ith the accompanying idea of God; that is to say, no one can hate
God.

Love to God cannot be turned into hatred. But some may object, that if
we understand God to be the cause of all things, we do for that very
reason consider Him to be the cause of sorrow. But I reply, that in so
far as we understand the causes of sorrow, it ceases to be a passion,
that is to say, it ceases to be sorrow; and therefore in so far as we
understand God to be the cause of sorrow do we rejoice.

This love to God is the highest good which we can seek according to the
dictate of reason; is common to all men; and we desire that all may
enjoy it. It cannot, therefore, be sullied by the emotion of envy, nor
by that of jealousy, but, on the contrary, it must be the more
strengthened the more people we imagine to rejoice in it.

It is possible to show in the same manner that there is no emotion
directly contrary to this love and able to destroy it, and so we may
conclude that this love to God is the most constant of all the emotions,
and that, in so far as it is related to the body, it cannot be destroyed
unless with the body itself. What its nature is, in so far as it is
related to the mind alone, we shall see hereafter.

IV

All ideas, in so far as they are related to God, are true; that is to
say, are adequate, and therefore, (by the general definition of the
Emotions), God is free from passions. Again, God can neither pass to a
greater nor to a less perfection, and therefore He cannot be affected
with any emotion of joy or sorrow.

He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return. If a
man were to strive after this, he would desire that God, whom he loves,
should not be God, and consequently he would desire to be sad, which is
absurd.

V

God is absolutely infinite, that is to say, the nature of God delights
in infinite perfection accompanied with the idea of Himself, that is to
say, with the idea of Himself as cause, and this is what we have called
intellectual love. God loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love.

The intellectual love of the mind towards God is the very love with
which He loves Himself, not in so far as He is infinite, but in so far
as He can be manifested through the essence of the human mind,
considered under the form of eternity; that is to say, the intellectual
love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love with which God
loves Himself.

Hence it follows that God, in so