John Tauler · 98 of 121

The third way of a poor, perfect life, when you contemplate God internally, is, that a man do not fly from what may kill him in spiritual things. · 85.

But if some one loveth a natural man (man of the world) as if he were a divine man, will God then reward him as if he were a true one? I answer, It is better that one should love a man who bears the name of a Christian, if he is good or bad, than that one should dislike and hate him, as God rewards love in any form more than if a man is without it; but love must be general, not directed to one individual nor intermittent. Who at the same time can love a worldly or ordinary man strongly, and yet keep God in view, hath but an impeded and forced love, for all attachments make an obstacle. But the man who loveth all his neighbours equally, without personal interest, hath a true love, which God will also reward. But if a man loveth another as if he were good, when he is not so, it would be unjust for God to reward him, because as love springeth from understanding, if that understanding is an unjust one so also is the love, therefore God rewardeth him not. It also happeneth that a man loveth another because he holdeth him as good, whilst another holdeth him as bad. God then gives more reward to the man who held him as wrong, if justly, than to the man who held him as right. Thus love becometh better according as it is lighted by divinity, and the more it is drawn away the less in value it becomes. It certainly does occur that one man is drawn to another by blind love, holding him for righteous when it is not the case; whereas another, being better awakened, does not act to him according to blind love, but loveth him according to his worth. This love is much nobler than the first blind love, God accordingly rewards it more thoroughly.