“Avenge not yourselves, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I Will repay, saith the Lord.”
I don’t mean to get all religious on all y’all. My old blog explicitly tied religion of a certain stripe to libertarianism, and this new blog was meant to drop the religious emphasis of that blog in favor of a focus on “the philosophy and practice of law and liberty.” But I still regard “religion,” properly understood, as inextricably bound up with the quest for liberty, in the soul and in society.
A proper understanding of religion is key, because those who think that religion is even more dangerous than government certainly have a point and a lot of history on their side. Now, I don’t purport to myself really “understand” what needs to be understood, nor do I imagine or intend that anything I write on this blog will “convert” anyone to anything. I am not qualified to teach. But what I nevertheless propose to do in the next few posts is share some things I’ve been reading about religion that seem right to me. In this recent post I recommended, on the authority of Albert Jay Nock and Aldous Huxley, two works by William Law, The Spirit of Prayer and The Spirit of Love. I’ve since read both, and was duly impressed, but must admit that I was a little discouraged at first when I began reading them, because these works are not totally free of what I might describe as an extraneous and unnecessary cosmology. What I propose to do, therefore, is excerpt here in a few blog posts some of what rang true for me. (If Mike at Crime & Federalism can write about what he writes about, it seems I too can without cheating my few and loyal readers take this detour into a topic not advertised by the title of this blog.) And I admit that this project is motivated by a mild case of temporary blogging burn-out, and by the sense that one can only say “fuck the government” so many times and in so many different ways before the negativity kind of gets to you.
So without further ado, for this post’s installment, from The Spirit of Love:
[Love-2.1-154] The Apostle saith, “Avenge not yourselves, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I Will repay, saith the Lord.”
[Love-2.1-155] This is another full Proof, that Wrath or Vengeance is not in the holy Deity itself, as a Quality of the Divine Mind; for if it was, then Vengeance would belong to every Child of God, that was truly born of Him, or he could not have the Spirit of his Father, or be perfect as his Father in Heaven is perfect.
[Love-2.1-156] But if Vengeance only belongs to God, and can only be so affirmed of Him, as Ice and Frost are His, and belong to Him, if it has no other Manner of Working, than as when it is said, “He sent out his Arrows and scattered them, He cast forth Lightnings and destroyed them”; then it is certain, that the Divine Vengeance is only in fallen Nature, and its disordered Properties, and is no more in the Deity itself, than Hailstones and Coals of Fire.
[Love-2.1-157] And here you have the true Reason, why Revenge or Vengeance is not allowed to Man; it is because Vengeance can only work in the evil, or disordered Properties of fallen Nature. But Man being Himself a Part of fallen Nature, and subject to its disordered Properties, is not allowed to work with them, because it would be stirring up Evil in himself, and that is his Sin of Wrath, or Revenge.
[Love-2.1-158] God therefore reserves all Vengeance to Himself, not because wrathful Revenge is a Temper or Quality that can have any Place in the Holy Deity, but because the holy supernatural Deity, being free from all the Properties of Nature, whence partial Love and Hatred spring, and being in Himself nothing but an Infinity of Love, Wisdom, and Goodness, He alone knows how to over-rule the Disorders of Nature, and so to repay Evil with Evil, that the highest good may be promoted by it.
[Love-2.1-159] To say, therefore, that Vengeance is to be reserved to God, is only saying in other Words, that all the Evils in Nature are to be reserved and turned over to the Love of God, to be healed by his Goodness. And every Act of what is called Divine Vengeance, recorded in Scripture, may, and ought, with the greatest strictness of Truth, be called an Act of the Divine Love.
. . .
[Love-2.1-166] Hear these decisive words of Scripture, viz., “Whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth.” What a Grossness therefore of Mistake is it to conclude, that Wrath must be in the Deity, because He chastens and threatens Chastisement, when you have God’s own Word for it, that nothing but his Love chasteneth? Again, Thus saith the Lord, “I have smitten you with Blasting and Mildew. Your Vineyards, and your Fig Trees, and your Olive Yards, did the Palmer-Worm devour,” and then the Love that did this makes this Complaint, “Yet ye have not returned to me.” Again, “Pestilence have I sent amongst you; I have made the Stink of your Tents come up even into your Nostrils,” &c. And then the same Love that did this, that made this Use of the disordered Elements, makes the same Complaint again, “Yet have ye not returned to me” (Amos 4:9-10).
[Love-2.1-167] Now, Sir, How is it possible for Words to give stronger Proof, that God is mere Love, that he has no Will toward fallen Man but to bless him with Works of Love, and this as certainly, when he turns the Air into a Pestilence, as when he makes the same Air rain down Manna upon the Earth, since neither the one nor the other are done, but as Time, and Place, and Occasion, render them the fittest Means to make Man return and adhere to God, that is, to come out of all the Evil and Misery of his fallen State? What can infinite Love do more, or what can it do to give greater Proof, that all that it does proceeds from Love?
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