Book I, Part 1, Chapter 1. Of the first Motive that obliges us to Virtue and the Service of God, which is his Being, considered in itself; and of the Excellency of his Divine Perfections

1. Two things, Christian reader, particularly dispose the will of man to the undertaking of any commendable action. The consideration of duty and justice is the one ; the other, the benefit and advantage we may reap by it. All wise men, therefore, agree, that justice and profit are the two most powerful inducements to incline our will to whatsoever it ought to undertake. Now, though profit be more generally sought after, yet justice is, in itself, the more prevalent of the two ; for, as Aristotle teaches, no worldly advantage can be equivalent to the excellence of virtue, nor any loss so great, as that a prudent man should not embrace it rather than incline to vice. The design of this book being to allure and incline men to embrace the beauty of virtue, it will be proper to begin with the principal part, showing how far we are obliged to it, on account of the duty we owe to God, who, being goodness itself, neither commands, requires or asks any thing in this world, but that we be virtuous. Let us see, in the first place, and seriously consider, on what grounds, and for what reasons, Almighty God claims this duty of us.

2. But since these are innumerable, we shall here touch upon only six of the chief of them, on account of every one of which, man owes all he is or can do. The first, greatest and most inexplicable of them, is the very being of God, which comprehends the greatness of his infinite majesty and of all his perfections ; that is, the incomprehensible immensity of his goodness and

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mercy, of his justice, his wisdom, his omnipotence, his excellence, his beauty, his fidelity, his sweetness, his truth, his felicity, with the rest of those inexhaustible riches and perfections that are contained in his divine essence. All which are so great and wonderful, that, according to St. Augustine, if the whole world were full of books, and each particular creature employed to write in them, and all the sea turned into ink, the books would be sooner filled, the writers sooner tired, and the sea sooner drained, than any one of his perfections could be fully expressed. The same doctor says further, that should God create a new man, with a heart as large and as capacious as the hearts of all men together, and he, by the assistance and favor of an extraordinary light, come to the knowledge of any one of his inconceivable attributes, the pleasure and delight this must cause in him would quite overwhelm and make him burst with joy, unless God were to support and strengthen him in a very particular manner.

3. This, therefore, is the first and chief reason, that obliges us to the love and the service of God. It is a point so universally agreed upon, that the very Epicureans, who, by their denying of a Divine Providence, and the immortality of the soul, have ruined all philosophy, never went so far as to cut off all religion, which is nothing else but the worship and adoration we owe to God, For one of those philosophers, discoursing upon this matter (Cic. de Nat. Deorum), brings very strong and undeniable arguments, to prove, that there is a God ; that this God is infinite in all his perfections, and deserves, therefore, to be reverenced and adored ; and that this duty would be incumbent on us, though God had no other title to it. If a king, even out of his own dominions, purely only for the dignity of his person, is treated with respect and honor, when we have no expectation of any favor from him ; with how much more justice are we to pay the same duties to this King and Lord, who, as St. John says, has these words written upon his garment, and upon his thighs, King of kings and Lord of lords ! This is he, who with three fingers holds up the frame of the earth. It is he that disposes the causes of all things ; it is he that gives motion to the celestial orbs, that changes the seasons, and that alters the elements. He it is that divides the waters, produces the winds, and creates all things. It is from him that the planets receive their force and influences. It is he, in fine, that, as King and Lord of the universe, gives every creature its life and nourishment. And, besides all this, the kingdom he is in possession of, neither came to him by succession, , nor by election or inheritance, but by nature. And as man is naturally above an ant, so this noble Being is, in such an eminent degree, above all created things whatsoever, that they, and -ill the world together, are scarce any more, in regard of him, than one of these insects. If philosophers, so ill principled as the Epicureans were, have acknowledged this truth, what ought we to do, who are brought up in the Christian religion ? — a religion, which teaches us, that, notwithstanding the infinite obligations we have to God, we are more indebted to him upon this account than upon any other ; so that, if a man had a thousand hearts and bodies., this reason alone should be enough to make him offer them all to his honor and service. This is a point which all the saints, who have had a sincere and disinterested love for him, have faithfully complied with. And, therefore, St. Bernard, upon this subject, says, " True love is neither increased by hope, nor lessened by distrust ;" Serm. 83, in Cantic. Hereby giving us to understand, that it is not the reward he expects, that makes him serve God : but that he would go on still with the same fervor, though he were sure he should never have any thing for it ; because he is not influenced by interest, nor wrought upon by any other consideration, but that of the pure love which is due to his infinite goodness.

