-07 Chapter 7. Of Charity.

2-07 Chapter 7. Of Charity.

1. Charity is a virtue, whereby we love God as the Chief Good. Psalms 106:1; Psalms 118:1; Psalms 136:1, Praise the Lord, because he is good, for his mercy endures for ever. The joy of praising, which is an effect of Charity, has the same primary object that Charity has as its proper cause. Therefore the goodness of God, which specially shines forth in the effects of his kindness, is the proper object of Charity (just as it is the proper object of praising.)
2. Charity follows Faith and Hope in order of nature, as the effect follows its causes: for we love God out of Charity, because by Faith and hope we taste in some measure how good God is, and his love shed abroad in our hearts. 1 John 4:16; 1 John 4:19. We have known and believed the love which God has towards us; we love him because he first loved us.
3. Therefore not love, but Faith is the first foundation of the spiritual building in man: not only because then the building begins, but also because Faith sustains and contains all the parts of it — just as it also has the nature of a root, and therefore confers power to fructify.
4. A confused and remote inclination towards God goes before Faith (a certain shadow of which is found in all Creatures in a way): Acts 17:27, That they might seek the Lord, if happily they might find him by seeking him. But it is an ineffectual Velleitas, a “woulding” (as they call it) to love God, rather than a true love.
5. The Schoolmen make a distinction between the natural and supernatural love of God. They make one love of God as the beginning and end of nature, and another as the beginning and end of grace. This is an idle figment. Indeed, since the fall, a man can neither love God above all by the strength of nature without Faith, nor with that love which they call “natural.”
6. The love of Charity is the love of Union, Well-pleasedness, and Good Will. For those are, as it were, the parts of Charity; and they are always contained in it if it is true: namely, if it is a desire for Union, for the well-pleasedness of enjoying, and an affection for good will.
7. Love of UNION is that affection whereby we would be joined together with God. 2 Corinthians 5:8. It is our desire to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
8. There is also a love of Union in God towards us. Ephesians 2:4; Ephesians 2:13. He loved us with much love; You who were far off, are made near. But his love is out of an abundance of goodness, because he expects no profit out of us: for we are unprofitable servants to God, Luke 17:10. Job 22:2-3.852 But our love towards him is out of a lack of goodness, because we stand in need of God. 2 Corinthians 5:4, We groan being burdened — that mortality may be swallowed up by life.
9. Therefore our love, as it is love of Union with God, is in part that love which is called love of concupiscence or desire: because we properly desire God for ourselves, because we hope to have profit from him, and our eternal blessedness.
10. Yet the highest end of this love ought to be God himself.
11. Love of WELL-PLEASEDNESS is that affection whereby we approve of all that that is in God, and rest in his most excellent goodness. Revelation 7:12. Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour and power, and strength to our God for ever, and ever, Amen.
12. God also has love of well-pleasedness towards us, Hebrews 13:16. But his well-pleasedness is in those good things which are communicated by him to us: but our well-pleasedness is in that goodness and Divine perfection which in no way depends on us.
13. Love of GOOD WILL is that affection whereby we yield ourselves wholly to God, and we will and endeavour that all things which pertain to his glory be given to him. Revelation 4:10-11, They fell down and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power. 1 Corinthians 10:31, Do all to the glory of God.
14. God in bearing us good will, makes us good, by conferring that good which he wills. But we cannot properly bestow any good upon him; we can only acknowledge with the heart, publish by our words, and declare in some measure by our deeds, that goodness which he has.
15. That mutual Charity which exists between God and the faithful, has in itself some respect to friendship. John 15:15, I have called you friends, because I have made known all things which I have heard from my Father.
16. In this FRIENDSHIP, although there is not found that equality which exists among men who are friends, yet that equality which is possible does appear in a certain inward communion which is exercised between God and the faithful; in this respect, God is said to reveal his secrets to the faithful, Psalms 25:14;853 John 15:15; and to be as it were, familiar with them. Revelation 3:20, If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will go in to him, and sup with him, and he with me. John 14:23, If anyone loves me, he will keep my Word; And my Father will love him; and we will come to him, and dwell with him.
17. Charity implicitly contains in it the keeping and fulfilling of all the Commandments of God. Romans 13:10; 1 John 2:5, and 1 John 3:18.854
For one cannot truly love God if he does not study to please him in all things, and to be like him. 1 John 4:17. Our Charity made perfect in this: that as he is, such also are we.
18. The manner of our Charity towards God is that it be carried to him as to that which is plainly the highest good and end; so that neither God nor the love of God is principally and lastly to be referred to anything else — because such love for anything else would be mercenary. John 6:26, You seek me, because you ate of the loaves and were filled.
