“Improba, seductrix, petulans,” &c.

       “If divine Plato’s tenets they be true,
        Two Veneres, two loves there be,
        The one from heaven, unbegotten still,
        Which knits our souls in unity. 
        The other famous over all the world,
        Binding the hearts of gods and men;
        Dishonest, wanton, and seducing she,
        Rules whom she will, both where and when.”

This twofold division of love, Origen likewise follows, in his Comment on the Canticles, one from God, the other from the devil, as he holds (understanding it in the worse sense) which many others repeat and imitate.  Both which (to omit all subdivisions) in excess or defect, as they are abused, or degenerate, cause melancholy in a particular kind, as shall be shown in his place.  Austin, in another Tract, makes a threefold division of this love, which we may use well or ill:  [4487]"God, our neighbour, and the world:  God above us, our neighbour next us, the world beneath us.  In the course of our desires, God hath three things, the world one, our neighbour two.  Our desire to God, is either from God, with God, or to God, and ordinarily so runs.  From God, when it receives from him, whence, and for which it should love him:  with God, when it contradicts his will in nothing:  to God, when it seeks to him, and rests itself in him.  Our love to our neighbour may proceed from him, and run with him, not to him:  from him, as when we rejoice of his good safety, and well doing:  with him, when we desire to have him a fellow and companion of our journey in the way of the Lord:  not in him, because there is no aid, hope, or confidence in man.  From the world our love comes, when we begin to admire the Creator in his works, and glorify God in his creatures:  with the world it should run, if, according to the mutability of all temporalities, it should be dejected in adversity, or over elevated in prosperity:  to the world, if it would settle itself in its vain delights and studies.”  Many such partitions of love I could repeat, and subdivisions, but least (which Scaliger objects to Cardan, Exercitat. 501.) [4488]"I confound filthy burning lust with pure and divine love,” I will follow that accurate division of Leon Hebreus, dial. 2. betwixt Sophia and Philo, where he speaks of natural, sensible, and rational love, and handleth each apart.  Natural love or hatred, is that sympathy or antipathy which is to be seen in animate and inanimate creatures, in the four elements, metals, stones, gravia tendunt deorsum, as a stone to his centre, fire upward, and rivers to the sea.  The sun, moon, and stars go still around, [4489]_Amantes naturae, debita exercere_, for love of perfection.  This love is manifest, I say, in inanimate creatures.  How comes a loadstone to draw iron to it? jet chaff? the ground to covet showers, but for love?  No creature, S. Hierom concludes, is to be found, quod non aliquid amat,