What a goodly sight is it, then, to behold the First Cause of all being, and its own being! how fain would an intellectual eye behold Him that made it! Nature longs to see who it was that first contrived it, and framed it, and fashioned it; the soul would fain see its Father of spirits; the candle would fain shine in the presence of Him that lighted it up. Yet Nature cannot see the face of God and live 'No one is blest till he leaves this life, his long home to enter.'1 The moralist's happiness is dormant in the night-time, for there is no 'action according to virtue'2 then; nor can the soul, while it is clogged with a frail body, climb to the 'summit' of goodness and happiness. The soul here has not a perfect enjoyment of inferior objects, much less of God himself; it has but a shadowy sight of angels, because our intellect is connate with phantasms; and if Nature's eye cannot look upon the face of a twinkling star, how will it behold the brightness of a dazzling sun? that general knowledge which it hath of God here is mixed with much error and deceit. Nor can faith look upon the Divine essence; it is a lovely grace indeed, yet it must die in the mount like Moses; it cannot enter into the land of promise; it is peut iv. 2 'like hearing rather than vision," it hears the voice of its God, it does not see His face; it enflames the desire of his soul, it does not quench it; for men would fain see what they believe; the object of faith is obscure and at a distance, but the face of God is all presence and brightness. Happiness consists in the noblest operation of an intellec 1 Ante obitum nemo supremaque funera felix.-Ovid, Metam. iii. 137. * Propter connaturalitatem intellectus nostri ad phantasmata. 5 Auditui magis similis quam visioni. tual being, whereas in believing there is a most imperfect operation on the part of the intellect, though there is perfection on the part of the object.'1 Nor yet is the Divine essence seen in a way of demonstration, for then only a philosopher should see His face, such only as had skill in metaphysics, who yet may be in misery for all that, for demonstrations are no beatifical visions. The damned spirits can demonstrate a Deity, and yet they are perpetually banished from His face; there can be no demonstration of Him à priori, for He is the first cause; and all demonstrations fetched from such effects as flow from Him, do only show you that He is, they do not open and display the Divine essence; for they are not 'effects coming up to the power of the cause."2 To see God in the creatures, is to see Him veiled; it is to see Him clouded. The soul will not rest contented with such an imperfect knowledge of its God; it sees Him thus here, and yet that does not hush and quiet rational desires, but does increase and enlarge them. Such things as last long are perfected slowly, and such is happiness; the knowledge of men here is too green and crude, it will not ripen into happiness till the sun shine upon it with its blessed and immediate beams. 6 13 God therefore creates and prepares a light of glory '3 for the soul; that is, such a supernatural disposition in an intellectual eye, by which it is clarified and fortified, and rightly prepared for beholding the Divine essence; which makes Dionysius, the falsely-supposed Areopagite, very fitly describe happiness by this, 'The soul's sunning of itself in the light of glory.' Some will have that of the 1 Imperfectissima operatio ex parte intellectus, licet sit perfectio ex parte objecti. 3 Lumen gloriæ. 2 Effectus adæquantes virtutem causæ. 1 Zráois év Delw pwrí.—Dion. Areop. De Div. Nom. ch. iv. ? 6. Opera, tom. i. p. 469. Folio. Paris, 1644. Psalmist to be sung in the praise of this light, 'In thy Ps. xxxvi 9. light we shall see light." That seraphical Prophet does thus most excellently represent it: The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.' You Isa Ix. 19 have it thus rendered in the Apocalypse: And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it."2 This 'light of Rev. xxi. 23. glory, which is a kind of likeness of the Divine intellect,' as the schoolmen speak, is not so much for the discovering of the object, for that is an intellectual sun clothed with all perfection and brightness, as for the helping and advancing of a created understanding, which else would be too much oppressed with the weight of glory; but yet this augmentation of the visive faculty of the soul, by the 'light of glory," it is not 'the raising and screwing of nature higher,' but it is the adding of a new and supernatural disposition' that may close with the Divine essence; for, as Aquinas has it, 'Human understanding is as the matter accurately predisposed by the "light of glory," for the receiving of the Divine essence, as an intelligible form stamps an impression of itself upon it; it prints the soul with that supreme good '10 which it has so much longed for. 2 In lumine tuo videbimus lumen. * Καὶ ἡ πόλις οὐ χρείαν ἔχει τοῦ ἡλίου, οὐδὲ τῆς σελήνης, ἵνα φαίνωσιν αὐτῇ ἡ γὰρ δόξα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐφώτισεν αὐτήν. 