That there is a great deal of difference between Love as it is seated in the Will, or rational Appetite, and the same Act or Principle of Love, as seated in the sensitive. In the former, it is a settled, 1rational, uniform, and deliberate Motion, co-incident with the very natural Act of the Will it self, To Love (as the great School-man notes) being nothing else but [Intensive veil] to will intensely either person or thing. The motion of the Will towards the Object, as good and desirable; and the earnest embracing thereof; this is Rational Love. And according to the various Aspect which it hath thereto, either as present or absent, perfect or imperfect; it is called love of desire, or fruition, dependence, or complacency: And if the Object be such, as can or doth reciprocate affection, then its friendship [or Amor Am•citiae.] But now take Love, as it is an Affection properly so called, and sea•e• in the lower faculties of the soul, and so there is a great variety, and inequality in its motions, much easier to be felt, th•n expressed; sometimes the soul is in a kind of ecstasy, wrapped above it self; and then by and by it's flat, and dull again. I note this first, for this reason, that you may understand what kind of love it is, that our inquiry doth proceed upon, viz. Rational Love, 2it being (as a Judicious Divine hath often observed) not so safe for Christians to try their states by the passionate motions of Grace in the lower parts of the soul, or the affections, as by the more equal and uniform actings thereof in the Will it self; the [[Greek or Hebrew]] commandress of the soul.
That there is a great deal of difference between Love as it is seated in the Will, or rational Appetite, and the same Act or Principle of Love, as seated in the sensitive. In the former, it is a settled, 1rational, uniform, and deliberate Motion, co-incident with the very natural Act of the Will it self, To Love (as the great School-man notes) being nothing else but [Intensive velle] to will intensely either person or thing. The motion of the Will towards the Object, as good and desirable; and the earnest imbracing thereof; this is Rational Love. And according to the various Aspect which it hath thereto, either as present or absent, perfect or imperfect; it is called love of desire, or fruition, dependance, or complacency: And if the Object be such, as can or doth reciprocate affection, then its friendship [or Amor Am•citiae.] But now take Love, as it is an Affection properly so called, and sea•e• in the lower faculties of the soul, and so there is a great variety, and inequality in its motions, much easier to be felt, th•n expressed; sometimes the soul is in a kinde of extasie, wrapt above it self; and then by and by it's flat, and dull again. I note this first, for this reason, that you may understand what kinde of love it is, that our inquiry doth proceed upon, viz. Rational Love, 2it being (as a Judicious Divine hath often observed) not so safe for Christians to try their states by the passionate motions of Grace in the lower parts of the soul, or the affections, as by the more equal and uniform actings thereof in the Will it self; the [〈non-Latin alphabet〉] commandress of the soul.
- 1Voluntas nihil aliud est, quam Intellectus extensus ad habendum & faciendum id, quod cognoscit. Scaliger. exercit. 107.
- 2Baxters D• rections for peace and comfort. Direct. 21.