4. But though this, of all obligations, is the greatest, yet it is that which, least of all, moves those who are not perfect. Because the greater power self-love has over them, the more they are carried on by their own interest ; and, being as yet but rude and ignorant, they are unable to conceive the beauty and excellence of this supreme goodness. Whereas, were they but a little more enlightened, the very brightness of this divine glory would charm them into a love of it above all other things. For which reason, it will be very proper to instruct them upon this matter, that they may acquire a more perfect knowledge of the majesty of God. All I intend to make use of, for the effecting of this, shall be taken out of St. Denis, who wrote his treatise of Mystical Divinity with no other design, but to let us know how infinitely different God Almighty's excellences and perfections are, from those of creatures : that, by seeing this, we may learn, if we have a mind to know what God is, the necessity of shutting our eyes to the beauties we observe in creatures, for fear of deceiving ourselves, whilst we judge of God by those things that bear no proportion at all with his greatness. We are to look upon them as mean and base, and raise up our souls to the contemplation of a Being that exceeds all beings; of a Substance, above all other substances ; of a Light, that eclipses all other lights ; and of a Beauty, which is so far beyond all beauties imaginable, that the greatest of them, and the most complete, is but ugliness and deformity when set by this. This is what we are told by the cloud Moses entered into to discourse with God, which removed every thing but God from him, that lie might, by that means, have a better knowledge of God ; Exod. xxiv. 16, 18. And Elias's covering his face with his cloak, when he saw the glory of God passing before him, is a lively expression of the same thing; 3 Kings, xix. 13. It is certain, then, that a man, to contemplate the perfections and beauty of God, should turn away his eyes from all the things of this world, as too base and mean to be regarded at the same time wTith him.

