Divine love

“ It finds prayer in every place, for it bears ever with it the place wherein God lives by grace, and where we ought to pray—that is, the house of our soul wherein holy desire prays constantly. This desire is uplifted by the light of the mind to be reflected in itself and in the immeasurable flame of divine love, which it finds in the Blood shed for us, which by largess of love it finds in the vase of the soul. ”

“ As such the Divine will manifests itself in two modes—in its pure love as Goodness, in its holy harmony as Righteousness. These two do not exist separately, but permeate each other in reciprocal immanence, just as God in His Holiness is love, and in His love is holiness. In goodness the Divine love shows itself as the pleasure in well-being. ”

“ By all manifestations of divine love, all mercies, providences, instances of long-suffering, gifts of the Spirit, blood of Christ, intercessions of Christ, guardianship of angels, by all this love past and present I pray Thee continue forth Thy loving-kindness. As Thou hast loved us in times past, as Thou art merciful unto us at this present time, so shew forth Thy love on the last day. ”

“ Holiness and lovingness—it is of deep importance that these words should be inseparably linked in our minds, as their reality in our lives. We have seen, in the study of the holiness of God, how love is the element in which it dwells and works, drawing to itself and making like itself all that it can get possession of. Of the fire of Divine holiness love is the beautiful flame, reaching out to communicate itself and assimilate to itself all it can lay hold of. ”

“ For the love of God makes it absolutely necessary that the object of that love shall be delivered from sin and wrong, and brought into reconciliation with himself; and the pain, the necessary results of wrongdoing, are a part of the divine tenderness, a part of the divine faithfulness, a part of the divine love. So we believe that through darkness or through light, through joy or through sorrow, some time, somewhere, every child of God shall be brought into his presence, ready to sing the song of peace and joy and reconciled love. ”

“ Nevertheless, human loves are absolutely necessary as steps toward the Divine, and no soul is prepared to partake of Divine Love until it has become capable of the deepest and most intense human love. It is only by passing through human loves and human sufferings that Divine Love is reached and realized. ”

“ Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. ”

“ When the divine love has wrought us to the same image, to the love of God, and thereupon to the love of the brethren, the children of God, for his sake, it is therein and so far perfected and completed, though this love of ours is not at present perfect, nor the ultimate end of the divine love to us. ”

“ There is, in truth, something more evidently divine, partaking more nearly of that which we believe to be the very essence of Divinity, in a mother’s love, than in any other pang or passion—for every passion, how sweet soever it may be, has something of a pang mingled with it—in the human soul. ”

“ The bond which unites the human to the divine is Love, and Love is the longing of the Soul for Beauty; the inextinguishable desire which like feels for like, which the divinity within us feels for the divinity revealed to us in Beauty. ”

“ And all of saints below,
And all we know of God, is love
And all we need to know.
Love is of life the only sign,
Love is our vital breath,
Love only shows the child divine,
Love only conquers death. ”

“ And, beholding in many souls the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls. ”

“ As surely as the sunshine draws out the odours from the opening petals of the flowers, will the warmth of the felt divine light and love draw from our hearts the sweet confidence, which it is impossible not to give to Him in whom we delight.
If you have to be driven to prayer by a sense of duty, and if there be no impulse in your heart whispering ever to you, 'Tell your Love about it!' you have much need to examine into the reality, and certainly into the depth of your religion. ”

“ Love divine is the constraining and blessed principle that bears the fainting spirit up. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ Let that, my own dear boy, be your motto; and then if you lose your life in the service of your Lord, you will find it again in eternal joy. ”

“ This Divine truth flows into heaven from the Lord from His Divine love. ”

“ While crying and panting for the supreme, the divine, the invisible love, he found his heart still craving the visible one,—the one so well known, revealing itself to the senses, and bringing with it the certainty of visible companionship. ”

“ Redemption is the sacrifice and the triumph of love. Holiness is the fire of love. The beauty of the life of Jesus is love. All we enjoy of the Divine we owe to love. Our holiness is not God’s, is not Christ’s, if we do not love.
3. ‘Love seeketh not its own.’ ‘Love never faileth.’ ‘Love is the fulfilling of the law.’ ‘The greatest of these is love.’ ‘The end of the commandment is love.’ To love God and man is to be holy. In the intercourse of daily life, holiness can have its simple and sweet beginnings and its exercise; so, in its highest attainment, holiness is love made perfect. ”

“ Now I see that love—human and divine—is sufficient to itself, and that he who loves God is one with God. There may be a hundred varying forms of doctrine, but this one truth is above all and the root of all.—I hold to it, and I believe it will save my soul. If ever I lift up a prayer worthy to reach the ear of God, it is that He may bless you, my friend, and comforter. ”

“ But I received that moment as much comfort from my faith in his love as the devotee does from his faith in love Divine. It is an invaluable treasure, this faith. It awakens the heart to a greater bliss. It is because of the absence of faith that love is not always lasting, and often leaves the heart disconsolate. ”

“ In boundless love divine the heavens are spread, In wedded love is earth's divinest store, And he that liveth to himself is dead, And he that lives for love lives evermore; Only in love can life's true path be trod ”

