exercised about them The eye of sense for this outward and materiall world of reason for the intelligible of faith for the spirituall Moses had all these By the eye of sense he saw Pharaohs Court and Israels servitude By the eye of reason he saw the mysteries of Egyptian learning By the eye of faith hee saw him that is invisible In the eye of sense even brute creatures partake with him In the eye of reason men In the faculty of discerning spirituall and divine things only Saints and Angels Doubtlesse Moses was herein priviledged above other men Two wayes therefore did he see the Invisible First By viewing the visible signes and sensible representations of Gods presence as in the Bush of Horeb the hill of visions in the Fire and Cloud in the Mount of Sinai Secondly By his owne spirituall apprehension That first was proper to Moses as an eminent favourite of God This other must be common to us with him That we may then attaine to the true feare and fruition of God we must see him that is invisible as travellers here as comprehensors hereafter How we shall see him in his and our glorious home we cannot yet hope to comprehend When we come there â—o see him we shall see and know how and how much we see him and not till then In the meane time it must bee our maine care to blesse our eyes with Moses object and even upon earth to aspire to the sight of the Invisible This is an act wherein indeed our cheife felicity consists It is a curiously witty disquisition of the Schooles since all beatitude consists in the fruition of God Whether we more essentially primarily and directly injoy God in the act of understanding which is by seeing him than in the act of will which is by loving him and the greatest Masters for ought I see pitch upon the understanding in the full sight of God as whose act is more noble and absolute and the union wrought by it more perfect If any man desire to spend thoughts upon this divine curiosity I referre him to the ten reasons which the Doctor Solennis gives and rests in for the decision of this point Surely these two go so close together in the separated soule that it is hard even in thought to distinguish them If I may not rather say that as there is no imaginable composition in that spirituall essence so its fruition of God is made up of one simple act alone which here results out of two distinct faculties It is enough for us to know that if all perfection of happinesse and full union with God consist in the seeing of him in his glory then it is and must be our begun happinesse to see him as we may here below hee can never be other than he is our apprehension of him varies Here we can only see him darkly as in a glasse there cleerely and as hee is Even here below there are degrees as of bodily so of spirituall sight The newly recovered blind man saw men like trees the eyes of true sense see men like men The illuminated eyes of Elisha and his servant saw Angels invironing them Saint Stephens eyes saw heaven opened and Iesus standing at the right hand of God The cleere eyes of Moses see the God of Angels Saint Pauls eyes saw the unutterable glories of the third heaven still the better eyes the brighter vision But what a contradiction is here in seeing the Invisible If invisible how seene and if seene how invisible Surely God is a most purely and simply spirituall essence Here is no place for that not so much heresie as stupid conceit of Anthropomorphisme A bodily eie can only see bodies like it selfe the eye must answer the object A spirituall object therefore as God is must be seene by a spirituall eye Moses his soule was a spirit and that saw the God of spirits so he that is in himselfe invisible was seene by an invisible eye and so must be If we have no eyes but those that are seene we are as very beasts as those that we see but if we have invisible and spirituall eyes we must improve them to the sight of him that is invisible SECT III. LEt us then to the unspeakable comfort of our soules inquire and learne how wee may here upon earth see the invisible God And surely as it was wisely said of him of old that it is more easie to know what God is not than what he is so it may be justly said also of the vision of God it is more obvious to say how God is not seene than how he is Let us if you please begin with the negative we may not therefore think to see God by any fancied representation hee will admit of no image of himselfe no not in thought All possibly conceiveable Ideas and similitudes as they are infinitely too low so they are cleane contrary to his spirituall nature and his expresse charge and the very entertainment of any of them is no other than a mentall idolatry In the very holy of holyes where he would most manifest his presence there was nothing to be seene but a cloud of smoake as the Poet scoffingly and as that great King professed to see there to teach his people that he would not be conceived any way but in an absolute immunity from all formes Secondly we may not hope to see God by the working of our improved reason for as intelligible things are above the apprehension of sense so divine matters are no lesse above the capacity of understanding Iustly is Durand exploded here who held that a created understanding was of it selfe sufficient for the vision of God without supernaturall