“In the first stage, that of jubilatio, a person becomes intensely aware of the dear signs of his love that god has marvelously given us in the heavens and on earth, how marvelously much good he has done for us and all creatures, how everything blossoms, sprouts forth, and is filled with God, and how unimaginable the generosity of God has inundated all creatures with his great gifts and how God has gone searching for him, showered him with gifts, carried him, advised him, waited for him, cared for him…and to what inexpressible nearness he has invited him, and how the most Holy God has expectantly awaited him eternally so that he might be filled with joy forever. And when a person experiences this fully through loving insight, The Lord leads a person out of himself into himself there is born in him great genuine joy. The person who perceives these things with genuine love is so flooded with an interior joy that his frail body cannot contain this joy and erupts in its own way…And in this way our Lord showers him with great sweetness and gives him inwardly an embrace and palpable union. Thus does God lure, pull and yank a person, first of all out of himself, and then out of all dissimilarity to himself…”

Source: Attributed, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 72.

Source: For The Sake of Heaven (1945), p. 44

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 456.

Source: For The Sake of Heaven (1945), p. 45

Hell Is the Absence of God; first appeared in Starlight 3, 2001.
Stories of Your Life and Others (2002)

The Necessity of Atheism (1811)

The Spirit of Love (1752) http://www.ccel.org/ccel/law/love/files/love1.htm.
Context: Now the Spirit of Love has this Original. God, as considered in himself in his Holy Being, before any thing is brought forth by him or out of him, is only an eternal Will to all Goodness. This is the one eternal immutable God, that from Eternity to Eternity changeth not, that can be neither more nor less nor any thing else but an eternal Will to all the Goodness that is in himself, and can come from him. The Creation of ever so many Worlds or Systems of Creatures adds nothing to, nor takes any thing from this immutable God. He always was and always will be the same immutable Will to all Goodness. So that as certainly as he is the Creator, so certainly is he the Blesser of every created Thing, and can give nothing but Blessing, Goodness, and Happiness from himself because he has in himself nothing else to give. It is much more possible for the Sun to give forth Darkness, than for God to do, or be, or give forth anything but Blessing and Goodness. Now this is the Ground and Original of the Spirit of Love in the Creature; it is and must be a Will to all Goodness, and you have not the Spirit of Love till you have this Will to all Goodness at all Times and on all Occasions. You may indeed do many Works of Love and delight in them, especially at such Times as they are not inconvenient to you, or contradictory to your State or Temper or Occurrences in Life. But the Spirit of Love is not in you till it is the Spirit of your Life, till you live freely, willingly, and universally according to it. For every Spirit acts with Freedom and Universality according to what it is. It needs no command to live its own Life, or be what it is, no more than you need bid Wrath be wrathful. And therefore when Love is the Spirit of your Life, it will have the Freedom and Universality of a Spirit; it will always live and work in Love, not because of This or That, Here or There, but because the Spirit of Love can only love, wherever it is or goes or whatever is done to it. As the Sparks know no Motion but that of flying upwards, whether it be in the Darkness of the Night or in the Light of the Day, so the Spirit of Love is always in the same Course; it knows no Difference of Time, Place, or Persons, but whether it gives or forgives, bears or forbears, it is equally doing its own delightful Work, equally blessed from itself. For the Spirit of Love, wherever it is, is its own Blessing and Happiness because it is the Truth and Reality of God in the Soul, and therefore is in the same Joy of Life and is the same Good to itself, everywhere and on every Occasion.

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 202.

The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)
Context: You should watch the wise bee and do as it does. It dwells in unity, in the congregation of its fellows, and goes forth, not in the storm, but in calm and still weather, in the sunshine, towards all those flowers in which sweetness may be found. It does not rest on any flower, neither on any beauty nor on any sweetness; but it draws from them honey and wax, that is to say, sweetness and light-giving matter, and brings both to the unity of the hive, that therewith it may produce fruits, and be greatly profitable. Christ, the Eternal Sun, shining into the open heart, causes that heart to grow and to bloom, and it overflows with all the inward powers with joy and sweetness. So the wise man will do like the bee, and he will fly forth with attention and with reason and with discretion, towards all those gifts and towards all that sweetness which he has ever experienced, and towards all the good which God has ever done to him. And in the light of love and with inward observation, he will taste of the multitude of consolations and good things; and will not rest upon any flower of the gifts of God, but, laden with gratitude and praise, will fly back into the unity, wherein he wishes to rest and to dwell eternally with God.