66 If we turn to the eminent laymen in the middle ages, who applied to philosophic studies under the inspiration of faith, we find them all possessed of the same conviction, and writing in agreement with the holy school. Thus Antonio Galateus, the celebrated philosopher and physician, writing to his friend Summonti, says, "I wish if you are about to read my writings, that you would first consult the sacred Scriptures, which are the fountain of salvation, and the law of good and happy life. Then apply to the Platonic and Aristotelian dogmas, and afterwards exert all your strength in attacking your Galateus *." John Picus of Mirandula, expressing his admiration for the holy Scriptures, remarks how, on every ground, they are superior to all the philosophic writings of the Gentiles. Amelius, saith he, the disciple of Plotinus, though an enemy of the Christian religion, yet evidently quotes John the Evangelist; for he says, And this was that Word by which the things that were made were made." Thus he, an enemy, approves of the sentence, and accepts the faith of him whom he calls a barbarian. Lately, after reading the Tusculans of Cicero, I took up Isaiah the prophet. What comparison between the eloquence even of Eschines or Demosthenes, or of any other orator of Greece, and these words of Isaiah. Audite cœli auribus, percipe terra, quoniam Dominus locutus est: Filios enutrivi-and what follows? "Heaven forbid," exclaims John Francis Picus, his illustrious nephew, writing to Paul Sancinus," that I should abandon the frequent reading of the holy Scriptures through ardour for the study of Aristotle. For those studies are, in the first place, to be pursued, which infuse the love of God into our hearts; but after them, in second place, those which illuminate the intelligence; for as long as we are in this life, surrounded with this frail flesh, we stand more in need of perfection in the will than in the intelligence +." But we cannot remain any longer to have such testimonies multiplied. Is any thing further required to fulfil our object, and show that the blessed clean of heart saw God in the holy Scriptures? Then it must be some words from a seraphic page. "Take up the book to Ant. Galatei Callipolis Descriptio in Thes. Antiq. Italiæ, tom. ix. read in it," says Thomas à Kempis, "in the same manner as the just Simeon took up the child Jesus in his arms; and when you have finished reading close the book, and return thanks for every word proceeding out of the mouth of God, because you have found in the Lord's land a hidden treasure *." "The holy Scripture," says the Abbot Ælred, of Rievaulx, “is a field like that into which holy Isaac went at eventide to meditate, when Rebecca met him, and assuaged his sorrow. Good Jesus! how often do my days decline to evening when grief visits me like the shades of night; when all things that I behold seem flat and insipid and miserable. What then? go out to meditate in the fields, I revolve the sacred pages, I meet Rebecca: that is, thy grace, O sweet Jesus, dispels my darkness, and turns my tears into celestial joy t." I I think no more is wanting. But the clean of heart now, from this time forward, become encompassed with such radiance, that mine eyes can hardly follow them: Of individual star, that charm'st them thus ! CHAPTER XVI. "MAN is created for this end," says St. Augustin, "that he should understand God; understanding, that he should love him; loving, possess; and possessing, enjoy him for ever." Such was the conclusion of the school respecting this great question, on which the philosophers of old had delivered such various judgments. In ages of faith, the chief good was known, the last end of all things was known, and virtue itself derived its value from this knowledge. "We do not enjoy virtues," says Hugo of St. Victor, "but we make use of them; for although they are of themselves to be loved and desired, yet not on account of themselves only, but on account of God Thom. à Kemp. Doctrinale Juvenum, cap. v. finally, do the saints in hope, and sometimes in deed, reap them. We use virtues, therefore, in order that by them we may enjoy the blessed Trinity, that is the chief and incommutable good *." In proportion, however, as the blessed clean of heart drew nearer to the enjoyment of that vision, which is the reward of faith, they passed beyond the sphere of history, and the mode of their progressive illumination becomes less visible. As long as it was a question of their beholding God in creatures, in the miraculous operations of his Providence, in the acts which belong to exoteric mysticism, in the traditions of the human race, and in the holy Scriptures, it was not difficult for one of earthly temper like him who collects their scattered thoughts on this page, to illustrate their advance, and confirm it from historic records; but now that we are required to observe them in relation to the church, and to the sacred mysteries of religion-acts of love, vigils of praise and prayer, and midnight choir, all shadows of the service done above, all fruitful in the gifts of esoteric mysticism, being the means ordained to conduct them to the glorious consummation