•5. We shall understand this much better, if wTe consider the vast difference between this uncreated Being and all that ate created ; that is to say, between the Creator and his creatures. For all these we see had a beginning, and may have an end ; but he is without a beginning, and can have no end. They all acknowledge a superior, and depend upon another ; but he knows nothing above himself, and, therefore, is independent. The creatures are variable and inconstant, but the Creator is always the same, and cannot change. The creatures are composed of different matters, but the Creator is a most pure Being, and free from all those mixtures which bodies are made up of; for, should he consist of several parts, there must, of necessity, have been some being above and before him, to have ordered these parts, a thing altogether impossible. The creatures can never come to such a degree, of perfection as not to admit of a further increase ; they may receive more than they have already, and know what they are at present ignorant of; but God can never be better than he is now, because he contains within himself the perfections of all other beings : nor is it possible that he, who is the Source of all riches, should ever be richer. Nor can he know more than he does already, because his wisdom is infinite, and his eternity, which has all things present to it, suffers nothing to be concealed from his knowledge. Aristotle, the chief of all the heathen philosophers, not ignorant of this truth, calls him a pure act; which is a complete and absolute perfection, incapable of any further addition, there being nothing imaginable above it ; nor can we think of any thing it stands in need of. There is no creature in the world free from motion and change ; and it is this that helps them in the finding of what they wTant, for they are all of them poor and needy. God, on the contrary, is fixed and immovable ; because he is never exposed to any kind of necessity, but is present in all places. There is, in all created things, some difference or other, by which one creature is to be easily known and distinguished from another ; but the purity of God's essence allows of no difference or distinction. So that his being is his essence, his essence is his -power, his power is his will, his will is his understanding, his understanding is his being, his Deing is his wisdom, his wisdom is his justice, his justice is his mercy. And though the effects of the one are contrary to those of the other, because the duty of mercy is to pardon, and that of justice to punish ; they are, notwithstanding, so perfectly one and the same thing in him, that his mercy is his justice, and his justice is his mercy. So that to appearance, there are contrary perfections and qualities in God ; but yet, as St. Augustine observes, there is no such thing in effect (Medit. c. 19 and 20), because he is very remote and yet very present, very beautiful and very strong, constant and inconceivable, confined to no place and in all places, seen by none, and yet seeing all, who changes every thing, whilst he himself can never change. He it is, who is always in action, and yet always enjoys an eternal rest: it is he that fills all things, but cannot himself be circumscribed : who provides for all without the least solicitude : who is great without quantity, and consequently immense ; who is good without quality, and, therefore, truly and sovereignly good; nay, what is yet more, he only is good ; Matt. xix. 17. In fine, not to lose ourselves in this abyss, wre may venture to say, that as all things are tied up to the bounds of a limited being, so they have a limited power, beyond which they can never pass. The works they are employed about are limited, the places they live in have their bounds, they have names to distinguish them by, and definitions by which we may know them, and are reducible to their particular kinds. But as for this supreme Substance, it is as infinite in its power, and in all its other attributes, as it is in its being. It is not known by any definition, nor comprehended under any kind, nor confined to any place, nor distinguished by any name. On the contrary, according to St. Denis, it has all names, though it has no name, because it contains within itself all those perfections which are signified by names. We may, therefore, say, that all creatures, as they are limited, are to be comprehended ; whilst this divine essence, inasmuch as it is infinite, is far above the reach of any created understanding. For, as Aristotle says, since that which is infinite has no end, it is not to be comprehended but by him alone who comprehends all things. What else could be the meaning of those two seraphims Isaias saw near the majesty of God, seated upon a high throne, each of which had six wings ; with two of them they covered his face, and with two his feet ; Isa. vi. 12. Was it not to teach us, that these, which possess the chief places in heaven, and are seated the nearest to God, are not capable of knowing perfectly what he is, though they have the favor to see him clearly, in his very essence and in all his beauty ? For as a man, standing on the shore, sees the sea itself yet cannot discover its depth or extent, so these blessed spirits, with all the saints in heaven, see God truly and really, but can neither fathom the abyss of his greatness, nor measure the duration of his eternity. For this reason God is said to be seated upon the cherubims : and, though they are filled with treasures of wisdom, nevertheless, to show how short they come of conceiving his majesty, or of understanding his essence, it is said, that he sits upon them.

6. This is the darkness David speaks of, when he says, God made darkness his covert; Ps. xvii. 12. To give us to understand what the apostle has expressed more clearly, saying that God inhabiteth light inaccessible ; 1 Tim. vi. 16. The prophet calls light darkness, because it dazzles our eyes so that we cannot look against it to see God. And as, according to one of the philosophers, there is nothing more resplendent or visible than the sun, and nothing at the same time which we can less look at, because of its extraordinary brightness and the weakness of our sight ; in like manner, there is nothing more intelligible -in itself than God is, and yet nothing, for the same reason, that we understand less.

