And nothing can more please our ears then musick, or pacifie our minds. Fair houses, pictures, orchards, gardens, fields, a fair Hawk, a fair horse is most acceptable unto us; whatsoever pleaseth our eys and ears, we call beautifull and fair; Pleasure belongeth to the rest of the senses, but grace and Beauty to these two alone. As the objects vary and are diverse, so they diversly affect our eys, ears, and soul it self.

Which gives occasion to some, to make so many severall kindes of love as there be objects: One beauty ariseth from God, of which and divine love S. Dionysius with many Fathers and Neotericks, have written just volumes, De amore Dei, as they term it, many parænetical discourses; another from his creatures; there is a beauty of the body, a beauty of the soul, a beauty from vertue, formam martyrum Austin calls it, quam videmus oculis animi, which we see with the eys of our minde, which beauty, as Tully saith, if we could discern with these corporeal eyes, admirabiles sui amores excitaret, would cause admirable affections, and ravish our souls.

This other beauty which ariseth from those extreme parts, and graces which proceed from gestures, speeches, severall motions, and proportions of creatures, men and women (especially from women, which made those old Poets put the three Graces still in Venus company, as attending on her, and holding up her train) are infinite almost, and vary their names with their objects, as love of mony, covetousness, love of Beauty, Lust, immoderate desire of any pleasure, concupiscence, friendship, love, good will, &c. and is either vertue or vice, honest, dishonest, in excesse, defect, as shall be shewed in his place: Heroicall love, Religious love, &c.

which may be reduced to a twofold division, according to the principall parts which are affected, the Braine and Liver: Amor & amicitia, which Scaliger exercitat. 301. Valesius and Melancthon warrant out of Plato φιλεῖν & ἐρᾶν from that speech of Pausanias belike, that makes two Veneres and two loves.

One Venus is ancient without a mother, and descended from heaven, whom we call cælestiall; The younger, begotten of Jupiter and Dione, whom commonly we call Venus. Ficinus in his comment upon this place cap. 8. following Plato, calls these two loves, two Divels, or good and bad Angels according to us, which are still hovering about our souls.

The one rears to heaven, the other depresseth us to hell; the one good, which stirs us up to the contemplation of that divine beauty, for whose sake we perform Justice, and all godly offices, study Philosophy, &c. the other base, and though bad, yet to be respected; for indeed both are good in their own natures: procreation of children is as necessary as that finding out of truth, but therefore called bad, because it is abused, and withdrawes our soul from the speculation of that other, to viler objects; So far Ficinus.

S. Austin lib. 15. de civ. Dei & sup. Psal. 64. hath delivered as much in effect. Every creature is good, and may be loved well or ill: And Two cities make two loves, Jerusalem and Babylon, the love of God the one, the love of the world the other; of these two cities we all are Citizens, as by examination of our selves we may soon finde, and of which: The one love is the root of all mischief, the other of all good.

So in his 15 cap. lib. de amor. Ecclesiæ, he will have those four cardinall vertues to be naught else but love rightly composed; in his 15, book de civ. Dei cap. 22. he calls vertue the order of Love, whom Thomas following 1. part. 2. quæst. 55. art. 1. and quæst. 56. 3. quæst. 62. art. 2. confirmes as much, and amplifies in many words.

Lucian to the same purpose hath a division of his own, one love was born in the sea, which is as various and raging in young mens brests as the sea it self, and causeth burning lust: the other is that golden chain which was let down from heaven, and with a divine Fury ravisheth our souls, made to the image of God, and stirs us up to comprehend the innate and incorruptible beauty, to which we were once created. Beroaldus hath expressed all this in an Epigram of his:

Dogmata divini memorant si vera Plaontis, Sunt geminæ Veneres, & geminatus amor. Cælestis Venus est nullo generata parente, Quæ casto sanctos nectit amore viros. Altera sed Venus est totum vulgata per orbem, Quæ divûm mentes alligat, atq; hominum; Improba, seductrix, petulans, &c.

If divine Plato’s Tenents they be true, Two Veneres, two Loves there be; The one from heaven, unbegotten still, Which knits our souls in unitie. The other famous over all the world, Binding the hearts of Gods and men; Dishonest, wanton, and seducing she, Rules whom she will, both where and when.

This twofold division of Love, Origen likewise followes in his Comment on the Canticles, one from God, the other from the Divell, as he holds, (understanding it in the worst sense) which many others repeat and imitate. Both which (to omit all subdivisions) in excesse or defect, as they are abused, or degenerate, cause melancholy in a particular kinde, as shall be shewed in his place.

Austin in another Tract, makes a threefold division of this love, which we may use well or ill: God, our neighbour, and the world: God above us, our neighbour next us, the world beneath us. In the course of our desires, God hath three things, the world one, our neighbour two. Our desire to God, is either from God, with God, or to God, and ordinarily so runs. From God, when it receives from him, whence, and for which it should love him: with God, when it contradicts his will in nothing: to God, when it seeks and rest it self in him.