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Venerable Leonard Lessius, S.J. 
 
THE 
 
 NAMES OF GOD 
 
 AND 
 
 MEDITATIVE SUMMARIES OF THE 
 DIVINE PERFECTIONS 
 
 The Venerable Leonarl/Lessius, s.j. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 T. J. CAMPBELL, S.J. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 The America Press 
 
 19L2 
 
£7100 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1912 
 BY 
 
 The America Press 
 
 <gCI.A330633 
 
^73 
 
 3mprtmt potrat 
 
 Anthony J. Maas, s.j. 
 Provincial Maryland-New York Province 
 
 Ntf?U ©batat 
 
 Remegius Lafort 
 , Censor 
 
 imprimatur 
 
 fl&JoHN Cardinal Farley 
 
 Archbishop of New York 
 
 New York, December 6, 1012. 
 
 THE MEANY PRINTING CO., NEW YORK. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 IF we had remained in the state of innocence, 
 * meditation on divine things would have been 
 easy. It would have been a constant delight to 
 walk in the presence of God and to excite in the 
 heart acts of faith, hope, charity, thanksgiving, 
 humility, reverence, obedience and the like. In 
 that happy state man enjoyed a very special as*- 
 sistance, which enabled him to know his Creator 
 and to fulfil with the greatest joy all the duties 
 that the various virtues enjoined. But when that 
 blissful condition ceased in consequence of sin, 
 this help was withdrawn, and our natural weak- 
 ness made the contemplation of divine things irk- 
 some and the practice of virtue difficult. Earthly 
 and material things now appeal to us powerfully 
 and we readily give days to discuss and examine 
 them. The wars and battles of history or fiction 
 fascinate us, but we have to force ourselves to 
 contemplate the things of heaven. The perfec- 
 tions or attributes of God are particularly diffi- 
 cult, and yet there is nothing more helpful to sal- 
 vation, nor more agreeable and consoling when 
 once we have made a little progress; none are 
 more efficacious for the acquisition of virtue nor 
 better calculated to clarifv the mind and to throw 
 
vi Author's Preface 
 
 light on all the duties of life. For the Holy Scrip- 
 ture says : "To know Thee is perfect justice and 
 to know Thy justice and Thy power is the root 
 of immortality. (Wis. xv.) 
 
 Hence following the example of St. Denis the 
 Areopagite whose works have for fifty years ex- 
 ercised on me a most marvellous charm, I have 
 resolved to explain very briefly the divine perfec- 
 tions or attributes ascribed to God by the Holy 
 Books. In this short exposition I omitted de- 
 signedly the testimony of the Scriptures and the 
 Fathers and also all theological proofs in order 
 that the reader may more readily form a clear 
 idea of these divine attributes, excite in his heart 
 affections worthy of such sublime considerations 
 and by this exercise, as St. Denis says, make his 
 soul "deiform," or like unto God. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 
 
 A LTHOUGH three hundred years have 
 ** elapsed since the illustrious Leonard Les- 
 sius, S.J. wrote his treatise on "The Names of 
 God," and in a series of "Meditative Summaries" 
 condensed his great work on "The Divine Per- 
 fections," no English translation of either work 
 has yet appeared. Some early versions in French 
 and Flemish were published as far back as the 
 seventeenth century, and Father Bouix, S.J., gave 
 us his translation in French in 1882, but it is 
 only now in 1912, that an effort is made to put. 
 this splendid spiritual book in the hands of Eng- 
 lish readers. 
 
 "The Names of God" — there are fifty in all — 
 is the last work that Lessius ever wrote. Five 
 or six days after he laid aside his manuscript the 
 Angel of Death wrote finis on the story of the 
 great man's life. The concluding chapter was 
 fittingly entitled "God our Last End," and its 
 closing paragraph reads as if he were gazing 
 into the face of the Lord and expecting to be 
 called to heaven. "During all eternity" he tells 
 us, "all the angels and all the blessed will so 
 rest in the vision, the love and the beatific vision 
 of God that they will desire nothing more, but 
 
 vii 
 
viii Translators Preface 
 
 will find in Him the term of all their desires and 
 enjoy in Him a blessed repose." 
 
 This part of the book is made up of fifty chap- 
 ters, most of them very brief, but all of them re- 
 plete with the sublimest theology and furnishing 
 a superabundance of matter for devout considera- 
 tion. 
 
 "The Meditative Summaries" which constitute 
 the second half of the work are the concluding 
 chapters of his fifteen famous treatises on "The 
 Divine Perfections." He calls them "Recollec- 
 tiones Precatorice." Father Bouix who was evi- 
 dently thinking of Bossuet and possibly making 
 a mental comparison between the two men en- 
 titles them "Elevations et Prieres' which is rather 
 a free translation. "Meditative Summaries" we 
 think more accurately describes their character, 
 for they are like the Colloquies which St. Ignatius 
 recommends us to make at the end of our medi- 
 tations. They are in reality a succinct resume 
 of all the theology that had been elaborated and 
 discussed in the previous disquisitions, combined 
 with fervid outpourings of the heart in prayer, 
 adoration and love. He seems to forget the pres- 
 ence of his students and addresses himself directly 
 to Almighty God. Happy students to have had a 
 teacher with the mind of a seer and the heart of 
 a seraph. 
 
Translator's Preface ix 
 
 On account of the sublime doctrines which he 
 is expounding, the terminology is at times un- 
 avoidably technical. But this is true only of the 
 opening chapters. Ordinarily his language is 
 extremely simple and he never hesitates to repeat 
 his expressions in order to make his meaning 
 clear. Moreover what at first seems hard to 
 understand clarifies itself as he proceeds and even 
 where we are unable to follow him we cannot fail 
 to contemplate with amazement the flight of his 
 marvellously illumined intellect into the divine 
 mysteries. 
 
 The few explanatory notes taken from the 
 standard treatises of philosophy and theology and 
 appended by the translator may contribute some- 
 what to a better understanding of the terms em- 
 ployed, but the main body of the work is within 
 the reach of ordinary readers especially those 
 who live in the light of the Sacraments. 
 
 The literary tone of the "Summaries" cannot 
 fail to please. They are written in what rhet- 
 oricians call the cumulative style, which consists 
 in piling up new thoughts and new aspects of 
 things, each following closely on the other, and 
 all hurrying onward to a sublime and splendid 
 climax. It is like listening to the utterances of 
 an inspired orator. 
 
 Lessius was one of the most illustrious the- 
 
x Translator's Preface 
 
 ologians of the Society of Jesus, the glory of the 
 University of Louvain and the especial pride of 
 Catholic Belgium. He was born at Brecht near 
 Antwerp in 1554; at the time when the Protestant 
 Reformation was in full blast; when Charles V 
 reigned in Spain, Henry II in France and Mary 
 Tudor in England. He was 12 years old when 
 Philip II sent the Duke of Alva to the Nether- 
 lands. 
 
 He was only 17 when he entered the University 
 of Louvain but his unusual ability won for him al- 
 most immediately both from masters and 
 students the title of "Prince of Philosophers." 
 Shortly after beginning his studies in the Uni- 
 versity, he entered the Society of Jesus which was 
 then in the 37th year of its existence. 
 
 At 20 he was teaching philosophy at Douai 
 and continued at that work for seven consecu- 
 tive years. But philosophy alone was not suffi- 
 cient to absorb his powers. He became a pro- 
 found Hellenist and it is asserted by a grave his- 
 torian that in two months time he mastered Greek 
 so as to be able to converse in it. He was even 
 then familiar with all the great thelogians, the 
 Fathers of the Church and the notable writers on 
 Holy Scripture. He was an authority in the ori- 
 ental languages, canon and civil law, history and 
 mathematics, and conversant with medicine, be- 
 
Translators Preface xi 
 
 sides speaking with facility several modern 
 languages. All this was before he had reached 
 his 27th year; so that there is small wonder he 
 was an invalid for the rest of his life; but illness 
 never made him work less. 
 
 When he was ordained he was sent to Rome 
 where Suarez taught him for two years. It was 
 this great master who emancipated him from an 
 excessive anxiety about theological and philo- 
 sophical authority. "In every question," he was 
 told, "in which faith and morals are not involved, 
 you are to follow your own opinion provided you 
 can show that it is founded on reason. Such an 
 utterance from an oracle like Suarez dissipated 
 his fears and after that, says his biographer "the 
 eagle took its flight." 
 
 From Rome he was recalled to Belgium to 
 teach dogmatic theology at Louvain, and for 
 thirty-eight years he was not only the pride of 
 that University but one of the most brilliant 
 theologians of his age. He was esteemed and 
 praised by several great popes, and in 1587 when 
 certain doctors of Louvain, probably prompted by 
 Baius, took exception to some of his propositions, 
 Sixtus V undertook his defense and sent a Nuncio 
 to Belgium invested with the power of a legate a 
 latere to declare in the name of the Pope that the 
 propositions were absolutely in conformity with 
 
xii Translator's Preface 
 
 sound doctrine. Such a pronouncement made the 
 reputation of Lessius world-wide and the Uni- 
 versities of Mayence, Treves, Ingolstadt and Lou- 
 vain hastened to declare in his favor. He was 
 consulted by theologians from all parts of the 
 world, and his word was law for them. Paul V 
 thanked him publicly in Rome for his labors for 
 the Church, and years afterwards when Lessius 
 had gone to his reward Urban VIII said of him : 
 "I knew Leonard Lessius perfectly. I was inti- 
 mately associated with him in Rome and I have 
 always held him in the highest regard on account 
 of his extraordinary learning. But I esteemed 
 him incomparably more for his virtue. He was 
 a most humble man and endowed with unusual 
 piety. I regard him as holding a high place in 
 heaven. " 
 
 When he was sent as Delegate to the 6th and 
 7th General Congregations of his Order, he was 
 consulted by the learned men of every city 
 through which he passed. He was called "The 
 Oracle of the Low Countries." Prince Albert 
 who then governed Belgium took him as his ad- 
 viser, and in the Council Chamber had always 
 before him on the table the treatise of Lessius De 
 Jure et Justitia, Justus Lipsius the great literary 
 man of the period died in his arms. Lipsius had 
 left the faith but his friend won him back again 
 to God. 
 
Translator s Preface xiii 
 
 The list of his works is enormous. The an- 
 notated catalogue of them fills several pages of 
 the great folio edition of the Bibliotheca Scrip- 
 torum SJ. Among the translations of some parts 
 of his works we find two by the famous Father 
 Schall in Chinese and one in English by a timo- 
 rous Briton who had undertaken the task at the 
 command of Sir Walter Raleigh's ghost. The 
 ghost declared that such a work would serve to 
 check the growth of unbelief in England and 
 would also exculpate the famous knight himself 
 from the charge of infidelity. 
 
 His most important treatises are: 1. Justice 
 and Right; 2. Faith; 3. The Providence of God; 
 4. Immortality of the Soul; 5. Efficacious Grace, 
 the Divine Decrees, Free Will, Conditional Fore- 
 knowledge of God; 6. The Predestination and the 
 Reprobation of Angels and Men — the Predes- 
 tination of Christ; 7. The Sovereign Good; 8. 
 The Divine Perfections; 9. The Power of the 
 Roman Pontiff; 10. What Faith and Religion 
 should be embraced; (This treatise St. Francis 
 of Sales said was rather the work of the Angel 
 of the Great Council than of Lessius. It brought 
 back Prince John of Nassau and many other dis- 
 tinguished personages to the Church.) 11. Ab- 
 stinence; 12. The Choice of a State of Life, and 
 Celibacy; 13. The Names of God. 
 
xiv Translator's Preface 
 
 In the Imago Primi Sceculi Societatis Jesu, 
 Lessius is described as follows: "His soul, 
 greater than the world, was always turned to- 
 wards God, so that on earth he seemed to lead the 
 life of heaven. Taking but little nourishment 
 and that only once a day, he was nevertheless 
 constantly occupied in reading and writing on 
 divine things. His countenance was re- 
 splendent with the light of sanctity." 
 
 He was particularly remarkable for his Chris- 
 tian patience. Though afflicted with bodily in- 
 firmities from his earliest youth, and suffering 
 particularly in the four last years of his life, he 
 never prayed for any alleviation of his pain. On 
 the contrary he was continually thanking God 
 for giving him a share of the cross. His only 
 remedy was abstinence, and in that respect he 
 was a source of astonishment to those who lived 
 with him. His unusual intellectual powers 
 which always seemed to be flooded with light en- 
 abled him to surmount his bodily suffering. In- 
 deed it was while he was undergoing what 
 amounted almost to martyrdom that he wrote his 
 masterpieces. His friends regarded it as mir- 
 aculous. 
 
 His writings reveal his soul, especially those 
 on the Sovereign Good and the Divine Names. 
 With St. Denis and St. Augustine he rises to the 
 
Translator's Preface xv 
 
 contemplation of the Divinity and speaks of God 
 as if his heart were on lire. 
 
 He died at Louvain January 15, 1623 at the 
 age of sixty-nine. In Belgium and elsewhere he 
 was regarded as a saint. He was buried before 
 the main altar of the church of the Society in 
 the Rue de Namur next to the college where he 
 had labored for thirty-nine years. St. Michel, 
 as it is called, is no longer a Jesuit church al- 
 though it still bears on its fagade and in the in- 
 terior the emblems and statues of the saints of 
 the Society. The present Jesuit establishment 
 is in what used to be a somewhat mean street 
 called the Rue des Recollets. Near the Scholasti- 
 cate however in somewhat neighborly fashion is 
 a dormitory erected by the University and named 
 after the distinguished friend of Lessius, Justus 
 Lipsius. Between the two buildings and in strik- 
 ing contrast, historically and otherwise, is the 
 Tower of Jansenius where the Augustinus is 
 said to have been written. Thirty-five years ago 
 if memory serves us right there was a tradition 
 in the Scholasticate, that the chair in the pulpit 
 of the Professor of Dogma was the identical one 
 used by Lessius in his time. Of course one may 
 be skeptical on that score, for such a fragile ar- 
 ticle of furniture could scarcely have survived 
 the storms through which the Society has passed 
 
xvi Translator's Preface 
 
 during the long period that intervened between 
 then and now. Some years ago, the bones of the 
 great man were carried over from the Rue de 
 Namur to the Rue des Recollets and deposited 
 in a marble tomb near the altar where the heart 
 of St. John Berchmans is enshrined. Of that 
 relic at least, there can be no doubt. 
 
 Immediately after his death, an ecclesiastical 
 tribunal was instituted for an official inquiry into 
 his life and virtues, with view to his canoniza- 
 tion. The testimony taken at the time was de- 
 posited in the archives of the Archbishopric of 
 Malines, but for a long time the process was in- 
 terrupted on account of political upheaval, and 
 only in our times has it been resumed. 
 
 It is superfluous to say that the works of such 
 a man must be of great value not only to priests 
 and religious, but also to people of the world who 
 are desirous of knowing more than the mere 
 rudiments of their religion. They ought also to 
 be especially serviceable both for the Directors 
 of retreats and for those who follow the Exer- 
 cises. Indeed there is every reason why "The 
 Meditative Summaries" on account of their de- 
 votional character might be used very profitably 
 for visits to the Blessed Sacrament or even while 
 assisting at Holy Mass. 
 
 We have used the Latin text as well as the 
 
Translator's Preface xvii 
 
 French translation of Bouix in preparing this 
 English version. There was thus less danger of 
 making the great man say what he never in- 
 tended. The conciseness of his style contributed 
 not a little to the difficulty of the task but we 
 trust we have succeeded in making the transla- 
 tion coincide strictly with the meaning of the 
 author. We commend the book in its new dress 
 to the benignity of the reader. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Preface v 
 
 CHAPTER. 
 
 I — God and the Divinity 1 
 
 II— He Who Is 7 
 
 III— The Infinite God 8 
 
 IV — The God of Immensity 11 
 
 V— The Most Pure God 14 
 
 VI— The Eternal God 18 
 
 VII— The Most High God 25 
 
 VIII— The Immutable God 27 
 
 IX — The Immortal God 29 
 
 X— The Invisible God. 32 
 
 XI — The Incomprehensible God 34 
 
 XII— The Ineffable God 37 
 
 XIII— The Almighty God 39 
 
 XIV— The Most Wise God 42 
 
 XV— The Most Beautiful God 44 
 
 XVI— The Good God 47 
 
 XVII— The Holy God 49 
 
 XVIII— The Merciful God 51 
 
 XIX— The Just God 53 
 
 XX— The Benign God 55 
 
 XXI— The Patient God 58 
 
 XXII— The God of Clemency 61 
 
 XXIII— The God of Sweetness G3 
 
 XXIV— The True God 65 
 
 xix 
 
xx Contents 
 
 XXV— The Blessed God 69 
 
 XXVI— God the First Beginning of All Things. 72 
 
 XXVII— God the Creator 76 
 
 XXVIII— God the Conservator 79 
 
 XXIX— Divine Providence 81 
 
 XXX— God the Ruler of the World 84 
 
 XXXI— The Divine Master. 86 
 
 XXXII— God the Redeemer 91 
 
 XXXIII— The Light of the World 93 
 
 XXXIV— God the Sanctifier 96 
 
 XXXV— God Our Refuge 98 
 
 XXXVI— God the Tender Father 100 
 
 XXXVII— God Our Protector . 102 
 
 XXXVIII— God Our Helper 106 
 
 XXXIX— God Our Strength 108 
 
 XL— God Our Support 109 
 
 XLI— God Our Life 110 
 
 XLII— God Our Hope 113 
 
 XLIII— God Our Salvation \ . . . 114 
 
 XLIV— God Our Glory 115 
 
 XL V— God Our Peace 116 
 
 XLVI— God Our Father 118 
 
 XLVII— The Jealous God 121 
 
 XLVIII — God the Judge of the Living and the 
 
 Dead 123 
 
 XLIX— God the Father of the World to Come. 127 
 
 L— God the Last End 129 
 
Contents xxi 
 
 Meditative Summaries. 
 
 chapter. 
 
 I— The Infinity of God 144 
 
 II — The Immensity of God 146 
 
 III— The Immutability of God 150 
 
 IV— The Eternity of God 154 
 
 V — The Omnipotence of God 159 
 
 VI— The Wisdom of God 162 
 
 VII— The Goodness of God 168 
 
 VIII— The Sanctity of God 173 
 
 IX— The Benignity of God 180 
 
 X — The Dominion of God 187 
 
 XI— The Providence of God 193 
 
 XII— The Mercy of God 205 
 
 XIII— The Justice of God 216 
 
 XIV— God Our Last End 224 
 
THE NAMES OF GOD 
 
THE NAMES OF GOD 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 God and the Divinity. 
 
 Dionys. C I. de Div. Nom. ; 
 De Myst. theol. C 3. 
 
 C T. DENIS tells us we can form an idea of God 
 in two ways: affirmatively and negatively. 
 The first is by positive concepts or by ascribing 
 every possible perfection to God; the second by 
 negative concepts, or by denying that any perfec- 
 tion conceivable by a created mind unillumined 
 by the light of glory can be properly predicated 
 of Him. 
 
 If we follow the first method we say, for in- 
 stance that He is a spirit, most sovereignly 
 exalted, good, great, eternal, powerful, wise, 
 sweet, holy, just, merciful, beautiful; intimately 
 present in all creatures, creating them, forming 
 them, conserving them, governing them, and or- 
 daining them to His glory, which is the first be- 
 ginning and last end of all created things. 
 
 St. Augustine in his Confessions Bk. 1, c. 4, has 
 given us such a description while adding some- 
 
 1 
 
2 The Names of God 
 
 thing that partakes to a certain degree of the 
 second method. "God is a spirit," he says, "sov- 
 ereign and sovereignly good, great, and sempi- 
 ternal; most powerful and most benign, most 
 merciful and most just, most hidden and omni- 
 present, most strong and most beautiful, most 
 simple and most perfect, indivisible and im- 
 measurable, stable and incomprehensible ; change- 
 less, yet changing all things; always in action, 
 yet ever in repose, amassing yet lacking naught ; 
 creating, nourishing, perfecting, upholding, 
 completing and protecting all things; the Being 
 from whom are all things; by whom are all 
 things,, and for whom are all things." 
 
 St. Bernard in his book De Consider atione ad- 
 dressed to Pope Eugenius, asks : "What is God?" 
 "God," he answers, "is an all powerful will, a 
 sweet force, eternal light, immutable reason, 
 sovereign beatitude; creating the soul to make it 
 participate in Himself; vivifying it, to make it 
 feel its Creator; in touch with it to make it long 
 to come to Him; dilating it to make it receive 
 Him ; justifying it to enable it to merit ; inflaming 
 it to set it on fire with zeal ; fecundating it to make 
 it fruitful; leading it to justice; forming it to 
 benevolence; moulding it to wisdom; visiting it 
 to console it; illuminating it to increase its vision; 
 guarding it for immortality ; filling it to overflow- 
 
God and the Divinity 3 
 
 ing with felicity, encompassing it for salvation." 
 Here as elsewhere, St. Bernard describes God by 
 attributing to Him all perfections. He follows 
 the affirmative method. 
 
 An example of the negative method would be 
 to say that God is a spirit, infinite, immense, 
 sempiternal, infinitely above all perfection, all ex- 
 cellence and all greatness conceivable by a 
 created mind. He is above all substance, all 
 power, all wisdom, all intelligence, all light, all 
 beauty, all sanctity, all justice, all goodness, all 
 beatitude, all glory, so that nothing of these 
 things can be properly predicated of Him. He 
 is like none of them, but is infinitely more sublime 
 and excellent than them all. 
 
 The reason of this is that all perfections 
 conceivable by us or by the angels unaided by 
 the light of glory are limited. Moreover they 
 are not included in each other; and besides all 
 perfections conceived by a created intelligence 
 are conceived as accidental forms, such as are in 
 created beings; whereas in God they are a most 
 simple substance or a self-subsisting form. 1 
 
 1 All Being is divided into substance and accident. Sub- 
 stance is that which exists per se; that is, which exists or sub- 
 sists in itself; whereas an accident is that which inheres in an- 
 other as in its subject. The primary element in the notion of 
 substance is subsistence. Hence substance may be defined as a 
 subsisting something that abides the same amid change of its 
 
4 The Names of God 
 
 In many of his writings St. Denis seems to pre- 
 fer the negative to the affirmative method. In- 
 stances of it may be found in Chapter II of The 
 Celestial Hierarchy, Chapter I and II of The 
 Names of God, and in Chapter III of Mystic 
 Theology. 
 
 The two however, may be combined, as in the 
 following description of the Divinity : "God is in- 
 comprehensible goodness in His essence, inscru- 
 table depth in His wisdom, inaccessible height in 
 His elevation; ineffable breadth in His love; in- 
 finite length in His eternity; superlative purity in 
 His holiness; absolute immensity in His great- 
 ness, an obscurity most luminous, a solitude most 
 peopled, and a simplicity most perfect. For Him- 
 self and for all the blessed He is paradise, heaven, 
 eternal rest, eternal beatitude, and the infinite 
 plenitude of all that is good." 
 
 Although in fact, as well as in the concept of 
 those who have the vision of God, there is, in no 
 
 accidents. There are spiritual as well as material substances. 
 The soul is a spiritual substance ; angels are spiritual substances ; 
 and it is part of our faith that the Second Person of the Blessed 
 Trinity is of the same substance with the Father. 
 
 Substance, essence and nature severally denote the same ob- 
 ject, but connote more especially different features. Substance 
 points to the general fact of existence per se; essence to the 
 reality of which the being is constituted; nature signifies the 
 essence as a principle of vitality. 
 
 Stonyhurst Series Psychol. 
 
God and the Divinity 5 
 
 way, any distinction between the Divinity and 
 God, yet in our concept or in our manner of con- 
 ceiving things, there is a distinction to be 
 made. For we conceive the Divinity as the form, 
 and God as the being resulting from form and 
 substance. 
 
 We may conceive the Divinity in two ways: 
 First as an infinite intellectual Essence or Nature 
 from which flow in some way all those per- 
 fections which are called attributes. These attri- 
 butes, however, are conceived not as formally 
 contained in the Divinity or in the Divine Es- 
 sence, but as being in the Divinity or Divine 
 Essence as in their foundation. We conceive 
 them as we do properties in created things. 
 
 Secondly, we may conceive the Divinity as a 
 most simple self-subsisting form of infinite per- 
 fection, and containing formally all perfections 
 in their highest degree, in such a way that God, 
 by that form is formally powerful, wise, good, 
 holy, just, etc. ; nay is formally power itself, wis- 
 dom itself, goodness itself, holiness itself, justice 
 itself ; not accidental but substantial and self-sub- 
 sistent. This manner of conceiving God is more 
 elevated, more noble and more worthy of God as 
 we have explained at length in Book 1, De Per- 
 fect, divinis, c. 1 and 3. 
 
 Reason and the testimony of the Holy Fathers 
 
6 The Names of God 
 
 also show this; for conceived in this manner the 
 Divine Essence contains formally all simple per- 
 fections, and is not considered merely as the basis 
 or foundation of them. Moreover the perfections 
 themselves are presented to us as substantial and 
 not as accidental, or accessory things. 1 
 
 1 Nowadays the word form usually signifies shape or figure, 
 or something superficial as when we speak of formal observances, 
 formalities, etc. In scholastic philosophy it signifies the active 
 factor which determines the essential nature of each being. 
 There are substantial forms and accidental forms. Substantial 
 forms are the essential constituents of a thing. Accidental forms 
 are mere accidental modes or determinations which conceivably 
 might be removed without affecting the nature of the substance, 
 e. g., heat, color, etc. 
 
 When we say that God. is formally, good, just, wise, etc., we 
 mean that He is essentially so. When we say that He is formal 
 justice, formal goodness, etc., we mean that He is justice itself, 
 goodness itself, etc. — Stonyhurst Series. Psychol. 
 
CHAPTER II. ' 
 He Who Is. 
 
 Dionys. de Div. Nom., 5; 
 St. Thos. I p. q. 13. 
 
 r^ OD is called Being, He Who Is, Self -Exist- 
 ^* ent, in five ways or for five reasons. 
 
 First. Because He is the source and cause of 
 all being; for all being comes from Him and de- 
 pends on Him continually, as the light depends 
 on the sun. 
 
 Second. Because His being is not limited. 
 He is not this or that being, as an angel or a man 
 is, but He Is universally. He comprises in Him- 
 self and anticipates every kind of being, from all 
 eternity; for the whole plentitude, the whole lati- 
 tude, and the whole amplitude of being is most 
 fully and eminently contained in Him. 
 
 Third. Because He Is eternally, and because 
 by His Being and by His life, He fills, equals, 
 comprises and includes in Himself all eternity. 
 
 Fourth. Because He Is limitlessly, and fills 
 the entire immensity of all imaginable space. 
 
 Fifth. Because He Is immutably, possessing 
 everything simultaneously and securely in a way 
 that He can never lose anything ; for He possesses 
 all things by His immutable Essence to which 
 nothing can be added, and from which nothing 
 can be withdrawn. 
 
 7 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 The Infinite God. 
 
 Ps. cxliv., 3; Dionys. c. 9; 
 St. Thos., 1 p. q. 7. 
 
 /** OD is infinite in His essence, not only in some 
 ^* kind of perfection, as power, wisdom, holi- 
 ness, justice, mercy, etc., but He is absolutely in- 
 finite in all kinds of perfection and consequently 
 in the whole range of being. 
 
 First. As the fruitful Cause in which the 
 whole amplitude of being eminently exists and 
 which includes the infinite species of every genus ; 
 the infinite individuals of every species, and con- 
 sequently whatever in the nature of being is con- 
 ceivable by the intelligence of the angels and even 
 by that of God. 
 
 That is why St. Gregory, of Nazianzen, in his 
 Oratio in Natalia calls God the immense ocean of 
 being. In it there are infinite worlds, infinite 
 species of angels, one excelling the other, on and 
 on through infinity ; infinite nations of peoples, in- 
 finite species of animals, infinite natures and vari- 
 eties of plants, of minerals and precious stones. 
 There is an infinity of gold and silver ; there are 
 8 
 
The Infinite God 9 
 
 infinite pearls of rarest size, and every description 
 of precious stones. There are infinite species 
 of colors, of paintings, of harmonies, of odors, of 
 savors and delectable objects, of the flesh and the 
 senses; infinite regions and cities, and fields and 
 forests, and groves and gardens; infinite 
 fountains and hills; infinite rivers and seas, in- 
 finite palaces and temples, infinite furnishings of 
 every kind and of inestimable price. In it finally 
 are contained an infinite abundance of all that 
 the mind can conceive of precious and beautiful 
 and splendid and delectable. All these things and 
 an infinity of others that no created intellect can 
 grasp, exist in the essence, wisdom, and omnipo- 
 tence of God, and shine before His mind in such 
 a manner that He can with a single sign of His 
 will produce them outside of Himself in all con- 
 ceivable multitudes and splendors. 
 
 Hence it follows that whoever possesses God 
 possesses at the same time all those things and 
 enjoys them in God in a most exalted manner. 
 
 Second. God is called absolutely infinite, be- 
 cause alone, by Himself He is infinitely more 
 excellent, more grand, more beautiful, more lov- 
 able than all those infinite things which are 
 contained eminently in His essence, His wisdom, 
 His power. And even if God were to make 
 them pass from nothing into being, He would 
 
10 The Names of God 
 
 still be infinitely above them all. Nay all those 
 things taken collectively and considered together, 
 are but as nothing in comparison with the divine 
 excellence. Hence he who possesses God, and 
 rejoices in Him, enjoys by that possession alone a 
 happiness incomparably greater than he would 
 possess if outside of God he owned all that there 
 is of beauty, splendor, glory and happiness. For 
 God is all those things and infinitely more than 
 all those things. 
 