7. If, therefore, any man desire to know what God is, when arrived at the highest degree of perfection he is capable of conceiving, he must with humility confess, that an infinite space still remains ; that what he proposed to himself is infinitely greater than he imagined ; and that the more sensible he is of these incomprehensibilities, the further advance he has made in this sublime science. For this reason St. Gregory, writing upon those words of Job, v. 9, Who doth great things and unsearchable, and wonderful things without number — says thus : We never speak better of the works of the Almighty God, than when, surprised with astonishment and ravished with wonder, we keep an awful silence. And as those persons, who design to praise another, whose deserts are beyond all they are able to say, think they best discharge themselves from their obligation when they say nothing at all ; so ought we, in St. Denis's opinion, to reverence the wonders of this supreme Deity with a holy and profound respect of soul, and with a chaste and devout silence. The saint seems herein to allude to those words of David, A hymn, O God, becometh theein Sion (Ps. lxiv. 2), which St. Jerome has translated thus: " Thou, O God, art praised by silence in Sion :" to signify to us, that we cannot praise God in a more perfect manner than by saying nothing at all in praise of him, acknowledging the incapacity of our understanding, owning with humility that this inexpressible substance is too high for us to conceive ; and confessing that his being is above all beings, his power above all powers, his greatness above all greatnesses, and that his substance infinitely excels, and is inconceivably different from all other substances, whether material or spiritual. Upon which St. Augustine says excellently well, " When I seek my God, I seek not the beauty of the body, nor the agreeableness of the seasons, nor the brightness of the light, nor the sweet charms of the voice, nor the odoriferous smell of flowers, perfumes and essences; it is neither manna nor honey, nor any other thing that is pleasing to the flesh ; I seek none of these things when I seek my God : and yet I seek a certain light not to be seen by the eyes, and exceeding all light ; a voice beyond all voices, yet not to be discerned by the ears ; a smell surpassing all smells, which the nostrils are not capable of; a sweetness more delightful than all sweetness, yet unknown to the taste, and a satisfaction above all satisfactions, that is not to be felt. For this light shines where there is no place, this voice sounds where the air does not carry it away, this smell is perceived where the wind does not disperse it, and this taste delights where there is no palate to relish it, and this satisfaction is received where it is never lost." L. 10. Conf. c. 6. Soliloq. c. 31.

§ I. — 8. If none of these reasons, as weighty as they are, can give you the satisfaction you expect, of having some idea of this unspeakable majesty, cast your eyes upon the frame of this material world, the work of God's own hands ; that so the contemplation of such a noble effect may give you some insight into the excellence of the case. Presupposing, in the first place, with St. Denis, that in every thing there is a being, power and action, which bear such proportion to one another, that the power is always suitable to the being, and the action to the power. This being presupposed, consider the beauty, the order and extent of this world : since, as astronomers tell us, there are stars in heaven fourscore times as big as the earth and sea together. Consider again, how many different sorts of creatures there are upon the earth, in the water and in the air; you will see every thing so complete and perfect in its kind, monsters only excepted, that you can wish for nothing to be added or diminished, to make its being more complete ; and yet, according to St. Augustine, who grounds his opinion on Ecclesiasticus xvii. 1, God, in one single moment, created this world, as great and wonderful as it is ; drew a being from no being, and wrought this great work without any matter to work upon; without any help or assistance; without any outward draft or platform ; without any tools or instruments ; without any limits of either space or time. He created the whole earth, and all that is contained within the extent of the same, by one single act of his will. Consider, further, that God could have produced a thousand worlds more, much fairer and larger than this, much better peopled too, as easily as he created this; and that, if he had made them, he could with as much ease, and without any kind of opposition, reduce them to nothing again.

Now, if, according to our supposition taken from St. Denis, by the effects and operations of things we judge of their power, and by their power of their being ; how powerful must that cause be, which has produced such wonderful effects ! And, if this power be so great, what must the Being be, which we are to judge of by this power? This, doubtless, surpasses all expression or magination ; and yet we are further to consider, that all these great and perfect works, which are or might have been, are nothing at all in comparison of the divine power, but infinitely inferior to

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it : who then, can reflect on, or contemplate the greatness of so eminent a Being, and so high a power, without surprise and astonishment? Yet, though we did not see with our corporal eyes, we cannot, from what has been said, but conceive, in some measure, how great and incomprehensible this power is.

9. St. Thomas, in his Sum of Divinity, explains this infinite greatness very clearly, by this example : We see, says he, that in' material or corporeal things, that which is the most perfect is the greatest in quantity. Thus the water is greater than the earth, the air is greater than the water, and the fire greater than the air. The first heaven is greater than the element of fire ; the second heaven greater than the first ; the third than the second ; and so of the rest, till you come to the tenth sphere or empyreal heaven, which is of unmeasurable greatness. This will appear much plainer yet, if we consider what proportion the sea and earth joined together have with the heavens ; for astronomers tell us, they are both but as a point in comparison of them : which they prove by this demonstration. They divide the heavens equally into twelve signs, through which the sun performs its yearly course ; and because a man may always see six of these signs, in whatsoever part of the earth he be, they conclude, that the earth is but as a point, or a sheet of paper, in the middle of the world ; for, if its extent could be, though ever so little, compared with that of the heavens, we should not be able to discover half of them at once, in any part of the earth whatsoever. Now, if the empyreal orb, the most excellent and most noble of all material substances, is so incomparably bigger than all the other orbs ; we may from thence infer, that God, who is above all beings imaginable, whether corporeal or spiritual, as being the Author of them all, must be infinitely greater than all of them together ; not in quantity, for he is a pure Spirit, but in the excellence and perfection of his being.