3 Lumen gloriæ. 3 Lumen gloriæ. Per intentionem virtutis naturalis. Per appositionem novæ formæ. • Lumen gloriæ. Similitudo quædam intellectus Divini. 9 Ipsa Divina essentia copulatur intellectui, ut forma intelligibilis. 10 Summum bonum. So that though there be still an infinite disproportion between God and the creature 'in natural being,'1 yet there is a fit and just proportion between them in intellectual being.' Though an eye be enabled to behold the sun, yet this does not make it all one with the sun, but it keeps its own nature still as much as it did before. 3 Nor is this vision a comprehensive vision, for a finite being will never be able fully to grasp an infinite essence. It is true, indeed, it sees the whole essence of God, not a piece of His face only, for all essence is indivisible, especially that most simple and pure essence of God himself; but the soul does not see it so clearly, and so strongly, as God Himself sees it; hence degrees of happiness spring; for the light of glory' being variously shed amongst blessed souls, the larger measure they have of that, the brighter sight have they of the Divine essence. Several men may look upon the same face, and yet some that have more sparkling eyes, or that stand nearer, may discern it better; if a multitude of spectators were enabled to behold the sun, yet some of them, that have a more strong and piercing eye, might see it more clearly than the rest. In this glass of the Divine essence, glorified souls see all things else that conduce to their happiness. As God by seeing Himself, the cause and fountain of beings, sees also all effects that come streaming from Him; so these also, looking upon the sun, must needs see his beams-they see the sun, and see other things by the sun; they see there 'the genera and species of all things,' they there behold 'the powers and order of the universe.' 1 In esse naturali. Yet because they 2 In esse intelligibili. 3 These principles are illustrated in Mr. Calderwood's ingenious work, The Philosophy of the Infinite. Edinburgh, 1854. 4 Lumen gloriæ. 6 Virtutes et ordinem universi. 5 Omnium rerum genera et species. do not see the essence of God clearly and perfectly, that is comprehensively, so neither can they see all those treasures of mysterious wisdom, of unsearchable goodness, of unlimited power, that lie hid in the very depth of the Divine essence. 'They do not see things possible, nor the reasons of things, nor those things which depend on the pure will of God," as the schoolmen do well determine; yet all that a glorified understanding sees, is in one twinkling of its eye, for it sees all by one single 'idea,' by the Divine essence. It forgets its wrangling syllogisms, it leaves its tardy demonstrations, when it once comes to an intuitive knowledge. 'It moves not from one comprehensible to another, but rests in a single act,' for the state of happiness is a Sabbatical state. The soul rests and fixes Heb. iv 9. itself in one act of perpetual enjoyment, and by this participation of simultaneity it partakes of eternity, for that is 'all at once.'4 Whether this glorious happiness be more principally situated in an act of the understanding or of the will, I leave the Thomists and Scotists to discuss; only this I will say in the behalf of Aquinas, that the will cannot enjoy this happiness any other way than as it is a rational appetite. For there is a blind appetite of good in every being, which yet neither has nor can have such happiness. As therefore the operations of the will, so the happiness of the will also seems to be subordinate to that of the understanding. But it is enough for us that an entire soul, a whole rational being, is united to its dearest, fairest, and supreme object, in a way of pure intuitive speculation, and 1 Non vident possibilia, nec rationes rerum, nec ea quæ dependent ex pura Dei voluntate. 2 Species. 3 Non movetur de uno intelligibili in aliud, sed quiescit in actu unico. • Tota simul. |