CHAPTER IX.
A PREPARATION FOR THE DISCOURSE ON THE UNION OF THE BLESSED WITH GOD.
THE triumphant love which the blessed in heaven exercise,
consists in the final, invariable and eternal union of the soul
with its God. But this union - what is it?
By how much more agreeable and excellent are the objects
our senses meet with, so much more ardently and greedily they
give themselves to the fruition of them. By how much more
fair, delightful to the view, and duly set in light they are, so
much the more eagerly and attentively does the eye regard
them: and by how much more sweet and pleasant voices or
music are, so much the more is the attention of the ear drawn to
them. So that every object exercises a powerful but grateful
violence upon the sense to which it belongs, a violence more or
less strong as the excellence is greater or less; provided always
that it be proportionable to the capacity of the sense which
desires to enjoy it; for the eye which finds so much pleasure in
light cannot, however, bear an extreme light, nor fix itself upon
the sun, and be music never so sweet, if loud and too near, it
importunes and offends our ears. Truth is the object of our
understanding, which consequently has all its content in discovering and knowing the truth of things; and according as
truths are more excellent, so the understanding applies itself
with more delight and attention to the consideration of them.
How great was the pleasure, think you, Theotimus, of those
ancient philosophers who had such an excellent knowledge of
so many beautiful truths of Nature? Verily they reputed all
pleasures as nothing in comparison with their well-beloved
philosophy, for which some of them quitted honours, others
great riches, others their country; and there was such a one as
deliberately plucked out his eyes, depriving himself for ever of
the enjoyment of the fair and agreeable corporal light, that he
might with more liberty apply himself to consider the truth of
things by the light of the spirit. This we read of Democritus: so sweet is the knowledge of truth! Hence Aristotle has very often said that human felicity and beatitude consists in wisdom, which is the knowledge of the eminent truths.
But when our spirit, raised above natural light, begins to see
the sacred truths of faith, O God! Theotimus, what joy! The
soul melts with pleasure, hearing the voice of her heavenly
spouse, whom she finds more sweet and delicious then the honey
of all human sciences.
God has imprinted upon all created things his traces, trail, or
footsteps, so that the knowledge we have of his divine Majesty
by creatures seems no other thing than the sight of the feet of
God, while in comparison of this, faith is a view of the very
face of the divine Majesty. This we do not yet see in the clear
day of glory, but as it were in the breaking of day; as it
happened to Jacob near to the ford of Jaboc; for though he
saw not the angel with whom he wrestled, save in the weak
light of daybreak, yet this was enough to make him cry out,
ravished with delight:
I have seen God face to face, and my soul
has been saved.1 O! how delightful is the holy light of faith,
by which we know, with an unequalled certitude, not only the
history of the beginning of creatures, and their true use, but
even that of the eternal birth of the great and sovereign divine
Word, for whom and by whom all has been made, and who
with the Father and the Holy Ghost is one only God, most
singular, most adorable, and blessed for ever and ever! Amen.
Ah! says S. Jerome to his Paulinus: "The learned Plato
never knew this, the eloquent Demosthenes was ignorant of it."
How sweet are thy words, 0 Lord, to my palate, said that great king,
more than honey to my mouth!2 Was not our burning within us, whilst he spoke in the way?3 said those happy
pilgrims of Emmaus, speaking of the flames of love with which
they were touched by the word of faith. But if divine truths
be so sweet, when proposed in the obscure light of faith, O God,
what shall they be when we shall contemplate them in the light
of the noonday of glory!
The Queen of Saba, who at the greatness of Solomon's
renown had left all to go and see him, having arrived in his
presence, and having heard the wonders of the wisdom which
he poured out in his speeches, as one astonished and lost in
admiration, cried out that what she had learnt by hearsay of
this heavenly wisdom was not half the knowledge which sight
and experience gave her.
Ah! how beautiful and dear are the truths which faith
discovers unto us by hearing! But when having arrived in the
heavenly Jerusalem, we shall see the great Solomon, the King
of Glory, seated upon the thrown of his wisdom, manifesting by
an incomprehensible brightness the wonders and eternal secrets
of his sovereign truth, with such light that our understanding
will actually see what it had believed here below - Ah! then,
dearest Theotimus, what raptures! what ecstasies! what
admiration! what love! what sweetness! No, never (shall we
say in this excess of sweetness) never could we have conceived
that we should see truths so delightsome. We believed indeed
all the glorious things that were said of thee,
O great city of God, but we could not conceive the infinite greatness of the abysses of thy delights.