 Third. From the fact that God is infinite in 
 His Essence, it follows that He Himself is neces- 
 sarily infinite in every kind of perfection that 
 belongs to Him, namely, in greatness, power, 
 wisdom, holiness, benignity, mercy, justice, 
 beauty, etc. The reason is because such perfec- 
 tions can correspond to the Divine Essence only 
 in an infinite perfection and degree; for they must 
 be proportionate and equal to His Essence, from 
 which, according to our manner of conceiving, 
 they seem to flow. Secondly because these per- 
 fections are in God by a single and most simple 
 form, which is absolutely infinite and unlimited. 
 For they are not real properties proceeding from 
 the Essence, but are the Divine self-subsisting 
 Essence Itself, and consequently are a simple 
 form of the Divinity which can be comprehended 
 by us only imperfectly. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 The God of Immensity. 
 
 Ps. cxliv; Barnch iii ; Dionys. 9; 
 St. Thos. i p. q. 8. 
 
 HP HIS name is given to the Almighty because of 
 * His greatness and for the want of a better 
 word what we call His extension. He is extended 
 and so to say, diffused everywhere ; above, below, 
 on the right, on the left, before and back of us. He 
 is circumscribed by no limit and by no space. The 
 mind contemplating this is lost in amazement. 
 Were we to imagine an extent beyond the uni- 
 verse of a thousand leagues in every direction, 
 God would still be there. Were we to add a mil- 
 lion more, God would still be beyond them. Im- 
 agine it to extend as many millions of leagues as 
 there are grains of sand on the shores of the sea, 
 as drops of water in the ocean, or as there would 
 be grains of dust to fill the whole universe, God is 
 still by infinite millions of leagues beyond them 
 all, and that most completely and perfectly, 
 namely in the Three Persons, with all the perfec- 
 tions and the gifts and the riches which are 
 eminently contained in Him. 
 
 11 
 
12 The Names of God 
 
 Finally no human mind can conceive so vast an 
 extent that God is not infinitely greater than it; 
 and infinitely diffused without and beyond it ; not 
 merely in parts as the air and other material sub- 
 stances, but complete by Himself and if I may so 
 speak in His totalities, as a spirit, so that He is 
 entire in every point of all space ; not, as it were, 
 floating or mobile but most firmly and immovably 
 and as the foundation of all things. 
 
 All the vastness of the universe compared to the 
 magnitude and extension of God is like a little 
 drop of water in comparison with the immensity 
 of the ocean, or as a grain of dust in comparison 
 with the vastness of the whole universe. Thus the 
 Book of Wisdom (xi, 23) tells us: "The whole 
 world before Thee is the least grain in the bal- 
 ance, and as a drop of the morning dew that fall- 
 eth upon the earth." Or to speak more correctly 
 there is no proportion between the magnitude and 
 the extension of God and the magnitude and ex- 
 tension of the universe, for the magnitude of the 
 extension of God not only infinitely exceeds the 
 magnitude of the universe, but all magnitude con- 
 ceivable by a created intelligence. 
 
 Nor does it matter that corporal and spiritual 
 magnitudes admit of no comparison, for even if 
 they cannot be compared in their nature they can 
 be compared by reason of their extension as the- 
 
The God of Immensity 13 
 
 ologians and philosophers generally admit when 
 there is question of the soul and body, and of 
 Angels, and the places adequate to them. 
 
 By reason of His immensity God is often called 
 great in the Holy Scripture : "Of His greatness 
 there is no end." (Ps. xlvii, lxxvi, lxxxviii). 
 But this name belongs to Him also by reason of 
 His other attributes, for He is great in power, 
 great in wisdom, great in holiness, great in 
 majesty and great in all His perfections. Also 
 when in the Holy Scriptures He is called abso- 
 lutely great, we must understand that He is great, 
 infinite, immense according to all the perfections 
 which belong to Him as we read in the xlvii 
 Psalm which says: "Great is the Lord and ex- 
 ceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in 
 His holy mountains" ; that is to say, He is great 
 in power, in wisdom, in holiness, in justice and 
 mercy. And in the xciv Psalm we are told to 
 "praise the Lord, for the Lord is a great God 
 and a great King above all gods." In the same 
 way to be infinite, immense, eternal, unchange- 
 able, immortal, incomprehensible, are things that 
 belong to Him not merely by reason of His es- 
 sence, but also according to all His attributes and 
 personal prerogatives. This deserves our most 
 serious consideration. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 The Most Pure God. 
 
 Job iv; Sap. vii, c. 7; St. Thos. i p. q. 3 ; 
 St. Aug. II de Civit c. 10 ; lxv de 
 Trin., c. 17. 
 
 COMPLICITY is predicated of God, first, be- 
 ^ cause in Him there are no parts either 
 essential or accidental. He is not composed of 
 body and soul like man, nor of matter and form 
 like animals or plants, nor of integral parts as are 
 all corporeal things, whether substances or ac- 
 cidents. There is in Him no compound of subject 
 and accidental form, as in all created substances 
 even angels, who nevertheless excel all other 
 creatures in the simplicity of their nature. Nor 
 is there any composition of mode and of things 
 modified, as in all created things both substantial 
 and accidental. For as they are all limited and 
 imperfect they stand in need of divers modes 
 which limit them intrinsically or unite them with 
 other beings to help them to attain the perfection 
 or state which is their due. 
 
 In fact all bodies and all accidental corporeal 
 things in the world have a certain mode of exten- 
 sion, of density or tenuousness, of limitations ac- 
 14 
 
The Most Pure Cod 15 
 
 cording to their quantity or shape or the place 
 they occupy in space. All spiritual substances 
 and their accidental forms are denned and en- 
 closed in a certain space beyond which they can- 
 not extend and within which they can contract in 
 an infinite variety of ways. x\ll forms both sub- 
 stantial and accidental possess a certain mode of 
 inhering to, uniting with, and informing the sub- 
 ject to which they belong. All subjects likewise 
 are united with their forms and accidents, and all 
 the parts of a continuous thing possess a certain 
 mode of union with each other. 
 
 In the same way all the degrees of forms which 
 increase or decrease in intensity enjoy a mutual 
 union by means of a certain intimate and recipro- 
 cal penetration and cohesion. 
 
 According to these various modes numberless 
 changes are daily being wrought which result 
 in the subject presenting itself ceaselessly under 
 different aspects. 
 
 Now God is incapable of all this, for the reason 
 that He is absolutely without limitation, is su- 
 premely perfect in all respects and is infinitely ex- 
 alted above them all to such a degree that He can 
 not be affected or touched by any created thing. 
 
 Second. God is called simple not only because 
 He is exempt from anything compound in His 
 nature, but still more so because He is infinitely 
 
16 The Names of God 
 
 pure, subtile and spiritual, and by His purity is 
 infinitely above all that is corporeal or spiritual. 
 For the more pure and spiritual a thing is the 
 more simple it is. Hence just as the elements, as 
 many think, have no component parts and in that 
 respect are equally simple in their nature, yet 
 when we examine their purity one is found to be 
 more simple that the other; water more simple 
 than earth, the heavens purer and simpler than 
 the elements. Hence as the Divine Essence is of 
 infinite sublimity and purity (for it is a Pure Act 
 infinitely elevated in its character not only above 
 all corporeal substances but above all spirits that 
 are or can be created) 1 it is to be rightfully re- 
 garded as infinitely simple, so that all the Angelic 
 spirits compared to Him do not seem to be spirits 
 at all but coarse natures, impure and concrete 
 like bodies. By reason of this subtility and sim- 
 plicity God's essence can penetrate and pervade 
 everything, be intimately present to them inter- 
 iorly and unseen, creating, forming, preserving, 
 
 a When we speak of God as a Pure Act we mean that there is 
 not in God any capacity or potency of being other than He is. 
 Such capacity or potency would imply a defect in an infinitely 
 perfect being which is a contradiction in terms. It would also 
 suppose a possibility of change in a being who is essentially 
 immutable. St. James I, 17 expresses is thus: "Every best gift 
 and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the 
 Father of lights with whom there is no change nor shadow of 
 alteration."— Hurter Theo). 
 
The Most Pure God 17 
 
 perfecting and holding all creatures and cooperat- 
 ing with them all in a way that is absolutely hid- 
 den from observation. 
 
 By reason of this simplicity God is infinitely 
 more perfect and more excellent than if he pos- 
 sessed all perfections in different forms, com- 
 pounded and united with each other; for it is in- 
 finitely more perfect and more excellent and more 
 sublime to possess all perfections by a single form 
 than to posses them by different forms. For 
 these different forms are really limited to their 
 own species. Hence it follows that they could 
 not constitute the Divinity or be the Deity it- 
 self. But that form which in its supreme sim- 
 plicity contains all perfections, is necessarily limit- 
 less and infinite. It is Being by itself, a se, and 
 consequently is the Divinity itself. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 The Eternal God. 
 
 Gen. xxi ; Exod. xv ; Ps. xlvii, xlviii, lx, lxxi ; 
 Dionys. c. 10; St. Thos. i p. q. 10; Aug. 
 in Ps. ci; Boet. i. 5 de Consol. 
 
 /^ OD is called Eternal because He existed an 
 ^"* infinity of ages before all imaginable time, 
 and because He will exist an infinity of ages after 
 all imaginable time. 
 
 Let us go back in thought before the creation 
 of the world as many myriads of ages, (and by 
 ages I mean centuries) as there are grains of sand 
 on every shore of every sea, as there are drops in 
 all the seas and lakes and rivers of the earth, as 
 there are leaves on all its trees and blades of 
 grass in all its meadows, or seeds in all its fields, 
 or hairs on the furs of all the animals of the 
 world, and to this inconceivable number let us add 
 as many millions of ages as would be represented 
 by grains of dust that would be necessary to fill 
 the universe, and although such an inconceivable 
 lapse of time would itself seem an eternity yet 
 God would have preceded it by millions of ages. 
 
 Let us go still further. Let an angel with all 
 his intellectual power multiply all this vast num- 
 ber of ages, going ever higher and higher by 
 18 
 
The Eternal God 19 
 
 squaring and cubing these numbers and keep on 
 combining them for thousands of years, at in- 
 finite distances and infinite ages from each other : 
 God would still be prior to and older than. them 
 all. The same must be said even if all these mul- 
 tiplications and squarings and cubings constantly 
 mounted upwards in a straight line as many times 
 as there would be grains of dust enough to fill 
 the universe. But no number of years or cen- 
 turies can be conceived by a created mind as 
 going backward into the past without having 
 some term from which they start, yet prior to that 
 term there were infinite ages in which God pre- 
 ceded it. Hence He is called the Ancient of Days 
 (Dan. vii) and The First and The Last 
 (Apoc. i). 
 
 In the same way are we to conceive the eternity 
 of the future. Imagine in the future as many 
 millions of ages as we have just now assigned. 
 When they are all completed, there will still be 
 millions of ages to come and infinite ages in which 
 God will reign with His saints and in which the 
 reprobate will suffer in hell. No created mind 
 can conceive so great an extent of time which 
 would not when it is over suppose an infinite mul- 
 titude of ages to follow after. 
 
 Here it must be remembered that the whole of 
 eternity, in as much as it expresses a certain 
 
20 The Names of God 
 
 extent of duration, is, in our manner of conceiv- 
 ing it, composed of two parts, although of itself 
 it is one and indivisible. We conceive one of 
 these parts as existing prior to all imaginable 
 time : as being always past. That belongs to God 
 alone, and in my opinion could not belong to any 
 creature, as we have proved elsewhere from the 
 Fathers (Lib. iv de Perf. Div., c. 2). The other 
 part is conceived as existing after all imaginable 
 ages, as always future, and in such a way that we 
 can take nothing from it to diminish it. That fu- 
 ture can be communicated to creatures, for it is 
 thus that the renovated world, the beatitude of 
 the saints and the torments of the reprobate will 
 be eternal. 
 
 Second. God is called eternal not only because 
 before all conceivable time He has existed for in- 
 finite ages and because after all conceivable time 
 He will continue to exist for infinite ages, but 
 still more because He possesses in a most perfect 
 manner both simultaneously and collectively all 
 good, all power, all wisdom, all beatitude, all joy 
 and delight that could be acquired during an in- 
 finite period, and He possesses them immutably 
 from all eternity and for all eternity, without any 
 beginning and without any end, and in such a way 
 that nothing can be added and nothing taken 
 away. No one in this world could possess coj- 
 
The Eternal God 21 
 
 lectively all the honors and all the happiness 
 which he is capable of enjoying in the whole 
 course of his life in a way to feel, perceive and 
 enjoy them simultaneously. Nor could he support 
 them all at the same time. He would die with 
 excess of joy, for his heart would break. Ex- 
 amples of death from too much joy are not rare. 
 But God possesses all the joys which He can re- 
 ceive from infinite possessions for an infinite 
 period simultaneously and collectively for all 
 eternity. 
 
 Hence the joy of God is infinite in three ways. 
 First, because its object is an infinite good, 
 namely the excellency of His Being. Over and 
 above that, it has for its object the infinite goods 
 that are eminently contained in the Divine Es- 
 sence. Secondly, because He possesses simul- 
 taneously and collectively all the joy that He 
 could receive successively during an infinite 
 period. Thirdly, because He possesses all this, 
 not for a limited time but during all eternity. 
 
 It is as if there were a material light infinite in 
 intensity and extent, capable of having all the per- 
 fection that would be expended at every instant 
 of its duration, all concentrated on one single 
 point, and yet although thus concentrated, would 
 be diffused through vast spaces and be every- 
 where in all its entirety and in all its perfection. 
 
22 The Names of God 
 
 In the same way, God from all eternity 
 simultaneously and immutably conceives and re- 
 tains all His thoughts, all His counsels, all His 
 decrees in such a way that nothing new can come 
 to Him. He cannot think or wish or decree what 
 He has not already thought and wished and de- 
 creed from all eternity, because for all things and 
 for each in particular, an eternal decree must 
 have preceded, and without such a decree noth- 
 ing can be done in time. This does not mean that 
 absolutely speaking, God could not have made 
 other things than those He has made, or is to 
 make. Far from us be such a thought; for He 
 has the power to make others without end, al- 
 though in reality He has not decreed to make them. 
 Nevertheless it is impossible that in reality He 
 should make anything which He has not from 
 all eternity decreed to make. Therefore He can 
 absolutely do all things, if we consider His power, 
 wisdom and sovereign liberty to formulate from 
 all eternity such decrees as it pleases Him to 
 do but He cannot do all things, in the hypothe- 
 sis or the supposition that there had not 
 been on His part an antecedent decree. It be- 
 longs to the eminent perfection of His eternity 
 and to the immutability of His eternal grandeur 
 to have considered, examined and weighed in His 
 infinite light all possible things, both those which 
 
The Eternal God 23 
 
 will be done in time and those which will not 
 be done; all as exactly and as perfectly as if He 
 had weighed and considered each in particular 
 during an infinite period. Hence there is no 
 reason why He could not decree simultaneously 
 and at one time with regard to all things and to 
 each in particular, determining what should be 
 done or permitted at some infinite period after- 
 wards. Indeed that is necessary in order that 
 His will with regard to certain objects should 
 not, so to speak, be held in suspense. That would 
 be an imperfection. 
 
 Hence there is no succession of acts or of un- 
 derstanding or of will in God. What He thinks 
 and sees, He thinks and sees always. Whom He 
 loves once, He loves always, but He loves him 
 for that time in which he is loveable, namely as 
 long as he is in a state of grace. Whom He hates 
 once He hates always, not however absolutely, 
 but only for the time that such a one is worthy 
 of hatred; for when the reason for hatred is re- 
 moved the person becomes an object of love. 
 These acts which according to our manner of 
 conceiving them exist in God from all eternity 
 do not properly speaking cease to be ; nor do they 
 spring up again, nor are they formed anew, but 
 they remain invariable with regard to their object 
 according as it is considered for a certain time 
 
24 The Names of God 
 
 and in a certain state, and they are not called 
 absolute except in such time as the objects exist 
 in a certain state, and for the time during which 
 they will exist or have existed in that state. 
 
 Third. God is called Eternal, for the reason 
 that He is above eternity, and is the cause of 
 eternity in creatures. For through that omnipo- 
 tent, continual and unchangeable influence He 
 creates and preserves all things. He is the cause 
 of the continuance in existence of the world, the 
 angels and men, and He is the cause of the state 
 of glory and the state of damnation. Finally all 
 things have received from Him their duration, 
 their limit of age, their span of existence, their 
 length of life, their time of birth, their time of 
 death, each according to its nature and condition. 
 
G 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 The Most High God. 
 
 Gen. xiv; Num. xxiv; Job iii. 
 
 OD is called the Most High because He is the 
 cause of all sublimity or elevation in 
 creatures, whether it be of local altitude as when 
 we speak of the high heavens, or official promi- 
 nence like that of kings and princes or prelates; 
 or superiority of nature such as the angels possess 
 over corporeal substances, or the perfection of 
 state like that of the elect, of the Blessed Virgin, 
 or of the Sacred Humanity of Christ. It is God 
 who regulates, adjusts, and bestows all this ex- 
 altedness and superiority. He arranges in ex- 
 quisite order all the visible and invisible parts of 
 the universe. 
 
 Second. He is called The Most High because 
 He alone is really sublime and exalted, for all 
 elevation or sublimity in created things is, when 
 compared to His, no elevation at all, but only an 
 image and a shadow of it. In effect all the kings 
 and princes of the world, and all the angels and 
 blessed are, of their very nature, His servants 
 and slaves ; even if by His love and the communi- 
 cation of His Spirit He has adopted them and 
 aalls them His children. 
 
 25 
 
26 The Names of God 
 
 Third. God is justly called The Most High, 
 because by His Essence and all His perfections, 
 He is infinitely above all creatures, not only those 
 that actually exist, but those that are possible or 
 conceivable, no matter how exalted, or mighty, 
 or wise, or great, or beautiful, or happy they 
 may be imagined to be. Hence it follows that 
 God is called The Most High not only because He 
 is above all creatures, but because He is infinitely 
 above them; in such a manner that between the 
 most exalted creature existing, and God, there 
 are infinite grades of angelic species rising higher 
 and higher towards Him. The same must be 
 said of the degrees of beatitude. Hence every 
 creature no matter how exalted, is, if I may say 
 so, placed at an infinite distance beneath Him, 
 although in the same space. Hence between the 
 creature and God Himself there is an infinite 
 distance; not of place but of nature or degree. 
 The mystics call this the Solitude of God. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Immutable God. 
 
 Ps. ci; Malach. iii; James i. 
 
 f* OD is called Immutable, first, because all 
 ^"* permanency and all immutability in created 
 things is derived from Him. It is He who will 
 keep forever this whole universe in its place and 
 in the state of glory which the divine power will 
 invest it with after the universal judgment. In 
 the same way He will keep the angels and men 
 in their state of glory or their state of damna- 
 tion. 
 
 Second. God is called Immutable, because in 
 Him there cannot be the slightest diminution or 
 increase; neither in His substance, nor power, 
 nor perfection, nor understanding, nor will, nor 
 place, nor situation, nor in any mode of being 
 whatsoever. If all men and all angels and the 
 entire universe and all created things should 
 perish He would lose nothing in Himself. The 
 plenitude of His joy and of His felicity and the 
 affluence of every good would be always the same 
 in Him. For He holds all things ever present in 
 the light of His supreme wisdom and in the om- 
 
 27 
 
28 The Names of God 
 
 nipotence of His might. Nor can there be any 
 change in His manner of possessing them, nor 
 can any creature evade His control. At the 
 least sign on His part all things would exist anew 
 in their respective natures and serve Him as be- 
 fore. Hence it follows, that the destruction of all 
 things would cause Him no loss. As the Royal 
 Prophet says : "When the wicked shall spring up 
 as grass, and all the workers of iniquity shall 
 appear, that they may perish for ever and ever, 
 but Thou, O Lord, art most high forever more." 
 (Ps. xci.) 
 
 The reason of this immutability of God is that 
 all He has or can have, He has actually by His 
 Essence. Hence there can be in Him no diminu- 
 tion or increase, unless that Essence should in 
 some manner vary. But it admits no change, 
 for it is infinitely exalted above all that is subject 
 to change. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 The Immortal God. 
 
 I Tim., i, vi. 
 
 r^ OD is called Immortal, first, because being a 
 **-* simple substance which is self-subsisting, 
 He cannot in any manner perish by dissolution, as 
 man who ceases to 'live when his soul is separated 
 from his body. Nevertheless this immortality is 
 common to God and to all self-subsisting simple 
 substances. Because they are simple, they can- 
 not perish by a division into the parts of their 
 nature, and being self-subsistent they do not de- 
 pend on any subject whose death or alteration 
 must cause them to perish; as happens for in- 
 stance with the souls or lives of animals and 
 plants, when the body is destroyed. Being sepa- 
 rated from their subjects they cannot perform 
 any function and consequently conservation is 
 not due them. 
 
 God is properly called Immortal because He is 
 by His nature, such that He cannot in any manner 
 cease to be, whereas all other beings without ex- 
 ception are so constituted that they can lose their 
 life, their nature and all that they are. Hence in 
 
 29 
 
30 The Names of God 
 
 the epistle to Timothy, St. Paul says in speaking 
 of God : "He alone has immortality/' 
 
 The reason is that God being the First and Su- 
 preme Being, and the foundation of all beings 
 can in no manner be dependent on any other be- 
 ing whatever, and consequently He cannot cease 
 to be, or lose His existence by the withdrawal of 
 the influence or the support of any cause. 
 
 Hence God is, by His nature, absolutely and in 
 every way immortal. But all creatures, even the 
 angels and the blessed whose nature and life seem 
 to be especially immortal, depend by their nature 
 on the continual influence of God, by whom they 
 were created, formed and preserved with all their 
 natural or beatified life ; and they are by the con- 
 dition of their nature such, that they may lose 
 both of these lives and cease to be, if it so hap- 
 pened that God who of His free will preserves 
 them, withdraws his concurrence. 
 
 Thus although the scholastic philosophers and 
 theologians teach that the angels are absolutely 
 immortal in their nature, because they have noth- 
 ing in them that can cause their extinction, and 
 because no created thing can make them perish, 
 for their natures are simple, they are neverthe- 
 less said by the Holy Fathers to be, of their na- 
 ture, mortal, and only by the goodness and grace 
 of God, immortal. However by grace is meant 
 
The Immortal God 31 
 
 in this instance, a free and gratuitous influence 
 of God, by which He preserves their nature; and 
 as this grace is a preservative of their nature it 
 was not called supernatural but natural. It was 
 gratuitous because it did not come from the merits 
 of the recipients but was purely a gift like 
 creation. Hence the angels when compared to 
 other creatures in general are called immortal; 
 but when compared to God they are sometimes 
 described as mortal. 
 
 Third. God is called Immortal because He is 
 absolutely unchangeable. Not only He cannot 
 lose His existence but cannot lose anything that 
 is in Him. Nothing can be taken from His 
 majesty, nor from His greatness, nor glory, nor 
 beatitude, nor wisdom, nor peace, nor tranquillity, 
 nor from the superabundance of whatever good 
 He possesses. Nor can His counsels or decrees 
 be changed. For any change whatever would 
 imply that He had ceased to be immortal in every- 
 thing. The reason is that, in every change in 
 which something is lost, there intervenes a sort 
 of death with regard to that particular thing 
 which is taken away. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 The Invisible God. 
 
 Exod. xxxiii; I Tim. i; John i. 
 
 '"THE Apostle joins the Invisibility of God to 
 * his Immortality when he says: "Now to 
 the King of ages immortal, invisible, the only 
 God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. 
 Amen." 
 
 God is called Invisible, first, because He cannot 
 be seen as He is in Himself, by the eyes of the 
 body; for what is altogether spiritual cannot be 
 the object of bodily sight. 
 
 Second. God is called Invisible because no 
 created intellect, by its own natural light, can see 
 Him clearly as He is in Himself ; nor is there any 
 possible intelligence which could see Him by its 
 natural powers. Thus He is invisible to all 
 creatures and can be seen and known only by 
 Himself. It is in this sense that the Apostle calls 
 God Invisible. 
 
 Third. He is called Invisible because although 
 in some manner He may be seen clearly by a 
 created spirit aided by the light of glory, He can- 
 not be seen comprehensively, namely in such a 
 32 
 
The Invisible God 33 
 
 way that nothing escapes the one who sees. For 
 every vision of the blessed is infinitely removed 
 from the comprehensive vision of God, and God 
 transcends infinitely all that they can see. In 
 that sense some of the Fathers say that God is 
 invisible and unknown to all creatures, and that 
 He alone can see and know Himself as He is. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 The Incomprehensible God. 
 
 Job. ix ; Jer. xxxii ; Rom. ii. 
 
 /^ OD is called Incomprehensible for four 
 **■* reasons : First, He is Incomprehensible to 
 the understanding, because no creature even with 
 the light of glory, no matter how great the illumi- 
 nation may be, can comprehend Him; that is to 
 say, can know Him in such a way that nothing 
 escapes the one who contemplates or knows Him. 
 For there will always remain an infinity of things 
 which will not be distinctly known or conceived. 
 There will be an infinite number of conceptions of 
 things, there will be an infinity of complacencies 
 in possible things, an infinity of decrees, especially 
 of conditioned decrees and an infinity of modes 
 in which the Divine Essence is imitable. And 
 even if a created spirit should see all those things 
 distinctly in God by means of some elevated de- 
 gree of glory, such as that which is in the soul of 
 Christ (a thing however which is absolutely im- 
 possible), nevertheless God would not be properly 
 and perfectly known by that spirit, because such 
 knowledge would not in its clearness equal the 
 Divine Essence and would never succeed in know- 
 34 
 
The Incomprehensible God 35 
 
 ing God as perfectly and as clearly as He can be 
 known. It would remain infinitely below that 
 requisite clearness for the reason that it is es- 
 sentially finite. Hence it follows that such 
 knowledge would not be equal to God's and could 
 never perfectly comprehend Him. It would com- 
 prehend Him only in part, that is to say, accord- 
 ing to the multitude of objects known and not ac- 
 cording to the clearness and perfection of 
 knowledge. 
 
 God is also Incomprehensible to the under- 
 standing, in this sense, that no created under- 
 standing, no matter how exalted, can by the 
 powers of its nature attain to Him in such a 
 manner as to see Him clearly and know Him as 
 He is. Let thought soar as high as it may, it will 
 be always infinitely removed from the clear 
 knowledge of God's Being. 
 
 Second. God is Incomprehensible to the will 
 and to the heart, because no spirit: can love, 
 honor, esteem, praise or revere Him as much as 
 He deserves. He is infinitely above all the love, 
 honor, esteem, praise and reverence that any and 
 every creature might pay Him, even of all the 
 blessed taken collectively. (Eccl. xliii 30, et seq.) 
 
 Third. He is Incomprehensible relatively to 
 space, because being Immense He cannot be con- 
 fined to any space no matter how vast. 
 
36 The Names of God 
 
 Fourth. He is Incomprehensible zvith regard 
 to time, because being Eternal, He is before all 
 conceivable duration, He precedes it by an in- 
 finity of ages, and there still remains an infinity 
 of ages after any duration that the mind can 
 conceive. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Ineffable God. 
 
 Jer. xxxii; Eccl. xliii; John xi ; xii; 
 Tim. vi. 
 
 J 
 
 f~* OD is called Ineffable, first, because there is 
 ^-* no word nor speech that can describe Him 
 as He is in Himself, even if one should write as 
 many books as would fill the whole world. 
 
 Second. Because not only is it impossible to 
 speak of Him by words of the lips, but no created 
 spirit can without the light of glory conceive Him 
 such as He is, and hence cannot represent Him 
 even by mental words. For every conception by 
 which a created spirit can represent God to itself 
 without the help of the light of glory, is infinitely 
 removed from the truth. Hence it follows that a 
 single word by which the blessed represent and 
 express God in their mind, is infinitely superior 
 to all the wisdom of men and angels. Thus God 
 is not ineffable to the blessed, but He is to men 
 and angels outside of the state of beatitude. 
 
 Third. God is called Ineffable, because He is 
 so sublime, infinite and immense, that even with 
 the light of glory, the blessed cannot by any 
 
 37 
 
38 The Names of God 
 
 mental word represent Him to themselves or 
 speak of Him in an adequate and comprehensive 
 manner. That belongs to Him alone. In that 
 way He is ineffable even to the blessed. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Almighty God. 
 
 Gen. xvii ; Exod. xv ; Tob. xiii ; 
 Job. viii. 
 
 (~* OD is called Omnipotent or Almighty, first, 
 ^-* in as much as He is the Cause from which 
 are all power, all virtue, all energy, all vigor and 
 all efficiency in the whole of creation: on the 
 earth, in the sea, in the stars, in the stones, in the 
 metals, in the plants, in the minerals, in man and 
 in angels. All power to do anything be it ever 
 so insignificant is but a slight participation in the 
 power of God. 
 
 Second. God is formally Omnipotent because 
 He possesses infinite power; or rather He is in- 
 finite self-subsisting power itself. He can do all 
 things that a created spirit can conceive; and such 
 things are infinite in their genus and species. 
 For instance one can conceive infinite worlds like 
 ours, and others unlike it; an infinity of angels, 
 an infinity of peoples, an infinity of metals, gold, 
 silver etc., an infinity of precious stones and 
 so on. 
 
 When we say that God can make an infinite 
 
 39 
 
40 The Names of God 
 
 number of things we must understand it in this 
 sense, viz: that whatever may be the number of 
 things of every kind that He has created, He can 
 still create others without end; so that no created 
 mind can conceive a number of things so great 
 that God can not make as many more, endlessly. 
 However He could not create things that would 
 be actually infinite. Such is the more probable 
 opinion of St. Thomas and of many others. For 
 a creature cannot be actually infinite as we have 
 elsewhere demonstrated. 
 
 Moreover God can not only do what no created 
 mind can conceive, and He can do so in any 
 number, quantity and perfection whatever, but 
 He can also do whatever His infinite wisdom can 
 conceive, either outside or within Himself, and 
 such things would be infinitely greater and more 
 marvellous than anything a created mind could 
 conceive. For all things that His infinite mind 
 can conceive or form interiorly by knowing, He 
 can produce and form outside of Himself. In 
 that way His power equals His wisdom. 
 