“ So in Eph. i. 4, ‘That we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love.’ But specially in that remarkable passage: ‘The Lord make you to increase and abound in love toward one another, and toward all men, to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness.’ The holiness and the blamelessness, the positive hidden Divine life-principle, and the external and human life-practice—both are to find their strength, by which we are to be established in them, in our abounding and ever-flowing love. ”

“ When the mystery of divine love was first manifested to the world, it produced its proper effects. It put an end to all selfishness and division; for all that believed were of one heart and one spirit, and had all things common.1 And indeed, under the real influence and full belief of this great mystery of divine love, there seems to be no room left for any thing else amongst Christians, but returns of love to God, and flowing out of love towards one another. ”

“ So, if we plunge our hearts into that fountain of the love of Christ, as it flows it will clothe us with all the divine energies which are held in solution in the divinest thing in God—His own love. Plunged into the love we are filled with the fulness. ”

“ True devotion leads to intense love for God; and when that intense love comes, the Divine Being is not very far. In that intense love the sense of worldliness is wiped out entirely and the whole heart and soul rest upon nothing but the Lord of the universe. Some are born with this intense love for God ”

“ The only thing that can give a faint suggestion of the engrossing character of the divine hold upon His people is the first awakening of what we call romantic love in the youthful heart with its concentration of all the intensified impulses and forces and desires upon one object and its utter obliviousness to all other interests. This actually in some measure resembles the single-minded, world-forgetful affection we owe to God, and for that very reason is called worship. ”

“ In a heart filled with earthly affections, there is no room for divine love. Let us therefore continually implore the Lord in our prayers, communions, and visits to the blessed sacrament, to give us his holy love; for this love will expel from our souls all affections for the things of this earth. ”

“ Yea, all the passions or affections, all the appetites, and motions of the heart, being made most perfectly conformable to the motions and affections of the divine mind, partook of this conformity of the will of man to that of God. As, therefore, God is love, so all the affections and motions of man, in his first state, breathed nothing but pure love. As God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, are one in an unspeakable and eternal bond of love ”

“ Again he speaks of the divine love and divine light which he says are one, indivisibly one. The Lord is love, and love may be considered as comprehending all His power and all His wisdom; but goodness is the most proper term that we can apply. ”

“ The question is not whether the scheme of salvation is merely reconcilable with divine love and justice, but how it constitutes the grand proof and manifestation of these attributes, and in general, of the perfections of God. In it he undertakes to shew himself worthy of love, and thus to win our love to himself. ”

“ What is love in its lofty and purest forms, even as we see them here on earth; what is love except the infinite longing to bestow one's self? And when we proclaim that which is the summit and climax of the revelation of our Father in the person of His Son, and say with the last utterances of Scripture that 'God is love,' we do in other words proclaim that the very nature and deepest desire and purpose of the divine heart is to pour itself on the [Pg 173] emptiness and need of His lowly creatures in floods that keep back nothing. ”

“ This love that was then in God alone, is the only love that can draw creatures to God; they can have no power of cleaving to him, or adoring the divine nature, but by partaking of that eternal Spirit of love; and therefore the continual, immediate inspiration, or operation of the Holy Spirit, is the only possible ground of our continually loving God.—As to the pride charged upon this enthusiasm, so called ”

“ The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness. ”

“ As a divine affection, charity or love springs out of union with God, or being made a “partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lusts.” Such being the height of its bed-rock, it is said, “Every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God.” ”

“ But to see that He doeth it, and to pray forthwithal,—so is he worshiped and we sped. All-thing that our Lord hath ordained to do, it is His will that we pray therefor, either in special or in general. And the joy and the bliss that it is to Him, and the thanks and the worship that we shall have therefor, it passeth the understanding of creatures, as to my sight.
For prayer is a right [2] understanding of that fulness of joy that is to come, with well-longing and sure trust. ”

“ And He that made man for love, by the same love He would restore man to the same bliss, and overpassing; and like as we were like-made to the Trinity in our first making, our Maker would that we should be like Jesus Christ, Our Saviour, in heaven without end, by the virtue of our again-making. ”

“ And this I saw: that what time we see needs wherefor we pray, then our good Lord followeth us, helping our desire; and when we of His special grace plainly behold Him, seeing none other needs, then we follow Him and He draweth us unto Him by love. ”

“ THIS is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular.
Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Shewings that follow be grounded and oned. ”

“ which means that Divine love does not weigh down, nor carry his servant captive and enslaved to the lowest depths, but raises him, supports him and magnifies him above all liberty whatsoever. ”

“ "God willeth that we endlessly hate the sin and endlessly love the soul, as God loveth it"
THIS is a sovereign friendship of our courteous Lord that He keepeth us so tenderly while we be in sin; ”

“ The saints that be in Heaven, they will to know nothing but that which our Lord willeth to shew them: and also their charity and their desire is ruled after the will of our Lord: and thus ought we to will, like to them. Then shall we nothing will nor desire but the will of our Lord, as they do: for we are all one in God's seeing. ”

“ AND in these three words: It is a joy, a bliss, an endless satisfying to me, were shewed three heavens, as thus: For the joy, I understood the pleasure of the Father; and for the bliss, the worship of the Son; and for the endless satisfying, [1] the Holy Ghost. The Father is pleased, the Son is worshipped, the Holy Ghost is satisfied. ”