor can possibly begin any sooner than at the entrance or
manifestation of the divine light in the three first wrathful, self-
tormenting properties of nature, which are and must be the ground of
every natural life and must be darkness, rage, and torment till the
light of God, breaking in upon them, changes all their painful working
into the strongest sensibilities of love, joy, and triumph in the
perception and possession of a new divine life.

[Love-2.3-148] Now all that we have said today of the necessity of the
fallen souls dying to self by meekness, patience, humility, and full
resignation to God is strictly the same thing and asserted from the same
ground as when it was then said that the three first properties of
nature must have their wrathful activity taken from them by the light of
God breaking in upon them, or manifesting itself in them.  Now this was
always the state of nature, it never was a state of wrath because it
never was without the light of God in it.  But the natural, creaturely
life, having a possibility of falling and having actually fallen from
God, has found and felt (what never ought to have been found and felt),
viz., what nature is in itself without the manifestation of the Deity in
it.

[Love-2.3-149] Therefore, as sure as the light of God or the entrance of
the Deity into the three first properties of nature is absolutely
necessary to make nature to be a heavenly kingdom of light and love, so
sure and certain is it that the creaturely life that is fallen from God
under the wrathful first properties of nature can have no deliverance
from it, cannot have a birth of heavenly light and love by any other
possible way but that of dying to self by meekness, humility, patience,
and full resignation to God.

[Love-2.3-150] And the reason is this.  It is because the will is the
leader of the creaturely life, and it can have nothing but that to which
its will is turned.  And therefore it cannot be saved from, or raised
out of the wrath of nature till its will turns from nature, and wills to
be no longer driven by it.  But it cannot turn from nature or show a
will to come from under its power any other way than by turning and
giving up itself to that meekness, humility, patience, and resignation
to God, which, so far as it goes, is a leaving, rejecting, and dying to
all the guidance of nature.

[Love-2.3-151] And thus you see that this one simple way is, according
to the immutable nature of things, the one only possible and absolutely
necessary way to God.  It is as possible to go two contrary ways at once
as to go to God any other way than this.  But what is best of all, this
way is absolutely infallible; nothing can defeat it.  And all this
infallibility is fully grounded in the two-fold character of our savior
(1) as he is the Lamb of God, a principle and source of all meekness and
humility in the soul, and (2) as he is the light of eternity that
blesses eternal nature and turns it into a kingdom of heaven.

[Love-2.3-152] For in this two-fold respect, he has a power of redeeming
us, which nothing can hinder; but sooner or later, he must see all his
and our enemies under his feet, and all that is fallen in Adam into
death must rise and return to a unity of an eternal life in God.

[Love-2.3-153] For as the Lamb of God, he has all power to bring forth
in us a sensibility and a weariness of our own wrathful state and a
willingness to fall from it into meekness, humility, patience, and
resignation to that mercy of God which alone can help us.  And when we
are thus weary and heavy laden and willing to get rest to our souls in
meek, humble, patient resignation to God, then it is that he, as the
light of God and heaven, joyfully breaks in upon us, turns our darkness
into light, our sorrow into joy, and begins that kingdom of God and
divine love within us which will never have an end.

[Love-2.3-154] Need I say more, Theogenes, to show you how to come out
of the wrath of your evil earthly nature into the sweet peace and joy of
the spirit of love?  Neither notions, nor speculations, nor heat, nor
fervor, nor rules, nor methods can bring it forth.  It is the child of
light and cannot possibly have any birth in you but only and solely from
the light of God rising in your own soul, as it rises in heavenly
beings.  But the light of God cannot arise or be found in you by any art
or contrivance of your own but only and solely in the way of that
meekness, humility, and patience which waits, trusts, resigns to, and
expects all from the inward, living, life-giving operation of the triune
God within you, creating, quickening, and reviving in your fallen soul
that birth and image and likeness of the Holy Trinity in which the first
father of mankind was created.

[Love-2.3-155] Theogenes.  You need say no more, Theophilus; you have
not only removed that difficulty which brought us hither, but have by a
variety of things fixed and confirmed us in a full belief of that great
truth elsewhere asserted, namely "that there is but one salvation for
all mankind, and that is the life of God in the soul.  And also, that
there is but one possible way for man to attain this life of God, not
one for a Jew, another for a Christian, and a third for a heathen.  No,
God is one, human nature is one, salvation is one, and the way to it is
one, and that is the desire of the soul turned to God."

[Love-2.3-156] Therefore, dear Theophilus, adieu.  If we see you no more
in this life, you have sufficiently taught us how to seek and find every
kind of goodness, blessing, and happiness in God alone.

The End of the Third Dialogue