 Third. He is called Almighty because He can 
 make all things instantly, without delay, without 
 effort, with supreme and infinite facility, by a 
 single sign of His will, by a single word. It 
 would be incomparably more easy for Him to 
 create a thousand new worlds than for us to pro- 
 
The Almighty God 41 
 
 nounce the word "world"; and could there be 
 anything easier than that? 
 
 Fourth. He is called Almighty or rather "He 
 who holdeth all things" ; because He holds in His 
 hand all things, and each in particular in its 
 innermost nature. He binds them in their unity 
 lest they should dissolve and fade away. He is 
 the basis and foundation that holds, sustains and 
 conserves. For He is the root of all things, from 
 which all being springs with an ineffable 
 fecundity. He is the bond, the link of all things, 
 holding them together in their several unities lest 
 they dissolve and disappear. He is the basis 
 and foundation of all, sustaining them and pre- 
 venting them from falling back into their own 
 nothingness. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 The Most Wise God. 
 
 Prov. I iii, ix; Wis. vii, viii ; Math, ii ; 
 Luke vii ; Dionys c. 7, de Divin. Nom. ; 
 St. Thos. I p. q. 14. 
 
 r^ OD is called Wise and Wisdom for the 
 ^""* reason, first, that He is the cause of all wis- 
 dom, and all knowledge whether little or great 
 in the blessed, in the angels, in man and even in 
 the animals; for from His wisdom everything 
 emanates, down to that slight amount of knowl- 
 edge which the instinct in animals reveals. 
 
 Second. God is called formally Wise, not be- 
 cause He is endowed and imbued with wisdom as 
 the angels are, but because He is self-subsisting 
 Wisdom in which is eminently contained the 
 plenitude of all wisdom. By that Wisdom, from 
 the first moment of its activity, if one may so 
 speak, He comprehends with infinite clarity His 
 own Essence, the procession of Persons in the 
 most Holy Trinity, as well as the Persons them- 
 selves. Then, in the second instant, from all 
 eternity and through all eternity, He directs His 
 gaze with infinite clearness on all things possible, 
 42 
 
The Most J Vise God 43 
 
 doing so by the power of the knowledge of His 
 own Essence. In the third instant, His gaze em- 
 braces all -that can be done by any created or 
 creatable power. In the fourth instant, He looks 
 out upon all that might be done in every 
 possible hypothesis, namely on what are called 
 conditional futures, and they are infinitely infinite, 
 for the circumstances of each of the things that 
 depend on free will may vary infinitely, and each 
 of these things may be done in an infinite variety 
 of ways. In the fifth instant, He sees in an abso- 
 lute manner all future things during all eternity 
 with all their attendant circumstances. 
 
 Third. God is called Wise, because He is so 
 in a very special and eminent way which cannot 
 be communicated to any creature. For as two 
 things are necessary for wisdom, viz: the light 
 to know and the object known, He has of Him- 
 self both one and the other in an eminent degree, 
 and in infinite perfection. In effect, He is Himself 
 the infinite self-subsisting light of intelligence, 
 and He is Himself and by Himself every intelli- 
 gible object, or contains it in Himself eminently. 
 He does not need to borrow from any one either 
 the light of intelligence or the object which is 
 understood by the intelligence. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 The Beautiful God. 
 
 Dionys. c. 4 de Nom. Div; Cant, i, xv 
 Wis. cxiii, 3. 
 
 /^ OD is called Beautiful, first, because He is 
 ^-* the source of all beauty of the angels and 
 men; of the heavens, the elements, the animals, 
 plants, pearls, precious stones and all other 
 created things. All their beauty and attractive- 
 ness, both internal and external, that which ap- 
 peals to the senses as well as that which delights 
 the intelligence have been received by them, 
 through Him and from His wisdom. 
 
 There are seven degrees of beauty. The first 
 is the external beauty that we see with our eyes, 
 in the flowers or precious stones, in the appear- 
 ance or form of animals, and of men and women ; 
 in the stars, the sun and the moon. This is the 
 beauty that mortals admire so much and which 
 exercises such a fascination on them and prompts 
 them to pursue it. 
 
 The second degree is the interior beauty of 
 those forms from which exterior beauty proceeds. 
 This interior beauty is incomparably greater and 
 44 
 
The Beautiful God 45 
 
 more admirable because in a simple form and in a 
 simple power there is contained in an ineffable 
 manner all the variety which appears externally 
 in the flowers, in the plants, in the structure of 
 animals, in colors and figures and in all other 
 things. Thus in the virtue of the seed is con- 
 tained the whole structure, the figures and the 
 colors of plants, animals, etc. 
 
 The third degree of beauty is found in the lives 
 of animals or in what are called sentient souls. 
 In that simple form is contained the power of the 
 senses, the power of the imagination and the 
 power of the sensitive appetite. All these things 
 are so admirable that the human soul cannot 
 comprehend the hundredth part of them. The 
 sensitive or sentient soul is so far above the vege- 
 tative that there is more beauty in one single 
 sentient soul than in all vegetative souls together. 
 
 The fourth degree of beauty is that of the 
 rational soul which is incomparably more beauti- 
 ful than all sentient souls taken together. 
 
 The fifth degree is in the angelic nature which 
 is incomparably more beautiful than the rational 
 soul. 
 
 The sixth degree is that of the inhabitants of 
 heaven whose beauty surpasses that of the whole 
 universe, even if that beauty were all united in 
 its entirety under one form. 
 
46 Names of God 
 
 The seventh degree is that of the Divine beauty 
 in which all the natural and supernatural, all 
 the spiritual and corporeal beauty of all created 
 or creatable beings is most eminently and most 
 unitedly contained. All of this, however, is as 
 nothing in comparison with the beauty of God. 
 For that reason, the sight of the divine beauty 
 will ravish and transport the inhabitants of 
 heaven incomparably more than the sight of the 
 glory of the saints, of the whole celestial court 
 and of all the universe, although they also must 
 be a source of inconceivable delight. 
 
 Second. God is called Beautiful, because He 
 is Himself formally infinite Beauty surpassing 
 infinitely all created or creatable beauty, and 
 everything else that the divine intelligence could 
 conceive outside of itself. It follows from this, 
 that He is infinitely lovable, an infinite source of 
 delight, and has an infinite power of drawing the 
 spirit to love Him; and although in reality He 
 does not attract infinitely the spirits of the blessed, 
 because their vision has not an infinite perfection, 
 yet He attracts them with such a power that they 
 all, of necessity love Him, and cannot in any man- 
 ner suspend or arrest their love ; and the greater 
 the necessity of loving God there is in the inhabi- 
 tants of heaven, the greater is their happiness, 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 The Good God. 
 
 Dionys. 4, 5, 13. 
 
 G 
 
 OD is called Good, first, because He is the 
 source of all good. From Him comes all 
 that men and angels and the whole universe 
 possess in the realms of nature, grace, and glory ; 
 and all created good is but a slight participation, 
 a little spark of the Infinite Good. He is the 
 author of every essential perfection that makes a 
 thing be called good in itself, and also of every 
 proportion and congruity that renders a thing 
 good for that to which it is adapted. 
 
 Second. God is called Good formally, because 
 in Him is the plenitude of every good that a 
 created spirit can conceive, so that no one can 
 imagine any good or any perfection which is not 
 contained in Him in a supreme degree and in in- 
 finite excess. 
 
 In Him there is an infinite light, an infinite 
 power, an infinite wisdom, an infinite beauty, an 
 infinite sweetness, an infinite joy, an infinite glory, 
 an infinite beatitude, an infinite holiness, an in- 
 finite justice, and an infinite mercy. More than 
 that, He is Himself all these things in the most 
 
 47 
 
48 Names of God 
 
 simple and sublime manner by His absolutely 
 simple Essence. 
 
 Third. God is called The Supreme Good, be- 
 cause He is so transcendentally good that He is 
 infinitely above all good that a created mind can 
 conceive, and yet He is like to none of these 
 things, so that all conceivable goodness should be 
 rather denied than affirmed of Him. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 The Holy God. 
 
 Isaias vi; Levit. ii, 19, 20 et seq., 
 Dionys. c. 12. 
 
 /^L OD is called Holy, first, as the cause and 
 source of all holiness that can be found in 
 men and angels ; for all holiness comes from Him 
 as from an infinite fountain of purity and 
 holiness. 
 
 Second. He is called Holy, in as much as He 
 is the object and measure of all holiness. As He 
 is Himself infinite purity, and as He is infinitely 
 spiritual, the more we approach Him by knowl- 
 edge and love, the more we advance in holiness; 
 for, to know and love Him and to cleave to Him 
 by sincerest love is that genuine, formal or es- 
 sential holiness by which every spirit is formally 
 sanctified and is called holy. 
 
 Third. He is called Holy, not only in as much 
 as He is the object of all holiness or, in other 
 words, objective holiness, but still more because 
 He is formally holy or is formal holiness. For 
 as true holiness consists in the knowledge, love 
 and enjoyment of God, and as He knows Himself 
 
 49 
 
50 Names of God 
 
 infinitely, and loves Himself infinitely, it is clear 
 that His holiness is infinite, and that He is in- 
 finitely holy. Nay more, He is Himself infinite 
 holiness because He is the infinite knowledge, 
 love and enjoyment of Himself. 
 
 Fourth. He is called Holy because all that 
 belongs to the essence of holiness, He has of Him- 
 self, and with an infinite perfection. Two things 
 are required for holiness ; love and the object, or 
 the purity of the object. Now God possesses both 
 by Himself. He is the infinite love of Himself. 
 He is the object of infinite purity in that love in 
 which formal sanctity consists. He is thus 
 infinite holiness, both formal and objective and 
 He is by His Essence, the measure of all holiness; 
 of His own, of that of the angels, and of men. 
 He is by the love of Himself formally holy ; He is 
 holiness itself and is the source of holiness. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 The Merciful God. 
 
 James v ; Ps. lxxxv, cii, ex, cxliv ; 
 Dionys. c. 4, 5 ; St. Thos. I p. q. 21. 
 
 t^ OD is called Merciful, first, because He is the 
 ^* source of all mercy and of every merciful 
 prompting in men and angels. 
 
 Second. Because in so far as depends on Him, 
 He is ready to save the whole human race which 
 had lapsed from eternal salvation into eternal 
 misery. He is ready not only to free it from that 
 misery but to restore it to eternal happiness. 
 For that He has paid a price more than 
 sufficient, and besides He has, in effect, delivered 
 from eternal misery an infinite multitude of souls 
 whom He has enabled to attain to the enjoyment 
 of the infinite and eternal good. 
 
 Third. Nor has He done this in an easy man- 
 ner, as when He created the world or when He 
 conferred beatitude on the angelic nature, but at 
 the cost of labors, pains and immense sacrifices, 
 humbling Himself by assuming the baseness and 
 infirmity of human nature; embracing poverty 
 and want, and countless miseries and afflictions, 
 
 51 
 
52 Names of God 
 
 anguish and toil; submitting to shameful out- 
 rages, buffets and scourgings; permitting Him- 
 self to be spat upon, and accepting the cross, and 
 the crudest kind of death; and finally delivering 
 Himself up to us under the species of bread and 
 wine in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucha- 
 rist. All that He has done out of His infinite 
 mercy to lift us out of infinite evil and raise us up 
 to infinite good. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 The Just God. 
 
 Ps. x, cxi, cxliv; Isaias xxiv, lxii ; Jer. 
 xxiii, xxxiii; Dan. iii, ix ; II Tim. iv ; 
 Dionys. c. 8; St. Thos. I p. q. 21. 
 
 f^ OD is called Just, first, because He is the 
 ^ - * source and cause of all justice; for all the 
 justice, all the rectitude, and all the holiness of 
 angels and of men emanates from Him as a feeble 
 ray and as an image of that Justice which towers 
 infinitely above all created justice. 
 
 Second. God is Just formally, for as supreme 
 justice consists in the love of God, which makes 
 us conformable in the highest degree to the 
 eternal law, and as God is the most perfect and 
 sublime love of Himself, it follows necessarily 
 that He is Formal Justice, most sublime and most 
 complete. He is infinitely perfect Justice and in- 
 finitely above all the justice of the blessed. 
 
 Third. God is called Just objectively, because 
 he is the object of all justice and of all rectitude. 
 To love Him is the highest justice; and although 
 we give the name of justice to that virtue which 
 accords to every one his due, vet that is only 
 
 53 
 
54 Names of God 
 
 human and political justice, and is the lowest in 
 the scale of justice. What we refer to now is that 
 supreme justice by which a man is formally just 
 before God. It is the same as that by which God 
 is just; and consists in the love of God and in a 
 supreme conformity with the eternal law. In that 
 kind of justice, human justice is eminently con- 
 tained. 
 
 Fourth. God is called Just as legislator and 
 judge, because He loves justice and hates in- 
 justice, in the greatest possible degree. That is 
 to say He abhors those acts that are in opposition 
 to the divine law 7 and the divine majesty, and for- 
 bids them under pain of eternal damnation. 
 
 Finally God will establish and build on an ever- 
 lasting foundation that order which the demons 
 and men have violated. He will restore and re- 
 habilitate it by rendering to all men according to 
 their works on the day when He shall come to 
 judge the world. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Benign God. 
 
 Ps. lxviii ; Wis. i ; Joel ii ; Luke, vi 
 Dionys. c. 4 and 5. 
 
 D ENIGNITY is that attribute of God which the 
 *-* Greek text of the Bible expresses by the 
 word direst os and the Vulgate by the word 
 snavis as we see in Psalms xxxiii, Ixxxv, cviii and 
 elsewhere. 
 
 It is attributed to God because of His infinite 
 tendency to bestow limitless and eternal good. 
 It is that benignity which prompted Him to create 
 angels and men ; to form them to His image so 
 as to give them a share in His divinity and glory. 
 
 Second. His Benignity in our regard mani- 
 fested itself especially after the ruin caused by 
 sin. Far from rejecting us when we were lost, 
 He showed a greater sweetness in our regard, 
 by sending us His Son, in order that being in- 
 carnate and visible among us He might con- 
 verse with us and thereby lift us out of our sins, 
 show us the way of salvation, give us an example 
 of how to live, satisfy the Divine Justice, redeem 
 us bv His passion and death, wash us in His 
 
 55 
 
56 Names of God 
 
 Blood, sanctify us by His Spirit and make us 
 children of God. Over and above all this, He 
 furnishes us with the means of salvation. He 
 gave us those powerful helps, which are of a sen- 
 sible and external character and are so wonder- 
 fully adapted to our nature. 
 
 Third. He gave us moreover, another ravish- 
 ing manifestation of His Benignity. Before He 
 ascended into heaven He delivered Himself en- 
 tirely to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in 
 order to be for us always by His presence a source 
 of consolation in our exile. He made it possible 
 for us to offer it as a sacrifice so as to appease 
 God's justice; and by receiving it as a sacrament 
 to make us share in His divinity. 
 
 Finally, the Benignity of God shows itself in 
 His dealings with sinners. He not only bears 
 with them patiently, and refrains from punishing 
 them though they repeatedly relapse into sin, but 
 He calls them back when they wander away; 
 He invites them to repentance, and is ever ready 
 to restore them to grace whenever they wish to 
 return. And when they do return, they are not 
 received with harshness nor reproached for their 
 ingratitude, but are greeted with kindness and 
 tenderness as children who are infinitely dear to 
 Him and He reinstates them in their former po- 
 sition of children of God. 
 
The Benign God 57 
 
 As the climax of His Benignity He demands 
 nothing of us above our strength, but only what 
 is easy and acceptable to a well balanced mind. 
 He assures us: "My yoke is sweet and my 
 burden is light/' 
 
CHAPTER XXL 
 The Patient God. 
 
 Exod. xxxiv; Num. xiv; Ps. lxxxvi, cii, cxliv; 
 Eccles. v; Joel, ii; II Esdras, ix. 
 
 f\ OD shows His Patience and His Longa- 
 nimity in the most admirable manner. 
 For although His majesty and power are infinite; 
 and although everything takes place in His pres- 
 ence and before His eyes, yet He bears with 
 everything patiently and long withholds His 
 vengeance. He does so lest we should be hurled 
 to eternal death. He even suffers infinite ingrati- 
 tude and submits to an infinity of outrages with 
 which mortals requite His countless benefits. He 
 bears with idolatry, blasphemy, insults, rage, 
 hate, perfidy, perjury, sacrileges, conspiracies 
 with his enemies, contempt of religion, contempt 
 of the commandments, contempt of the Passion 
 of Jesus Christ, contempt of all His benefits, and 
 contempt of all the heavenly blessings He has 
 promised. He has all that constantly before His 
 eyes and yet He submits to it all with patience. 
 
 Now it must be remembered that the gravity of 
 an offense increases in proportion as the majesty 
 58 
 
The Patient God 59 
 
 and power of the one who is offended is more ex- 
 alted, his presence more august, and the benefits 
 which he has conferred more extraordinary. 
 But as the majesty and power of God are infinite, 
 as the benefits He has bestowed are of an infinite 
 value, and as all this evil has been done in the 
 infinite light of His countenance, it follows evi- 
 dently that outrages against Him assume a cer- 
 tain character of infinite malice, and that His 
 patience is infinite in tolerating them. 
 
 God is moreover called Patient because He 
 bears with these injuries not only twice or thrice, 
 or four, or five, or ten times, which no earthly 
 prince would do, but a hundred times, nay a 
 thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand 
 times. Surely there is nothing to be compared 
 to it and it surpasses the power of men or angels 
 to fathom its mystery. 
 
 Not only does God restrain His avenging hand, 
 but with the greatest sweetness restrains the 
 angels and the demons who are eager to use their 
 power against us to cast us into hell. St. 
 Matthew teaches us this in the parable where the 
 master forbids his servants to pluck out the cockle 
 lest they might at the same time pluck out the 
 wheat along with it. He bade them let both grow 
 until the harvest, that is to say till the Day of 
 Judgment. (Matt, c, xiii.) 
 
60 Names of God 
 
 Not only does God tolerate all this iniquity and 
 withhold His vengeance, but He continues to 
 pour out His blessings with an astounding profu- 
 sion "making His sun to shine on the good and 
 the wicked and His rain to fall on the just and 
 the unjust." 
 
 Moreover He is prodigal in bestowing riches 
 and honors and pleasure on His sworn enemies. 
 He even gives them kingdoms and empires, the 
 glory of the world, health, beauty, and long life; 
 in brief, whatever men esteem most on earth. 
 
 We should remember that there are two kinds 
 of patience. One shows itself in suffering sor- 
 row and pain and the afflictions and discomforts 
 incident to this life. This is the patience that 
 shines with especial brilliancy in the martyrs and 
 in most of the saints. The other kind consists in 
 supporting outrages, injuries, contempt. That 
 is the only kind in God and in Him it is infinite. 
 If we wish to be His children we should imitate 
 Him in this respect. But both kinds were prac- 
 ticed in the most eminent degree by Jesus Christ, 
 and that is why we should imitate Him both in 
 the one and the other. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 The God of Clemency. 
 
 Exod. xxxiv; II Paral. xxx 2; 
 Esdras. ix; Jonas, iv. 
 
 /"I OD is called Clement because of His exceed- 
 ingly great kindliness towards sinners. 
 
 First. As a judge full of meekness, He 
 readily diminishes the punishment due to sin ; for 
 even in the other life, the penalties are less than 
 the offenses deserve, and God might justly punish 
 the reprobate with much greater torments than 
 those they suffer. In this life a single sigh of 
 genuine sorrow is sufficient to make Him remit 
 the eternal punishment due to sin and commute 
 it to a temporal one, which is accepted as satis- 
 factory, though it is slight and brief. Moreover 
 He has deigned to make it possible for us, to buy 
 ourselves off even from this temporal punishment 
 by many very easy means. 
 
 Second. His clemency is resplendent also in 
 the facility with which He pardons all the in- 
 juries committed against Him, even if they are 
 infinite in number, and in some respect infinite in 
 their atrocity. For there are no sins so great, 
 
 61 
 
62 Names of God 
 
 either in multitude or enormity, that He is not 
 ready to pardon and to forget utterly if we repent 
 of them from the bottom of our heart, and ask 
 His forgiveness. Not only will He do that once, 
 or twice, or ten times, or a hundred times, but 
 thousands and tens of thousands of times. 
 
 Not merely is He ready to pardon us, but to 
 adopt us as His children, and to admit us into a 
 participation of His glory. Hence though He has 
 abased His majesty in a manner that is amazing, 
 He calls in a thousand ways to those who flee 
 from Him; nay He entreats even His greatest 
 enemies, promising to pardon them whenever 
 they wish to return. He wishes to remove from 
 above their heads the everlasting curse which is 
 impending and to adopt them as His children 
 and make them participators in His glory. 
 
 Finally His most sweet clemency appears 
 chiefly in that He has sent us His Son to teach us 
 and to call us back to Him by penance and a holy 
 life, in order that we may escape the pains of hell 
 and obtain eternal life and the communion of His 
 glory. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 The God of Sweetness. 
 
 Ps. xxiv; II Petr. ii. 
 
 /'"I OD is called Szveet, first, because He is the 
 
 source of all sweetness whether corporeal 
 or spiritual ; for all that there is of sweet or suave, 
 or lovable or delectable in created things comes 
 from Him, and is a slight participation in His 
 sweetness which knows no bounds. 
 
 Second. Because not only every sweet and 
 delectable object is from Him, but also because 
 every feeling of sweetness in men and angels is 
 from Him ; for He has made and formed in them 
 the faculty which renders them capable of that 
 pleasure. He has likewise made every delectable 
 object and every fitness and adaptableness which 
 an object has to the faculty of the soul with which 
 it cooperates in the perception of that object's 
 sweetness. Thus He is the cause of all delight. 
 
 Third. Because He is the eternal and infinite 
 sweetness of all the heavenly spirits and of all 
 the souls of the blessed. He is such, both as ob- 
 ject and as cause. As object because it is in the 
 enjoyment of God and the tasting of His sweet- 
 
 63 
 
64 Names of God 
 
 ness that they feel themselves inundated with the 
 greatest joy; as cause, for it is He who is the 
 author not only of the light of glory by which the 
 angels and the blessed see God clearly, but He is 
 the author also of the habit of charity by which 
 we love God above all things. From this follow 
 that pleasure and boundless joy which they feel 
 in the good things of God, that is to say, in the 
 blessed tasting of His immeasurable sweetness. 
 
 Fourth. Because He is infinite sweetness both 
 objectively and formally. Objectively because 
 He is Himself the object of infinite sweetness. 
 In Him everything sweet and delectable is super- 
 eminently contained. Formally because in be- 
 holding Himself comprehensively or according to 
 all that He is, He derives from Himself infinite 
 joy and infinite delight. Moreover He is Him- 
 self infinite love and from Himself conceives, so 
 to speak, infinite joy. 
 
 To Jesus is given the name Duke do Cordium; 
 the sweetness of hearts. The expression is St. 
 Bernard's, and is most appropriate, for it is 
 Christ who by the bitterness of His Passion, de- 
 livered us from eternal damnation and trans- 
 ferred us to the eternal sweetness of heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 The True God. 
 
 Exod. xxxiv, 6; Deut. vii, xxxii ; II Paral. xv; 
 Wis. i; Ps. cxliv; Jer. x; John xiv, 10; I John 
 v, 12; Dionys. c. 7; St. Thos. I p. q. 16. 
 
 /^l OD is called True, Truth and The First 
 Truth in four different ways. 
 
 First. In His Essence or objectively ; because 
 He is the first object of the intellect. In Him all 
 intelligible objects and all objective truth are 
 eminently contained. From Him every creature 
 has received the truth of his being and possesses 
 the privilege of being truly such according to the 
 species and degree of its essence; of being called 
 with truth such a creature and no other. Thus, 
 for example, we can say this is truly a man, this 
 is truly a lion, this is truly gold, and so on for all 
 other creatures. Hence the truth of all things de- 
 scends from the First Truth which is the truth of 
 the Divine Essence. 
 
 Moreover the objective truth of things and 
 especially of those that already exist consists in 
 the conformity of their nature with the divine 
 idea, in accordance with which and by which they 
 have been made. But if we consider them ac- 
 
 65 
 
66 Names of God 
 
 cording to their possible nature, by abstracting 
 from their being or non-being, then their objec- 
 tive truth will consist in their conformity with the 
 Divine Essence, in as much as the Divine Essence 
 is imitable or can admit of being participated in. 
 For it is thence as from the original idea of all 
 things that arises the nature of the possibles, as I 
 have elsewhere shown. 
 
 Second. God is called the First Truth in 
 Knowledge. He is the Truth because He is 
 the most true, certain, clear and exalted concep- 
 tion of Himself. He is moreover the First Truth 
 because from Him descends all knowledge in men 
 and angels and even in animals, which have the 
 last and lowest participation in that knowledge. 
 
 By His wisdom and knowledge God has. formed 
 in creatures all their power of knowing and He 
 has determined the degree of knowledge which 
 they should enjoy. He also lends them His con- 
 currence so that according to their degree they 
 participate in real knowledge. 
 
 Third. God is called the First Truth in 
 Speech. He is the Faithful Witness because as 
 He is Himself His own knowledge, His own love, 
 His own charity, so is He His own Truth. More- 
 over the virtue of truthfulness in men and angels 
 which always prompts their will to utter the truth 
 and avoid falsehood, is in God the Divine Will or 
 
The True God 67 
 
 Essence, which by its nature has an infinite pro- 
 pensity to what is true and an infinite horror of 
 what is false. 
 
 God is called the First and Highest Truth or 
 Veracity because the virtue of truthfulness or 
 veracity in men and angels is a slight participa- 
 tion in His infinite truth. Hence His 
 truthfulness is the first and highest rule 
 of belief. On it ultimately our faith is 
 based. We believe the Church, because it 
 is governed and taught by the Holy Ghost or God 
 Himself; but we believe in God because He is the 
 First Truth. We do not believe the First Truth, 
 because of any extrinsic reason, but because of 
 Itself. For by Itself and solely by Itself, It has a 
 right to exact from us an unqualified and un- 
 limited faith. 
 
 This attribute supposes two others on which in 
 a certain manner it is based, namely the infinite 
 Goodness and the infinite Wisdom of God. His 
 Goodness is the reason of His absolute inability 
 to deceive ; and His Wisdom is the reason of the 
 absolute impossibility of His being deceived. 
 
 Fourth. God is called Truthful in His Prom- 
 ises, which is an other word for Fidelity. 
 
 Fidelity in men and angels is a virtue that in- 
 clines to the keeping of promises, because of the 
 obligation contracted. But in God Fidelity is 
 
68 Names of God 
 
 the divine Essence or Will considered in its di- 
 vine propensity to fidelity. Hence as God is His 
 own Essence, His own love, His own knowledge, 
 so also He is His own Fidelity. He is the infinite 
 propensity to fulfil what He has promised. And 
 because by Jesus Christ He fulfils all that He has 
 promised to the human race, Christ is frequently 
 called in Holy Scripture Truth, just as He is 
 called Mercy, in as much as God by Him has 
 shown all His mercy and made its effects felt by 
 mankind. 
 
 Finally God is called the First Truth because 
 from Him all fidelity in men and angels descends 
 as a sort of participation in the infinite fidelity of 
 God. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 The Blessed God. 
 
 I Tim. vi; Apoc. xx. 
 
 HT HE formal beatitude of the rational nature 
 ■ both of men and angels consists in the clear 
 vision of God, our supreme good, and in the love 
 and fruition of God. Hence the formal beatitude 
 of God consists in the clear vision of Himself, the 
 love of Himself, and the enjoyment of Himself. 
 For just as He is the greatest good for men and 
 angels, so He is for Himself. Nor can we 
 imagine any greater or more excellent good than 
 Himself. In the vision and enjoyment of Him- 
 self consists His beatitude. The Divine Essence 
 is so great a good that the sole vision of it, the 
 enjoyment and taste of its sweetness render Him 
 happy, as the love of Himself renders Him just 
 and holy. 
 
 Hence God is called Blessed, first, because He 
 clearly sees and loves Himself and is in the en- 
 joyment of Himself as His own supreme good. 
 And as He beholds and loves Himself and is in 
 the enjoyment of Himself in a comprehensive and 
 infinite manner, it follows necessarily that He is_ 
 infinitely blessed and that His formal beatitude 
 is infinite. For these three acts are perfectly 
 equal to their infinite object. 
 
 69 
 
70 Names of God 
 
 Second. He is called Blessed because He is so 
 by His Essence, just as He is infinitely holy by 
 His Essence. More than that; He is His own 
 formal beatitude; for He is His own vision, His 
 own love, His own joy, His own delight. More- 
 over all this is not in Him by way of accidents or 
 vital acts elicited by the power of the light of 
 glory in His understanding or will, as happens 
 to men or angels, but it is a simple self-subsisting 
 form which is His Essence. This is a marvel 
 worthy of our profoundest admiration. 
 
 Third. God is called Blessed because He is 
 not only His own formal, but His His own ob- 
 jective beatitude, by the vision and enjoyment of 
 which He and all the saints are happy. He is 
 not only His own vision, His own love, His own 
 joy, but also His own Essence and His own su- 
 preme good and object in which is all good, by 
 the sight and enjoyment of which He is Himself 
 blessed and by which the saints are made partici- 
 pants in His beatitude. Hence God both on the 
 part of the act (if I may so speak), and on the 
 part of the object is happy of Himself and He is 
 so because of nothing else. He is thus simul- 
 taneously His own formal and His own objective 
 beatitude. 
 
 Fourth. He is called Blessed as the author of 
 all blessedness in angels and in men; for He has 
 
The Blessed God 71 
 
 created them in His own image and likeness so 
 as to make them share in His happiness. He 
 has moreover infused into them the gifts of grace 
 by means of which they have the power to merit 
 this beatitude and to make themselves worthy of 
 it. 
 