of their immortal destiny, our course seems about to terminate in darkness; for what eye can follow that illuminated life succeeding to the purgative which leads immediately to the intimate union of the soul with God? Here each step transcends our conception. History indeed attests, from time to time, incidentally the fact of holy rites and mysteries, vested in dense impenetrable blaze, having been observed throughout the ages of faith. We know that the church, as one mysterious family, was found every where; that from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the clean oblation was daily offered up; that seraphic hymns ascended at benediction from evening choirs; that sacrifice was the great business of life with countless multitudes in every age during sixteen centuries; that men participated in the sacred mysteries of communion at the holy mass; that they had constantly access from morning till evening to the sacramental presence of Christ, which was reserved for them every where; that they prayed, that they meditated, that they remained often fixed in contemplation; that they experienced ecstasies, and sometimes in that Hug. St. Vict. Speculum de Myst. Eccles. cap. 9. state expired; but with that knowledge our observation ends; for if thou dost require us to show what corre sponded to these outward acts in the interior world of the soul, to fathom the full tide of spiritual joy and love resulting from them, to unfold what they saw when so employed, to explain the mode of the operation of these mysteries, or to say why such means should have been ordained, ah! greatly hast thou mistaken the limits of High rapture, ineffable transport to the intelligence, no doubt, would be the power to reply; our skill. "But not the soul That is in heav'n most lustrous, nor the seraph That no created ken may fathom it *." This alone we know, that there is no Thabor without the road of the cross, no transfiguration without a passion, no gift without engagement, no full power without full obedience; such we can discover to be the immutable, fundamental law, in the mystic kingdom t. There is, however, another path bordering upon this divine world, which, to a certain point, is open for us; for as the philosophers taught that natural things were the works of God, by which men could arrive at a knowledge of his virtue and glory; so the men of faith showed, with the friar Savonarola ‡, that the things which were done in the church, perceptible by the senses and by reason, were the works of the same God, by which they could arrive at the knowledge of the majesty and glory of Jesus Christ, who is to us invisible; that while the one saw God in the wondrous works of nature, the other beheld him, as it were, permanently incarnate in the Church, present in those who governed it, present in the lowest of its members, and continually re-appearing under a sacramental form in the mysteries of faith, and with such clearness and certainty too, that the mere observation of the effect which that vision wrought upon them, yea the mere reflection as seen painted in their countenances, was thought by many to furnish one of the most con *Dante, Par. xxi. Goërres die Christliche Mystik, i. 175. Triump. Crucis, lib. i. c. 1. vincing proofs that all things announced by revelation to the human race were true. Some, indeed, have presumed to pass beyond the mark, and ask, how could God establish or preserve such a society on earth, and how could he give us what he promised? and others vainly have essayed to comprehend infinity, and make the mortal measure the divine. Well it would have been for the latter had they hearkened to such warning sounds as come to every human mind, resembling those which Dante heard when he looked too stedfastly upon Beatrice, the light of divine truth, conveying nought but this 66 too fix'd a gaze *." They laid claim to more philosophy, yet alas! in sooth, beating their pinions, thinking to advance, they backward fell. Grace ought first to have been gained, and then they would have known, with Hugo of St. Victor, that by loving, rather than by disputing, men advance towards God t. You ask, why should such stupendous acts of condescension be required to purify the soul? Brother, the answer would have been, no eye of man not perfected, nor fully ripened in the flame of love, may fathom this decree. The human mind, as Abadæus says, must of necessity consort with darkness, either with that which arises from the cupidities and prejudices of the mortal nature, or with that which arises from God himself, and which brings hereafter the effulgence of his glory : O splendour ! O sacred light eternal! who is he, All things are veiled to your mortal eyes; you cannot discern the real nature of the meanest plant or reptileand yet you would behold the sovereign God divested of a veil and shadow. Ah! it should be the dictate even of that natural philosophy, in which you take such pride, to say with the ascetic, "I have truly, and I adore him whom the angels adore in heaven; but at present, I in faith, they in essence and without veil. It becomes me * XXXII. † Speculum de Mysteriis Ecclesiæ, cap. ix. |