“Si rerum quaeris fuerit quis finis et ortus,
        Desine; nam causa est unica solus amor.”

       “If first and last of anything you wit,
        Cease; love’s the sole and only cause of it.”

Love, saith [4499]Leo, made the world, and afterwards in redeeming of it, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son for it,” John iii. 16.  “Behold what love the Father hath showed on us, that we should be called the sons of God,” 1 John iii. 1.  Or by His sweet Providence, in protecting of it; either all in general, or His saints elect and church in particular, whom He keeps as the apple of His eye, whom He loves freely, as Hosea xiv. 5. speaks, and dearly respects, [4500]_Charior est ipsis homo quam sibi_.  Not that we are fair, nor for any merit or grace of ours, for we are most vile and base; but out of His incomparable love and goodness, out of His Divine Nature.  And this is that Homer’s golden chain, which reacheth down from heaven to earth, by which every creature is annexed, and depends on his Creator.  He made all, saith [4501]Moses, “and it was good;” He loves it as good.

The love of angels and living souls is mutual amongst themselves, towards us militant in the church, and all such as love God; as the sunbeams irradiate the earth from those celestial thrones, they by their well wishes reflect on us, [4502]_in salute hominum promovenda alacres, et constantes administri_, there is joy in heaven for every sinner that repenteth; they pray for us, are solicitous for our good, [4503]_Casti genii_.

[4504] “Ubi regnat charitas, suave desiderium,
        Laetitiaque et amor Deo conjunctus.”

Love proper to mortal men is the third member of this subdivision, and the subject of my following discourse.

MEMB.  II.

SUBSECT.  I.—­Love of Men, which varies as his Objects, Profitable, Pleasant, Honest.

Valesius, lib. 3. contr. 13, defines this love which is in men, “to be [4505]an affection of both powers, appetite and reason.”  The rational resides in the brain, the other in the liver (as before hath been said out of Plato and others); the heart is diversely affected of both, and carried a thousand ways by consent.  The sensitive faculty most part overrules reason, the soul is carried hoodwinked, and the understanding captive like a beast. [4506]"The heart is variously inclined, sometimes they are merry, sometimes sad, and from love arise hope and fear, jealousy, fury, desperation.”  Now this love of men is diverse, and varies, as the object varies, by which they are enticed, as virtue, wisdom, eloquence, profit, wealth, money, fame, honour, or comeliness of person, &c.  Leon Hubreus, in his first dialogue, reduceth them all to these three, utile, jucundum, honestum, profitable, pleasant, honest; (out of Aristotle belike 8. moral.) of which he discourseth at large,