Love Begets Love

John Ball, The Holy Exercise of Love, in The Puritans on Loving One Another, pp. 123-124:

The diamond forms and fashions the diamond, and love forms and fashions love. Fire converts fuel into fire, and fuel converts into increased fire. Love causes love, and the beloved loving in return, augments the original love. What wrong shall we offer God if we love Him not who has loved us first? It is of His love that we live, that we are preserved. It is of love that we are redeemed from death, adopted to be His sons. Great is Thy love, O God, to men in this life; for here Thou doest not only affect them, pour out Thy benefits upon them, distill Thy graces into their hearts, and in a thousand ways externally and internally work their salvation, but also that which surpasses all. It seems Thy will and power are at command, or rather ready to obey the desires of Thy faithful servants. And if in this life such is the power of love, what shall we conceive of the love wherewith the saints in glory are affected and embraced? It passes all that heart can conceive or tongue express.