Chapter XXX Our Chief Love Is Due to God, as the First and Last, the Beginning and the End of All Things
He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.—Deut. 32:4.
Not only the universal voice of nature, but our own consciences also bear witness that our chief and highest love is due to God. 1. Because he is our chief and eternal Good. 2. Because not only man, but all other creatures derive their being from him. 3. Because the love and goodness of God are conveyed unto man by all the creatures. Whence it follows, that God, who is the fountain of goodness and love, deserves to be loved by us more than any creature, yea, than all the creatures put together; they being no more than means or instruments of conveying to us the transcendent and eternal love of God. So that our love is never true, right, regular, or reasonable, but when it is fixed upon God; which may be properly called the rectitude of our will.
2. On the other hand, when self-love predominates, and a man makes all his love centre upon himself, that love is unnatural, preposterous, unjust, and irregular, a direct opposition to God, and the root and seed of all sin and iniquity. For what can be more unjust and ungrateful than to withdraw our love from God, who alone has a right to it, and to fix it upon ourselves or upon any creature? This, in short, is the highest injustice, and the highest violation of the laws of nature, as well as of God.