 Finally to those who persevere in the state of 
 grace He gives after their death the light of 
 glory, that they may see Him clearly and rejoice 
 in His sweetness and beauty. In those acts con- 
 sists the essence of our beatitude. Hence since all 
 blessedness descends from Him and is only a par- 
 ticipation in His beatitude, He must be blessed in 
 a most infinitely excellent manner. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 God, the First Beginning of All Things. 
 
 f\ OD is called the First Beginning of all 
 creatures and of each in particular. For 
 no matter on how many causes they may depend, 
 as we see in the case of plants, animals and the 
 works of art, they all ultimately depend on Him 
 as the First of all causes. 
 
 He is called The First Beginning, first, because 
 He is the most ancient beginning. There were 
 none prior to Him; none were with Him from 
 eternity. On the contrary whatever causes or 
 beginnings of things there may have been they 
 were infinitely remote from Him in point of time. 
 
 Second. He is the first in dignity, because He 
 is the highest, and there can be no being above 
 Him from whom He could receive the power of 
 being the cause of all that is created. No one 
 gave Him the power of creating; no one indicated 
 the means to be employed ; no one revealed to him 
 the idea ; no one persuaded Him to draw the uni- 
 verse from nothing ; no one proposed to Him that 
 object ; no one aided Him ; no one cooperated with 
 Him. He had all that of Himself; and by Him- 
 self He has made all things. He has of Himself 
 72 
 
God, the First Beginning of All Things 73 
 
 infinite power to create outside of Himself and 
 beneath Himself, whatever being He may wish. 
 Of Himself He possesses all art, and all wisdom, 
 and the idea of every imaginable work. Of 
 Himself He possesses all the plans of works and 
 all the inclination to execute them. He is Him- 
 self the end of every work. He alone without the 
 cooperation of any one, without any one to 
 furnish the material, and without the aid of in- 
 struments created all things, made all things. 
 
 Third. He is called The First Beginning, be- 
 cause He is the beginning of all beginnings, the 
 cause of all causes, and He is such under a three- 
 fold aspect: as the efficient cause, as the final 
 cause, as the ideal cause or exemplar. Although 
 there are five kinds of causes : the material, the 
 formal, the efficient, the ideal and the final, never- 
 theless He is in the threefold manner just ex- 
 plained, the cause and principle of all. 
 
 In effect it is from Him that the matter of 
 corporeal things receives its species, its character, 
 its proportion, its order and its aptitude for union 
 with the form, from both of which the resulting 
 component is made. 1 In the same way it is from 
 
 1 In the Scholastic system all material beings are viewed as the 
 product of two concreated constituent factors, the one passive 
 and recipient, the other active and determining. The first is 
 styled the matter, the second the form, and both are called sub- 
 stantial principles in as much as by their essence they constitute 
 one complete substantial being. — Maker. Psychol. 
 
74 Names of God 
 
 His wisdom and His power that every form of 
 corporeal things receives its species, and the 
 order essential to matter which is disposed in a 
 definite manner so as to be substantially united to 
 it. All proportion and agreement, the reciprocal 
 attraction, the mutual combination of matter and 
 form, of objects and their accidents, of sub- 
 stances and their ornaments have been planned, 
 instituted, ordered and supplied with all their 
 powers by Him. 
 
 Fourth. The same is true of every efficient 
 cause and of every operative power in angels, 
 men, animals, plants and the rest. God is the 
 author of their energies. He made and com- 
 municated these powers. From Him they derive 
 their character, order and mode of being. 
 
 Fifth. It is from God that every ideal cause, 
 every concept and every art of the artificer is 
 derived; for He is the author of every intelli- 
 gence, and of every intellectual illumination and 
 conception. 
 
 Sixth. He is the author of every final cause. 
 The reason is that every purpose intended by men 
 or angels (and they alone work for a purpose) 
 has from Him the goodness, attractiveness, ad- 
 vantage and excellence that make such purpose 
 desirable. So also the ends for which all other 
 creatures strive have been assigned by Him. 
 
God, the First Beginning of All Things 75 
 
 Hence He is the beginning of all beginnings and 
 is superior to all beginnings. He is the cause of 
 every cause and is superior to every cause. 
 Hence St. Denis frequently calls Him the Hyper- 
 ar chios Archi, by which is meant that God is not 
 only the beginning of all beginnings but that His 
 manner of operation is far higher than, and ab- 
 solutely independent of any other beginning. 
 
 Hence as St. Paul says (Ep. ad Rom.) "Of 
 Him, and by Him and in Him are all things." 
 Of Him because it is of Himself, as the origin 
 and root-idea of all things that He has conceived 
 them in His mind from all eternity. By Him be- 
 cause He alone without any concurrence created 
 all things in time. In Him, or as the Greek has 
 it, for Him, because He is* the end of all things. 
 They have been created for His glory. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 God the Creator. 
 
 St. Thos. I p. qq. 65, 66. 
 
 GOD is called Creator because by His infinite 
 wisdom and from all eternity, He conceived 
 most distinctly, and formed in His mind with 
 infinite clearness an infinity of worlds with all 
 their splendor and with all that belongs to each 
 of them. Among those infinite worlds present 
 to His mind He freely chose the present one in 
 preference to all the others, and from all eternity 
 firmly resolved to create it, form it, arrange it 
 and perfect it along with the angels, the two 
 authors of the human race and all its marvellous 
 mechanism. Moreover He decreed to create it 
 after an infinity of ages at a certain epoch of 
 time, in the space of six days, and to fix it in a 
 definite place in immensity, having previously 
 conceived, designed and determined most dis- 
 tinctly and immutably, its measures, its forms, 
 its forces and its divisions. 
 
 Second. He is called Creator because by the 
 power of His eternal decree, operating after in- 
 finite ages, at a determined point of time and 
 space, He with sovereign power and by His word 
 76 
 
God the Creator 77 
 
 alone created it from nothing and infinitely be- 
 neath Himself. After having created it, He by 
 His ever admirable concurrence marvellously 
 continues to keep it fixedly in the same space and 
 state and nature for all eternity. Moreover this 
 universal concurrence is so powerful that nothing 
 can perish unless He withdraws His hand. That 
 He never does, except when some other cause ex- 
 acts it, as for example, when on account of sin, 
 He no longer concurs in conserving the gift of 
 habitual grace. Thus also He withdraws this 
 influence when as in the lives of plants and ani- 
 mals the conditions necessary for existence cease 
 according to the natural laws. 
 
 There are many things to be admired in this 
 work of the Creator. First, because the decree 
 by which the world was made preceded the ex- 
 ecution of it by an infinite period, and it was only 
 after infinite ages that the actual creation of the 
 world took place. Secondly, because although 
 God created the world at a determined point of 
 space and time, He could have created it any 
 other moment and after any stretch in the infinity 
 of space. Thirdly because during all that pro- 
 digious work there was no change in God. 
 Fourthly because all these numberless, varied, 
 firm, solid, massive and enduring things were in 
 an instant drawn from nothing. 
 
78 Names of God 
 
 It should be remarked that creation can be 
 considered in two ways: First as an ascent, or 
 as a passage of the creature from non-being to 
 being, as if in its preceding state it had been 
 hidden away in nothingness, and was then drawn 
 out by the omnipotence of its Maker into being. 
 Secondly as a descent or an emanation of the 
 creature from the omnipotence of the Creator, 
 where before it had been eminently contained as 
 in its root and in its idea, passing thence into 
 formal and actual being; as the light is said to 
 emanate from the sun ; heat from fire ; the visible 
 species from objects, the picture from the art of 
 the painter, etc. I omit many other things which 
 may easily present themselves to the mind that 
 attentively considers the works of God. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 God the Conservator. 
 
 f~* OD is called the Conservator, first, because 
 He gives to all creatures and to each, ac- 
 cording to its capacity and degree, all the help 
 required to preserve and defend itself from death 
 and from all that may harm it. We see this 
 power in men and even in the lowest animals. 
 For the Creator has endowed them with an in- 
 stinct which prompts them to procure what is 
 helpful and to shun what is harmful. The same 
 thing is observable in plants and inanimate things 
 and even in the elements, although in the last 
 named it is not so perceptible. 
 
 He is called the Conservator of the world 
 because by an incessant and a substantific influ- 
 ence He acts on all creatures in such a way 
 to preserve their nature. Without such influence 
 no matter how great and firm and solid a thing 
 may appear it would be extinguished instantly 
 and lapse into its original nothingness. For all 
 created things, even the angels and the celestial 
 court are but terms of the divine action and of 
 the divine influence acting upon those things, not 
 extrinsically but intrinsically, as the light diffused 
 
 79 
 
80 Names of God 
 
 in the world is the term of the illumination or 
 operation of the sun. Hence it follows 
 that nothing has solidity or permanency ex- 
 cept by the divine concurrence ; and that depends 
 on the free will of God whereby He does or does 
 not will to continue this concurrence. Hence no 
 existing creature can perish as long as God has 
 resolved to lend His concurrence, and no external 
 power can cause it to perish. 
 
 This influence or concurrence of God is noth- 
 ing else than a continuation of the creative act 
 or an operation equivalent to creation. Hence 
 as the Fathers say: "There is need of no less a 
 power to sustain the world and to prevent it from 
 falling into naught, than there was to make it 
 pass from non-being into being." 
 
 Third. God is called Conservator because He 
 has resolved to preserve the world, the angels and 
 men, by continuing unchangeably this substan- 
 tific concurrence for all eternity. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 Divine Providence. 
 
 St. Thos. I p. q. 22. 
 
 \Y/E say that God extends His providence to 
 * * and watches over all creatures, first, be- 
 cause by His Providence all beings exist in their 
 species and their individual nature, with all their 
 adornments, all their properties and all their 
 functions. For in the whole of nature there is 
 not one being to which He has not given all that 
 it is; its figure, its form, its beauty, to enable it 
 to appear with what is suitable for its state. 
 There is none to which He has not given also its 
 particular character, its inclinations, its powers, 
 its instruments or organs, all of which are in ab- 
 solute harmony with the functions they are to 
 fulfil. "He hath disposed all things with 
 measure, number and weight." (Wis. i.) 
 
 This is clearly seen not only in the principal 
 parts of the universe, as in the firmament, the 
 stars, the sun, the moon, but also in the organism 
 of the vilest worms of the earth and in their 
 various segments, and in the plants and flowers. 
 
 Second. God's Providence extends to every- 
 
 81 
 
82 Names of God 
 
 thing because in the whole range of nature and 
 throughout the universe, nothing can be done 
 that God has not previously considered most ex- 
 actly in the infinite light of His wisdom, and has 
 not, so to speak, deliberated upon as to the fitness 
 or the propriety of permitting it or at least of 
 not preventing it. This divine consideration and 
 deliberation precedes every decree both as to what 
 is to be done and what is to be permitted in con- 
 nection with every creature in particular. For 
 the causes of all things that occur are thus held 
 by His hand, so that without His will nothing 
 can escape His control or issue in a single act. 
 Hence it follows that nothing can be done with- 
 out the Providence of God. 
 
 Third. Another manifestation of His Provi- 
 dence is seen in the fact that although as a con- 
 sequence of sin and free will, He seems to permit 
 countless disorders chiefly in human affairs, yet 
 He permits nothing except for a supreme 
 reason, and if we may so express ourselves, with- 
 out previous deliberation. Moreover what ap- 
 pears to be disorder will be cited before His 
 tribunal and judged according to the laws of 
 rigid justice, and by His decree it will be made 
 to reenter into the most perfect and exquisite 
 order. 
 
 Fourth and finally, all the order that exists 
 
Divine Providence 83 
 
 either in the structure of the universe, or the or- 
 ganism of plants- and animals, or in the acts of 
 creatures, or in the means they employ to ac- 
 complish the purpose of their existence — and this 
 is true of all creatures, spiritual as well as cor- 
 poreal — has been made and established by the 
 hand of God, and is the work of His Divine 
 Providence. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 God the Ruler of the World. 
 
 \Y7 E call God the Ruler of the World, first, be- 
 * * cause after creating the world, He pre- 
 serves, moves and governs it. He governs all 
 the various beings contained therein and shapes 
 everything in conformity with the individual 
 natures of each. He cooperates with and guides 
 each of them in their natural functions, and by 
 the instrumentality of the heavenly.bodies in their 
 incessant changes maintains the regular course 
 of the births and deaths of the lower creation. 
 
 Second. He directs all rational nature both 
 human and angelic to its proper end, by the most 
 suitable internal and external means such as laws 
 and examples, lights flashed on the mind and af- 
 fections enkindled in the heart, and also by 
 threats and promises, happiness and suffering 
 and so on. And although at times He allows 
 the evil spirit some power to tempt and harass 
 us, it is to exercise us in virtue and to afford us 
 an occasion of obtaining greater merit. He 
 nevertheless holds him in check so that he can do 
 little against us if we wish to resist. 
 
 Third. He has given to all of us from the be- 
 84 
 
God the Ruler of the World 85 
 
 ginning the most sufficient help for our salvation ; 
 and even after we sin, He gives what is abun- 
 dantly sufficient to repair the ruin that has been 
 wrought. So that on His part there is no reason 
 why all should not be saved. 
 
 Fourth. He will one day render to every one 
 according to his works, and will do so in the sight 
 of all rational creatures, in the General Judgment 
 of the whole world, in order that the equity and 
 benignity of His rule and of the Judgment itself 
 may be made clearly manifest to all. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 The Divine Master. 
 
 Dionys. c. 12. 
 
 £10D is called the Master of All, first 
 because all things are essentially His. 
 They are the works of His hands ; have been con- 
 ceived by His wisdom, drawn from nothing by 
 His power, and brought into being to reveal His 
 glory. He is the Master of All because He can 
 dispose of all as He wishes, for all things depend 
 at every moment on a sign of His free will. Nor 
 has He vouchsafed to bestow this lordship upon 
 any other ; and hence He has incomparably more 
 right and power over the whole universe, over all 
 the angels and men, than let us say, a master over 
 his horse, a potter over his vase, or a man over 
 his free will. For the owner of the horse did not 
 make the animal, nor the potter the clay, nor the 
 fire, nor the skill that fashions the vessel, nor has 
 man given himself the power to exercise his free- 
 dom of will. But God has of Himself all that is 
 needed to obtain and produce all that He wishes, 
 whereas creatures are but the exterior term of 
 His interior act. Hence His dominion is infinite 
 86 
 
The Divine Master 87 
 
 and incommunicable to creatures, and no creature 
 can exist outside of that dominion, or belong to 
 himself, for he depends essentially on God as his 
 first beginning and last end. 
 
 Second. God is not only Master of all things 
 that are, but of those that are not; namely of all 
 possible things. He is Master of the infinity of 
 worlds, of the infinity of men, of the infinity of 
 angels that He can create. All the world of the 
 possibles is for ever present to Him in all the im- 
 mensity of its possible species. He sees them as 
 clearly in His mind as if they had in reality 
 passed into existence. He sees each in its own 
 nature and, at one sign of His will, He could 
 bring about that in obedience to His command 
 they would pass forthwith from nothing and ap- 
 pear before Him. "For He calleth the things 
 which are not as those that are." (Rom. iv; 
 Wis. ii). Hence all things are equally in His 
 power and He can do as He pleases with all 
 possible and actual worlds. It is as if there were 
 a king so powerful as to be obeyed not only by 
 the subjects he actually has, but those also he 
 would have if the people of every part of the 
 world were ready to serve Him, at the least sign 
 he might make. Such a one would be rightly 
 called the King of the universe. Such is God 
 with regard to all possible worlds. 
 
88 Names of God 
 
 Third. God is called The Master of All, 
 because all dominion and all right both of 
 property and jurisdiction in angels and in men 
 emanate from Him. From Him all right of do- 
 minion is derived, because it has its foundation 
 in rational nature, and the liberty of free will. 
 From Him also come all things that can be 
 possessed; and if He did not at every moment 
 preserve the riches and properties which men 
 possess, sudden and absolute poverty would 
 everywhere ensue. From Him also comes all 
 real right to acquire or hold, or freedom to dis- 
 pose of anything whatever. That is what is 
 meant by the right of dominion. 
 
 God is called also The Lord of Lords, not only 
 because all dominion both of property and juris- 
 diction emanates from Him, but also because all 
 the lords and rulers of the earth and all the rich 
 men of the world are subject to Him as His 
 slaves, and incomparably more than slaves; for 
 He has as much right over all kings and lords and 
 over all that is subject to them, as He has over 
 the meanest worm that crawls. This will appear 
 especially on the Day of Judgment when number- 
 less kings and lords will be beneath His feet, as 
 it were annihilated in the dust. 
 
 It is in the same manner and for the same 
 reason that He is called The King of Kings and 
 The Lord of Lords. 
 
The Divine Master 89 
 
 He bears also the name of The King of the 
 Ages, because His Kingdom will exist and 
 flourish for all ages, and will never suffer dis- 
 aster, or detriment, or diminution. It will last 
 for all eternity, ever strong and triumphant; in 
 sovereign happiness and in a sovereign affluence 
 of all good according to the words of the Royal 
 Prophet: "Thy Kingdom is a Kingdom of all 
 ages." (Ps. cxliv) ; whereas all other kingdoms 
 will soon end with all their princes and all their 
 possessions. 
 
 God is called the Saint of Saints or the Holy 
 of Holies because all holiness and all purity both 
 in men and angels is derived from Him, and be- 
 cause His holiness surpasses infinitely the holi- 
 ness of all of them taken together, since, as we 
 have explained in Chapter XVII, He is infinitely 
 more pure, more elevated and more enduring 
 than all. 
 
 He is called the God of Gods because all deifi- 
 cation of the just and blessed comes from Him. 
 The supreme perfection of rational nature con- 
 sists in its resemblance to God. St. Denis calls 
 it deification, and for that reason the blessed are 
 spoken of as deified, as gods, as Sons of God, 
 in the sense that Scripture intends. For if Holy 
 Scripture calls earthly kings and rulers, gods, 
 because men here below venerate them as gods, 
 
90 Names of God 
 
 as we see in Psalm lxxxi and Jno. x, for the 
 reason that they share in God's judicial power, 
 with much greater reason may we give the name 
 of gods to saints ; not only because they will be as- 
 sociated with Jesus Christ in judging the world, 
 but because they are deified and made like unto 
 God, to such a degree that it is impossible to 
 have the resemblance greater than it is. Hence 
 Holy Scripture in the version of the Septuagint 
 often speaks of the angels as gods, and the Royal 
 Prophet in Psalm xlvi refers to the Apostles when 
 he says : "the gods of the earth have been mar- 
 vellously exalted;" and in Genesis c. iii the ser- 
 pent said: "you will be like unto gods" that is 
 like the deified and glorious angels, though I am 
 aware of course that this passage is otherwise 
 explained. However we must bear in mind that 
 in ordinary language it would be wrong to call 
 the inhabitants of heaven gods. They should 
 be spoken of as saints and blessed, so as to avoid 
 the error of the pagans who had many gods to 
 whom by the most stupid of errors they accorded 
 the worship which is due only to the -Divinity. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 God the Redeemer. 
 
 GOD is called the Redeemer, first, because 
 when we were lost and made slaves of 
 Satan, and condemned to eternal damnation, He 
 alone moved by a tender compassion for us, re- 
 deemed us. From slaves of the devil He made 
 us children of God, and from the justly merited 
 punishment of eternal damnation He transferred 
 us to the right of a celestial inheritance. And 
 this He did not accomplish in a manner that was 
 without difficulty; not by pronouncing a few 
 words as in creating the world, but with infinite 
 cost and labor ; going to the extent of paying as 
 the price of our purchase His own blood and life, 
 after He had suffered countless sorrows and in- 
 effable afflictions. 
 
 Second. He is called Redeemer because He 
 has not merely purchased us from slavery, but 
 paid for us an infinite ransom, opening for us 
 at the same time a perennial and inexhaustible 
 fountain of reconciliation so that we could be 
 reconciled to God and might be able to satisfy 
 divine justice not only once, but ten times, a hun- 
 dred times, a thousand times, as often in fact as 
 
 91 
 
92 Names of God 
 
 we might have the misfortune of falling into sin. 
 For seeing the great weakness of human nature 
 it would have been too little to have been able to 
 be reconciled only once with God. Hence in His 
 infinite goodness, He wished that it should al- 
 ways be in our power to repeat this reconciliation 
 by genuine repentance. Among men or among 
 princes there is no example of redemption such 
 as that. His blood is the all sufficing price that 
 could obtain from divine justice infinite reconcilia- 
 tions even of infinite worlds were they to commit 
 infinite sins no matter how enormous such sins 
 might be. Hence the title of Redeemer belongs 
 to Jesus Christ in a degree of excellence which is 
 incommunicable to any mere creature. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 The Light of the World. 
 
 Ps. xvii ; John i ; Dionys. 4. 
 
 /^ OD is called the Light of the World, because, 
 ^ first, all light, material as well as spiritual, 
 comes from Him. He first poured out on the 
 material world which was previously buried in 
 darkness, a most welcome and abundant light 
 which is the joy of all creatures. He has like- 
 wise filled all intelligences with the light of 
 natural knowledge. 
 
 Second. God is called the Light because all 
 supernatural doctrine, all knowledge and all en- 
 lightenment by which all men and all angels are 
 prepared for and elevated to salvation, descends 
 through His most benignant revelation. He 
 alone can reveal to us the counsel and decrees, 
 by which He resolved from all eternity to make 
 us participate in His glory, just as He alone can 
 reveal to us the ways and the means by which we 
 may attain it. Without this light we should all 
 be in darkness, neither knowing the way nor the 
 end. 
 
 Third. He is called the Light because He il- 
 lumines all those who are in the darkness of af- 
 fliction and sorrow, as soon as they have recourse 
 
 93 
 
94 Names of God 
 
 to Him as their Refuge. He consoles them by' the 
 knowledge of heavenly things, as the Psalmist 
 tells us: "Come ye to Him and be enlightened 
 and your faces shall not be confounded." (Ps. 
 xxxiii.) 
 
 Fourth. He is the Light because the light of 
 glory which penetrates and brightens the soul 
 and by the help of which it sees God clearly as He 
 is in Himself and all creatures in God and be- 
 neath God, is derived from Him, its only source. 
 Thus by the light of glory all creation will be ob- 
 jectively illumined because all the elements and 
 objects which are in creation will be placed be- 
 fore the gaze of the blessed in the greatest clear- 
 ness, and they will seem as if penetrated and 
 resplendent with the light of glory. 
 
 Again, God is called the Light, first, because 
 He is the source of all corporeal and spiritual 
 light and of all knowledge. For all knowledge is 
 a light which illumines simultaneously both the 
 mind and the object. The mind is the subject 
 that receives the light of knowledge and the ob- 
 ject which was previously in darkness is mani- 
 fested to the mind by the knowledge illumining 
 the mind. 
 
 Second. Because He is Himself the clearest, 
 the most certain and the securest knowledge. 
 That knowledge is free from ignorance or ob- 
 
The Light of the World 95 
 
 scurity, both with regard to Himself and all in- 
 telligible things actual or possible as it is written : 
 "God is light and in Him there is no darkness." 
 (I John i.) It follows then that the whole world 
 of possibles is in the greatest clearness before 
 Him because it is illumined by the infinite light 
 of His knowledge. 
 
 Third. The name of Light is given to God 
 because He is infinitely superior to all created 
 light that is or can be, and He contains eminently 
 in Himself all light. It is from Him that all light 
 descends as a feeble participation in His infinite 
 light. 
 
 Finally, Scripture tells us that He dwells in 
 light inaccessible, because by knowledge, love and 
 possession He dwells in Himself and He is es- 
 sentially Light Inaccessible which no creature by 
 the mere force of nature can ever attain to even 
 in thought. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 God the Sanctifier. 
 
 /^l OD is called the Sanctifier, first, because all 
 the sanctity of men and angels is from Him. 
 It is by the communication of His sanctity that 
 He assimiliates them all to Himself and makes 
 them godlike. 
 
 Second. He is called the Sanctifier, because 
 He alone can pardon the offenses committed 
 against His infinite majesty. He alone can 
 purify souls from sin, and sanctify them. He 
 alone can illumine them by supernatural knowl- 
 edge and infuse in them supernatural charity. 
 He alone can communicate the Holy Spirit along 
 with the gift of charity. For the Holy Spirit is 
 given at the same time as charity in order to 
 sanctify souls by His^presence, to protect them by 
 His power, and to illumine and urge them to all 
 manner of good in order that He Himself and by 
 Himself may be their possession forever, and that 
 so they may be forever happy. 
 
 Third. God is called the Sanctifier because He 
 alone elevates to a supreme and consummate 
 96 
 
God the SanctiHer 97 
 
 sanctity all those who endeavor to sanctify them- 
 by means of which they know Him and love Him 
 in the sublimest manner. For the most exalted, 
 intrinsic and real sanctity consists in the most ex- 
 alted knowledge and enjoyment of God. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 God Our Refuge. 
 
 f~* OD is called our Refuge, first, because in all 
 our afflictions both of body and soul, in all 
 our temptations, in all our perils, in all our 
 anguish and in all our necessities, when we can 
 hope for nothing from any source, we have in 
 Him an assured refuge, and can turn to Him by 
 prayer and implore His help. Those who have 
 recourse to Him and who invoke Him with firm 
 hope and confidence He does not reject no matter 
 what their sins may be; even if they have often 
 merited hell. He always hears them, and either 
 grants what they ask or bestows something in- 
 comparably more precious and useful for their 
 salvation. 
 
 Second. God is called our Refuge, because 
 when all creatures desert us or can no longer 
 help us, He never abandons us but is always near 
 us, is in us, outside of us, and around us, on all 
 sides of us, and in all parts ever ready to help, 
 to aid, to console and to save. Thus we can 
 rightly say with David : "Our God is our refuge 
 and strength, a helper in trouble which have 
 found us exceedingly. Therefore we will not 
 98 
 
God Our Refuge 99 
 
 fear when the earth shall be troubled and the 
 mountains shall be removed into the heart of the 
 sea." (Ps. xlv.) And again: "The Lord is 
 my light and my salvation. The Lord is the pro- 
 tector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" 
 And further on: "My father and mother have 
 left me; but the Lord hath taken me up." 
 (Ps. xxvi.) 
 
 Third. God is likewise the especial Refuge of 
 all the just who are weary of the world, who long 
 to flee from its deceits, its malice and its over- 
 whelmingly cruel sufferings, and who sigh with 
 all the ardor of their hearts for God the source 
 of life and the abyss of all good in whom alone 
 they will find perfect rest. For He is the last 
 and supreme end of all their desires, and it is in 
 Him that all should with the whole energy of 
 their souls seek refuge, if they wish to gain the 
 beatific repose of heaven. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 God the Tender Father. 
 
 /^l OD is like a tender Father who lifts us up 
 when we fall and takes us in His arms; 
 because when the whole human race was lost and 
 had incurred the penalty of eternal damnation, 
 He alone had compassion on us and began with 
 the greatest tenderness to redeem us and to re- 
 store us to our original condition in order to ac- 
 complish our salvation, according to the words of 
 St. Luke. "He hath received Israel His servant, 
 being mindful of His mercy/' (Luke ii.) 
 
 Second. God shows Himself a tender Father, 
 because He most willingly receives even His 
 enemies who have grievously offended Him, as 
 soon as they wish to return to Him. He pardons 
 all their sins, reestablishes them in their former 
 condition, adopts them anew as His children and 
 restores them their right to the celestial inheri- 
 tance which they had forfeited. He is like the 
 father of the prodigal who received his son with 
 great joy after all the sins with which he had de- 
 filed himself and after wasting his substance in 
 riotous living. 
 100 
 
God the Tender Father 101 
 
 Third. God shows Himself to be a tender 
 Father, because He receives benignly all those 
 who are plunged in affliction when they have re- 
 course to Him. He consoles them and comes to 
 their assistance at the opportune moment accord- 
 ing to the word of Holy Scripture: "Know ye 
 that no one who hath hoped in the Lord hath 
 been confounded." (Eccl. ii.) And the Lord 
 Himself hath said: "Come to Me all that labor 
 and are burdened and I will refresh you." 
 (Matth. ii.) 
 
 Fourth. God shows Himself a tender Father 
 because He takes under His special protection all 
 those who have consecrated themselves to His 
 service. He exercises a paternal care over them ; 
 He enlightens them and forms them to be His 
 children, and raises them to great perfection to 
 make them as far as possible like to Himself in 
 their thoughts, their affections, their actions and 
 He endows them with the proper dispositions to 
 obtain their celestial inheritance. 
 
 Fifth. God finally shows His paternal love 
 by receiving the just into His kingdom when they 
 die, and admitting them to a blissful participa- 
 tion in His glory and in every good as the Royal 
 Prophet says. "Receive me according to Thy 
 word and I shall live, and suffer not that I shall 
 be confounded in my hope." (Ps. cxviii.) 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 God Our Protector. 
 
 Wis. xi, 25, 26 
 
 f* OD is called our Protector in general be- 
 cause He keeps every creature in its 
 species, in its integrity, and in its natural state. 
 As far as its condition requires, He defends it 
 from everything harmful, but He is especially a 
 Protector with regard to mankind, which is ex- 
 posed to an infinity of dangers and subject to 
 countless tribulations. 
 
 First. Because He preserves us from number- 
 less sins into which each of us would fall if His 
 benign protection did not prevent it. For on ac- 
 count of the extreme feebleness of our nature and 
 our inclination to evil, there is no kind of sin into 
 which we should not have been easily drawn by 
 the devices and power of the devil ; and we should 
 have remained in them, if God in His kindness 
 and in the most marvellous way had not encom- 
 passed us with His protection. Hence St. Paul 
 says. "Let no one glory in himself" (II Cor. 
 ch. x), as if he had avoided sin by his own care. 
 On the contrary we should humiliate ourselves 
 before God and recognize both our own weakness 
 102 
 
God Our Protector 103 
 
 and God's goodness, and thank Him no less for 
 the sins we have not committed than for the bene- 
 fits we have received. 
 