aid for what ever our soule understands here it doth it by the way of those phantasmes which are represented unto it by which it is not possible there should be any comprehension of this infinite essence every power works within the compasse of his owne sphere even from the lowest of sense to the highest of faith If the eye should encroach upon the eare in affecting to discerne the delicate ayre of pleasant sounds and the eare should usurp upon the eye in professing to judge of a curious picture or pleasant prospect it were an absurd ambition of both It is all one for a beast to take upon him to judge of matter of discourse and for a Philosopher to determine of matters of faith Reason was not given to man for nought even that can impart unto us something concerning God but not enough I remember Gerson a great Master of Contemplation professes that he knew one which is in Saint Pauls phrase himselfe who after many temptations of doubt concerning a maine article of faith was suddenly brought into so cleere a light of truth and certitude that there remained no reliques at all of dubitation nothing but confidence and serenity which saith hee was wrought by an hearty humiliation and captivation of the
every where must bee acknowledged to be ever in a glorious manner present with us manifesting his presence most eminently in the high heavens and yet filling both heaven and earth with the Majesty of his glory In him it is that we live and move and have our being he comprehends the whole world himselfe being only incomprehensible secluded from no place included in no place neerer to us than our owne soules when we die we part from them from him we cannot part with whom remotenesse of place can make no difference time no change when the heart is thus throughly assured it is in a faire way to see the Invisible for now after all the former impediments the hinderance of distance is taken away and nothing remaineth but that the eye bee so affected and imployed hereabouts as it ought SECT V. TO which purpose in the third place there must be an exaltation and a fortification of our sight An exaltation rasing it above our wonted pitch for our heart is so inured and confined to bodily objects that except it bee somewhat raised above it selfe it is not capable of spirituall things A fortification of our sight so raised for our visive beames are at our best so weak that they are not able to look upon a sight so spiritually glorious alas wee cannot so much as look upon the Sunne-beames but we are dazeled and blinded with that which gives us opportunity of sight how shall wee be able to behold the infinite resplendence of him that made it St. Stephen was a true Eagle that blessed protomartyrs cleared exalted fortified sight pierced the heavens and saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God Whence was this vigor and perspicacity Hee was full of the holy Ghost that Spirit of God that was within him gave both clearnesse and strength in such miraculous manner to the eyes of him who should strait-way see as hee was seene who should instantly by the eye of his glorified soule no lesse see the incomprehensible Majesty of God the Father than now by his bodily eye he saw the glorified body of the Son of God It must bee the only work of the same Spirit of God within us that must enable us both to the faculty and exercise of seeing the Invisible for the performance whereof there must be in the fourth place a trajection of the visuall beames of the soule thorow all earthly occurrences terminating them only in God as now we look thorow the aire at any object but our sight passes thorow it and rests not in it whiles we are here we cannot but see the world even the holiest eye cannot look off it but it is to us as the vast aire is betwixt us and the Starry heaven only for passage all is translucid till the sight arrive there there it meetes with that solid object of perfect contentment and happinesse wherewith it is throughly bounded When it hath therefore attained thither there must bee in the fifth place a certaine divine irradiation of the mind which is now filled and taken up with a lightsome apprehension of an infinite Majesty of a glory incomprehensible and boundlesse attended and adored by millions of heavenly Angels and glorified Spirits whereto way must be made by the conceit of a transcendent light wherein God dwelleth as far above this outward light which we see as that is above darknesse For though we may not in our thoughts liken God to any created brightnesse bee it never so glorious yet nothing forbids us to think of the place of his eternall habitation as infinitely resplendent above the comparison of those beames which any creature can cast forth He is clothed saith the Psalmist with light as with a garment Lo when wee cannot see a mans soule yet we may see his body and when we cannot see the body yet wee may see the clothes Even so though wee may not think to see the essence of God yet we may see and conceive of this his resplendent garment of light Farre be it therefore from us when we would look up to a Deity to have our eye-sight terminated in a gloomy opacity and sad darksomnesse which hath no affinity with any appendance of that divine Majesty who hath thought good to describe it selfe by light Let our