the good belonging to individuals.
Consequently we love all our neighbors with the same love of charity,
in so far as they are referred to one good common to them all, which
is God; whereas we give various honors to various people, according
to each one's own virtue, and likewise to God we give the singular
honor of latria on account of His singular virtue.

Reply Obj. 3: It is wrong to hope in man as though he were the
principal author of salvation, but not, to hope in man as helping us
ministerially under God. In like manner it would be wrong if a man
loved his neighbor as though he were his last end, but not, if he
loved him for God's sake; and this is what charity does.
_______________________

SECOND ARTICLE [II-II, Q. 25, Art. 2]

Whether We Should Love Charity Out of Charity?

Objection 1: It would seem that charity need not be loved out of
charity. For the things to be loved out of charity are contained in
the two precepts of charity (Matt. 22:37-39): and neither of them
includes charity, since charity is neither God nor our neighbor.
Therefore charity need not be loved out of charity.

Obj. 2: Further, charity is founded on the fellowship of happiness,
as stated above (Q. 23, A. 1). But charity cannot participate in
happiness. Therefore charity need not be loved out of charity.

Obj. 3: Further, charity is a kind of friendship, as stated above
(Q. 23, A. 1). But no man can have friendship for charity or for an
accident, since such things cannot return love for love, which is
essential to friendship, as stated in _Ethic._ viii. Therefore
charity need not be loved out of charity.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. viii, 8): "He that loves
his neighbor, must, in consequence, love love itself." But we love
our neighbor out of charity. Therefore it follows that charity also
is loved out of charity.

_I answer that,_ Charity is love. Now love, by reason of the nature
of the power whose act it is, is capable of reflecting on itself; for
since the object of the will is the universal good, whatever has the
aspect of good, can be the object of an act of the will: and since to
will is itself a good, man can will himself to will. Even so the
intellect, whose object is the true, understands that it understands,
because this again is something true. Love, however, even by reason
of its own species, is capable of reflecting on itself, because it is
a spontaneous movement of the lover towards the beloved,