 Second. Because just as He has preserved us 
 from an infinity of sins into which otherwise we 
 should have fallen, so He has prevented us from 
 numberless dangers of incurring damnation into 
 which we would have rushed a thousand times 
 had not His clemency warded them off. For 
 whoever is in a state of mortal sin deserves the 
 eternal fire of hell, and would be instantly cast 
 into it by the demons, if God permitted it, 
 Hence we must conclude that when God preserves 
 us from sin, He preserves us mediately from 
 eternal damnation. 
 
 Third. Because He not only preserves us in- 
 directly but immediately and directly whenever 
 we are in a state of mortal sin. For then we are 
 really at the gates of hell, and nothing more 
 would be neded for eternal damnation did not 
 God arrest His just anger which is seeking to 
 burst upon us, and did He not keep back the 
 demons who are eager to seize upon us ; or finally 
 — and this is often the case — did He not avert 
 from us what might deprive us of life. In that 
 way He shields and preserves us from damnation, 
 so as to give us time to do penance and work out 
 our salvation. 
 
104 Names of God 
 
 Fourth. Not only does He preserve us from 
 sins and from hell, but from numberless other 
 misfortunes, afflictions, adversities, etc., into 
 which without His protecting hand we should 
 have fallen and in which we would have com- 
 mitted sins that would have ultimately dragged 
 us to hell. For He knows with absolute cer- 
 tainty what would be the result of each one of 
 those trials, viz. which ones would lead to heaven 
 and which to hell. So in His tender love for us, 
 He often diverts from us what He forsees would 
 end in the loss of our soul. For all this we ought 
 to thank Him every day of our lives. 
 
 Fifth. We call Him our Protector because 
 He protects the just with special care, as His 
 children and the heirs of His Kingdom, and es- 
 pecially those who are consecrated to His ser- 
 vice and His glory. To them He shows Himself 
 as a special protector. For they are the precious 
 pearls and diamonds in the treasure house of the 
 Lord. "He guards them as the apple of His 
 eye" (Ps. xvi and lxii.) that is to say, as those 
 who are dearest to Him. He protects them "as 
 the hen who gathereth the chickens under her 
 wings" Matth. xxiii.) 
 
 Sixth. God bears this name because He is 
 also the protector of the blessed, in as much as 
 He preserves them from every fall, from every 
 
God Our Protector 105 
 
 sin, from all sadness, from error, from death, 
 and from suffering both of soul and body. He 
 does all this by keeping them in the light of His 
 glory. For if He withdrew His concurrence, He 
 would that moment cease to preserve them. If 
 that light were extinguished in them they would 
 cease to be happy. The old infirmity would be 
 renewed in them, and they would fall again into 
 their former misery and even be eternally lost. 
 Hence the eternity of their happiness is founded 
 on the eternal protection of God. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
 God Our Helper. 
 
 /^ OD is called our Helper in general with 
 ^-* regard to all creatures. The reason is that 
 all power of acting in any manner whatever, and 
 also all created forces are dependent at every in- 
 stant on Him, to such an extent that not a single 
 act can be performed without His concurrence, 
 His cooperation and His aid. Moreover to ac- 
 cord such assistance is for Him most easy, for 
 He is intimately present in all creatures and by 
 His act and influence maintains them in their 
 nature, their being and their power. 
 
 God is especially our Helper because without 
 special aid and assistance on His part: 
 
 First. No one can rise from the state of sin 
 and damnation and regain the state of the chil- 
 dren of God. 
 
 Second. No one can escape the snares of the 
 enemy and overcome temptations. 
 
 Third. No one can do anything that avails 
 for eternal life. 
 
 Fourth. No one can persevere in virtue to the 
 end. In everything, we need God's especial help. 
 
 Finally God makes the inhabitants of heaven 
 106 
 
God Our Helper 107 
 
 feel His help. For in the state of beatitude no 
 one can see Him and love Him with beatific love, 
 no one can taste His boundless sweetness, that 
 is to say, enjoy Him, unless God assists by 
 the special help which comes through the light of 
 glory and the gift of charity. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 God Our Strength. 
 
 /*** OD is called our Strength, first, because by 
 **-* His help we are raised from the state of 
 sin and damnation to that of grace and divine 
 sonship. 
 
 Second. Because by His help we overcome 
 our enemies who are very powerful and very de- 
 ceitful, and we are able to defeat all the machina- 
 tions they employ against us in their efforts to 
 compass our ruin. 
 
 Third. Because by His grace, martyrdom is 
 undergone even by virgins and children, all the 
 cruelty of tyrants defied, and all the pleasures of 
 the world despised. 
 
 Fourth. Because by His help perseverance in 
 the most difficult undertakings is granted us. 
 
 Fifth. Because by His help we reach heaven 
 and gain eternal life. 
 
 Finally God is the Strength of the saints be- 
 cause by His help they can do everything that is 
 required for the glory of God and the salvation 
 of souls. 
 108 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 God Our Support. 
 
 f OD is called Our Support : Firmamentum 
 ^-* Nostrum, first, because all the steadfastness 
 of the just in the practice of virtue and all the 
 constancy of those who persevere in well-doing, 
 remaining unmoved as they do in spite of every 
 temptation and trial, must be ascribed to Him. 
 
 Second. Because all the perseverance of the 
 inhabitants of heaven in their supremely happy 
 state depends on Him and is maintained by His 
 decree. 
 
 Third. Because in general all the stability 
 which spiritual and corporeal creatures display in 
 their state, their work and their actions, depends 
 on Him alone and on His uninterrupted con- 
 currence. 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 God Our Life 
 
 Dionys. c. 6. 
 
 f^ OD is called Life in general, first, because 
 ^* He is the source of all life. For all life, 
 the highest, the middlemost and the lowest, viz. 
 the life of angels, of men, of animals and of 
 plants comes from Him and is a relatively bright 
 or obscure image or participation in the pri- 
 mordial source of life. All life is contained in 
 Him eminently, from all eternity and without 
 limit. 
 
 Second. God is called Life, because He is 
 Himself infinite, boundless and eternal life, both 
 formally and objectively. He is formally, be- 
 cause the highest formal life consists in the clear 
 vision, the love and the enjoyment of the Divine 
 Being. Now He is Himself that vision, that 
 love, and that enjoyment, and consequently He 
 is for Himself His own formal life. He is more- 
 over His own objective life, because He is His 
 own vital essence, in the vision, love and enjoy- 
 ment of which formal, eternal and blessed life 
 consists. His life is infinite as are also His 
 110 
 
God Oar Life 111 
 
 vision, His love and the pleasure He derives from 
 His essence, which is the infinite good in which 
 infinite other possessions are contained. Hence 
 just as He has all His wisdom, all His love, and 
 all His joy from Himself, both on the part of the 
 object and on that of the vital act — if I may use 
 that expression — so under both heads and under 
 this twofold aspect He has His life entirely from 
 Himself. 
 
 Third. God is called the Life of all things, 
 even of the possibles according to their objective 
 and intelligible being. For all things live in Him 
 by the eternal thought or idea by which He con- 
 ceives them and understands them. By means 
 of those ideas and concepts, all things exist ob- 
 jectively in the divine intelligence and shine there 
 with as much light as if they had an external en- 
 tity. In this manner they receive, so to speak, a 
 vital and eternal entity which consists solely in 
 being comprehended by the Divine Understand- 
 ing; and because of this vital concept all things 
 are said to live in God just as a work lives in the 
 mind of the artificer. 
 
 But God is especially called Our Life, first, be- 
 cause when we were dead in our sins and con- 
 demned to eternal death which is called the second 
 death, He Himself delivered us from both by the 
 death of His Son. and infused in us the life of 
 
112 Names of God 
 
 grace by the help of which we have the power of 
 attaining eternal life. 
 
 Second. Because He does not vivify those who 
 are dead in their sins, merely once or twice, but a 
 hundred and a thousand times. Nay He is ready 
 to give life to all sinners who have destroyed 
 themselves by sin and who have extinguished in 
 themselves the divine light, as soon as they have 
 recourse to Him by genuine penance, and indeed 
 every time after they have fallen into sin. If 
 they return to Him with repentance in their soul, 
 He will receive them as a father. He calls them 
 in a thousand ways, He invites them, He attracts 
 them, He compels them to return to the life which 
 they have lost. 
 
 Third. God is also called Our Life because, 
 first, He is the cause of all the blessings of grace 
 and glory, by which we shall live a life that is 
 eternal, divine, sublime and most blessed; and 
 second, because He is Himself the object of 
 eternal life. In this clear vision and enjoyment 
 of His Divine Being eternal life consists. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 God Our Hope. 
 
 (^ OD is called Our Hope, first, because He is 
 ^^ the sovereign good we hope for ; which we 
 desire more than and before anything else, and 
 which our heart pants for as the ultimate term of 
 all our hopes and desires. 
 
 Second. God is called Our Hope, because it is 
 He from whose infinite benignity, and wisdom, 
 and power we hope for all things whether it be 
 our last end or the means to attain it. None but 
 He can give us those things. Therefore He is 
 our hope both as the supreme good we hope for, 
 and as the author and helper by whose aid we 
 hope to attain it. 
 
 Third. Jesus Christ is also called Our Hope 
 because of His merits by which we cherish the 
 confidence of obtaining both whatever is neces- 
 sary for our salvation and also salvation itself. 
 Without those merits there would be no hope of 
 salvation. 
 
 Finally God is called "the Hope of all the ends 
 of the earth and of the sea afar off" because all 
 nations expect what is good for them from God, 
 and for that they pray. 
 
 113 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 God Our Salvation. 
 
 t^ OD is called Our Salvation, first, because He 
 ^^ delivered us from eternal death. Nay, as 
 far as in Him lies, He delivers all men and pays 
 a most abundant ransom for them; sufficient to 
 redeem an infinite number of sinners and efface 
 an infinity of sins. 
 
 Second. God is called Our Salvation because 
 He is the cause of all the gifts of grace and of all 
 the good works by which we merit eternal sal- 
 vation. The whole mechanism of this world is 
 directed to that one end: our eternal salvation. 
 All things are for the elect. 
 
 Third. God is called our Salvation, because 
 He is the author and source of all the gifts of 
 glory in which eternal salvation formally consists, 
 namely the vision and enjoyment of God. 
 
 Finally, God justly bears that title because He 
 is Himself the object of eternal salvation. On 
 Him depend the whole essence of eternal life, its 
 excellence, its sweetness and its endless duration. 
 To see Him, to love Him, to enjoy Him is life 
 eternal both for Himself and for all the saints. 
 114 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 God Our Glory. 
 
 f^ 1 OD is called Oar Glory, because He is its 
 ^^ cause and object. He is its cause because 
 He is the cause of all those things in which we 
 can in any way find glory in this life and also 
 because He is the cause of that sublime and 
 eternal glory of the world to come, and of all 
 those divine gifts of which it will, so to speak, 
 be the splendor. He is its object because He is 
 Himself the object, the measure and the source 
 of all glory, and of that most blessed state, in 
 which all the blessed who behold, love, and en- 
 joy Him will be deified and made like unto Him, 
 resplendent with the glory of the Divinity. For 
 the Divinity is so great a good, that to see, love 
 and enjoy it is sovereign and eternal glory. 
 
 Jesus Christ is also called Our Glory, because 
 He is the meritorious cause of it ; for all glory is 
 contained in His merits. They are its fruitful 
 source and from those merits glory is diffused 
 upon us. 
 
 He may also be called Our Glory in as much as 
 He is our head, and we are His members; just 
 as the Blessed Virgin is called the glory of the 
 heavenly, Judith the glory of the terrestrial 
 Jerusalem. 
 
 115 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 God Our Peace. 
 
 /^ OD is called Our Peace, first, in as much as 
 ^-* He is the author of all peace and of all 
 rest of soul, for He is the author of every 
 good thing that men desire and in the possession 
 of which they rest. 
 
 Second. Jesus Christ is called especially Our 
 Peace because He is the author of that great re- 
 conciliation with God and the justice of God 
 which threatened us with eternal damnation. 
 Moreover He has so reconciled us that not only 
 has He averted the wrath of God but has changed 
 us from the enemies that we were into children of 
 God and heirs of His kingdom. 
 
 Third. Jesus Christ is also called Our Peace, 
 because He has thrown down the barrier that was 
 raised between Jews and Gentiles. He has 
 united them and as the Apostle says made them 
 one people. (Eph. ii.) 
 
 Fourth. Jesus Christ is moreover called Our 
 Peace because spiritual consolation and peace 
 comes to us from Him and it is by Him that we 
 hope for eternal life and the blessed rest of our 
 souls. 
 
 116 
 
God Our Peace 117 
 
 Fifth. Finally God is called Our Peace be- 
 cause He is the fulfilment of all our desires, and 
 the most perfect rest of our souls; beyond Him 
 there is nothing else to be desired. All that our 
 souls can desire in accordance with right reason, 
 they will possess most fully in God for ever. 
 
CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 God Our Father. 
 
 r^ OD is called Our Father, first, because He 
 ^-* has formed us to His image and likeness, 
 and made us capable of His Divinity. Hence 
 our soul by its understanding, memory and will 
 possesses a certain grandeur and a boundless 
 capacity by which it can attain to, and grasp ob- 
 jects that are infinite. I say infinite because it 
 can continue endlessly to comprehend new things, 
 and in vast numbers so that there is never any 
 limit to its powers in this respect. I say more; 
 by the light of glory it can be so expanded 
 that it can contain within itself even the immen- 
 sity of God. In that we find a great resemblance 
 to God as of a son or daughter to the father. 
 
 Moreover as God can create things infinitely 
 and place them in actual being, so the soul can 
 create them infinitely by forming in itself intelli- 
 gible entities or concepts of infinite things. By 
 such concepts these things receive a certain ob- 
 jective and intelligible being in the mind. 
 
 All this suggests the immensity of the soul and 
 its resemblance to God. He therefore may be 
 justly called Our Father. He gave Himself this 
 118 
 
God Our Father 119 
 
 name in Deuteronomy xxxii, when He said: "Is 
 He not Thy Father who has possessed thee, who 
 has made thee, who has created thee?" 
 
 Third. God is called Our Father in the Lord's 
 Prayer and in may parts of the New Testament, 
 on account of His gifts of grace, namely Faith, 
 Hope and Charity, by which we are assimilated 
 to Him in a noble and more perfect manner. 
 But the crowning point of this resemblance is 
 that the Holy Ghost is communicated to us with 
 His gifts in order that He might abide in us and 
 by His presence sanctify us, protect us, govern 
 us, etc. In that manner God makes us His 
 adopted children by communicating to us His 
 nature and His Spirit by the gift of grace. To 
 this gift He has in a certain fashion attached His 
 Divine Spirit as we have more fully explained 
 elsewhere. (Lib. xii, de Perfect., c. ii.) For son- 
 ship arises from a certain communication of 
 nature. 
 
 Third. God is called Our Father because of 
 the gifts of glory by which we are assimilated to 
 Him in the highest and most perfect manner, to 
 such a degree, in fact, that there can be no real 
 and interior resemblance to God greater than it. 
 By these gifts the divine filiation is completed in 
 us. It began in some respect by creation, as in 
 its root; it was elevated by justification to a 
 
120 Names of God 
 
 higher and more supernatural degree, and rising 
 still higher by glorification, which is the 
 sublimest degree, it consummates in us the re- 
 semblance to God and confers on us the pleni- 
 tude of sonship. Because of this, all the blessed 
 are called the children of God, and God is called 
 the Father of the ages to come. 
 
 Finally, God is called Our Father, because of 
 His paternal providence which governs and acts 
 with us. He is like a prince who treats his sub- 
 jects as a father treats his children, and who is 
 for that reason called the Father of his Country. 
 "As a father hath compassion on his children, so 
 hath the Lord compassion on them that fear 
 Him." (Ps. cii). "Thy Providence, O Father, 
 governeth all." (Wis. xiv.) 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 The Jealous God. 
 
 Dionys. c. 4. 
 
 JEALOUSY signifies sometimes the ardent love 
 one has for another ; sometimes the indigna- 
 tion one feels against what is hurtful to the object 
 loved; and also refers to the effort made to 
 avert danger and to destroy the aggressor. 
 
 God is therefore called Jealous, first, because 
 loving Himself and His glory with an infinite 
 love, He is angry and profoundly indignant 
 against those who despise Him by committing 
 sin ; He is especially angry with those who trans- 
 fer to idols the glory which is His. Hence we 
 find in the 20th Chapter of Exodus, that after 
 having forbidden His people to adore strange 
 gods, He adds these words : "I am the Lord, thy 
 God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the 
 fathers upon their children unto the third and 
 fourth generation of those who hate Me." And 
 in Chapter 34 we read : "Adore not any strange 
 god. The Lord His name is Jealous; He is a 
 Jealous God." 
 
 Second. He takes the name of the Jealous 
 
 121 
 
122 Names of God 
 
 God, because He pursues with indignation and 
 is intent upon removing whatever hinders the sal- 
 vation of souls whom He loves as His spouses 
 and His daughters and whose salvation He sov- 
 ereignly desires. 
 
 Third. Because as a Jealous Spouse, He is in- 
 dignant against souls consecrated to His service 
 if they love anything outside of Himself and for 
 any other reason than for Him ; or if they delight 
 in things of the world and do not apply them- 
 selves to please Him in everything. 
 
CHAPTER XLVIlL 
 God the Judge of the Living and the Dead. 
 
 f* OD is called the Judge of All, first, because 
 V* He judges all souls as soon as they leave the 
 body. That judgment proceeds thus: At the 
 first instant the soul is separated from the body, 
 it beholds all the good and all the evil it has done. 
 At the same moment it sees clearly whether it 
 has merited punishment or reward. In the third 
 place, the sentence of God who is the Judge is re- 
 vealed to it, in consequence of which it is con- 
 demned to eternal punishment or rewarded with 
 eternal happiness. This sentence is pronounced 
 by a divine act which forms a judgment in the 
 soul such as would be uttered by the spoken word 
 of an infallible judge. In that way God speaks 
 to spiritual creatures and they know instan- 
 taneously and with absolute certainty that this 
 judgment comes from God and is His sentence. 
 We have elsewhere explained at length how good 
 and evil deeds are represented to the mind and 
 how the soul sees itself worthy of chastisement 
 or reward. (Lib. de Perfect., cxxii v. 137 et seq.) 
 All that is done by the act which God by a special 
 concurrence excites in the understanding. They 
 are like a picture in the imagination, or acts of 
 
 123 
 
124 Names of God 
 
 perfect memory, by which we as it were contem- 
 plate the past with all its attendant circumstances. 
 Hence at that tribunal there will be no need of 
 accuser or witnesses, because each one's con- 
 science will accuse itself, and will testify most 
 exactly to everything. It will be moreover in 
 the presence of all the saints. Their vision of it 
 will be most clear and they will serve as wit- 
 nesses. It is believable also that the demons 
 will have the same knowledge so that they may 
 see how just is the judgment of God. For if on 
 the day of General Judgment the actions of all 
 are to be manifested to every one in order that 
 the justice of God may appear, why, at the par- 
 ticular judgment, should they not be manifested 
 to the demons who share the punishment of the 
 reprobate and who appear as executioners at that 
 tribunal of divine justice. Hence when the sen- 
 tence is pronounced which the demons under- 
 stand, the condemned are dragged to the depths 
 of hell, where they will be so closely guarded that 
 they can neither escape, nor avoid suffering. 
 This judgment takes only an instant, even as is 
 credible, before the soul withdraws from the body. 
 Moreover, as at every hour, many in the world 
 are dying, the judgments of this tribunal are in 
 some sort continuous. Nor is that difficult, for 
 the Infinite Spirit of God which is intimately 
 
God the Judge of the Living and the Dead 125 
 
 present in the souls of all, knows perfectly what 
 they have done, can easily place the record before 
 each soul that He judges, and write the sentence 
 in its innermost depths. 
 
 Second. God is called the Judge of All, be- 
 cause by a public judgment at the end of the 
 world, He will judge all men and all the demons 
 of hell in presence of all the blessed angels. 
 However this name, the Judge of All, is more 
 properly ascribed to Christ who has been made 
 by the Father, the Judge of that great day. He 
 will exercise that judicial power according to 
 His Humanity and in the most visible manner. 
 Hence Daniel (c. vii) says: "I beheld therefore 
 in the vision of the night and lo! one like the 
 Son of Man came with clouds of heaven and He 
 came even to the Ancient of Days and they pre- 
 sented Him before Him. And He gave Him 
 power and glory and a kingdom. (Dan. vii.) 
 
 But it will be by the power of the Divinity that 
 all men will rise again and find themselves all to- 
 gether with the demons in the place where the 
 Judgment will take place. 
 
 It will also be by the power of God that all will 
 remember their words and works, all of which 
 will be seen by every one else, and each one will 
 understand the justice of the sentence. 
 
 Meantime while by the power of the Divinity 
 
126 Names of God 
 
 all that passes unseen in the understanding of 
 those who are to be judged, Christ, appearing in 
 the clouds, according to His Humanity, will be 
 surrounded by all the angels and in His supreme 
 majesty will pronounce in a few words that will 
 be heard by all, the sentence of the elect and of 
 the reprobate, and at the same time by the power 
 of the Divinity, He will cause to be heard in the 
 soul of each the sentence that is in keeping with 
 what it has deserved. 
 
 We have treated this matter at greater length 
 in Book xiii of The Divine Perfections. 
 
CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 God the Father of the World to Come. 
 
 •T 1 HIS name applies to Christ in two ways : ac- 
 * cording to His Humanity and according to 
 His Divinity, and in as much as it is made to re- 
 fer to His Divinity, it is applicable also to the 
 Blessed Trinity. 
 
 Christ is therefore called The Father of the 
 World to Come, first, because He is the Author 
 and Father of all the just and of all the children 
 of God who were to live in the future under the 
 New Testament. He is also the author of all 
 the blessings connected with that covenant. 
 
 For just as all the Jews according to the flesh 
 are descended from Jacob by his twelve sons, the 
 Patriarchs of the Old Law, so all the just who 
 are the Jews and Israelites according to the 
 spirit, are descended from Jesus Christ, the true 
 Israel, by the twelve Apostles, the Patriarchs of 
 the New Testament. From the point of view of 
 the Old Testament the time of the New is called 
 "the world to come" and was for ages the object 
 of supreme and universal expectation. 
 
 Second. Christ is called in a still higher sense 
 Father of the World to Come because He is the 
 Author and Father of all the blessed who after 
 the resurrection are to reign forever in heaven. 
 
 127 
 
128 Names of God 
 
 From Him they received all their gifts; He de- 
 livered them from eternal death; He merited for 
 them all the means of salvation and all the grace 
 that was needed for eternal life. He is therefore 
 the author of all the glory of body and soul with 
 which they shine in heaven. And He Himself 
 will be resplendent among the saints like the sun 
 among the stars. Because also His merits are 
 for men the cause of that most blessed state and 
 of all the glory with which they are to be crowned 
 in heaven, He is justly called the Father of the 
 World to Come. 
 
 Third. He is also called the Father of the 
 World to Come according to His Divinity. For it 
 is His Divinity that was the cause of the ransom 
 of the human race, and it is because of his Di- 
 vinity that His merits have power to save us. 
 
 Finally the Divinity is the principal efficient 
 cause of all the gifts of grace and glory as well as 
 of the state of glory which is ultimately secured. 
 Hence it follows that Christ as God is the Father 
 of the World to Come, not only in as much as that 
 world embraces the blessed but also the angels. 
 For the angels have all their glory and all their 
 resemblance to the Divinity from Christ, not in 
 as much as He is Man, but in as much as He is 
 God. Thus all the children of God are deified 
 by the gifts of His glory. 
 
CHAPTER L. 
 
 God the Last End. 
 
 TJ E is the First Beginning of all things and is 
 likewise their Last End. For the First 
 Beginning, acting and producing something out- 
 side of itself, can have for its object and its last 
 end the good of no other being but itself. 
 The reason is because all other beings are infi- 
 nitely beneath Him. Hence it follows that their 
 good is not of a kind that God, as the First Be- 
 ginning could rest in ultimately. Such a good is 
 as if it were not. For all beings compared to Him 
 are as nothing. He should therefore have in 
 view as His last end, His own good; that is His 
 own glory, because we cannot conceive any other 
 greater good that could be the term of His gaze 
 or His desire. For all the glory of God in as 
 much as it is a divine possession ought to be in- 
 finitely more estimable than any created good. 
 
 There are two sorts of ends: the end which, 
 and the end for which. The first is the good 
 which one desires and for the acquisition of which 
 one works; the second is the person whose good 
 is therein desired. 
 
 In this latter sense God is the Last End of all 
 
 129 
 
130 Names of God 
 
 things, because it is He for whose love and glory 
 all things are created, and it is exclusively for 
 His glory that He wishes and makes all things 
 and permits all that He permits. According to 
 the words of Scripture : "The Lord has made all 
 things for Himself; the wicked also for the evil 
 day/' (Prov. xvi, 4) God destines the wicked 
 to eternal punishment in order to manifest the 
 divine justice and glory. 
 
 God is in a special manner in the two senses 
 just explained the last end of rational creatures. 
 For rational nature alone is capable of Him, and 
 it alone has been created to enjoy God as its 
 greatest good. There is nothing more excellent 
 for it to desire. Hence it ought to desire and 
 seek God as its sovereign good, in every possible 
 way; and that, for its advantage, namely to en- 
 joy Him and delight in His sweetness. 
 
 God is also the Last End of rational creatures 
 in the second sense spoken of above, because all 
 the blessed must refer their beatitude and all they 
 have to His glory. This they do incessantly ; for 
 they esteem their beatitude, their glory and all 
 they possess as more properly God's own than as 
 belonging to themselves. 
 
 Hence the blessed rejoice in their glory and 
 their possessions in two ways; first, by regarding 
 these possession as their own and as bestowing 
 
God the Last End 131 
 
 upon them the greatest honor, the greatest joy 
 and the greatest sweetness such as none of their 
 own intrinsic perfections could impart; and 
 secondly, by considering them as the good that 
 belongs to God and appertaining to His everlast- 
 ing glory and praise. This is the principal joy 
 they draw from their beatitude and the gifts of 
 glory. And this beatitude is not only their su- 
 preme perfection, their supreme excellence and 
 their objective glory, but is also the formal glory 
 of God. For them to know God, to love Him and 
 to enjoy Him is His formal extrinsic glory, and 
 the greatest that can be conceived. It is besides 
 the intrinsic glory of the saints and their beati- 
 tude. Hence they esteem their intrinsic beati- 
 tude incomparably more for the reason that it is 
 the good and the glory of God than because it is 
 their own. 
 
 Finally, God is called the Last End of rational 
 creatures because all the angels and all the 
 blessed during all eternity will so rest in His 
 vision, in His love, and in the beatific enjoyment 
 of Him, that they can desire nothing beyond; 
 but will find in Him the term of all their desires, 
 and will enjoy in Him a most blessed repose. 
 
MEDITATIVE SUMMARIES 
 
 OF THE 
 
 DIVINE PERFECTIONS 
 
Preface. 
 
 KTOT a few theological students are under the 
 * ^ impression that what is called Speculative 
 Theology is of very little use. They pay no at- 
 tention to it during their course, and when their 
 studies are over drop it altogether. They say 
 they want something practical; as if Speculative 
 Theology were a barren field, and the territory 
 they choose to cultivate productive of abundant 
 harvests. 
 
 This is a serious error and deprives them of 
 knowledge that is both delightful and useful. For 
 in the first place Speculative Theology is by far 
 the noblest and most estimable section of the 
 science of Divinity. More than any other it de- 
 serves the name of Theology, for the reason that 
 its purpose is the consideration and study of 
 eternal things. Now it is assuredly better to 
 know even a little about the perfections of God 
 such as the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the crea- 
 tion and conservation of the universe, the coop- 
 eration of God with creatures, the Incarnation, 
 the Eucharist, the vision of God, and eternal life 
 than to possess the most exhaustive knowledge of 
 created things, of human inventions and human 
 institutions. They are of no use except for the 
 present life. 
 
 135 
 
136 Meditative Summaries 
 
 Moreover Speculative Theology not only af- 
 fords a great deal of consolation if we only know 
 how to avail ourselves of its teachings, but can 
 lift us up to the highest perfection and sublimest 
 sanctity. Theology is not, as some imagine, 
 merely a battleground for scholastic disputations. 
 Its chief purpose is our spiritual good and the 
 fashioning of our life as Christians. By the 
 study of the Divine Perfections, the soul rises to- 
 wards God, contemplates Him, admires, fears, 
 venerates, loves and perpetually praises and 
 blesses Him. By walking always in His pres- 
 ence we shape and mould our entire life accord- 
 ing to His good pleasure, and in obedience to the 
 least sign of His will. 
 
 Hence these sublime mysteries should fre- 
 quently occupy our thoughts, and our soul should 
 be constantly exercised in the contemplation of 
 the wonders this study reveals. Moreover as 
 such study supposes profound reverence and an 
 intellectual submission we must frequently im- 
 plore the divine assistance and the light of the 
 Holy Spirit. For without that help and illumi- 
 nation all our labor would be both fruitless and 
 useless. 
 
 Besides, although all Theology teaches what is 
 conducive to a pious and holy life, nothing draws 
 us so powerfully away from the love of perishable 
 
Preface 137 
 
 things and influences our heart with the desire of 
 what is celestial and eternal as the meditation 
 of the divine perfections. Theology will reign 
 in the world to come as the unchallenged queen 
 and mistress of all the sciences. There the 
 science that regards only what are called the 
 practical things of the present world will cease; 
 and it is surely of advantage for us while we are 
 living in this world to have a foretaste of the joys 
 of heaven. That is what Speculative Theology 
 accomplishes. It teaches men to live here below 
 as they will one day live in the blessed company 
 of the angels. 
 
