Wesley Corpus

Love itself is, by the common consent of mankind, and agreeably to universal expe rience, divided into love of complacency or delight, and love of gratitude or benevolence : and accordingly, love of God may be divided into love of delight and love of gratitude ; the one regarding what he is in himself, the other what he is to us. The boundless perfections of his nature are an eternal ground of delight to every creature capable of apprehending them, and the numberless exertions of all those per fections on our behalf lay the strongest claim to our gratitude. In the former sense, every reasonable creature is to love God, because his power, wisdom, yea, and his goodness, are in finite : in the latter, " We love Him (says the apostle) because He first loved us." When these fountains have once united their streams, they flow with redoubled violence, and bear the Christian strongly forward to please and obey the All-merciful, and to be made one with God the All-perfect ; to love the Lord his God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength. As to the measure of love prescribed in the