hearts adore such an infinite spirit as that the light wherein he dwels is inaccessible the light which he hath and is is inconceiveable and rather rest themselves in an humble and devout adoration of what they cannot know than weary themselves with a curious search of what they cannot comprehend A simple and meek kind of astonishment and admiration beseemes us here better than a bold and busie disquisition But if this outward light which of all visible creatures comes neerest the nature of a spirit shall seeme too materiall to expresse the glory of that blessed habitation of the Highest Let the mind labour to apprehend an intellectuall light which may be so to our understanding as this bodily light is to our sense purely spirituall and transcendently glorious and let it desire to wonder at that which it can never conceive How should this light be inaccessible if it were such as our either sense or reason could attaine unto SECT VI. WHen we have attained to this comfortable and heavenly illumination there must be in the sixt place a fixing of the eye upon this beatificall object so as it may be free from distraction and wandring Certainly there is nothing more apt to be miscarried than the eye every new sight winnes it away from that which last allured it It is not hard or unusuall to have some sudden short glympses of this happy vision which yet the next toy fetches off and makes us to forget like as the last wave washeth off the impression of the former what are we the better for this than that patient who having the filme too early raised from his eye sees the light for the present but shall never see any more Would wee see God to purpose when we have once set eye upon him we may not suffer our selves by any means to lose the sight of him againe but must follow it still with a constant and eager intention Like as the Disciples of Christ when they had fixed their eyes upon their ascending Saviour could not be taken off with the presence of Angels but sent their eye-beames after him into heaven so earnestly that the reproofe of those glorious spirits could hardly pull them off You are now ready to tell me this is a fit task for us when we are in our heaven and to plead the difficulty of such our settlement in this region of change where our eyes cannot but bee forced aside with the necessity of our worldly occasions and to question the possibility of viewing two objects at once God and the world not considering that herein lyes the improvement of the Christians skill in these divine Opticks The carnall eye looks through God at the world The
spirituall eye lookes through the world at God the one of those he seeth mediately the other terminatively neither is it in nature hard to conceive how we may see two such objects as whereof one is in the way to the other as thorow a prospective glasse we can see a remote mark or thorow a thin cloud wee can see heaven Those glorious Angels of heaven are never without the vision of God yet being ministring spirits for the good of his Elect here below they must needs take notice of these earthly occurrents the variety of these sublunary objects cannot divert their thoughts from their Maker Although also to speak distinctly the eye thus imployed is not the same nothing hinders but that whiles the bodily sees a body the spirituall eye may see a spirit As when a load-stone is presented to my view the eye of my sense sees the body and fashion of the stone my eye of reason sees the hidden vertue which is in it both these kinds of eyes may be thus fixed upon their severall objects without any intersection of the visuall lines of each other But that no man may think God hath so little respect to our infirmities as to impose upon us impossible tasks we must know that since the soule of man in this state of fraile mortality is not capable of a perpetuall act of such an intuition of God here is necessary use of a just distinction As the Schoole therefore is wont to distinguish of intentions so must we here of the apprehension of God which is either actuall or habituall or virtuall Actuall when our cogitations are taken up and directly imployed in the meet consideration of the blessed Deity and the things thereto appertaining Habituall when we have a settled kind of holy disposition and aptitude inclining us ever to these divine thoughts ready still to bring them forth into act upon every least motion Virtuall betwixt both these being neither so quick and agile as the actuall nor yet so dull and flagging as the habituall which may be incident to a man whether sleeping or otherwise busied when by the power of an heavenly disposition wrought in the mind we are so affected as that divine thoughts are become the constant though insensible guests of the soule whiles the vertue of that originall illumination sticks still by us and is in a sort derived into all our subsequent cogitations leaving in them perpetuall remainders of the holy effects of the deeply-wrought and well grounded apprehension of God As in a pilgrim towards the holy Land there are not alwaies actual thoughts concerning his way or end yet there is still an habituall resolution to begin and compasse that journey and a secret power of his continued will to put forward his steps to that purpose there being a certaine impression