 St. Denis the Areopagite exhorted his disciple 
 St. Timothy to practice this kind of meditation. 
 He considered it to be the sublimest height of all 
 wisdom and all virtue. "My dear Timothy," he 
 says, "fix the eyes of thy soul continually on the 
 mystical union. I mean the divine perfections. 
 Remove thyself from the senses and intellectual 
 operations, in fine from all sensible and intelli- 
 gible things ; from all that is and from all that is 
 not in order to raise thyself in a manner one 
 knows not how to a union, as far as the soul is 
 capable of it, with Him who is above all things 
 and above all knowing." 
 
 St. Denis is here speaking of that most ex- 
 cellent mode of contemplation by which after con- 
 
138 Meditative Summaries 
 
 sidering the divine perfections most attentively, 
 in as much as they present themselves to it as 
 limited to a certain species and as distinct from 
 each other, the soul rises to something more 
 sublime and limitless, and infinitely more noble; 
 to something which embraces not merely the di- 
 vine perfections as the created mind conceives 
 them, but the Divine Being Itself, and in an un- 
 known manner unites itself to Him by contempla- 
 tion and love. 1 
 
 Finally the knowledge of the divine perfections 
 is the supreme and first rule of all sanctity and 
 all perfection in the life of rational beings, both 
 angels and men. If this knowledge is perfect, 
 it alone suffices to acquire the supreme perfection 
 of every virtue. "For to know Thee is perfect 
 justice ; and to know Thy Justice and Thy power 
 is the root of immortality." (Wis. xiv.) In 
 
 1 This union with God by sublime contemplation is described as 
 taking place in an unknown manner, because it is not made by 
 contemplating any form (essence, nature) or anything con- 
 ceivable by us, such as life, wisdom, power, goodness, eternity, 
 etc., but by withdrawing the mind from all such things, and by 
 considering God who is infinitely beyond anything that can be 
 conceived. This supereminence of God which can in no wise be 
 conceived by us under any form, St. Denis calls the divine 
 darkness and the superessential life. For us it is darkness, be- 
 cause it is conceived by the negation of every intelligible essence 
 or nature; but in itself it is more resplendent than any light. 
 {Ex. Lib. De Summo Bono nn. 93, 94, Lessius.) 
 
Preface 139 
 
 effect the knowledge of God is the supreme 
 and absolute rule of perfect and consummate jus- 
 tice. This justice it excites in the heart, and after 
 having excited it, augments it and after having 
 augmented it, perfects it. These words of the 
 Gospel of St. John: "Now this is eternal life. 
 That they may know Thee the only true God and 
 Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent," (John, 
 xvii) signify nothing else than that this knowl- 
 edge is the rule of all rectitude by which we are 
 most certainly conducted to eternal life. The 
 Apostle declares it also when he so often prays 
 with such ardent desire and earnest supplication 
 that the faithful should increase in the knowl- 
 edge of God. God Himself recommends it to 
 Abraham when He says : "Walk in My presence 
 and be perfect" (Gen. xvii.) What else does 
 He indicate and inculcate except that by an as- 
 siduous consideration of the presence of God and 
 the divine perfections we may acquire the virtues 
 and perfections of life. That is the reason why 
 the saints showed so much zeal and resorted to 
 so many devices and made so many efforts to 
 walk continually in the presence of God. 
 
 Here also we may include the manner in which 
 Christ acted and which He bids us to imitate: 
 "Love your enemies," He tells us; "do good to 
 those who hate you and be the children of your 
 
140 Meditative Summaries 
 
 Father who is in heaven who maketh the sun to 
 rise upon the good and the wicked, and raineth 
 upon the just and the unjust. Be therefore 
 perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Be 
 merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful." 
 The Apostle follows the example of Christ when 
 he exhorts the Ephesians (and in speaking to 
 them he addresses us), to be imitators of God as 
 most loving sons and to walk in love as Christ 
 loved us and delivered Himself up for us. 
 
 From all this it is clear that the consideration 
 of the divine perfections is a most excellent rule 
 of all perfection and of all sanctity. If this is 
 clearly kept before our minds we need no other 
 rule. 
 
 But just as the knowledge of the presence of 
 God and the meditation of the divine acts lead to 
 all virtues and the perfection of life, so on the 
 other hand ignorance of God and the habit of 
 never considering Him at all constitute the source 
 of every vice, of every turpitude and of every sin. 
 As the Psalmist says : "The fool hath said in his 
 heart: There is no God.' They are corrupt and 
 become abominable in their ways, and there is 
 none that doeth good, not one." For who is the 
 man, no matter how forgetful he may be of his 
 salvation who would not hesitate to commit a 
 crime if he weighed attentively the displeasure it 
 
Preface 141 
 
 causes God, or if he thought that God was pres- 
 ent, menacing him with the divine anger and the 
 curse of eternal damnation. 
 
 The reason why the knowledge of God is the 
 rule of virtue is evident. The perfection of man 
 consists in union with God, his first beginning 
 and his last end. Now this union originates in 
 knowledge. It is the foundation of all union 
 with God. As St. Denis expresses it — the first 
 union with God begins by the intelligence. From 
 that follows the union of heart by hope, charity 
 and religion. There follows also the union of 
 all the other powers of the soul, in as much as 
 their effective operations are directed to God, 
 namely to His glory. The blessed inhabitants of 
 heaven know no other law; a fact that is worthy 
 of our serious consideration. All their affec- 
 tions and all their movements are formed after 
 the sole and perfect rule of the knowledge of 
 God. From that rule all other rules of a just and 
 holy life derive their correctness. By that rule the 
 doctrine and the life of Jesus Christ is shaped. 
 From that rule emanate as from their source all 
 the teachings and examples of the saints, and 
 what confirms this still more, all laws and all 
 rules are derived from the eternal law. Now the 
 eternal law results from the Divine Essence, just 
 as every natural law in angels and men results 
 
142 Meditative Summaries 
 
 from their rational nature. Therefore the knowl- 
 edge of the Divinity is the first and supreme rule 
 of all perfection. 
 
 Finally to the knowledge of God we must join 
 the knowledge of ourselves. By contrasting our 
 imperfection and misery with the perfection and 
 majesty of God we estimate the distance between 
 both, and after we have dissipated the clouds of 
 self-love we may know clearly what is to be given 
 to God and what to ourselves. By this compari- 
 son of human baseness with divine splendor it 
 will be easy to know what our duty to God is, 
 and what our duty to ourselves demands. On 
 our side is evil and imperfection; on God's all that 
 is good and perfect. Hence all love is due to 
 God's goodness, and all honor to His perfection; 
 whereas punishment is the proper thing for our 
 malice, as contempt is for our baseness. 
 
 We divide this work into fourteen books. We 
 shall not follow the scholastic method, but will 
 adopt an easier style in order that these mysteries 
 may not only be placed before the mind of the 
 reader with as much splendor as possible for the 
 enlightenment of their minds, but also that feel- 
 ings of piety may be excited in their hearts and 
 they may be filled with awe, admiration, love and 
 joy. While avoiding scholastic subtleties we 
 shall endeavor to explain everything by reason, 
 
Preface 143 
 
 by the authority of the Holy Fathers and espec- 
 ially by Scripture so that without much reading, 
 what we say may furnish abundant material for 
 meditation. For the attentive consideration of 
 a few things illumines the mind more and touches 
 the heart quicker than prolix reading and elabo- 
 rate argumentations. 
 
 This treatise was written thirteen or fourteen 
 years ago, except the two last books on Justice 
 and the Last end. The work was originally 
 undertaken at the suggestion of Father Flerontini 
 a man much given to spiritual things. When I 
 gave him the manuscript, I was not much con- 
 cerned about making the additions referred to 
 above. Besides, other occupations were not lack- 
 ing. I trust that the edition which is now 
 brought out may enkindle in the reader the light 
 of understanding and the fire of love. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 The Infinity of God. 
 
 r\ LORD GOD! Great and terrible art Thou ! 
 ^^ God of immeasurable majesty! Thou 
 art an infinite ocean of being, of goodness and of 
 beatitude, compassing in Thyself all being and all 
 good ; anticipating it from all eternity, possessing 
 it before it existed: for Thou art the source of all 
 being. Thou art the foundation of all possible 
 things. Thou are the superessential Being of all 
 beings, both of those that are and of those that 
 are not. Without Thee nothing can exist either 
 in act or in potency, or can even be conceived by 
 any understanding. Thou art the beginning of 
 all beings, the end of all beings, their Creator, 
 their support, their place, their duration, their 
 term, their order, their connection, their har- 
 mony and their consummation. 
 
 All the good that is in men and angels is in 
 Thee, and also the good of every purpose or end 
 of all beings, both of those that are and those 
 that are not. In Thee reside all glory and dig- 
 , nity and riches and treasures ; all sweetness and 
 consolation, all joy and all beatitude. Thou art 
 144 
 
The Infinity of God 145 
 
 my God and my All; the God of my heart; my 
 portion and my God for all eternity. 
 
 May all passing things be regarded by me as 
 vile for Thy sake; may everything that regards 
 Thee be dear to me, and Thou, My God, more 
 dear than all. For what is all the rest when com- 
 pared to Thy excellence? What is all else but 
 a cloud and a shadow and a vain thing ? All the 
 riches and all the delights and all the glory of 
 the world which so miserably fascinate the eyes 
 of men are as nothing, and only prevent us from 
 knowing and seeking our true good in Thee. As 
 one who in sleep dreams of riches and pleasures 
 and honors, and awakes only to discover that it 
 was a delusion ; so will it happen to those who love 
 the world. When the slumber of this life is 
 broken they will awaken in the light of a different 
 world. 
 
 Let me therefore, O my God! esteem none of 
 the things that pass. Let me esteem Thee alone, 
 and the treasures that are hidden in Thee. They 
 are Thyself; and those who despise the perishable 
 things of earth, and cleave to Thee alone will 
 enjoy Thee for ever. 
 
 Let me love Thee above all things, and serve 
 Thee always, because Thou art infinitely better 
 than all things and most worthy of being loved, 
 cherished, revered, served and glorified by all 
 creatures for all eternity. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Immensity of God. 
 
 ORD ! How great Thou art and how worthy 
 *-** of all praise ! Of Thy greatness there is no 
 end. Thou art higher than the heavens, more 
 extended than the ocean, more profound than the 
 abyss. Thou fillest all, Thou encompassest all. 
 Thou dost hold the universe as a little globe in 
 the hollow of Thy hand. As a philosopher has 
 well said (if indeed he understood it in a sane 
 sense), Thou art an incomprehensible sphere 
 whose centre is everywhere and whose circum- 
 ference is nowhere. 
 
 Thou occupiest all the space of all the places 
 that are within and without the world. Thou 
 art Thyself the foundation, the site, the space of 
 all space. Thou extendest primarily and estab- 
 lishest the immensity of all space and of all the 
 intervals therein, both possible and actual, in Thy 
 quality of the first foundation upon which all else 
 is built. Thou extendest not only the heavens 
 and capacious vastnesses of this world, but in a 
 still more marvellous way, Thou extendest that 
 space itself in which Thou hast established the 
 world by no other span than that of Thy magni- 
 146 
 
The Immensity of God 147 
 
 tude. That limitless magnitude is the first and 
 the fundamental capacity and the spaciousness or 
 the potential extension in which all other space 
 can be, and by reason of which the boundlessness 
 of space is imaginable by the created mind, 
 just as Thine eternity is the first and original 
 duration and conceivable foundation of things 
 that endure. 
 
 Not only by the immense diffusion of Thy 
 Being dost Thou occupy limitless space, super- 
 arching and subtending its abyss, but Thou art 
 moreover in all beings and in all places of this 
 universe, in each one in particular, and in what- 
 ever points of it may be designated. Thou art 
 there present with all Thy Divine Being, alto- 
 gether and entire within it. Thou art there with 
 all Thy power, Thy wisdom, Thy goodness, and 
 all Thy perfections; with all Thy gifts, with all 
 Thy treasures, to adorn and render happy all 
 Thy creatures. 
 
 Thou art hidden entire in every being, inces- 
 santly creating all things, forming them, conserv- 
 ing them in all the luminousness of being; else 
 they would fall back again into their proper dark- 
 ness and nothingness ; and finally, Thou drawest 
 them to Thyself by the inclination to good that 
 Thou hast implanted in them. 
 
 Convert my heart to Thee, from within, 
 
148 Meditative Summaries 
 
 I implore Thee, down to the innermost 
 depths of my being. There let the noise of all 
 creatures die, and all the tumult of importunate 
 thoughts cease. Let me abide in Thee; let me 
 see Thee ever present; let me love and revere 
 Thee; let me hear Thy voice; let me lay bare to 
 Thee the miseries of my exile and let me find con- 
 solation in Thee. Let me never lose sight of Thy 
 presence, O Light and Sweetness of my soul! 
 Let me never forget Thee, but on what ever side 
 I turn let the eyes of my soul ever fall upon Thee. 
 Being present entirely in each place, Thou dost 
 shed the rays of Thy presence upon all beings. 
 For as the soul of man that cannot be seen be- 
 trays itself by the movements and acts which the 
 body performs making us fully aware of its pres- 
 ence, so O Lord ! do Thou who art the Supervital 
 Life and the Superessential Being of all beings, 
 show Thyself in a way that will be manifest in 
 the beauty of Thy creatures which are brilliant' 
 mirrors of Thine admirable wisdom and power. 
 
 For what in effect are all creatures but a cer- 
 tain impression and as it were a copy of Thine 
 eternal thought. Thou art the primordial and 
 universal seal, and all creatures are the resulting 
 impressions produced by that seal. Nor dost 
 Thou impress Thyself on matter that abides and 
 retains this signet mark after the seal is removed, 
 
The Immensity of God 149 
 
 but on what is as it were fluid and evanescent and 
 tending to nothingness. Indeed no creature can 
 exist a single instant if Thy seal is withdrawn 
 from it. That it may continue to exist, there is 
 needed from Thee a continual presence and a 
 continual impression. Thus then, O my Lord! 
 shall I recognize Thy presence in all creatures, 
 because Thou art hidden in each of them and 
 givest incessantly to them their being, their rank 
 and their beauty. 
 
 Grant me, moreover, to understand with all 
 the saints the length and breadth and height and 
 depth of Thy Divinity; so that having no more 
 affection for myself, I may plunge into that in- 
 finite ocean and lose myself therein along with 
 all that is created, thinking of nothing outside of 
 what I meet in those depths, feeling nothing, lov- 
 ing nothing, seeking nothing more than to rest in 
 Thee alone, possessing all things in Thee alone, 
 and enjoying all good in Thee alone. For just 
 as Thine Essence is infinite and measureless, so 
 every good that is in Thee is infinite and without 
 bounds. Who can be greedy to such a point that 
 infinite and limitless good will not satisfy him? 
 Let me therefore seek nothing outside of Thee, 
 and be Thou to me all things and above all things. 
 O God of my heart! O God! who art mine in- 
 heritance for all eternity ! 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 The Immutability of God. 
 
 < <HT O Thee O King of ages, immortal, invisible, 
 * the Only God" and my Sovereign 
 Master "be honor and glory" (I Tim. i; James i) 
 from all creatures in heaven and on earth and 
 above all creatures, in the highest and most in- 
 accessible light of Thy wisdom and Divinity. 
 Thou art the author of all immortality and all 
 stability. Thou art the adhesiveness and the 
 bond of every creature. 
 
 It is by Thee that angelic natures and reason- 
 able beings are immortal and indestructible. 
 Through Thee the heavens possess their 
 "strength as if they were of molten brass" (Job. 
 xxxvii, 18). By Thee the earth as an immobile 
 centre, "standeth forever" (Eccl. i, 4) balanced 
 by its own weight in the midst of the universe. 
 By Thee the indissoluble nature of the elements 
 and of matter persist. Thou hast with Thy 
 mighty hand imprinted beauty upon all creatures 
 that no art can ever rob them of. Thou guard- 
 est them intrinsically with such a power and Thou 
 communicatest to them such a potent force of 
 cohesion that no violence can ever disintegrate 
 or disunite them. 
 150 
 
The Immutability of God 151 
 
 Thou art not only the author of immortality 
 and stability, but Thou art, besides, the primary 
 and supreme origin of all movement both cor- 
 poreal and spiritual. For nothing visible is done 
 in the vast commonwealth of the world that is 
 not ordained or permitted in the invisible counsel 
 of Thy sovereign Majesty. There is decreed the 
 ineffable distribution of Thy gifts, recompenses, 
 and punishments, and the apportionment of the 
 sorrows and joys and the other vicissitudes of 
 this life. 
 
 All the plans and arrangements of things sub- 
 ject to change are in Thee without change, and 
 the origins of all things temporal are eternal in 
 Thee. Once before all the ages Thou didst de- 
 termine upon all things; once for all Thou didst 
 speak, and by the power of that statute or ordi- 
 nance Thou didst open the series of the ages and 
 didst determine everything that in due course 
 should come to light in its proper time and place. 
 The order of time is in Thee without time; and 
 there can be nothing new for Thee who from all 
 eternity hast made all future things. Thou 
 hast made them, I mean in Thy predesti- 
 nation of them; in that decree which ordains 
 or permits them; and in that infallible fore- 
 knowledge which sees all things as if they were 
 present. 
 
 In Thee is the plenitude of all good, preexisting 
 
152 Meditative Summaries 
 
 and anterior to all the ages. To it nothing can 
 be added, and from it nothing can be taken away. 
 Thou possessest simultaneously from the begin- 
 ning all that can be added in the infinite succes- 
 sion of ages, and Thou canst lose nothing, be- 
 cause by Thine Essence, Thou hast and art every- 
 thing. Thou dost not need our service; there 
 can be to Thee no advantage in our salvation, 
 nor can our damnation be to Thy detriment. 
 Even if the whole world should perish, Thou nev- 
 ertheless wouldst lose naught thereby and Thy 
 glory and Thy beatitude would suffer no diminu- 
 tion nor be in any way impaired. 
 
 But in spite of that, Thou dost love us with an 
 eternal and infinite love. There is nothing Thou 
 wouldst not do to save us and make us partici- 
 pants in Thy beatitude. Nay, when we wandered 
 away from Thee, Thou didst not abandon us. 
 Thou didst call us back again in a thousand ways 
 as a tender father who calls after his fugitive 
 children, promising pardon, so that we might 
 not fall into eternal misery. 
 
 O! the immense sweetness of Thy Spirit 
 which prompts Thee to show such benignity to 
 us, not only when we merit naught but even when 
 we are ungrateful and rebellious; when we do 
 not cease to offend Thee and repay with evil the 
 infinite favors Thou bestowest upon us. 
 
The Immutability of God 153 
 
 Illumine our darkness, O! Primordial Light! 
 Remove from the eyes of our souls the foolish 
 fascination of this world's trifles which perverts 
 the simple sense. Let us perceive clearly the dif- 
 ference between what is perishable and what is 
 immortal, what passes and what abides, the goods 
 of this world and those of the world to come. 
 Let us despise the former and strive to attain and 
 cleave to the latter. Remove from us all incon- 
 stancy of mind that we may not waver in our 
 good resolutions, or ever abandon what we have 
 once begun. For nothing is more harmful to 
 spiritual advancement than that instability of 
 soul which is never fixed and which at the slight- 
 est breath sways like a reed in the wind. 
 
 Let a ray of Thy light illumine the lofty sum- 
 mits of our soul, and do Thou draw our mind on 
 high towards Thee, above the spheres of all 
 changing things, above all the ways of the sun 
 and of the years, and above all created things. 
 Enchain it to Thee by the indissoluble bond of 
 love, so that neither death, nor life, nor poverty, 
 nor riches, nor glory, nor ignominy, nor pleasure, 
 nor pain, nor height, nor depth, nor the gates of 
 hell itself, nor all the torments of the demon, may 
 ever wrest us from Thine arms or separate us 
 from Thee. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Eternity of God. 
 
 "DEFORE the mountains were made or the 
 *-* earth, and the world was formed; from 
 eternity unto eternity Thou art God." (Ps. 
 lxxxix). Thou art the Beginning and the Maker 
 of all things. Thou art therefore before all 
 things. Not by any necessity of Thy nature didst 
 Thou create this universe, this vast palace with 
 its inhabitants and its riches, so that Thou might- 
 est have something coeternal with Thee. It is 
 not as with the sun and its rays. It was with 
 sovereign liberty, and as its supreme artificer, 
 that Thou didst form the design of it and didst 
 shape it according to Thy good pleasure. Thou 
 art therefore more ancient than Thy work which 
 is not six thousand years old. And how many 
 centuries older art Thou ? Nor can this question 
 seem strange even if before the world was made 
 there were no centuries in which Thou wert, and 
 in which Thou wert in the enjoyment of all good. 
 For although before the creation of the heavens 
 and earth, there were no phases of the sun and 
 moon which measure our days, our months and 
 our years, and by which we know the brief space 
 154 
 
The Eternity of God 155 
 
 bf time that our possessions last* we can not 
 however doubt, unless we wish to dispute about 
 words, that there were durations and spaces like 
 our days and months and years and centuries* 
 through which those movements could have ex- 
 tended and run their course if they had then ex- 
 isted, just as after this world has come to and end 
 and the movements of the planets have ceased, all 
 the duration and lapses of time will not thereby 
 be abolished. 
 
 Let us conceive an extent of time by going back 
 a hundred thousand centuries before the creation 
 of the world. Thou, O my God already wert. 
 Let us add to this many millions of centuries, and 
 Thou wert before all that time, as great, as 
 powerful, as wise, as happy as Thou art now. 
 Finally let us figure in imagination a still greater 
 and greater multitude of centuries which are 
 ever and always receding into the past, and we 
 shall find that Thou wert still there, more ancient 
 than an infinity of ages and always with Thine 
 infinite possessions and Thy sovereign beatitude. 
 
 For Thou art the foundation, the beginning 
 and the measure of all the ages. Thine eternity 
 precedes and dominates them all, and beneath 
 Thee they roll onward in their course. As by 
 Thine immensity Thou reachest forth encompass- 
 ing and containing all space, so by Thine eternity, 
 
156 Meditative Summaries 
 
 Thou dost precede, anticipate, encompass and 
 span the spaces and extents of time as the root 
 and origin of all times. For beneath Thee are 
 inaugurated all the beginnings of things, all prog- 
 ress that is made, all life that flows, all move- 
 ments that advance, all existence that endures, 
 all ends that are reached, and all boundaries that 
 circumscribe. 
 
 O Eternity ! Thou art the primordial and un- 
 ending reunion of all that is good; the total, 
 perfect and simultaneous possession of a life that 
 can never grow old ; the supereminently complete 
 fruition without beginning and without end of all 
 happiness. For Thee there is no past nor future ; 
 for Thee there is no possible augmentation nor 
 decrease. From the altitude of Thy Now, that 
 actual moment which embraces infinite time, 
 Thou gatherest together all things at once. Thou 
 holdest them all present in such wise that they 
 cannot flee away to the past, nor arrive at any 
 thing new in the future. Thou precedest and 
 anticipatest all things, present, past and future, 
 and tfcey are already present to Thee before they 
 can have aught of the future in their being. For 
 although whatever was to be in the future was 
 such from all eternity, nevertheless it would not 
 have been so, hadst Thou not known it, and either 
 wished or permitted it. 
 
The Eternity of God 157 
 
 In Thy Now all things are once for all con- 
 sidered and decreed. In it all counsel about all 
 things is held and concluded. No deliberation 
 remains to be made; all have been thoroughly 
 scrutinized and examined. What is ever to be 
 or not to be has been denned and decided. In 
 that Now we have been numbered and 
 weighed, and all our works have been placed in 
 the balance ; in it everlasting glory or everlasting 
 punishment is decreed for us; there we either 
 reign with the saints in glory or burn in hell with 
 the demons and the reprobate. The eternity of 
 Thy foreknowledge and of Thy decree precedes 
 and anticipates all things, and all that is to be 
 done in time has there been already done. 
 
 O Eternity! Abyss of joy for the saints, 
 abyss of misery and pain for sinners! For as 
 Thou makest all things infinitely better and more 
 desirable so Thou renderest all evil infinitely more 
 painful and more terrible. What spirit can com- 
 prehend Thy greatness; what strength of soul 
 sustain Thy weight? Thou crushest down all 
 pride; Thou shatterest all hardness; Thou curbest 
 all rebellion ; Thou terrifiest all sinners and f orti- 
 fiest all the just in their tribulations by pouring 
 out in their soul a joy that is ineffable. "For 
 that which is at present momentary and light of 
 our tribulation, worketh for us above measure, 
 
158 Meditative Summaries 
 
 exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." (II Cor. 
 iv). For the suffering of a moment we receive 
 good that is everlasting; for a tribulation that is 
 light, an immense weight of glory; for earthly 
 affliction glory in heaven. Who would prefer to 
 endure an everlasting punishment rather than 
 deprive himself in this life of an enjoyment that 
 lasts .only for a moment? Who would prefer 
 earthly things which are so vile and fleeting to 
 those of heaven which are so sublime and which 
 endure for ever? 
 
 O Eternity! Be Thou ever present to my 
 mind. Inhere in my innermost sense; be the rule 
 of all my actions and of all my life ; make me think 
 of Thee so as to despise and regard as evil all 
 that passes, be it of weal or woe ; be my solace in 
 all suffering ; my help in all temptations ; my light 
 and counsel in prosperity. 
 
 To Thee who art the Beginning of all begin- 
 nings and more ancient than them all, who art 
 the Father of the ages, the King of the centuries, 
 the dispenser of all time, the basis of all that sub- 
 sists and abides and who givest a blessed eternity 
 at the last, be all honor and glory for ever and 
 ever. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Omnipotence of God. 
 
 IT OW adorable and tremendous is Thine Om- 
 A A nipotence ! How it should be contemplated 
 in the silence of religious and reverential awe ! O 
 Lord! King of the Ages! Thou canst do of 
 Thyself whatever all Thy creatures united can 
 do. By Thee is established and on Thee depends 
 whatever there is of power, of strength and of 
 energy in all things. With one word Thou hast 
 created all things from nothing, and after having 
 drawn them from naught Thou didst keep them 
 in being by Thy substantific concurrence, and 
 didst hold them as it were suspended by the hand 
 of Thy power and didst prevent them from fall- 
 ing back into their original nothingness. 
 
 Before Thee the universe is like an imper- 
 ceptible atom, and all the nations like a drop of 
 dew that falls before the rising of the sun. Thou 
 canst do and execute not only what all men and 
 all angels can conceive in their minds, but also 
 whatever Thine own infinite wisdom can con- 
 ceive. For Thy power is equal to Thy wisdom 
 and coextensive with it in its outpouring. 
 
 Thy wisdom is the sole rule and the sole meas- 
 
 159 
 
160 Meditative Summaries 
 
 ure of Thine omnipotence, and what other 
 measure can a measureless power be guided by 
 than a measure which has no limit? 
 
 Hence it follows that Thou holdest and pos- 
 sessest no less the things that have not actually 
 been brought into being but also those which 
 actually exist and which appear in their nature 
 and species. They remained hidden in the treas- 
 ure-house of Thy power and wisdom, until they 
 heard the summons that bade them stand forth 
 and utter the words: "Behold us ready to do 
 Thy will." 
 
 Thou hast no need either of our praise or of 
 our service. Didst Thou wish it, Thou wouldst 
 have on the instant an infinity of servants who 
 would worship Thee incomparably better than 
 we, and give Thee praise of every kind. 
 
 Do Thou penetrate my soul with the most pro- 
 found sentiments of respect and humility in pres- 
 ence of Thy power which is so great, since Thou 
 canst, O my God! dispose of me and of all 
 creatures according to Thy good pleasure, and 
 there is none that can say: "Why hast Thou 
 done this?" All things are Thine and the work 
 of Thy hands. Be always present in my 
 thoughts, O my God ! Let me ever see the hand 
 of Thine omnipotence extended, menacing me 
 with the lightning of eternal damnation if I am 
 
The Eternity of God 161 
 
 rash enough to violate Thy holy law. Give me 
 also a serene confidence in Thee that I may fear 
 no one but Thee, and let no creature avail to sepa- 
 rate me from Thy love. For what are all things 
 in Thy presence? And in what can they harm 
 me without Thy permission ? If Thou permittest 
 that I should be afflicted by some one, deign that 
 it may be for my salvation and a means to merit 
 eternal life. Amen! 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Wisdom of God. 
 
 ILLUMINE my eyes O Primordial Light; 
 dissipate the darkness of my soul O Eternal 
 Sun. "Send forth Thy light and Thy truth"; 
 that they may conduct me and bring me "unto 
 Thy holy hill and into Thy tabernacles" (Ps. xlii). 
 For Thou art the origin of all light and of all in- 
 telligence. Thou art the Author of all under- 
 standing, of all reason. Without irradiation 
 from Thee everything would remain buried in the 
 darkness and night of ignorance. All the arts 
 and all the sciences are but feeble rays that eman- 
 ate from Thee. All the wisdom of the Angels 
 is but a minute spark of Thine infinite light. 
 Thou art the source of all that is beautiful and 
 lovable, of all form and of all beauty, of all order 
 and of all proportion, of all fitness and all agree- 
 ment, of all sympathy and all aversion. Thou 
 hast created the nature and the species of all 
 beings, Thou hast established in the constituent 
 elements of each its agreement and analogy, its 
 number, and order, its measure and its mode. 
 Thou art the primordial seal of all things. Thou 
 dost penetrate them all by Thy purity and Thy 
 162 
 
The Wisdom of God 163 
 
 subtility, forming them all interiorly and coordi- 
 nating everything that is in each. And although 
 "Thou reachest from end to end," (Wis. viii) 
 that is, from the highest heaven to the profound- 
 est abyss, Thou enterest into all things without 
 mingling with any. Thou art not soiled by their 
 contact but keepest Thy splendor and purity un- 
 sullied. Infinite are the ways by which Thou de- 
 scendest to Thy creatures to form or illumine 
 them and in which Thou diffusest Thyself upon 
 them, and yet Thou remainest in Thine unchange- 
 able identity fixed most firmly above all created 
 things. Innumerable are the revelations Thou 
 hast imparted to us by the lips of Thy servants, 
 as well as by an infinity of signs and symbols 
 through which Thou hast manifested Thyself to 
 the understanding of men, yet by a single and 
 most simple thought Thou accomplishest all 
 things. 
 
