auseth burning lust: the
other is that golden chain which was let down from heaven, and with a
divine fury ravisheth our souls, made to the image of God, and stirs us up
to comprehend the innate and incorruptible beauty to which we were once
created." Beroaldus hath expressed all this in an epigram of his:

"Dogmata divini memorant si vera Platonis,
Sunt geminae Veneres, et geminatus amor.
Coelestis Venus est nullo generata parente,
Quae casto sanctos nectit amore viros.
Altera sed Venus est totum vulgata per orbem,
Quae divum mentes alligat, atque hominum;"

"Improba, seductrix, petulans," &c.

"If divine Plato's tenets they be true,
Two Veneres, two loves there be,
The one from heaven, unbegotten still,
Which knits our souls in unity.
The other famous over all the world,
Binding the hearts of gods and men;
Dishonest, wanton, and seducing she,
Rules whom she will, both where and when."

This twofold division of love, Origen likewise follows, in his Comment on
the Canticles, one from God, the other from the devil, as he holds
(understanding it in the worse sense) which many others repeat and imitate.
Both which (to omit all subdivisions) in excess or defect, as they are
abused, or degenerate, cause melancholy in a particular kind, as shall be
shown in his place. Austin, in another Tract, makes a threefold division of
this love, which we may use well or ill: [4487]"God, our neighbour, and the
world: God above us, our neighbour next us, the world beneath us. In the
course of our desires, God hath three things, the world one, our neighbour
two. Our desire to God, is either from God, with God, or to God, and
ordinarily so runs. From God, when it receives from him, whence, and for
which it should love him: with God, when it contradicts his will in
nothing: to God, when it seeks to him, and rests itself in him. Our love to
our neighbour may proceed from him, and run with him, not to him: from him,
as when we rejoice of his good safety, and well doing: with him, when we
desire to have him a fellow and companion of our journey in the way of the
Lord: not in him, because there is no aid, hope, or confidence in man. From
the world our love comes, when we begin to admire the Creator in his works,
and glorify God in his creatures: with the world it should run, if,
according to the mutability of all tempor