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ing includes in itself all that is. It therefore includes intelligence. It contains in itself all that is necessary to its own perfection. Its perfection as intelligible requires its perfection as intelligent.

Absolute being is therefore infinitely intelligible and intelligent in its own nature and idea. It is the intelligible being which is intelligent being, and only intelligent spirit, which is in its very essence intelligence, can be necessarily and infinitely intelligible; for only self-existent infinite spirit has the absolute infinite activity necessary to irradiate the light of the intelligible. The light of the intelligible irradiates our created intelligence by an act which constitutes it rational spirit. This act must be the act of supreme, absolute, infinite intelligence. Whatever is in the creature, must be infinite in the creator. The world of finite, intelligent spirits can only proceed from an infinite, intelligent spirit, as first and eminent cause. The sensible and physical world also is apprehended by our reason as intelligible, and is intelligible, only in intelligent cause; which throws open the vast and mag nificent field of demonstration from the order and harmony of nature. The intelligible in the order of the finite, is a reflection of the intelligible in the order of the infinite. The intelligible in the order of the infinite, is the adequate object of infinite intelligence. The intelligible in se is identical with being in its plenitude; and being in plenitude is necessarily infinite, intelligent spirit.*

From this point the way is clear and easy to verify all that theologians teach respecting the essential attributes of God. We have merely to explicate the idea of intelligent spirit possessing being in its plenitude. All

Because, if we conceive of any essence that it is not spiritual, we can conceive of one that is more perfect, namely, that which has these two attributes; and if we conceive of one that is finite in intelligence, we can conceive of one that is superior, or bas greater plenitude of being, until we reach the infinite. The very conception of being in plenitude is being that excludes the conception of the possibility of that which is greater than itself.

that has being-that is, every kind of good and perfection that the mind can apprehend in the divine essence by means of creatures-must be attributed to God in the absolute and infinite sense. We cannot grasp plenitude of being fully under one aspect or form. We are obliged to discriminate and distinguish qualities or attributes of being in God. But this is not by the way of addition or composition of these attributes with the idea of the simple essence of God. It is by the way of identification. Thus, being is identified with the intelligible and with intelligence. All the attributes of God are identified with each other and with his being.

This is what is meant by saying that God is most simple being, ens simplicissimum. The pure and simple idea of being contains in itself every possible predicate: hence we can predicate nothing of it that can add to it, or combine with it, to make a composite idea greater than the idea of being in its simplicity. It comes to the same, when we say that God is most pure act, actus purissimus, which merely ascribes to him actual being in eternity to the utmost limit of possibility, or to the ultimate comprehensibility of the idea of being by the infinite intelligence of God.

In the first place, then, we demonstrate the unity of God. There can be but one infinite being. For the intelligible being of God is the adequate object of his intelligence. Therefore there is no other infinite, intelligible object of infinite intelligence.

God is absolutely good. For his own being is the adequate object of his volition, and the definition of good is adequate object of volition, so that being is identical with good.

God is all-powerful. For there is no intelligible idea of power, which transcends the knowledge God has of his own being as including the ability

to create.

God is infinitely holy. For the intellect and the will of God terminate upon the same object, that is, upon his

own being, and consequently agree with each other; and the very notion of the sanctity of God is the perfect harmony of his intellect and will in infinite good.

God is immutable. For any change or progression implies a movement toward the absolute plenitude of being, and is inconsistent with the necessary and eternal possession of this plenitude.

God is infinite and eternal; above all categories of limitation, succession, time or space; for this is only to say that he is most simple being, and most pure act.

God is absolute truth and beauty, for these are identical with being.

He is infinite love, for he is the infinite object of his own intelligence comprehended as the term of his own volition.

For the same reason, he is infinite beatitude, since beatitude simply expresses the repose and complacency of intelligence and will in their adequate object and is identical with love.

God is an ocean of boundless, unfathomable good and perfection, to whom everything must be attributed that can increase our mental conception of his infinite being. We can go on indefinitely, explicating this conception, and every proposition we can make which contains the statement of anything positive and intelligible, is selfevident; requiring no separate proof, but merely verification as truly identifying something with the idea of being. "We shall say much and yet shall want words; but the sum of our words is, HE IS ALL." Nevertheless, our reason is not brought face to face with God by any direct intuition or vision of his intimate, personal essence. Every word, every conception, every thought expressing the most complete and vivid act of the reflective consciousness on the idea of God is derived from the creation, and gives only a speculative and enigmatical representation of the being of God itself, as mirrored in the perfections of created, contingent ex

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* Ecclus, xliii. 29.

istences. Though we see all things by its light, the sun itself, the original source of intelligible light, is not within our rational horizon. The creation is illuminated by it with the light of intelligibility, and by this light we become spectators of the creative act of God.

