Holy living in which are described the means and instruments of obtaining every virute, and the remedies against every vice, and considerations serving to the resisting all temptations : together with prayers containing the whole duty of a Christian, and the parts of devotion occasians [sic], and furnished for all necessities / by Jer. Taylor.

The acts of Love to God, are

1. Love does all things which may please the beloved person; it performs all his com∣mandments: and this is one of the greatest

instances and arguments of our love that God requires of us. [This is love that we keep his commandments.] Love is obedient.

2. It does all the intimations and secret significations of his pleasure whom we love; and this is an argument of a great degree of it. The first instance is it that makes the love accepted: but this gives a greatness and sin∣gularity to it. The first is the least, and lesse then it cannot doe our duty; but without this second, we cannot come to perfection. Great love is also plyant and inquisitive in the in∣stances of its expression.

3. Love gives away all things that so he may advance the interest of the beloved per∣son: it relieves all that he would have re∣lieved, and spends it self in such real signifi∣cations as it is enabled withall. He never loved God that will quit any thing of his Religion, to save his money. Love is alwaies liberal and communicative.

4. It suffers all things that are imposed by its beloved, or that can happen for his sake, or that intervenes in his service, cheerfully, sweetly, willingly, expecting that God should turn them into good, and instruments of fe∣licity.* 1.1 Charity hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love is patient and content with any thing so it be together with its beloved.

5. Love is also impatient of any thing that may displease the beloved person, hating all sin as the enemy of its friend; for love con∣tracts all the same relations and marries the same friendships, and the same hatreds; and all affection to a sin is perfectly inconsistent with the love of God. Love is not divided

between God and Gods enemy: we must love God with all our heart, that is, give him a whole and undivided affection, having love for nothing else but such things which he allows, and which he commands, or loves himself.

6. Love endeavours for ever to be present, to converse with, to enjoy, to be united with its object, loves to be talking of him, reciting his praises, telling his stories, repeating his words, imitating his gestures, transcribing his copie in every thing; and every degree of union and every degree of likeness is a de∣gree of love; and it can endure any thing but the displeasure and the absence of its be∣loved. For we are not to use God and Reli∣gion, as men use perfumes, with which they are delighted when they have them, but can very well be without them. True charity is restlesse till it enjoyes God in such instances in which it wants him: it is like hunger and thirst, it must be fed or it cannot be answered,* 1.2 and nothing can supply the presence, or make recompense for the absence of God, or of the effects of his favour, and the light of his countenance.

7. True love in all accidents looks upon the beloved person, and observes his countenance, and how he approves or disproves it, and accordingly looks sad or cheerful. He that loves God is not displeased at those accidents which God chooses, nor murmures at those changes which he makes in his family, nor envies at those gifts he bestows, but chooses as he likes, and is ruled by his judgment, and is perfectly of his perswasion, loving to learn

where God is the Teacher, and being content to be ignorant or silent where he is not plea∣sed to open himself.

8. Love is curious of little things: of cir∣cumstances and measures, and little acci∣dents, not allowing to it self any infirmity, which it strives not to master: aiming at what it cannot yet reach at,* 1.3 desiring to be of an Angelical purity and of a perfect inno∣cence, and a Seraphical fervour, and fears every image of offence, is as much afflicted at an idle word, as some at an act of adultery, and will not allow to it self so much anger as will disturbe a childe; nor endure the im∣purity of a dream; and this is the curiosity and niceness of divine Love; this is the fear of God, and is the daughter and production of Love.

Notes

• * 1.1

  1 Cor. 13.
• * 1.2

  Amoris in m••rsunt qui esse suit.
• * 1.3

  Plutarchus citans carmen de suo Apol∣line, adjicit ex Herodoto quasi de suo, de eo os meū continens esto.