Love also derives a special determination from the personality, the spiritual and essential organization of the one who loves, and also his particular position. It manifests itself in friendship as a powerful attraction, a hearty sympathy of feelings, a strong desire for being together and enjoying a communion of thoughts and feelings. In sexual love it is a tender reciprocal attrac- tion, a satisfaction in each oihtr as the mutual com- plement of life, and a desii'c for absolute and lasting
community of existence. Parental, filial, and brotherly love can be considered as a branch of this aifection. Both friendship and love have the full sanction of Chris- tian morals when based on the love of God. As wed- ded love is an image of the relation between the Lord and his people, or the Cliurch (Eph. v, 23 sq.), so pater- nal, filial, and brotherly love are respectively images of the love of God towards his children, of their love to- wards him, and of their love towards each other. AH these relations may want this higher consecration, and yet be well regulated ; they have then a moral charac- ter. But they may also be disorderly : friendship can be sensual, selfish, and even degenerate into unnatural sexual connection ; sexual love may become selfish, hav- ing no other object but the gratification of lust ; paren- tal love may change to self-love, producing over-indul- gence, and fostering the vices of the children ; brotherly love can degenerate into fiattery and spoiling. Thus this feeling, which in its principle and aim should be the highest and noblest, can become the most common, the worst, and the most unworthy. Both kinds of love are mentioned in Scripture. The highest and purest tendency of the heart is in the Bible designated by the same name as the more natural, immoral, or disorderly tendency. The same was the case among the Greeks and Romans: "Eptor, Amor, and 'A(ppocir>i, Venus, had both significations, the noble and the common; but Christianity has in Christ and in his Church the perfect illustration and example of true love, whose absolute type is in the triune life of God himself. This divine love, as it exists in God, and through the divine Spirit m the heart of man, together with the connection of both, is represented to us in Scripture as infinitely deep and pure. We find it thus represented in the Old Tes- tament (see Deut, xxxiii, 3 ; Isa. xlix, 13 sq. ; Ivii, 17 sq. ; Iv, 7 sq. ; Jer. xxxi, 20 ; xxxii, 37 sq. ; Ezek. xxxiv, 11 sq. ; Hos. iii, 2 sq. ; Mic. vii, 18 sq.). Then in the whole mission of Christ, and in what he stated of his own love and of the Father's, see Matt, xi, 28 ; Luke xv ; John iv, 10, 14 ; vi, 37 sq. ; vii, 37 sq. ; ix, 4 ; x, 12 sq. ; xii, 35 ; xiii, 1 ; xv, 12, 13 ; xvii ; and, for the testimony of the apostles, Rom. v, 5 sq. ; viii, 28 sq. ; xi, 29 sq. ; 1 Cor. xiii; Eph. i, 3, 17 sq. ; v, 1 sq. ; 1 John iii, 4, etc. These statements are corroborated by the testimony of Christians in all ages, who have all been witness to this love, however much their views may have differed on other points. In later times, ethical essays on the sub- ject have thrown great light on the nature and modes of manifestation of this love ; see among them, Daub, Syst. d. christl. Moral, ii, 1, p. 310; Marheineke, Syst. d. theol. Moral, p. 470 ; Rothe, Theol. Ethik, ii, 350. — Her- zog, Real-Enctjklop. viii, 388 sq. See Wesleyana, p. 54.
Love, Christopher, a Presbyterian divine, was born at Cardiff, ^^^'lles. in 1<>18 ; entered the active work of the ministry in 1644, in London, after which he be- came a member of the Assembly of Divines. After the death of Charles I, to whom he had previous!}' been op- posed, he entered into a plot against Cromwell, for which cause he was executed in August, 1651. Mr. Love was the author of a number of sermons and theological trea- tises published in 1645-54. As a writer, he was plain, impressive, evangelical. See "Wild, Tragedy of Chrisr- topher Love ; Neal, Purita7is, i, 528 ; ii, 123 sq. ; AVood, Allien. Oxoii.; jVllibone, Bict. of Brit, and Am. Aulhois, vol. ii, s. V.
Love, John M., D.D., an eminent Scotch divine, was born at I'aislcy, Scotland, in 1757. He was one of the founders of the London Missionary Society. He died in 1825. Dr. Love published in 1796 Addresses to the People of Otaheite, republished after his death ; also 2 vols, of Sermons and Lectures in 1829; a voL o( Let- tei's in 1838 ; 34 Sermons, preached 1784-5, in 1853. See Chambers and Thomson, jSj'o/;?-. Diet, of Eminent Scots- men, 1855, vol. v; Allibone, Diet, of Brit, and Am. Au- thors, vol. ii, s. V.
Love Family. See Familists.
LOVE-FEAST
531
LOWE