And so, now concerning charity—about which I have discussed much earlier in this book—since the occasion requires it, I shall here too touch briefly upon a few points. I pass over carnal love, which, beginning in marriage, flows down to one's children, since we have such a love in common even with cattle and beasts. I likewise pass over the love of kinsfolk, since it too still seems to pertain to flesh and blood. Nor do I say anything of that love by which, although we love friends, yet it too is referred to some temporal advantage. Not that these loves are not honorable, since they are natural to all; but that there is one love incomparably more excellent than all these, by which we love God freely, and a friend.
For the rest, he who loves a friend for the sake of any advantage is convicted of loving not the friend but the advantage. And assuredly whoever has loved someone for the sake of any temporal thing, when that thing itself, being temporal, ceases to be, will cease to love. But he who loves a friend for God's sake, just as God is eternal, so the love itself of the friend will remain unto eternity. And therefore God, than whom there is nothing greater or better for the sake of which He might be loved, is loved perfectly for His own sake. But if He is loved at least for the sake of those things which He bestows, He is by no means loved freely; for then that very thing for whose sake He is loved is preferred to Him—which is impious even to say.
For He Himself is to all His lovers the blessed life, eternal salvation, the kingdom, and perpetual joy. These things shall they receive who love God, because He alone will be all things to them, when He Himself shall be all in all.