. This is an all-apprehending love, a deifying love, a
refined, pure, divine love, the quintessence of all love, the true
philosopher's stone, _Non potest enim_, as [4602]Austin infers, _veraciter
amicus esse hominis, nisi fuerit ipsius primitus veritatis_, He is no true
friend that loves not God's truth. And therefore this is true love indeed,
the cause of all good to mortal men, that reconciles all creatures, and
glues them together in perpetual amity and firm league; and can no more
abide bitterness, hate, malice, than fair and foul weather, light and
darkness, sterility and plenty may be together; as the sun in the firmament
(I say), so is love in the world; and for this cause 'tis love without an
addition, love [Greek: kat' exochaen], love of God, and love of men.
[4603]"The love of God begets the love of man; and by this love of our
neighbour, the love of God is nourished and increased." By this happy union
of love, [4604]"all well-governed families and cities are combined, the
heavens annexed, and divine souls complicated, the world itself composed,
and all that is in it conjoined in God, and reduced to one." [4605]"This
love causeth true and absolute virtues, the life, spirit, and root of every
virtuous action, it finisheth prosperity, easeth adversity, corrects all
natural encumbrances," inconveniences, sustained by faith and hope, which
with this our love make an indissoluble twist, a Gordian knot, an
equilateral triangle, "and yet the greatest of them is love," 1 Cor. xiii.
13, [4606]"which inflames our souls with a divine heat, and being so
inflamed, purged, and so purgeth, elevates to God, makes an atonement, and
reconciles us unto him." [4607] "That other love infects the soul of man,
this cleanseth; that depresses, this rears; that causeth cares and
troubles, this quietness of mind; this informs, that deforms our life; that
leads to repentance, this to heaven." For if once we be truly linked and
touched with this charity, we shall love God above all, our neighbour as
ourself, as we are enjoined, Mark xii. 31. Matt. xix. 19. perform those
duties and exercises, even all the operations of a good Christian.

"This love suffereth long, it is bountiful, envieth not, boasteth not
itself, is not puffed up, it deceiveth not, it seeketh not his own things,
is not provoked to anger, it thinketh not evil, it rejoiceth not in
iniquity, but in truth. It suffereth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things," 1 Co