 Thou art the author and creator of everything, 
 the model, the measure, the end of all. Not only 
 art Thou the author of all things visible and in- 
 visible that exist and have already re- 
 ceived from Thee the beauty with which 
 Thou hast invested them, but Thou art also the 
 author of those creatures which are not, but 
 which may be created by Thine omnipotence, 
 and they are infinitely more numerous. All of 
 
164 Meditative Summaries 
 
 these beings Thy Thought has seen and formed 
 in itself before the ages, and Thou keepest them 
 in Thy presence although Thou hast decreed 
 never to give them existence by creation outside 
 of Thyself. It is as with a great architect who 
 forms in his mind many designs of a palace and 
 who rejoices and triumphs in these plans which 
 his imagination presents to him, although he has 
 resolved never to reduce them to act. 
 
 All the beings which constitute the world of the 
 possibles exist before Thee in supreme perfection 
 and they shine from all eternity in Thy presence 
 no less than those that Thou hast exteriorly 
 created. They are surrounded by Thy light and 
 appear in the order and nature assigned to each 
 of them. Thou rejoicest and dost triumph at 
 the sight of all these beings that Thou beholdest 
 in Thine inaccessible light where Thou possessest 
 them. There they cannot decay nor grow old, 
 nor be obscured by darkness, nor fall from Thy 
 divine hand, but they always subsist in the same 
 immutable and eternal splendor. 
 
 O ! Admirable Wisdom ! To Thee all things 
 past and future are present ; to Thee all things of 
 time are eternal; before Thee all things that are 
 f eelingless and dead are living, and all things that 
 are not, exist. Thou embracest simultaneously all 
 eternity. Thou exhaustest all infinity and con- 
 
The Wisdom of God 165 
 
 tainest all immensity. All things have within 
 Thee an eternal being and an eternal life, with- 
 out beginning or end; and they are utterly un- 
 changeable. Each of them, indeed, has in itself, 
 either in act or potency, its own intrinsic being; 
 but this in created things has a beginning and is 
 subject to change; nor does it give life to what is 
 inanimate. But over and above this being 
 which they have in themselves, they have in the 
 divine wisdom and understanding something in- 
 trinsic which is, as it were, infused and which is 
 immutable and everlasting. For the conception 
 of things is a certain intelligible entity by which 
 they exist in the mind, and by which they shine 
 and live there as in a spiritual world. Thy wis- 
 dom therefore is the being and life and light of 
 intelligible things according to the words of St. 
 John: "Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat." 
 What was made in Him was life. cl, vv 3, 4, 
 which is the meaning given to the text by St. 
 Augustine and other Saints. 
 
 All things are in the Divine Essence as in their 
 basis and primordial foundation. They are in the 
 power of God as in their efficient cause which has 
 created all things; they are in His wisdom for- 
 mally and objectively as in their exemplar or ideal 
 cause. 
 
 The Infinite Wisdom first turns towards 
 
i66 Meditative Summaries 
 
 the Essence of God, and understands it 
 perfectly, for it is equal to and commen- 
 surate with it. From that adequate com- 
 prehension of the divine essence proceeds 
 immediately the conception or the repre- 
 sentation of all possible things; following that 
 conception is the distinct knowledge of whatever 
 all actual and possible creatures can do; then 
 comes the clear intuition of everything that can 
 be done in all possible suppositions, and finally 
 there is the eternal vision of all things past, pres- 
 ent and future. 
 
 In this manner and in this order, Thy Wisdom, 
 O Great God! proceeds, as it were, from five 
 spheres of objects and intelligible things, and all 
 that it conceives, it conceives by the power of the 
 adequate comprehension of Thine infinite Es- 
 sence which is the first cause and the foundation 
 of all possible things. Thus in Thee is found not 
 only the universality of wisdom and intelligence 
 but also the universality of intelligible things 
 and objects. 
 
 To Thee, then, O Plenitude of Light ! Plenitude 
 of Truth ! and Infinite Wisdom of God ! be honor 
 and glory from all creatures, and above and be- 
 yond all creatures, be honor and glory in Thy- 
 self who art the clear and consummate knowledge 
 of the divine excellence. O! Omnipotent God! 
 
The Wisdom of God 167 
 
 Thou makest Thine excellence to shine in the un- 
 derstanding of the Angels and Saints, and in that 
 splendor there is something of Thy glory. But 
 it is infinitely more resplendent in Thy Wisdom, 
 for infinite light is more brilliant than a feeble 
 spark. 
 
 Let Thine own wisdom therefore give Thee in- 
 finite praise; and let every creature rejoice in it, 
 felicitate it, praise it, bless it, glorify it. Thou 
 hast no need of our glory or our praise; a spark 
 adds nothing to infinite light, but we find our ad- 
 vantage in it, for to know Thee and to praise 
 Thee is our greatest good. It is eternal life. 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 The Goodness of God. 
 
 HP HE Lord is good and most lovable. His 
 A goodness knows no bounds. Not that He is 
 good in this manner or that, in this or that kind 
 of good, but He is absolutely good without be- 
 ginning, without end, without limit and without 
 mode or measure. He precedes all good and com- 
 prises all good in Himself alone. 
 
 This good none has given to Thee that Thou 
 shouldst repay it with gratitude. Thou, O simple 
 and primordial Goodness, hast it of Thyself, and 
 it is from Thee that all things taste the sweet- 
 ness of what is good for them, according to their 
 grade in creation. For Thou art the plenitude 
 and universality of good, the original source of 
 all good to whom all beings from the highest 
 created substance down to that which is at the 
 ultimate confines of creation are indebted for 
 whatever good they possess. 
 
 No creature can find in its own nature all its 
 own good. It needs many things that its nature 
 should be complete and perfect even in its own 
 genus and within the limits of its nature. But 
 Thou by Thy most simple essence hast every ex- 
 cellence, every perfection, every beatitude, every 
 168 
 
The Goodness of God 169 
 
 good and Thou needest naught outside of Thy- 
 self. 
 
 The good of every creature is restricted and 
 circumscribed within certain bounds. It does not 
 contain within itself the good of anything else. 
 Hence we stand in need of an infinity of things 
 in order to live, because each thing in particular 
 affords us but little of itself. But Thy goodness, 
 that is to say, the good of Thy simple essence is 
 boundless; is overflowing on all sides and su- 
 premely sufficient of itself for everything. For 
 as Thou art the primordial source of all things 
 there is naught that can limit or circumscribe the 
 condition of the good that is in Thee. Hence just 
 as Thine essence, Thy power and Thy wisdom are 
 infinite because they are primordial, and flow 
 from no other source, and are cbnsequently 
 boundless, so Thy goodness and Thy perfection 
 are boundless because they precede all goodness 
 and perfection and depend on nothing that might 
 limit them. A nature that is of itself limitless 
 cannot be subjected to any limitation except by 
 an efficient cause. But as the perfections which 
 are in Thee have no efficient cause, they must 
 necessarily know no bounds. 
 
 Woe to the wretches who seduced by the mani- 
 fold kinds and inextricable multitude of baser 
 things seek outside of Thee, with so much care, 
 
170 Meditative Summaries 
 
 worry, labor, and peril of their salvation, the 
 riches, pleasures and honors of this world ! They 
 can find them all in Thee in a better and easier 
 manner, not merely as in human things for a 
 fleeting moment but for all eternity. For all 
 things are in Thee. In Thee they are 
 most pure, are enjoyed simultaneously and 
 without limit. In Thee are found in 
 a supereminent manner the glitter of gold, the 
 beauty of precious stones, the fruits of the fields, 
 the delights of gardens, the magnificence of pal- 
 aces, the riches of cities, the glory of kingdoms. 
 Everything that is desirable in the world, all that 
 is glorious and honorable and lovable are found 
 in Thee in the highest degree, in the most perfect 
 purity, and all in closest union for ever and ever. 
 Moreover from them is excluded every imperfec- 
 tion that is found in created things. 
 
 In Thee are found all delights and pleasures, 
 all that recreates, and all that charms, all con- 
 solations and all joys, all beauty and all felicity, 
 all beatitude and the consummation of beatitude. 
 It is from Thee that what is sweet derives its 
 sweetness, what is luminous its splendor, what is 
 living its life, what has feeling its sensation, 
 what moves its power, what has understanding 
 its knowledge, what is perfect its perfection and 
 what is good its goodness. 
 
The Goodness of God 171 
 
 Thou art the author, the type, the end and the 
 preserver of all perfection. Thou terminatest all 
 infinity; Thou goest beyond every end, Thou 
 limitest every measure, Thou formest whatever 
 is beautiful as well as what is lacking in beauty. 
 But Thou art perfect of Thyself, perfect beyond 
 all conception, perfect from all eternity; possess- 
 ing in Thyself by Thy simple unity all excellence 
 and all perfection. 
 
 Thou art great without quantity; good without 
 quality; infinite without number; beautiful with- 
 out figure; eternal without time; immense with- 
 out location; diffused without extension; perfect 
 without multiplicity ; and most high without situ- 
 ation. Thou art the centre of the universe to 
 which all things tend by their innate weight; in 
 which they all rest and by which they are all 
 sustained. In Thee are found the attraction of 
 every love ; the consummation of every desire, the 
 term of every movement, and the satisfaction of 
 every appetite. 
 
 What is not the power of Thy supereminent 
 goodness, since at the least gleam of its rays, and 
 even of its faintest reflection, all creatures rush 
 towards it with impetuosity ! For every being in 
 this universe seeks its own special good and tends 
 towards it with all its might. But that good is 
 only a feeble vestige of Thy goodness. It is good 
 
172 Meditative Summaries 
 
 that attracts every creature and excites every 
 movement in the world; and all that moves, acts 
 and works in created things, moves, acts and 
 works only by the desire of something good. But 
 if a faint shadow excites such power, what will 
 not the Truth itself do? I mean infinite beauty 
 and goodness when seen in the light of heaven. 
 
 Draw my soul to Thee, O boundless Beauty! 
 Enchain it to Thee by an indissoluble bond and 
 by the eternal fetters of Thy love. For what can 
 I seek or desire outside of Thee who art the pleni- 
 tude of all good, the source, the end, the sweetness 
 of every good, and who art infinitely better and 
 more excellent than all good? Let me therefore 
 despise everything else, and let me ever think of 
 Thee. Let me love Thee always; let me live in- 
 timately attached to Thee, and let me make of 
 Thee my abiding place. Let me love Thee and 
 bless Thee ; let all the powers of my soul, and my 
 whole life be consumed in Thy service. Let all 
 passing things be considered vile in comparison 
 with Thee, and let me despise them for love of 
 Thee. Let all that is Thine be dear to me, and 
 be Thou, O my God, dearer than all. According 
 to Thy most exalted pleasure, perfect me in Thy 
 knowledge and Thy love, and translate me en- 
 tirely into Thee so that I may be of one spirit 
 with Thee. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Sanctity of God. 
 
 « < If OLY, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth. All the 
 * * earth is filled with Thy glory." (Is. vi.) 
 Such is the cry of the Seraphim in that mystical 
 vision in which Thou didst show to Thy prohpet 
 Isaias something of Thy glory, and something 
 of the terrible judgment which befell the Jews. 
 They had filled up the measure of their iniquity, 
 by refusing to recognize Thee when Thou didst 
 come in the midst of them as the Word made 
 Flesh; and now the celestial spirits demand that 
 Thy holiness should be avenged. Three times 
 they claim it with evident reference to the great 
 mystery of the Trinity. For "Thine eyes are 
 too pure to behold evil" says Habacuc (c. i.) "and 
 Thou canst not look upon iniquity." As Thou art 
 Holiness itself, all sin displeases Thee supremely, 
 and hence "Thou wilt destroy all those who work 
 iniquity." (Ps. v and xxvii.) As the darkness 
 is contrary to the light; ugliness to beauty, foul- 
 ness to purity, obliquity to rectitude, malice to 
 goodness, death to life, so all sin is contrary to 
 Thy sanctity and is held by Thee in horror. 
 Therefore just as Thou hast a sovereign love 
 
 173 
 
174 Meditative Summaries 
 
 for Thy holiness, so Thou hast necessarily a sov- 
 ereign hatred for sin, and Thou punishest it by 
 an infinite penalty, unless Thy mercy prevents 
 the sinner, inspires him with contrition and ac- 
 cords him pardon when he repents. 
 
 No one ever has been pleasing in Thy sight ex- 
 cept by sanctity, and no one endowed and 
 adorned with it has ever displeased Thee. It is 
 sanctity alone that gives children and heirs to 
 Thy kingdom. To it alone was the communica- 
 tion of Thy glory and of Thy beatitude promised 
 and prepared before the ages. We have been 
 "chosen by Thee before the foundation of the 
 world that we should be holy and unspotted in 
 Thy sight in charity" (Eph. i), and capable of 
 the eternal inheritance. 
 
 Not Thy power, nor Thy wisdom nor the 
 sublimity of Thy majesty, but Thy sanctity, didst 
 Thou command us to imitate. Thou didst say: 
 "Be holy as I am holy." (Levit. ii). For it is 
 proper that He who is the source of purity and 
 sanctity, who is pure above all purity, holy above 
 all holiness should have ministers who are holy 
 and free from all taint of sin. But whence can 
 we have such purity that we may be worthy to 
 enter into Thy holy presence and to employ our- 
 selves in that which concerns Thy service? We 
 dwell in habitations of clay and in thought and 
 
The Sanctity of God 17 S 
 
 act are in constant contact with earthly things. 
 If the celestial spirits who are exempt from all 
 corporeal admixture and purer than the heavens, 
 are nevertheless infinitely removed from that 
 purity which ministering to Thee exacts, how far 
 must we be from it who are incomparably beneath 
 them in merit! It is in this that Thy benignity 
 displays itself. Far from rejecting Thy servants 
 because they are sinners and covered with the de- 
 filement of earthly things, Thou drawest them 
 to Thee to remove their stains, to illumine their 
 darkness, to sanctify their affections and to make 
 them worthy to appear before Thy face, as far 
 as the restricted capacity of their mortal nature 
 permits. Thou dost not demand of us what is 
 due to the exaltedness of Thy sanctity but what 
 is proportionate to the feebleness of our nature. 
 
 Thou art the author, the end, the rule, the 
 model of all holiness ; of whom, for whom by the 
 imitation and resemblance of whom all are sancti- 
 fied in heaven and on earth. The whole universe 
 is like a temple of Thy divinity, consecrated to 
 Thy worship, sanctified by Thy presence, full of 
 Thy glory, adorned with Thine admirable works. 
 In it Thou wishest to be honored, praised and 
 blessed by us in this life and in the life to come. 
 
 But the sanctity of rational nature is more 
 sublime, just as Thy presence declares itself with 
 
176 Meditative Summaries 
 
 incomparably greater splendor in spiritual than in 
 corporeal nature. For spirits can draw near 
 Thee and unite themselves with Thee in a more 
 excellent manner; and to know Thee and love 
 Thee is the holiness of spirits. By that knowl- 
 edge and that love, Thou dwellest in them and 
 they become for Thee a temple more acceptable 
 and more august than this vast machine of the 
 universe which is incapable of feeling Thy pres- 
 ence. By that knowledge and love also they 
 approach Thee, and are bound to Thee by a liv- 
 ing tie and they are lost in the abyss of Thy 
 purity. For he who knows passes into Him who 
 is known, and he who loves into Him who is 
 loved. Hence as Thou art a most Pure Act, and 
 if we may so express ourselves, art not only at 
 the summit of spiritual simplicity and purity, and 
 infinitely above material and corporeal things but 
 because also Thou art infinitely simple, infinitely 
 subtile and infinitely spiritual, it is necessary that 
 he who is elevated to Thee and united to Thee 
 and made the same spirit with Thee, should be- 
 come more simple, more pure and be ever more 
 and more removed from the contagion of lower 
 things. Such is the sanctity with which rational 
 creatures and angels should be endowed to please 
 Thee perfectly. 
 
 But O Infinitely Holy God ! Thou hast found 
 
The Sanctity of God 177 
 
 a degree of sanctification incomparably higher 
 still when by Thyself and without any created 
 gift Thou dost sanctify one creature by drawing 
 it to Thee in a manner far above what Thou hast 
 done for all others, by uniting it to Thee sub- 
 stantially in the Hypostatic Union. It is thus 
 Thou hast sanctified the Most Blessed Humanity 
 of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that in Him, along 
 with the plenitude of the Divinity there is found 
 also the plenitude of sanctity. 
 
 O admirable sanctification, altogether incom- 
 prehensible for all created intelligences! O in- 
 finite condescension of the divine goodness which 
 has opened and established for the human race 
 such a source of expiation and holiness! It is 
 from this fullness that we have all received, and 
 what remains suffices to wash away the sins of a 
 thousand worlds and to sanctify an infinite num- 
 ber of souls. Thus by one man all men are 
 sanctified and led back to God, just as by one man 
 they had been separated from God and defiled by 
 sin. 
 
 And because we are gross, dependent on the 
 senses, and buried in material things, Thou dost 
 accommodate Thyself to our weakness by sancti- 
 fying us through the instrumentality of sensible 
 things and giving us Thy Spirit and spiritual 
 gifts by contact with what is corporeal. O ad- 
 
1 78 Meditative Summaries 
 
 mirable counsel of the eternal wisdom! From 
 children of wrath Thou makest us children of 
 God, heirs of eternal life, sharers in the divine 
 glory, and Thou accomplishest this by the contact 
 or use of sensible signs, though we deserved to 
 be in every way confounded and condemned to 
 eternal death. O admirable sweetness and good- 
 ness that has wrought so great and divine a thing 
 by means of which we are made like unto God 
 and without which we could not please Him ; and 
 all that not only by things that are so humble and 
 by instruments so weak, without labor or effort 
 on our part or at least with only a trifling co- 
 operation! O true age of gold and of grace is 
 this time of the New Testament, when earth af- 
 fords us so many celestial treasures and such an 
 abundance of divine gifts which we can gather 
 with such astounding facility! It is now that 
 the heavens rain down honey and the mountains 
 distill sweetness, and the rivers overflow with 
 milk and wine, and vast storehouses of heavenly 
 treasures are thrown open to mortals so that in a 
 little time and in the easiest possible way they can 
 enrich themselves and be equal to the angels. 
 
 Glory be to Thee, benediction and thanksgiving 
 from every creature in heaven and on earth, O 
 Author of all sanctity ! Such a blessing can come 
 only from Thee and Thou alone can show Thy 
 
The Sanctity of God 179 
 
 love for man in such a manner. Thou hast given 
 us the Saint of saints, and Thou hast made Him 
 an eternal source of sanctification for "the cleans- 
 ing of the sinner and of her that was defiled." 
 Thou hast sanctified this Saint of saints by com- 
 municating this sanctity to Him, and through 
 Him to all others. It is from Him that all holi- 
 ness flows into the symbols or sacraments. From 
 the sacraments it pours itself into the soul 
 through the body ; from the soul it redounds upon 
 the body and on man's most interior workings, 
 and from what is interior to what is exterior. 
 Thus the whole man is made holy and his entire 
 life is dedicated and consecrated to Thee. He is 
 brought back to Thee who art his beginning, 
 and he rests in Thee who art his sovereign good 
 and last end. It is thus Thou recallest Thy 
 creature to Thee and makest him worthy to abide 
 in Thee. 
 
 O God! make me draw unceasingly from that 
 source ; make me live in that fountain always and 
 whiten my garments in the Blood of the Lamb! 
 "Wash me yet more from my iniquity and cleanse 
 me from my sin; sprinkle me with hyssop," in this 
 fountain of blood of the mystical sparrow and I 
 shall be purified; lave me in that water and "I 
 shall become whiter than the snow." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Benignity of God. 
 
 f\ LORD how sweet is Thy spirit and how 
 ^^ great is Thy benignity to every creature! 
 For though Thou lackest naught and sufficest 
 fully for Thyself, Thou hast drawn all this uni- 
 verse from nothing so as to make every creature 
 according to his capacity feel the sweetness of 
 Thy goodness and receive the impress of Thy 
 beauty. Not because it was advantageous or use- 
 ful for Thee didst Thou do all this, but solely for 
 the advantage of Thy creatures, in order that 
 each according to his own little measure might 
 participate in Thy good and taste the fruit of Thy 
 benignity. 
 
 It is therefore by Thee that all things have been 
 drawn from the abyss of their nothingness; it is 
 from Thee that they receive the being which is 
 so dear to them, and with that being, its species, 
 its beauty, its desire of good and its aversion from 
 evil, its powers, its functions, its inclinations, its 
 movements, its place in the world, its order, its 
 perfection, its end. Thou givest to each whatever 
 is most suitable for it and what delights it most. 
 Thou accordest to the animal world a manifold 
 180 
 
The Benignity of God 181 
 
 feeling which is both pleasant and good and 
 which is a shadow, and a lower degree of felicity. 
 
 Hence all things praise Thee, and with their 
 silent voices intone in Thine honor a sacred hymn 
 wherein they celebrate most clearly Thy power, 
 Thy wisdom, Thy goodness, Thy providence. 
 For "the heavens show forth the glory of God and 
 the firmament declareth the work of His hands. 
 Day to day uttereth speech and night to night 
 showeth knowledge. There are no speeches nor 
 language where their voices are not heard. 
 Their sound hath gone forth to all the earth and 
 their words unto the ends of the world." 
 (Ps. xviii.) 
 
 But Thy benignity shines forth, O my God! 
 in a still more incomparable manner in our 
 nature ; for Thou hast created us to Thine image 
 and likeness making us bear on our brow the 
 traits of Thy countenance. Thou hast given us 
 understanding, will and memory, to render us 
 capable of Thy divinity, Thy glory and Thy 
 beatitude. Thou hast showered upon us Thy di- 
 vine assistance, and adorned us with grace in 
 order to help us to merit and acquire those 
 precious possessions. Thou hast deputed Thine 
 angels to defend and direct us. Finally this world 
 with all that it has of riches or goodness, Thou 
 hast made for our habitation and our comfort, 
 
182 Meditative Summaries 
 
 and Thou hast delivered it over to us. Can any 
 greater benefits or any more admirable benignity 
 be conceived ? But how our admiration redoubles 
 when we reflect that Thou hast done all this to 
 elevate us to a state that is divine, and to make us 
 participants in Thy beatitude. 
 
 By Thy nature Thou possessest the most ab- 
 solute plenitude of glory and happiness. But in 
 that state Thy benignity could not contain itself. 
 It pours itself out on all creatures to make them 
 share in Thy good. For that reason hast Thou 
 created angels and men who are capable of such 
 an exalted destiny and hast drawn out of nothing 
 all this universe with its riches for the good of 
 man. 
 
 Did ever a monarch on this earth share his 
 kingdom with vile and abject slaves? And yet 
 kings and slaves are equal in nature and differ 
 from each other only in their fortune and ex- 
 ternal things. 
 
 As for us we are not only infinitely removed 
 from Thee by the conditions of nature, but are, 
 moreover, in the lowest rank of intelligent 
 creatures. Nevertheless Thou hast loved us more 
 than all others, and Thou hast lavished on us in 
 greater abundance than on any other creatures 
 the riches of Thy divine bounty. It is the charac- 
 teristic and bent of benignity to lower itself to 
 
The Benignity of God 183 
 
 what is base, to lift up what is abject, to exalt 
 what is humble and to communicate riches and 
 bestow them more abundantly where the need is 
 most manifest. 
 
 "Thou art verily, O my God," as St. Bernard 
 says, "an omnipotent love, a most benevolent 
 power, immutable order, eternal sweetness, creat- 
 ing the world to make it a participant of Thy- 
 self; vivifying it to make it feel its Creator; 
 touching it by Thy sweet contact to make it long 
 for Thee ; dilating it to fill it with Thyself ; justi- 
 fying it to enable it to merit, inflaming it to make 
 it burn with zeal; fecundating it to make it fruit- 
 ful; prompting it to righteousness, forming it to 
 benevolence, moderating it to wisdom, visiting it 
 to bring comfort; illumining it to augment its 
 knowledge, guarding it for immortality, encom- 
 passing it for protection." (Lib. iv. de Consid.) 
 It is thus that Thou crownest us with Thy mercy 
 and compassionate sweetness ; it is thus that Thou 
 fillest us and surroundest us on all sides with 
 good things, so as to make us recognize Thy 
 goodness and Thy love, and to excite us to give 
 love for love. 
 
 Thou hast resolved to lead us by love to our 
 first beginning, to unite us to Thy goodness and 
 Thy beauty, and to transform us into Thyself. 
 There was no way more efficacious for this than 
 
184 Meditative Summaries 
 
 the method of love. For love is exstatic and uni- 
 tive, that is to say, it lifts us out of ourselves and 
 unites us to Thee. We cannot be changed into 
 Thy nature. That would involve the destruc- 
 tion of our being which is a created thing. If it 
 were destroyed we should lapse into nothingness 
 and be incapable of all feeling and of all good; 
 but what nature cannot do, love accomplishes. 
 Thou lightest in us that love in a thousand ways, 
 in order that by its fire we may be melted, or 
 liquified and absorbed in Thee, just as a drop of 
 water in a vat of wine assumes the color and the 
 flavor of wine though the substance of the water 
 remains entire. Love makes the one who loves, 
 to be no longer himself in affection and senti- 
 ment. He is changed into the one he loves, so 
 that no difference can be discerned between them. 
 For by love the lover so cleaves to the beloved 
 that as far as in him lies he strips himself of his 
 own being to put on that of the beloved, and to 
 be one and the same as the object of his affec- 
 tions. He thinks only of the good of the beloved, 
 desires only that and labors to augment it. Thus 
 he can say with the Apostle: "I live, but not I. 
 It is Christ who liveth in me." (Gal. ii). Love 
 thus makes a man forget himself, and makes him 
 no longer belong to himself. It causes him to die 
 to himself and live in the object of his love. In 
 
The Benignity of God 185 
 
 that manner the one who attaches himself to God 
 is made one Spirit with Him. This is the per- 
 fection and consummation of sanctity, and eternal 
 life. It is being one with God by the force of love. 
 
 It is thus we revert to that primordial type in 
 which we exist from all eternity, not by anything 
 intrinsic to us, but by the force of the idea and 
 the conception of the divine understanding which ' 
 effects that from all eternity we have lived, 
 labored, and borne the burdens of life in the mind 
 of God although we were nothing in ourselves. 
 Thence, because of God's love for us we passed 
 to our created state, as the form of an edifice 
 passes from the mind of the architect into the 
 condition of actual production, or as the picture 
 passes from the imagination of the painter to his 
 canvas. Thus are we brought back by love and 
 when thus brought back, are united to, and trans- 
 formed into the idea which God had of us as if 
 the picture were to penetrate the mind of the 
 painter and unite itself intimately to the original 
 type. 
 
 Thou comest down and enterest into us by love, 
 to enkindle its fire in us, and by it to lift up our 
 hearts on high and change them into Thee. For 
 as fire by the force of its flame converts every- 
 thing into itself, so Thou who art a consuming 
 fire convertest everything into Thee by the force 
 
186 Meditative Summaries 
 
 of Thy love so that we may think only of Thee 
 and of what concerns Thee. Let us taste with de- 
 light and feel and desire only Thee, and let us 
 speak of naught but Thee. Let that love make 
 us go out of ourselves, so that we may forget all 
 that pertains to us as if we no longer existed. 
 Let us enter into Thee, live in Thee, abide in 
 Thee, and find our delight in Thee. Let this love 
 so possess us that all our life shall be for Thy 
 glory, without fear of any danger, or the refusal 
 of any toil. Let it change into bitterness what- 
 ever is worldly, and convert labors undertaken 
 for Thee into sweetness. In our eyes let affronts 
 be glory; poverty, riches; persecutions, pros- 
 perity; infamy, fame; sickness, comfort; life, 
 death. For all the woes of this life, supported by 
 Thy love, are better than all the goods of this 
 world. "If we suffer with Him we shall be 
 sharers in the Kingdom." By that love, O God ! 
 be our life, our nourishment, our dwelling, our 
 possession, our riches, our glory, our strength, 
 our refuge, our repose, our consolation, our pro- 
 tection, our assurance, our joy, our beatitude. 
 Amen. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 The Dominion of God. 
 
 <<I WILL bless Thee all my life long and in 
 * Thy name I will lift up my hands." (Ps. 
 lxii). "Thou art the King of kings and the 
 Lord of lords." (I Tim. vi). "Thou art the 
 Lord of all and there is none that can resist Thy 
 majesty." (Esther xiii). 
 
 All things persevere in their course in pursu- 
 ance of Thy command; all creatures observe the 
 law which Thou hast given, and each one renders 
 Thee homage according to its capacity and 
 power; all confess in unison that Thou art their 
 Creator and their Master. Thou hast sovereign 
 power over all. Thou canst dispose of all, ac- 
 cording to Thy good pleasure, and none has the 
 right to demand an account of Thy actions and 
 to say: "Why hast Thou done this?" All the 
 kings and rulers of this world with all their 
 pomp and magnificence, with all their kingdoms 
 and armies, with all their riches and majesty are 
 but worms of the earth, and as nothing in Thy 
 sight. The least of Thy servants who has the 
 honor to serve Thee in Thy heavenly palace is 
 greater than all kings together, and no earthly 
 
 187 
 
188 Meditative Summaries 
 
 potentate is capable of supporting the majesty of 
 the least of those who form Thy court. Every- 
 thing mortal melts like wax in presence of the 
 splendor of an angel and faints away before him. 
 What then is the glory of Thy majesty which is 
 infinitely greater and more excellent than that of 
 all the angels. "Great is the Lord and greatly to 
 be praised and of His greatness there is no end. 
 Generation and generation shall praise Thy 
 works and they shall declare Thy power." (Ps. 
 cxliv.) The kings and kingdoms of earth will 
 suddenly fall and be reduced to naught but Thy 
 kingdom shall endure for ever and all Thine 
 enemies shall be under Thy feet. The kingdom 
 of the demons and the wicked which now dis- 
 turbs the world in its oppression of justice and 
 truth shall be utterly destroyed. But Thy king- 
 dom shall keep all under its domination and Thou 
 shalt be all in all. 
 
