Truly it is not without mystery that the younger of these brethren thus bear away the advantage from the elder. All is subject to this heavenly love, who will either be king or nothing, who cannot live unless he reign, nor reign if not sovereignly. Similarly, divine love is a child of miracle, since man's will cannot conceive it if it be not poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost. And as supernatural it must rule and reign over all the affections, yea, even over the understanding and will. And although there are other supernatural movements in the soul, fear, piety, force, hope, as Esau and Benjamin were supernatural children of Rachel and Rebecca, yet is divine love 30 still master, heir and superior, as being the son of promise, since in virtue of it heaven is promised to man.
Salvation is shown to faith, it is prepared for hope, but it is given only to charity.
Divine love makes its abode in the most high and sublime region of the soul, where it offers sacrifice and holocausts to the divinity as Abraham did, and as our Saviour sacrificed himself upon the top of Calvary, to the end that from so exalted a place it may be heard and obeyed by its people, that is, by all the faculties and affections of the soul. These he governs with an incomparable sweetness, for love has no convicts nor slaves, but brings all things under its obedience with a force so delightful, that as nothing is so strong as love nothing also is so sweet as its strength. The virtues are in the soul to moderate its movements, and charity, as first of all the virtues, governs and tempers them all, not only because the first in every species of things serves as a rule and measure to the rests but also because God, having created man to his image and likeness, wills that as in himself so in man all things should be ordered by love and for love. This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library at Calvin College. Last updated on April 16, 2001.