The creative act is not a transient effort of power, but a durable, continuous, ever-present act, by which God is always creating the universe. The creation has its being not in itself, but in God. All that we witness therefore and come in contact with, is but the radiation of light, life, truth, beauty, happiness; physical, mental, and spiritual existence; from God, the source of being. We see the archi tecture which proceeds from his mighty designs; we behold the infinitely va ried and ever shifting pictures and sculptures in which he embodies his infinite idea of his own beauty. We hear the harmonies that echo his eternal blessedness; the colossal machinery of worlds plays regularly and resistlessly by the force which he communicates around us; his signs, emblems, and hieroglyphics are impressed on our senses; the perpetual affirmation of his being is always making itself heard in the depth of our reason. The perpetual influx of creative force from him is every instant giving life and existence to our body. We breathe in it, and see by it, and move through its energy. It is every instant creating our soul. When our soul first came out of nothing into existence, it was created by a whisper of the divine word, which simultaneously gave it existence and the faculty of apprehending that whisper, by which it was made. God whispered in the soul the affirmation of his own being as the author of all existence. This whisper is perpetual, like the creative act. It constitutes our rational life and activity. By its virtue we think and are conscious. It concurs with every intellectual act. When the soul is stillest and its contemplation of truth the most profound, then it is most distinctly heard; but it cannot be drowned by any

tumult or clamor. "In God we live, and move, and have our being." We float in the divine idea as in an ocean. It meets us everywhere we turn. We cannot soar above it, dive beneath it, or sail in sight of its coasts. It is our rational element, in which our rational existence was created, in which it was made to live, and we recognize it in the same act in which we recognize our own existence. It is necessary to the original act of self-consciousness, and enters into the indestructible essence of the soul, as immortal spirit.

The Creed, therefore, when it proposes its first article to a child who is capable of a complete rational act, only brings him face to face with himself, or with the idea of his own reason. It gives him a distinct image or reflection of that idea, a sign of it, a verbal expression for it, a formula by which his reflective faculty can work it out into a distinct conception. As soon as it is fairly apprehended, he perceives its truth with a rational certitude which reposes in the intimate depths of his own consciousness. It is true that he cannot arrange and express his conceptions, or distinctly analyze for himself the operations of his own mind, in the manner given above. This can only be done by one who is instructed in theology. But although he is no theologian or philosopher, he has nevertheless the substance of philosophy or sapientia, and of theology, in his intellect; deeper, broader and more sublime than all the measurements and signs of metaphysicians can express. We have taken the child as creditive subject in this exposition, in order to exhibit the ultimate rational basis of faith in its simplest act, and, so to speak, to show its genesis. But we do not profess to stop with this simple act which initiates the reason in its childhood into the order of rational intelligence and faith; rather we take it as only the terminus of starting in the prosecution of a thorough investigation of the complete development which intelligent faith unfolds in the adult and instruct

ed reason of a Christian fully educated in theological science. Hence we have given the conception God in its scientific form, but as the scientific form of that which is certainly and indubitably apprehended in its essential substance by every mind capable of making an explicit and complete act of rational faith in God as the creator of the world. In the language of Wordsworth, "The child is father of the man." A complete rational act in a child has in it the germ of all science. He is as certain that two and two make four, as is the consummate mathematician. A complete act of faith in a child is as infallible as the faith of a theologian, and has in it the germ of all theology. He is able to say "Credo in Deum" with a perfect rational certitude; and this conclusion is the goal toward which the whole preceding argument has been tending.

But here we are met with a difficulty. The principle of faith cannot itself fall under the dominion of faith, or be classed with the credenda, which we believed on the veracity of God. How then can Credo govern Deum. The necessity for an intelligible basis for faith has been established, and this basis located in the idea of God evolved into a conception demonstrable to reason from its own constitutive principles. It would therefore seem that instead of saying " I believe in God," we ought to say "I know that God is, and is the infinite truth in himself, therefore I believe," etc.

