loving Love, he loves God. Or hast thou forgotten what thou saidst a little while ago, “Love is God”? If “Love is God,” whoso loveth Love, loveth God. Love then thy brother, and feel thyself assured. Thou canst not say, “I love my brother, but I do not love God.” As thou liest, if thou sayest “I love God,” when thou lovest not thy brother, so thou art deceived when thou sayest, I love my brother, if thou think that thou lovest not God. Of necessity must thou who lovest thy brother, love Love itself: but “Love is God:” therefore of necessity must he love God, whoso loveth his brother. But if thou love not the brother whom thou seest, how canst thou love God whom thou seest not? Why does he not see God? Because he has not Love itself. That he does not see God, is, because he has not love: that he has not love, is, because he loves not his brother. The reason then why he does not see God, is, that he has not Love. For if he have Love, he sees God, for “Love is God:” and that eye is becoming more and more purged by love, to see that Unchangeable Substance, in the presence of which he shall always rejoice, which he shall enjoy to everlasting, when he is joined with the angels. Only, let him run now, that he may at last have gladness in his own country. Let him not love his pilgrimage, not love the way: let all be bitter save Him that calleth us, until we hold Him fast, and say what is said in the Psalm: “Thou hast destroyed all that go a-whoring from Thee”—and who are they that go a-whoring? they that go away and love the world: but what shalt thou do? he goes on and says:—“but for me it is good to cleave to God.” All my good is, to cling unto God, freely. For if thou question him and say, For what dost thou cling to Him? and he should say, That He may give me—Give thee what? It is He that made the heaven, He that made the earth: what shall He give thee? Already thou are cleaving to Him: find something better, and He shall give it thee.