Α DISCOURSE CONCERNING THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD. Ο γὰρ ἑαυτὸν γνοὺς, γνώσεται θεόν· θεὸν δὲ ὁ γνοὺς, ὁμοιωθήσεται θεῷ· ὁμοιωθήσεται δὲ θεῷ, ὁ ἄξιος γενόμενος θεοῦ· ἄξιος δὲ γίνεται θεοῦ, ὁ μηδὲν ἀνάξιον πράττων θεοῦ, ἀλλὰ φρονῶν μὲν τὰ αὐτοῦ, λαλῶν δὲ ἃ φρονεῖ, ποιῶν δὲ ἃ λαλεῖ. AGAPETUS De Off. Reg. 3. Ex tot generibus nullum est animal, præter hominem, quod habeat notitiam aliquam dei: ipsisque in hominibus nulla gens est neque tam immansueta, neque tam fera, quæ non, etiamsi ignoret, qualem habere deum deceat, tamen habendum sciat Cic. De Legibus, 1. 8. A DISCOURSE OF THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF GOD. CHAPTER I. That the best way to know God is by an attentive reflection upon our own souls. God more clearly and lively pictured upon the souls of men, than upon any part of the sensible world. WE E shall now come to the other cardinal principle of all religion, and treat something concerning God: and here we shall not so much demonstrate that He is, as what He is. Both these we may best learn from a reflection upon our own souls, as Plotinus hath well taught us: 'He who reflects upon himself, reflects upon his own original',' and finds the clearest impression of some eternal nature and perfect being stamped upon his own soul. And, therefore, Plato seems sometimes to reprove the ruder sort of men in his times for their contrivance of pictures and images to put themselves in mind of the Oeoí, or angelical beings, and exhorts them to look into their own souls, which are the fairest images, not only of the lower divine natures, but of the Deity itself; God having so copied forth Himself into the whole life and energy of man's soul, as that the lovely characters of Divinity may be most easily seen and read of all men within themselves2: as 1 εἰς ἑαυτὸν ἐπιστρέφων, εἰς ἀρχὴν ἐπιστρέφει.— Enn. VI. 9, 2. * σπουδάσαντος δὲ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀνοιχθέν τος οὐκ οἶδα εἴ τις ἑώρακε τὰ ἐντὸς ἀγάλ ματα. ἀλλ ̓ ἐγὼ ἤδη ποτ' εἶδον, καί μοι ἔδοξεν οὕτω θεῖα καὶ χρυσᾶ εἶναι καὶ πάγ καλα καὶ θαυμαστά, κ.τ.λ.-Plat. Sympos. 216 E. Clemens Alex. adopts the same idea. ἐνταῦθα καὶ τὸ ἀπεικόνισμα εὕροιμεν ἂν τὸ they say Phidias, the famous statuary, after he had made the statue of Minerva with the greatest exquisiteness of art, to be set up in the Acropolis at Athens, afterwards impressed his own image so deeply in her buckler, ut nemo delere posset aut divellere, qui totam statuam non imminueret1. And if we would know what the impress of souls is, it is nothing but God Himself, who could not write His own name so as that it might be read, except in rational natures. Neither could He make such, without imparting such an imitation of His own eternal understanding to them, as might be a perpetual memorial of Himself within them. And whenever we look upon our own soul in a right manner, we shall find a Urim and Thummim there, by which we may ask counsel of God Himself, who will have this always borne upon its breastplate. There is nothing that so debases and enthrals the souls of men, as the dismal and dreadful thoughts of their own mortality, which will not suffer them to look beyond this short span of time, to see an hour's length before them, or to look higher than these material heavens; which though they could be stretched forth to infinity, yet would the space be too narrow for an enlightened mind, that will not be confined within the compass of corporeal θεῖον καὶ ἅγιον ἄγαλμα, ἐν τῇ δικαίᾳ ψυχῇ, ὅταν μακαρία μὲν αὐτὴ τυγχάνῃ, ἅτε προκεκαθαρμένη, μακάρια δὲ διαπραττομένη Epya.-Strom. Lib. VII. cap. 5. He also states that Numa forbad the making of images to represent God. Novμᾶς δὲ ὁ 'Ρωμαίων βασιλεύς, Πυθαγόριος μὲν ἦν· ἐκ δὲ τοῦ Μωσέως ὠφεληθείς, δι εκώλυσεν ἀνθρωποειδῆ καὶ ζωόμορφον εἰκόνα Θεοῦ Ρωμαίοις κτίζειν.—Strom. Lib. I. сар. 15. Cf. Plot. Enn. v. 1, 6. Δεῖ τοίνυν θεατὴν ἐκείνου ἐν τῷ εἴσω οἷον νεῷ ἐφ' ἑαυτοῦ ὄντος, μένοντος ἡσύχου ἐπέκεινα ἁπάντων, τὰ οἷον πρὸς τὰ ἔξω ἤδη ἀγάλ ματα ἑστῶτα, μᾶλλον δὲ ἄγαλμα τὸ πρῶτ τον ἐκφανὲν θεᾶσθαι πεφηνὸς τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον. 1 Phidian illum, quem pictorem probum fuisse tradit memoria, vidi ipse in clypeo Minervæ, quæ arcibus Atheniensibus præsidet, oris sui similitudinem colligasse: ita ut, si quis olim artificis voluisset exinde imaginem separare, soluta compage, simulacri totius incolumitas interiret.-Apul. De Mundo, 746. Videlicet Phidiæ secutus exemplum, qui clypeo Minerva effigiem suam inclusit, qua convulsa, tota operis colligatio solveretur.-Val. Max. vIII. 14, 6. dimensions. These black opinions of death and the nonentity of souls-darker than hell itself-shrink up the free-born spirit which is within us, which would otherwise be dilating and spreading itself boundlessly beyond all finite being: and when these sorry, pinching, mists are once blown away, it finds this narrow sphere of being give way before it; and, having once seen beyond time and matter, it finds then no more ends or bounds to stop its swift and restless motion. It may then fly upwards from one heaven to another, till it be beyond all orb of finite being, swallowed up in the boundless abyss of divinity, ὑπεράνω τῆς οὐσίας—beyond all that which darker thoughts are wont to represent under the idea of essence. This is that Oetov σKÓTOS of which the Areopagite speaks, into which the higher our minds soar, the more incomprehensible they find it. Those dismal apprehensions which pinion the souls of men to mortality, churlishly check and starve that noble life thereof, which would always be rising upwards, and spread itself in a free heaven: and when once the soul hath shaken off these, when it is once able to look through a grave, and see beyond death, it finds a vast immensity of being opening itself more and more before it, and the ineffable light and beauty thereof shining more and more into it; when it can rest and bear up itself upon an immaterial centre of immortality within, it will then find itself able to bear itself away, by a self-reflection, into the contemplation of an eternal Deity. For though God hath copied forth His own perfections in this conspicable and sensible world, according as it is capable of entertaining them; yet the most clear and distinct copy of Himself could be imparted to none else but to intelligible and inconspicable natures: and though the whole fabric of this visible universe be whispering out the notions of a Deity, and always inculcates this lesson K |