remaining in the motive faculty which still insensibly stirres him towards the place desired Neither is it unusuall even in nature to see many effects continuing when the motion of the cause by which they were wrought ceaseth As when some deep Bell is rung to the height the noyse continues some time in the ayre after the clapper is silent Or when a stone is cast into the water the circles that are caused by it are enlarged and multiplyed after the stone lyes still in the bottome How ever therefore we cannot hope in this life through our manifold weaknesses and distractions to attaine unto the steddy continuance of the actuall view of him that is invisible yet to the habituall and virtuall power of apprehending him wee may through the goodnesse of him whom we strive to see happily aspire Neither may we be wanting to our selves in taking all occasions of renewing these our actuall visions of God both set and casuall there is nothing that wee can see which doth not put us in mind of God what creature is there wherin we do not espy some footsteps of a Deity every herb flower leafe in our garden every Bird and Fly in the aire every Ant and Worme in the ground every Spider in our window speakes the omnipotence and infinite wisedome of their Creator None of these may passe us without some fruitfull monition of acknowledging a divine hand But besides these it will be requisite for us every morning to season our thoughts with a serious renovation of our awfull apprehensions of God and not to take off our hand till wee have wrought our hearts to some good competency of right and holy conceits of that glorious Majesty the efficacy whereof may dilate it selfe to the whole following day which may be often revived by our frequent ejaculations But above all other when wee have to do with God in the set immediate exercises of his services and our heavenly devotions we must endeavour to our utmost to sharpen our eyes to a spirituall perspicacity striving to see him whom we speak unto and who speaks unto us as he hath pleased to reveale himselfe But over and beside all these even when we have no provocations from any particular occasion it must be our continual care to labour with our God that it would please him to work us to such an holy and heavenly disposition as that what ever our imployments may be we may never want the comfort of a virtuall and habituall enjoying the sight of God so as the power and efficacy of our first well-taken apprehension may runne on thorow all the following actions and events both of our life and death SECT VII VPon this constant fixednesse of our thoughts on God there cannot but follow in the seventh place a marvellous delight and complacency of the soule in so blessed an object neither is it easie to determine whether of these doe more justly challenge a precedency in the heart whether the eye be so fixed because it is well pleased with the sight or whether it be so pleased and ravished with that happy sight because it is so fixed whatsoever these two are in the order of nature I am sure in time they are inseparable neither is it possible for any man to see God as interessed in him and not to love him and take pleasure in him As a stranger as an enemy or avenger even divels and reprobate soules behold him to their regret and torment if I may not say they rather see his anger and judgement than himselfe but never eye can see him as his God and not be taken with infinite delight for that absolute goodnesse out of which no man can contemplate God can be no other than infinitely amiable And if in the seeing of God we be as the Schoole hath taught us to speak unitively carried into him how can we choose but in this act bee affected with joy unspeakable and glorious In thy presence saith the Psalmist is the fulnesse of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore In summe therefore if when our eyes being freed from all naturall indispositions and both inward and outward
practises thereupon growing idle or unprofitable wee make divine mercy a Pander to our uncleannesse and justly perish in our wicked presumption SECT XIX THe other extreame followes It may seeme a harsh word but it is a true one that there may bee an evill feare of a good God A feare of horror and a feare of distrust That God who is love it selfe is terrible to a wicked heart Even in the beginning our first progenitor ran from the face of his late maker and hid him in the thickets For it is a true observation of Tertullian no wickednesse can bee done without feare because not without the conscience of doing it Neither can any man flee from himselfe as Bernard wittily and this conscience reads the terrible things that God writes against the sinner and holds the glasse wherein guilty eyes may see the killing frownes of the Almighty Now offensive objects cause the spirits to retire as Philosophy and experience teacheth us whereupon followes a necessary trepidation in the whole frame of the body And now the wicked heart could wish there were no God or which is all one that this God had not power to avenge himselfe and finding that after all his impotent volitions the Almighty will bee still and ever himselfe he is unspeakably affrighted with the expectation of that just hand which hee cannot avoid This terror if through the