10. But, to come more home to our subject, you may, I say, by this means know, in some manner, what God's perfections are, because they cannot but bear a proportion to his being. The author of the book called Ecclesiasticus, speaking of God's mercy, says, His mercy is as great as himself ; Eccl. ii. 23. Nor are any of his other attributes less. So that his goodness, his mercy, his majesty, his meekness, his wisdom, his bounty, his omnipotence and his justice, are all entirely equal. Thus he is infinitely good, infinitely merciful, infinitely wise, infinitely amiable, and upon these considerations most infinitely worthy to be obeyed, respect- . ed, reverenced and feared, by all creatures. Nay, were man's heart capable of an infinite love and fear, justice would oblige him to give it all to God, upon the account of his infinite greatness. For, if, the greater quality a person is of, the more respect we arc to show him, we ought to pay God an infinite respect, because his dignity is infinite. Whatsoever, therefore, our love wants of acquiring this degree, is wanting upon no other account but our inability of making God the returns his boundless greatness deserves.

11. Since, then, it is certain that, were there no other consideration but that alone, it would be a sufficient motive to oblige us to the love of God ; what can he be in love with, who does not love this goodness ? Or what can he be afraid of, who does not fear this infinite majesty ? Whom will he serve, who will not serve this Lord? What was our will given us for, but to love and to embrace good ? If, therefore, this great God be the sovereign good, why does not our will embrace it before all other goods ? If it is an unhappiness and misery not to love him, nay, and that, too, above all things in the world, what should those persons expect, who love every thing else better than they do him ? Who would ever have thought that man could carry his ingratitude and malice so far : and yet what do they less who are continually offending this sovereign goodness, for a beastly pleasure, for a trifling punctilio of honor, or from some vile and sordid interest ? What, then, shall we think of them, who sin upon no motive at all, but either out of mere malice or custom, and without the least hope of advantage or profit ? Yet this pass mankind is now come to. O, unparalleled blindness and folly ! O, insensibility, worse than that of brutes ! O, the diabolical rashness and impudence of man ! What punishment does he not deserve, that lets himself be carried away by such a crime as this ? What torments ought not he to expect, who has the boldness to despise so high a majesty ? Such an unhappy soul shall, without doubt, be condemned to those pains and torments prepared for it ; to burn with the devils in hell for all eternity ; — a punishment far less than such offences deserve.

12. This is the first and chiefest reason that obliges us to the love and service of God. An obligation so close and strict, that there is nothing in the world can oblige us to love the creatures, because of their perfections, which is to be called an obligation, if wTe compare it with this. For as the perfections of the creatures are but mere imperfections, in comparison with the perfections of God ; so all the obligations, that proceed from these perfections and excellences, cannot with any justice be called obligations, if you set them against those we owe to God : nor can the offences we commit against the creatures, be properly accounted such, if we but consider those we are guilty of towards God. This is the reason wThy David, in his Penitential Psalm, cries out, Against thee alone, meaning God, have I sinned ; Ps. 1. 5. Though, at the same time, he had ' sinntd against Uria$ vhom he murdered ; against Urias's wife, whom he seduced ; md against all his subjects, in the scandal his bad example gave them ; and yet, after all, he declared he had sinned against God alone ; looking upon all those other offences as nothing at all, if compared with those he had committed against the law of God. This crime so afflicted him, that he cook no notice of the rest. — For as God is infinitely greater than all the creatures; so the obligations we have to serve him, and the offences we commit against his divine majesty, are infinitely greater, too, there being no comparison nor proportion between finite and infinite.