This formula does really express a process of thought contained in the act of faith, and implied in the signification of Credo. Credo includes in itself intelligo. Divine faith presupposes, and incorporates into itself, human intelligence and human faith, on that side of them which is an inchoate capacity for receiving its divine, elevating influence. Hence the propriety of using the word Credo, leaving intelligo understood but not expressed. The symbol of faith is not intended to express any object of our knowledge,

except as united to the object of faith. For this reason it does not discriminate in the proposition of the verity of the being of God, that which is the direct object of intelligence, but presents it under one term with those propositions concerning God which are only the indirect object of intelligence through the medium of divine revelation. When we say Credo in Deum, if we consider in Deum only that which is demonstrable by reason concerning God, the full sense of Credo is suspended, until the revelation of the superintellible is introduced in the succeeding articles. The term Deum terminates Credo, only inasmuch as it is qualified by the succeeding terms; that is, inasmuch as we profess our belief in God as the revealer of the truths contained in the subsequent articles.

The foregoing statement applies to the use of the word Credo in relation with Deum in the first article of the Creed, taking Credo in its strictest and most exclusive sense of belief in revealed truths which are above the sphere of natural reason. In addition to this, it can be shown that there is a secondary and subordinate reason on account of which the mental apprehension of that which is naturally intelligible in God is included under the term faith, taken in a wider and more extensive sense

This intelligible order of truth, or natural theology, was actually communicated to mankind in the beginning, together with the primitive reve lation. We are, therefore, instructed in it, by the way of faith. The conception of God, and the words which communicate to us that conception, and enable us to grasp it, come to us through tradition, and are received by the mind before its faculties are fully developed. We believe first, and understand afterward; and the greater part of men never actually attain to the full understanding of that which is in itself intelligible, but hold it confusedly, accepting with implicit trust in authority, many truths which the wise possess as science. Moreover, the term faith is often used to denote belief in any reality which lies in an order superior to nature and removed from the sphere of the sensible, although that reality may be demonstrable from rational principles. In a certain sense we may say that this region of truth is a common domain of faith and reason. But we have now approached that boundary line where the proper and peculiar empire of faith begins, and like Dante, left by his human guide on the coasts of the celestial world, we must endeavor under heavenly protection to ascend to this higher sphere of thought.

From Once a Week.

THE KING AND THE BISHOP.

BEFORE Roskilde's sacred fane,
(The first the land has known.)
Attended by his courtier train,
And decked, as on his throne,
In costly raiment, glittering gay
Beneath the noon-day sun;
All fresh and fair, as though the day
Had seen no slaughter done-

As though the all-beholding eye

Of that Omniscient Deity,

Whom, turning from the downward way

His heathen fathers trod,
He, guided by a purer ray,

Hath chosen for his God-
Had seen no darker, dreader sight,
Twixt yester morn and yester night,

Beheld by his approving eye,

Who, now, would draw his altar nigh;
Ay, fresh and fair as to his soul

No taint of blood did cling,

As though in heart and conscience whole,
Stands Swend, the warrior-king.

On his, as on a maiden's cheek,
(Though bearded and a knight,)
The royal hues of Denmark speak*-
The crimson and the white;
But mark ye how the angry hue

Keeps deep'ning, as he stands,
And mark ye, too, the courtly crew,
With lifted eyes and hands!

Across the portal, low and wide,
A slender bar from side to side,
The bishop's staff is seen;
And holding it, with reverent hands
And head erect, the prelate stands,
A man of stately mien.

"Go back!" he cries, and fronts the king,
Whilst clear and bold his accents ring
Throughout the sacred fane-

And Echo seems their sound to bring
Triumphant back again-

"Go back, nor dare, with impious tread,
Into the presence pure and dread,

Thy guilty soul to bring,

Impenitent-0 thou, who art

A murderer, though a king!"

A murmur, deepening to a roar,

'Mid those who were clust'ring round the door;

A few disjointed but eager words

A sudden glimmer of naked swords;
And the bishop raised his longing eyes,

In speechless praise, to the distant skies;

The Danish king, Swend, soon after his entrance into the Christian church, slew some of his "jarls" without a trial, and, on presenting himself, after the commission of this crime, at the portal of the newlybuilt cathedral of Roskilde, in Zealand, found it barred by the pastoral staff of the English missionary and bishop who had converted him. After receiving the rebuke given in the poem, and forbidding his attendants to molest the bishop, he returned whence he came, and shortly after, made his reappearance in the garb of a penitent, when he was received by the prelate, and, after a certain time of penance, absolved; after which they became fast friends.

VOL. III. 34

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