19. Yet we may love God as our reward. Genesis 15:1.855 And with respect to other good things, we may love them as a reward from him. Genesis 17:2.856
20. The degree of Charity towards God ought to be the highest, 1. First in respect to the object, or as they say, Objectively; i.e., willing a greater good to him than to any other. 2. In regard to esteem, or as some say, Appreciatively;857 i.e., preferring him and his will before all other things, even our own life, Matthew 10:37; Luke 14:26,858 so that we choose to die rather than transgress even the least of his Commandments. 3. Intensively, i.e., in respect to the vehement endeavour of applying all our faculties to loving God. Deuteronomy 6:5, You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.
21. According to this description of Charity, it is rightly said by some Divines that only God is to be loved: i.e., simply, by itself, and according to all the parts of Charity — namely with affection for good will, a desire for Union, and for the well-pleasedness of enjoying him in the highest degree; — even though our neighbour is also to be loved in a certain respect, it is for another thing, only in part, and to a lower degree.
22. Charity is opposed by that FEAR which is tormented by the presence of God, and by fear of the punishment that is to be inflicted by him. 1 John 4:18, Perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment.
23. Hence Charity, being perfected, casts out fear, ibid, because fear is a horror arising from the apprehension of evil, by reason of the presence of God: and so fear is opposed to Charity, which is carried to God as to that which is absolutely good.
24. Secondly, Charity is opposed by an ESTRANGING from God, which some call the hatred of abomination. Psalms 14:3, They have all gone out of the way.859 John 3:20, He hates the light.860 For as Charity consists in affection for union, so this estranging is in disjunction with that. Hatred of God is most contrary to the love of God; it is called the hatred of enmity. John 13:23-25, They have hated both me and my Father. For just as the love of Charity is in good will, so this enmity against God is in ungodly men desiring and willing ill to God, if it were possible: that he did not exist, or at least that he were not such a God as he is.
25. For although God cannot be the object of hatred if he is apprehended as he is in himself, yet if he is apprehended as the one who takes vengeance on sinners, he is often hated by those same sinners — because in that respect he is most contrary to them. John 3:20, Whoever does evil, hates the light, nor does he come to the light, lest his deeds be reproved. For as the love of God in the godly causes them to hate impiety as being contrary to God, so the love of iniquity in the ungodly causes them to hate God as being contrary to their iniquity.
26. But the degrees by which men ascend to this height of ungodliness are these: 1. Sinners love themselves inordinately. 2. They will to do what pleases themselves, even though it is contrary to the Law of God. 3. They hate the Law because it is contrary to this desire. 4. They hate God himself who is the giver and author of such a Law.
27. The LOVE OF THIS WORLD also is opposed to Charity towards God, because this world does not agree with God’s will. 1 John 2:15-16, If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. Because whatever is in the world is not of the Father.
28. For just as the perfection of Charity exists in this — that the mind rests in God — so it must be against Charity if the mind rests in what is contrary to God.
29. Charity is no more the form of other virtues,861 than any virtue that commands or orders the acts of another, is the form of it. But because those acts which in their nature do not respect God, are referred to him by Charity,862 and because such acts are perfected in him by a metaphor, Charity is therefore not mistakenly called the form of those acts; and also the form of the virtues from which those acts come.863
30. But Charity cannot be the intrinsic form of Faith, because in its nature, Charity follows Faith, as an effect follows the cause; it does not go before it as a cause goes before the effect.
31. Nor is Faith extrinsically directed toward God by love; but in its proper and internal nature, Faith respects God as its object.

32. Justification by Faith in no way depends on Charity (as the Papists would have it), but upon the proper object of Faith.
33. Where Faith is said to work by love, Galatians 5:6,864 it is not because all the efficacy of Faith depends upon charity as upon a cause: but because Faith displays and exercises its efficacy in stirring up Charity.
34. The particle “by” does not show a formal cause there, but an instrumental cause, as when God is said to regenerate us by the word.
35. Faith without works is said to be Dead, James 2:26; not because the life of Faith flows from works, but because works are secondary Acts, necessarily flowing from the life of Faith.
36. Faith is said to be perfected by works, James 2:22 — not with an essential perfection, as an effect that is perfected by the cause — but by a complementary perfection, as the cause is perfected (or made actually complete) in producing the effect.865
37. The object of Charity is the very goodness of God, as it is in itself. But Faith and Hope respect God as he is propounded to us, and as he is to be apprehended by us: therefore that inclination of the mind toward God which belongs to Charity, more evidently and constantly appears in weak believers, than the special acts of Faith or Hope appear. This is because the goodness of God is more manifest in itself, than in the way it is apprehended — which is represented to us in this life darkly, as it were.866