No creature, no knowledge, comprehensible by the intellect, can subserve as proximate means of union with God.

Before I discuss the proper and fitting means of union with God, which is faith, it is right that I should show how that no created, or imagined, thing can subserve the intellect as a proper means for its union with God; and how everything which the intellect embraces, if it does but cleave to it, becomes a hindrance instead of help. In this chapter I shall show this in general, and afterwards I shall do so in parti-

* Acts xiii. 46.

cular, going through all sorts of knowledge which the intellect may receive through the senses, both exterior and interior; and then the inconveniences and losses it may sustain through all such knowledge, because it does not proceed in reliance on the proper means, which is Faith.

It is a principle of philosophy that all means must be proportionate to the end, having a certain fitness, and resemblance to it, such as shall be sufficient for the object in view. For instance, a person wishes to reach a certain city: he must necessarily travel along the road, which is the means, leading to it. Likewise, if you wish to combine and unite

together wood and fire, in that case, it is requisite that heat, that is the means, should so dispose the wood, and raise it to such a degree of heat that it shall have a great resemblance and proportion to fire. If you attempt this by any other than the proper means, which is heat, as, for instance, by air, water, or earth, it will be impossible to unite wood with fire. So, therefore, if the intellect is to be united with God, so far as that is possible in this life, it must, of necessity, make use of those means which can effect that union, and which are most like unto God.

But remember, among all creatures, the highest and the lowest, there is not one that comes near unto God, or that bears any likeness to His Substance. For, though it be true, as theologians tell us, that all creatures bear a certain relation to God, and are tokens of His Being, some more, some less, according to the greater or less perfection of their nature, yet there is no essential likeness or communion between them and Him; yea, rather the distance between His Divine Nature and their nature is infinite. Hence, then, it is impossible for the intellect to attain perfectly unto God, by means of created things, whether of heaven or of earth, because there is no proportion of similitude between them. Thus David, speaking of the heavenly host, cries out:

‘There is none among the gods like unto Thee, 0 Lord.’*

The ‘gods’ are the holy Angels and the souls of the Saints.

;

And again, ‘ Thy way, O God, is in the holy place; who is the great God like our God?’ ft That is, the way to Thee, O God, is a holy way, namely, pureness of faith. ‘ Who is the great God like our God?’ Who is the Saint so high in glory, or the Angel so exalted by nature, that can be a way proportionate and sufficient for us to attain unto God? The same Prophet speaking of the things of heaven and earth together, saith, ‘The Lord is high and looketh on the low, and the high he knoweth afar off.’ { That is, God high in His own Being, seeth that the things of the earth are in themselves most vile and low, in comparison with Himself; and ‘ the high,’ the heavenly host, He knoweth to be far distant from Him. No creature, therefore, can bea proportionate means of perfect union with God.

So also nothing that the imagination may conceive or the intellect comprehend, in this life, is, or can be a proximate means of union with God. For if we speak of natural knowledge; the intellect is incapable of comprehending anything unless it be presented to it under forms and images by the bodily senses; and these forms of things, as I have already said, cannot serve as means, and no natural acts of the intellect can in any way contribute thereto.

Again, if we speak of supernatural acts—as far as possible in this life—the intellect in its bodily prison has neither the disposition nor the capacity requisite for the reception of the clear knowledge of God. This knowledge is not of this life, for we must either die, or remain without it. Thus God said to Moses, ‘ Man shall not see me and live.’§ And S. John saith the same, ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ || S. Paul, too, repeats the words of Isaias, ‘ Eye hath not seen,

* Ps. lxxxv. 8. + Ibid. Ixxvi. 14. t Tbid, cxxxvii. 6.* § Exod. xxxiii. 20. || S. John i. 18,

- man.’* This is the reason why Moses at the bush ‘ durst not behold,’ + God being there present. He knew that his intellect could not proportionately contemplate God, though this sprung from the deep sense he had of God. Elias, our father, covered his face on the mountain, in the presence of God.t By that action he taught us that he made his intellect blind, not venturing to apply an instrument so vile to a matter so high; and that he perceived clearly, that however much he saw or understood, all would be most unlike unto God, and far distant from Him. No knowledge, therefore, and no understanding in this mortal life can serve as proximate means of this high union of the love of God. All that the intellect may comprehend; all that the will may be satisfied with; and all that the imagination may conceive, is most unlike unto God, and most disproportionate to Him. ‘This truth is admirably expressed by the Prophet: ‘To whom then have you likened God? or what image will you make for Him? Hath the workman cast a graven statue? or hath the goldsmith formed it with gold, or the silversmith with plates of silver?’§ The workman is the intellect, which fashions our knowledge, and cleanses it from the iron of sensitive impressions and fancy. The goldsmith is the will, which is capable of receiving the forms and figures of pleasure caused by the gold of love wherewith it loves. The silversmith which cannot represent God with plates of silver, is the memory with the imagination, the notions and conceptions of which are well described as plates of silver. The Prophet then says, in other words: The intellect, by speculation, cannot comprehend anything which is like unto God; no delight or satisfaction of the will can resemble that which is God; nor can the memory furnish

* 1 Cor. ii. 9; Is. Ixiv. 4. + Acts vii, 82; Ex. iii. 6. t 3 Kings xix. 13. § Is. xl. 18, 19.

- nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of

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the imagination with any notions or images to represent Him. It is evident, then, from this that the intellect cannot be immediately directed in the way of God by any knowledge such as this, and that, if it is to draw near unto God, ~

it must do so by not understanding rather than by seeking to understand; yea, rather it must be by making itself blind, covering itself with darkness, and not by opening its eyes, that it can attain to the Divine enlightening. Hence it is that Contemplation, by which God enlightens the intellect, is called Mystical Theology, that is, the secret Wisdom of God, because it is a secret even to the intellect which receives it. §. Dionysius calls it a ray of darkness. And the prophet Baruch thus speaks of it: ‘The way of wisdom they have not known, neither have they remembered her paths.* It is therefore clear that the intellect must be blind, as to every path along which it has to travel, in order to be united with God.

Aristotle says, that as the eyes of the bat are with regard to the sun, which wholly blinds them, so is our intellect with regard to the greater Light of God which is to us perfect darkness. He further says, that the more profound and the clearer the things of God are in themselves, the less intelligible and the more obscure they are to us. The Apostle says the same thing, when he teaches us that the deep things of God are not known unto men. I should never end were I to bring forward here all the authorities and reasons which show that, among all created things of which the intellect takes cognisance, there is nothing which can serve as a ladder whereby it may ascend unto God, who is so high. Yea, rather we must acknowledge that all and each of these things, if the intellect will use them as proximate means of union, will prove not only a hindrance,

* Baruch iii, 23.

but the source of many errors and delusions, in the ascent of this mountain.