improvement of Gods mercy at the last it drive the sinner to a true penitence makes an happy amends for its owne anguish otherwise it is but the first flash of that unquenchable fire which is prepared for damned soules In this case men do not so much feare God as are afraid of him and such a torturing feare is never but joyned with heart-burning and hatred wherin sinners demeane themselves to God as they say the Lampray doth to the fisher by whose first blow that fish is said to bee dulled and astonished but inraged with the next and following Wretched men it is not Gods fault that hee is terribly just no it is his glory that hee is mercifully terrible It is not for me to say as Spalatensis cites from Cyrill that those who would not bee saved are no lesse beholden to the bounty of the good God than those that are brought home to glory I know and blesse God for the difference But certainely God is wonderfully gracious as hee is also infinitely just even to those that will needs incurre damnation having tendered unto them many powerfull helps to their repentance which hee hath with much patience and longanimity expected That God therefore is just it is his owne praise that hee is terrible wee may thank our selves for were it not for our wickednesse there were nothing in God not infinitely amiable Seest thou then O sinnefull man nothing at all in Gods face but frownes and fury doth every beame of his angry eye dart vengeance into thy soule so as thou would'st faine runne away from his presence and wooest the rocks and mountaines to fall upon thee and hide thee from the sight of that dreadfull countenance cleanse thy hands purge thine heart cleare thine eyes with the teares of true contrition and then look up and tell me whether thou dost not see an happy change of aspect whether thou canst now discerne ought in that face but a glorious lovelinesse fatherly indulgence unconceivable mercy such as shall ravish thy soule with a divine love with a joy unspeakable and glorious SECT XX. SEldome ever is the feare of horror separated from a feare of distrust which in the height of it is that which we call despaire for when the soule apprehends a deep feare of Gods dereliction it cannot but be filled with horrour Now as the holy and well moderated feare gives glory to God in all his attributes so this extremity of it affronts and dishonours him in them all but especially in his mercy and truth In his truth suggesting that God will not make good his promises in his mercy suggesting that he either cannot or will not forgive and save It was a true observation of Saint Hilary that it is not the least office and effect of faith to feare for that it is said by the Prophet Esay He shall fill them with the spirit of the feare of the Lord and againe we are charged to worke out our salvation with feare But there cannot be an act more opposite to faith then to feare distrustfully to despaire in fearing none more injurious either to God or our owne soules For surely as Cyrill well the wickednesse of our offences to God cannot exceed his goodnesse toward us the praise whereof from his creature he affects and esteems so highly as if he cared not in any other notion to bee apprehended by us proclaiming himselfe no otherwise in the mount then The Lord the Lord God mercifull and gracious long suffering and abundant in goodnesse and truth keeping mercy for thousands forgiving iniquity and transgressions and sinne adding onely one word to prevent our too much presumption That will by no meanes cleare the guilty which to doe were a meere contradiction to his justice Of all other therefore GOD hates most to be robbed of this part of his glory Neither is the wrong done to God more palpable then that which is done herein unto our selves in barring the gates of heaven upon our soules in breaking open the gates of hell to take them in and in the meane time striving to make our selves miserable whether God will or no. And surely as our experience tels us concerning the estate of our bodily indispositions that there is more frequent sicknesse in summer but more deadly in winter so we finde it here other sinnes and spirituall distempers are more common but this distrustfull feare and despaire of mercy which chils the soule with a cold horror is more mortall For the remedy wherof it is requisite that the heart should be throughly convinced of the super-abundant and ever ready mercy of the Almighty of the infallible and unfaileable truth of all his gracious ingagements And in respect of both be made to confesse that heaven can never be but open to the penitent It is a sweet word and a true one of Saint Bernard In thy Booke O Lord are written all that doe what they can though they cannot doe what they ought Neither doth God onely admit but he invites but he intreates but he importunes men to be saved what could he doe more unlesse he would offer violence to the Will which were no other then to destroy it and so to undoe the best piece of his owne workmanship It is the way of his decree and proceedings to dispose of all things sweetly Neither is it more against our nature then his to force his owne ends and when he sees that fayre meanes will not prevayle to win us from death he is pleased feelingly to bemone it as his owne losse Why will ye dye O house