 It is Thou great God ! who hast created us all ; 
 we are the work of Thy hands ; Thou hast shaped 
 and moulded us as the potter his clay. All that 
 we are, all that we have the power of doing, all 
 that we possess, we have received from Thy 
 bounty. It is all Thine. Thou art the maker and 
 the deviser of all. Thou hast drawn all things 
 from naught ; from the depths of darkness and the 
 abyss of nothingness hast Thou taken them. 
 
The Dominion of God 189 
 
 Thou hast suspended them in being, in the light 
 of Thy countenance, in order that all according 
 to their species and forms may shine before our 
 minds and suggest to us Thy majesty. But as 
 by their innate propensity and of themselves they 
 lean towards the nothingness from which they 
 have been drawn, it is not sufficient to have once 
 made them, but it is necessary that Thou shouldst 
 hold them in Thy hand and incessantly support 
 them by that same substantinc influence that has 
 produced them, in order that, at each instant they 
 may receive the benefit which they had received 
 when they began to be. The weight which is 
 suspended in the air must be continually 
 sustained. If left to itself it falls to earth in the 
 twinkling of an eye. So all creatures in this uni- 
 verse need to be incessantly preserved in their 
 being and their nature by Thine Omnipotent 
 hand. If Thou withdrawest it, even for an in- 
 stant they will fall into nothingness and perish 
 suddenly like a shadow that passes away. There 
 is no solidity in bodies or permanency in spirits 
 unless it is received from Thy strength which re- 
 strains and holds them intrinsically and prevents 
 they from flowing off like water, or scattering 
 like smoke or vanishing as a vision or a phantom. 
 For Thee, all things are soft and pliable; all 
 things are like a liquid that trickles off and dis- 
 
190 Meditative Summaries 
 
 appears from sight. But at the least sign of Thy 
 will They instantly take the form and figure which 
 it pleases Thee to give. Before Thee neither the 
 mountains nor the rocks are solid, nor is adamant 
 hard, nor the heavens or stars fixed. Nothing 
 can subsist without the perpetual and vivifying 
 influence of Thy light. 
 
 Thou art therefore the absolute Master of all 
 things. By Thee they were all created and on 
 Thee they depend. Thou sustainest them lest 
 they fall, keepest them lest they change, restrain- 
 est them lest they flow away, and holdest them to- 
 gether lest they perish. 
 
 Thou art the deviser, the author, the worker, 
 the preserver, the support, the exemplar and the 
 end of all things. It is by Thee that all things 
 exist so that they may contribute to Thy glory: 
 rational creatures by knowing Thee, loving Thee, 
 honoring Thee, praising Thee; irrational ones by 
 serving for our use, and by their marvellous 
 beauty exciting our souls to admire and to love 
 Thee. And, although we exist only for Thee, 
 and although what belongs to us is destined for 
 Thy glory we are not on that account vile and 
 miserable; for our nature and our greatest good 
 is to serve Thy glory. To serve Thee is to reign ; 
 to obey Thee is to go forward to heaven. To 
 serve Thee is better than to rule the whole world. 
 
The Dominion of God 191 
 
 When the soul is engaged in Thy service, it is 
 exalted, it is united to Thee and because of its 
 closeness to Thee is illumined by Thy light and 
 becomes like Thee. When it is engaged in ruling 
 others it withdraws from union with Thee, 
 descends to inferior things and dissipates itself 
 in its quest of a multitude of things none of which 
 avail for its advantage. Only what is above the 
 soul makes the soul better. 
 
 It is a great delusion to make so much of em- 
 pires and kingdoms, and governments, and pre- 
 lacies and place, if while ruling others we neglect 
 ourselves; if we exhaust ourselves and trample 
 on right and justice to grasp at a shadow of hap- 
 piness which shuts us off from our true good and 
 our eternal salvation. For there is nothing that 
 so powerfully withdraws the soul from the love 
 of celestial things; nothing that entangles it so 
 inextricably in those of earth ; nothing that gives 
 more unbridled license to commit sin, and ex- 
 poses us to the danger of remaining in it; noth- 
 ing that sweeps aside more effectually all salutary 
 counsel; increases more the malice of sin, makes 
 one participate more in the sins of others than do 
 prelacies and principalities. No doubt there are 
 some who accept these charges for other motives 
 than ambition or earthly interests, and who de- 
 sire to advance the common good and to lead a 
 
192 Meditative Summaries 
 
 greater number of souls to salvation. Such men 
 may expect a rich reward because of the difficulty 
 of their undertaking and the extent of the good 
 they procure; but it is far safer to be hidden in 
 the lowest ranks and to be concerned about one's 
 salvation. 
 
 O God ! grant me the grace to despise human 
 praise, to flee wordly honors, and to live to be un- 
 known by men. Let it suffice for me to know 
 Thee, and to be known by Thee; to serve Thee 
 and to prefer Thy service to all the empires of 
 the world and all the honors and dignities they 
 can bestow. Let that be my glory and my exalta- 
 tion ; the summit of my ambition, the title and the 
 insignia of my dignity. Let others glory in king- 
 doms and principalities, in nobility and riches, 
 and whatsoever honors the world may confer. 
 Let all my glory consist in being Thy servant; 
 let all that belongs to me be dedicated and con- 
 secrated to Thee and ever employed in Thy ser- 
 vice. Let all my thoughts, all my cares, all my 
 efforts, all my purposes tend to Thy honor and 
 have no other end but Thy glory. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Providence of God. 
 
 f\ GOD our Father, Thy Providence governs 
 ^^ all things; "it reaches from end to end 
 mightily"; from the sublimest height of the 
 heavens to the profoundest centre of the earth, 
 from the highest seraph, to the vilest worm; 
 and in doing so, "it disposeth all things sweetly." 
 Most powerful is the touch of Thy hand by which 
 all things are created and sustained; most sweet 
 is that disposition of things, by which all things 
 are established in their place and rank, directed 
 to their end and given freedom in their individual 
 actions. 
 
 It is neither by the fortuitous concurrence of 
 atoms, nor by the violent struggle of the elements, 
 nor by its own action that this world was formed 
 and flashed into the light, but by the counsel and 
 power of Thy Providence. How could a work of 
 such vast intelligence and wondrous art, in which 
 the sublimest intelligence is apparent, in which 
 all is admirably regulated with such order, pro- 
 portion, beauty and symmetry be performed with- 
 out design and without wisdom? 
 
 Thy Providence has thought out all these 
 
 193 
 
194 Meditative Summaries 
 
 things from all eternity, and has conceived, de- 
 vised, developed and set them all in their respec- 
 tive places. It determined the species, the meas- 
 ure, the form, the organs, the inclinations of all 
 creatures. It endowed them with their various 
 forces and modes of action and panoplied them in 
 armor for the exercise of their proper functions 
 and defense against their foes. It assigned spec- 
 ial ends to each, appointed separate causes for 
 each and provided each with what was best suited 
 to its nature. 
 
 From the beginning and before the world was 
 all things were established in Thy Providence. 
 In it the order of time subsists without time, nor 
 can anything new be added to it, and all that can 
 occur in the course of time exists in it before time 
 began. For the power that disposes of whatever 
 is subject to change is that unchanging and un- 
 changeable intelligence in which things existed 
 together before time, although in time they are 
 separated; for time is a series of successions. 
 
 There stand the immutable causes of all 
 mutable things; there shine the eternal plans of all 
 that is temporal ; there are planted the necessary 
 roots of all that is contingent ; there are enforced 
 the laws that are stable, and there are determined 
 the ends of all agents and of all actions. There 
 by a firm, ineffaceable and irrevocable decree, en- 
 
The Providence of God 195 
 
 graven on tablets harder than adamant, is re- 
 corded the salvation or loss of each according to 
 his deserts. There with their sanctions are the 
 laws about all things ; their birth, their life, their 
 progress, their functions, their effects; all the 
 eventualities of life and all the circumstances of 
 death. By these decrees are determined at what 
 time, at what moment, in what place, by what 
 causes, in what order, and in what manner each 
 thing is to exist in this world. 
 
 Without the laws of Thy Providence, O my 
 God ! nothing is born, nothing dies, nothing acts, 
 nothing moves, nothing is at rest. It directs all 
 things to their ends; it is intrinsically present to 
 them and presides over them; it forms and gives 
 to each its nature and by that nature leads it in 
 its proper functions to its proper end. For what 
 are the natural instincts and inclinations of every 
 creature but a vestige and impress of Thy 
 Providence? Thus it is that all irrational 
 creatures act with such regularity and tend with 
 such order to their respective ends of which they 
 have neither knowledge nor feeling. 
 
 What art does not the spider display in weav- 
 ing its web from its own vitals to spread a net for 
 the flies which it pursues. With what subtlety 
 and industry the bees build their cells! With 
 what skill they form their hexagonal dwellings 
 
196 Meditative Summaries 
 
 in which their young are born and which are at 
 the same time reservoirs of the nectar they 
 gather ! With what care they sip the morning 
 dew and suck the juice of the flowers ! And how 
 many other marvellous things they perform in 
 that diminutive republic of their hive ! 
 
 I speak not of the admirable skill of the birds 
 in building their nests in which they find rest and 
 safety, and where their young are hatched and 
 fed and taught. I say nothing of the astonishing 
 things we behold in the silk worm, or of its in- 
 dustry in drawing from its own body the threads 
 which are so finely spun as to be scarcely dis- 
 cernible but out of which it forms the cocoon 
 which encloses it like a tomb from which it 
 emerges months afterwards to live again by a 
 resurrection that is such a striking image of our 
 own future rising from the grave. 
 
 I pass over in silence the infinite number of 
 things which both in the animal and vegetable 
 world seem to be done with such intelligence, art 
 and providence that no greater perfection would 
 appear to be possible. Yet this does not come 
 from the skill of these creatures in providing for 
 their needs, but it is Thy Providence, O my God ! 
 that leaves its trace and sheds its glow on them, 
 making them act as if they were endowed with 
 a most exalted providence and a perfect art. Thus 
 
The Providence of God 197 
 
 it is that all the actions and all the works of na- 
 ture are really the actions and works of Thy Wis- 
 dom and Thy Providence, and all these irrational 
 creatures act as perfectly in conformity with 
 the laws of Thy Providence as if they were en- 
 dowed with a most perfect knowledge. 
 
 Rational creatures of course are to be excepted. 
 They possess a certain providence of their own, 
 and being free, refuse at times to submit to Thy 
 Providence and desire to live according to their 
 own providence and at the caprice of their wills. 
 It is from that source that spring all sins and all 
 sorrows. Nevertheless nothing occurs without 
 Thy Providence, for though rational nature by 
 thus sinning, ceases to act in conformity with 
 the law which Thou hast prescribed, yet on the 
 other hand it does not act outside of the law of 
 Thy Providence, from which it draws the very 
 power that it uses for its own perdition. Thou 
 permittest it to do what it could not do without 
 Thy leave, and Thou assignest certain lim- 
 its to its action beyond which it cannot go, nor 
 can it do more harm than what Thou permittest. 
 Thou hast completely circumscribed it by the 
 circle of Thy Providence from which there is no 
 escape and which so dominates all creatures that 
 none can throw off its yoke. 
 
 Woe to sinners who endeavor to withdraw 
 
198 Meditative Summaries 
 
 from its government and law, and to live accord- 
 ing to their own providence, their own pleasure, 
 and the promptings of their free will. When they 
 step aside from the providence which leads to 
 life, they subject themselves to the providence 
 which dooms them to death; when they depart 
 from the order in which sweetness and mercy 
 reign they descend into that of rigor and of 
 justice; when they cast aside the sweet yoke of 
 the divine commandments they bend their necks 
 to the cruel slavery of the damned and of ever- 
 lasting punishment. O madness that should be 
 wept for with tears of blood! What has fasci- 
 nated the minds of men to lead them to this excess 
 of folly! 
 
 Especially are religious to be pitied who instead 
 of abandoning themselves to the guidance of 
 Providence by the hands of their superiors, wish 
 to live according to their own prudence and wis- 
 dom, and are as concerned about themselves as 
 if they had no one to care for them. They with- 
 draw from Thy sweet and infallible Providence 
 by which they would have been directed most 
 surely and most meritoriously to their eternal sal- 
 vation. For there are various modes in Thy 
 Providence and different orders of governments 
 and graces which are adapted to each individual 
 and designed for each one's salvation. Happy 
 
The Providence of God 199 
 
 the one to whom Thou appliest that order of 
 providence and that mode of government which 
 Thou knowest to be for him most salutary and 
 most productive of merits. There is nothing- 
 more desirable in this world, nothing more re- 
 plete with happiness than to pass through the 
 whole course of one's life in conformity with such 
 an arrangement and under such a guidance, be- 
 cause from it proceed an assurance of salvation 
 and an assistance for eternal glory. 
 
 For religious there is no form of government 
 more salutary that that in which Thy Providence 
 conducts them during life by the hands of su- 
 periors, in the functions, missions, residences, 
 studies and indeed in everything else to which 
 they are assigned. Otherwise why should the 
 Holy Fathers lavish such praise on perfect and 
 blind obedience ? Why should so many holy and 
 learned personages practise it so strictly? Why 
 should they proclaim that it is the surest way to 
 salvation? Why should Our Lord Himself have 
 so recommended and counselled it and in so many 
 ways have set us an example of this obedience? 
 
 There is no possible doubt that he who aban- 
 dons himself to Divine Providence and who, so to 
 speak, casts himself in its arms, and permits him- 
 self to be governed by it in all things, is following 
 the surest road to salvation; whereas one who 
 
200 Meditative Summaries 
 
 does otherwise and wishes to withdraw from it 
 and to govern himself by his own wisdom is ex- 
 posing himself to a great danger of falling into 
 the order of that providence in which he will 
 suffer the loss of his soul. Such a manner of 
 life is condemned by all the saints and is con- 
 sidered as imperilling one's salvation, no matter 
 how holy and salutary it may appear. Examples 
 are not wanting of religious who have perished 
 in that way, but there is no instance of any re- 
 ligious who was lost by abandoning himself to 
 Divine Providence as expressed to him by his 
 Superiors, or even of his being worse off for so 
 doing. For how O Lord! could one do better 
 than to yield to what Thou persuadest him to do ? 
 Hast Thou not bound Thyself by promise to lead 
 us to salvation ? Let me therefore never wander 
 away, but keep me until my last breath in that 
 path which in preference to all others Thou, O 
 my God! and all Thy saints have commended 
 to me. 
 
 Never is Thy Providence deceived in what it 
 ordains ; for before it determines, it knows what 
 will happen in each supposition and in each dis- 
 position of events. It is never foiled in its effect, 
 or in the advantage that is obtainable. For 
 though the order of inferior causes which are 
 only imitations of Thy Divine Providence may go 
 
The Providence of God 201 
 
 awry on account of the shiftings and imperfec- 
 tions of such an order, so that the end it aims at 
 is not reached, yet the order and arrangements 
 of Thy sublime Providence never fail of their 
 proper and determined purpose, but invariably 
 attain it. It is true that in the present life, and 
 as long as the term to which all those things tend 
 is not reached, this may not appear. But when 
 this world finally ends and the whirl of human 
 things stops for ever, then the strength of God's 
 Providence will manifest itself; then all the mis- 
 chances of inferior causes will be seen to have 
 been corrected, and everything established in the 
 unchanging and eternal order. Then shall 
 we see clearly how wisely and sweetly this di- 
 vine Providence acted in accordance with the 
 nature of each created thing and how everything 
 was administered in the manner that was most 
 conducive to the divine glory and the salvation of 
 mankind. 
 
 May this Providence which is so exalted be 
 forever before my eyes, and let me persuade my- 
 self that whatever may come either of prosperity 
 or adversity, is ordained by it and depends on it ; 
 that thus O my God ! I may receive it as a bless- 
 ing from Thy hand; for nothing is done in time 
 which has not been for most just reasons or- 
 dained from all eternity. Let this be my consola- 
 
202 Meditative Summaries 
 
 tion in the hardships of life. When my spirit 
 is troubled and afflicted by the confusion of 
 human things, and the disasters which fall upon 
 the nations, upon religion and upon souls, let Thy 
 Providence give me as my portion, serenity and 
 peace. 
 
 Thy Providence, O God ! most wisely disposes 
 all things. It will correct perfectly all the 
 faults -of creatures and all the infractions of or- 
 der, and will subject all to an order so profound 
 that the glory of thy Majesty will be resplendent 
 in it and even shine with greater effulgence 
 than if all had preserved the order which had 
 been originally prescribed. 
 
 But abandonment to Divine Providence does 
 not prevent the evils and disasters that fall upon 
 our neighbor and especially such offenses as are 
 against the divine majesty from touching us pro- 
 foundly and overwhelming us with sorrow. It 
 is the condition of this life; and moreover the 
 law of charity should cause us to be so affected, 
 for without this spur, we should with difficulty be 
 urged to fly to the assistance of those who suffer. 
 Nevertheless, in all this, one must not lose sight 
 of moderation. When such things happen and 
 there is no hope of preventing them and when 
 neither our endeavors or prayers avail, it is 
 proper to banish useless sorrow and to console 
 
The Providence of God 203 
 
 ourselves, O my God ! with the contemplation of 
 Thy Providence. 
 
 Let that Providence give me confidence amid 
 the errors of life, assurance in danger, strength 
 in difficulties, patience in adversities, and serenity 
 in facing what the future may have in store. Let 
 it remove from my soul any idle anxiety, by im- 
 pressing it with the firm belief that whatever 
 happens to me, O my God ! comes from the kind- 
 ness and benignity of Thy Providence. At the 
 same time let it awaken in me such attention and 
 activity as are necessary for dealing with the 
 affairs of life in accordance with their impor- 
 portance and with what my state of life requires. 
 The government of Thy Providence, O my God ! 
 calls for our studious cooperation; but it forbids 
 and cannot tolerate superfluous care and anxiety 
 for the temporal concerns of this life. 
 
 May it please Thy Providence, O my God! to 
 dispose of me and govern me till the end, as it 
 knows it to be expedient for my salvation and 
 Thy glory, either by prosperity or adversity, by 
 honor or ignominy, infamy or praise, abundance 
 or poverty, sickness or health, life or death. I 
 except nothing, I wish to avoid nothing. It is 
 my only desire, and one long formed in my heart. 
 Dispose of me as Thou knowest to be most con- 
 ducive to my salvation and Thy glory, in order 
 
204 Meditative Summaries 
 
 that, O my God! I may contemplate Thee and 
 admire Thee during all eternity, that I may love 
 Thee, that I may honor Thee, that I may praise 
 Thee, bless Thee and glorify Thee in all things 
 and above all things. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Mercy of God. 
 
 * < I SHALL sing forever the mercies of God, 
 * His great, His prodigious, His ancient and 
 His new mercies, whose number is without end; 
 for "the earth is full of the mercy of God and His 
 mercy is above all His works." (Ps. lxxxviii 
 and xxxii. ) 
 
 O my Lord and my God ! Thy hand has taken 
 us in the beginning from the darkness of nothing- 
 ness and lifted us into the light of being, giving 
 us our species and an exalted and imperishable 
 nature sealed with the light of Thy countenance 
 and adorned with magnificent gifts that we might 
 have some appreciation and knowledge of Thee 
 and Thy bounty. Thou hast endowed our senses 
 with such power that we can discern and begin 
 to understand the whole material world and all 
 that is contained in it, and we may perceive the 
 evidence of Thy power, of Thy wisdom and of 
 Thy beauty which shine in it so marvellously. 
 Thou hast endowed us with understanding and 
 judgment, to know truth, to distinguish good 
 from evil and to rise from sensible to intellectual 
 things. Thou hast given us memory to recall 
 
 205 
 
206 Meditative Summaries 
 
 the past so that what was once perceived might 
 not float away and compel us to labor anew in 
 order to understand. Thou hast armed us with 
 a will to avoid evil and to follow what is right, to 
 enjoy what we attain, and above all to cleave 
 to Thee by love, and to enjoy Thee our greatest 
 good forever. Of what pertains to the body we 
 need not speak. 
 
 Behold to what a height Thou hast made us 
 rise! Behold the first benefits of Thy mercy. 
 They are many, they are inestimable and yet they 
 are but the essays, the outlines of far greater 
 blessings still. Thy lavish benignity did not halt 
 there. It has gone farther yet to perfect its work 
 and to eradicate from our souls the slightest im- 
 perfection. To this elevation it has added a sec- 
 ond; it has raised us to another degree more 
 eminent than the first, for it has lifted us from the 
 state of nature to that of grace and of filiation 
 which is incomparably more exalted, no matter 
 how perfect and sublime our nature may be. 
 And the reason is that such an honor can be 
 neither the natural appanage even of the most 
 perfect creature, nor be due to any natural dig- 
 nity with which it is endowed. For no created 
 being can of its nature be a son of God, heir to 
 His kingdom, and the possessor of the Holy 
 Ghost. Yet such prerogatives have been ac- 
 
The Mercy of God 207 
 
 corded to us by the out-pouring of Thy second 
 mercy. In this degree, Thou hast made us the 
 sharers of Thy secrets. Thou hast made us know 
 the mysteries hidden in Thee from all eternity; 
 Thou hast united us to Thee by supernatural 
 faith, hope and charity, and hast lifted us above 
 all created things. With all human beings it is 
 reckoned among the greatest dignities to be the 
 son of a king. Such a title confers on a man, 
 even if he is personally of little worth, honor and 
 respect, and the whole world proclaims him happy. 
 But how far beyond that is the dignity of one who 
 is a son of God, and an heir to the heavenly king- 
 dom ? In the entire universe could there be any- 
 thing more sublime ? It makes us venerable even 
 in the eyes of the angels ; and if they themselves 
 were not elevated to the same dignity they might 
 be envious of the honor conferred on us. Hence 
 it is that a single just man who fears God is bet- 
 ter in the estimation of God than a thousand who 
 are wicked. (Eccl. xvi.) Whosoever therefore 
 has not this dignity of the sonship of God counts 
 for nothing even if he is endowed with all the 
 gifts and favors of nature. 
 
 But the liberality of Thy mercy is not confined 
 within these limits. It has raised man to a third 
 state which is most sublime. It has made him 
 ascend from the state of grace and of initial son- 
 
208 Meditative Summaries 
 
 ship to that of glory and complete filiation. For 
 the gifts of glory are infinitely more excellent 
 than those of grace. The latter Thou accordest 
 in this life, but the knowledge they give is of 
 faith and consequently obscure, but in the light 
 of glory we are endowed with clearness of vision. 
 In one there is the hope and desire of the supreme 
 good ; in the other there is possession ; in the one 
 fear and apprehension, in the other certainty; in 
 the one. expectation, in the other enjoyment; in 
 one battle, in the other victory. Although here 
 below we are really children of God and have a 
 right to the kingdom, nevertheless we do not yet 
 possess it, are not altogether sure of it, and many 
 lose it. For we are not yet free from the miseries 
 of our mortal life; darkness and ignorance still 
 cloud our mind, and our inclination to evil is not 
 irrevocably corrected by the inflexible rule of 
 right. Hence the state of glory is incomparably 
 more excellent and sublime than the state of 
 grace of the present life. To be convinced of it a 
 study of the good that is bestowed on us by each 
 of these states will be amply sufficient. 
 
 This, O God, is the third and noblest elevation 
 of our nature; the supreme degree in the com- 
 munication of Thy gifts. From it are excluded 
 every misery and every imperfection. It is to 
 this sublime degree that the immeasurable sweet- 
 
The Mercy of God 209 
 
 ness of Thy mercy has destined us in order that 
 in it our mortality may be absorbed, all suffer- 
 ing cease, all want and all imperfection banished, 
 all sorrows assuaged, and every tear wiped away. 
 In order that we, Thy children, O my God, may 
 be made sharers in Thy possessions and riches, 
 we are established in consummated glory. "All 
 things for the elect." That is to say, all 
 things were ordained with a view to bring as 
 many as possible to the glory and participation 
 of the kingdom of heaven. 
 
 But after having been elevated to this second 
 degree, instead of making every effort to rise to 
 the third, although we had every help at hand, 
 and could do so with the greatest ease and the 
 greatest joy, yet alas ! because of the shameful 
 act of our first father who had, so to speak, the 
 will of all of us included in his own, we with- 
 drew from the order and guidance of Thy mercy, 
 and as a consequence turned away from Thee and 
 plunged into everlasting ruin. Surely it would' 
 have been better to have fallen into our primitive 
 nothingness than to have been condemned to 
 eternal fire which was then inevitable. No 
 remedy was left us; no creature could avail to 
 help, for none could offer to Thy justice a pro- 
 portionate satisfaction for our crime. It seemed 
 all over with our race, and there was no hope of 
 
210 Meditative Summaries 
 
 salvation, when Thou, O God of mercy ! touched 
 by our misfortune, didst come again to our aid 
 in such a marvellous and unheard of way that it 
 ought to be for us an eternal subject of wonder. 
 In the excess of Thy love Thou didst vouchsafe 
 that Thy Son who is coeternal and consubstantial 
 with Thee should assume our nature, in order 
 that being a man like us and capable of suffering, 
 He would make reparation for our crime, and in 
 our stead satisfy Thy divine justice by His suffer- 
 ings and His death. 
 
 Taking our nature upon Himself and uniting 
 it to Him by the ineffable bond of the Personal 
 Union, this well-beloved Son is born of a Virgin 
 and enters into the darkness of the world in which 
 He is to be subjected to the miseries of our mor- 
 tality, such as hunger and thirst, heat and cold, 
 poverty and want, labor and fatigue, outrages 
 and affronts, persecution and calumny, bitterness 
 of soul and torture of body, and finally the cross 
 and death. He is born in a stable like a beggar 
 and a wanderer; He is wrapped in swaddling 
 clothes as an infant; He weeps as mortals weep; 
 He is circumcised as if He were subject to the 
 law; He takes to flight as if He were without 
 power; He lives as if He were unknown; He 
 obeys His parents as if He were their inferior; 
 He lives as an ordinary man until the time came 
 
The Mercy of God 211 
 
 in which He was to manifest Himself. He is 
 baptized by His servant as if He were a sinner ; 
 He fasts in the desert; He is tempted by the 
 devil; He chooses ignorant and rude disciples; 
 He instructs them and leads them step by step 
 in the way of perfection. He journeys over the 
 whole country with them; He teaches the people 
 the way of salvation; He heals the sick, consoles 
 the afflicted, delivers the possessed ; sanctifies sin- 
 ners, dispels the darkness of ignorance, illumines 
 the world, astounds it by miracles, permits some 
 gleams of His Divinity to flash upon men's eyes 
 and exhorts all to reform their life and to be so- 
 licitous about their salvation. 
 
 Finally after having taught a heavenly doc- 
 trine, after having wrought many miracles and 
 given examples of every virtue, He then, in order 
 to consummate the work of our redemption, de- 
 livers Himself up entirely as our ransom, and sub- 
 mitting to a most ignominious and cruel death 
 offers His life and His blood for our salvation. 
 
 O ineffable mercy ! How little right the human 
 race had to it! O pure and gratuitous love! O 
 unhoped for condescension! that the King of 
 Glory should deign to take the form of a slave, 
 give Himself up to such labor and suffering, and 
 finally accept the death of the cross to save not 
 only the vilest of slaves but His bitterest enemies ! 
 
212 Meditative Summaries 
 
 Was there ever a father who for the deliverance 
 of his son, or a son for the deliverance of his 
 father, or friend for that of his friend, would 
 have done what God has done for man; the 
 Creator for a creature, the Sovereign Majesty 
 for a worm of the earth? 
 
 But His mercy did not stop there. All that He 
 did and suffered for us, all the merits of His life 
 He grouped together and left to us in the sacra- 
 ments as an inexhaustible treasure from which 
 we might forever draw. 
 
 O admirable treasure! O infinite riches by 
 which we may ransom ourselves from eternal 
 death, acquire the kingdom and glory of heaven 
 and gain the possession of God! Finally, to 
 leave nothing undone that His infinite love could 
 accomplish, and to give us a supreme pledge of 
 that love, He left us His Flesh and Blood which 
 He had offered on the cross for our redemption 
 and made them a sacrifice to appease the justice 
 of God, and a food to fortify us for eternal life. 
 
 By this act of mercy, O Lord ! Thou hast con- 
 quered. It alone rises above all that Thou hast 
 done, above all that mind could conceive or 
 creatures hope for. Who that thinks of it can 
 fail to love Thee? Who would not be ready to 
 devote himself and be utterly spent in laboring 
 for Thine honor and Thy service, since in so 
 
The Mercy of God 213 
 
 many ways Thou hast spent Thyself and more 
 than spent Thyself for our salvation. What are 
 our services compared with the benefits Thou hast 
 conferred on us? And what is our life when 
 measured by what Thou hast done and suffered 
 for us? It is a drop of water to the ocean; a 
 grain of dust to the terrestrial globe. It 
 is far less than all that, for there can 
 be no comparison between the finite and 
 the infinite. What then shall we offer 
 Thee, since the consecration of our life 
 and of all we have is already due Thee under a 
 multitude of titles? If one should owe a prince 
 ten thousand talents that were stolen, and ten 
 thousand more that were borrowed, and another 
 ten thousand for an injury done, and another ten 
 thousand for something bought, and yet had only 
 two small coins to pay it all would the prince be 
 satisfied with such a settlement ? Never. 
 
 But Thou, O my God! carriest Thy goodness 
 and mercy farther. For although we are in so 
 many ways and to such an extent Thy debtors 
 yet as soon as we employ the two pieces of money 
 that we have : our soul and body, Thou art satis- 
 fied and exactest no more. And yet even in that 
 we afford no benefit to Thee but are serving our 
 own interests. For to serve Thee is to reign, and 
 if we gave Thee all that we have and consecrated 
 
214 Meditative Summaries 
 
 ourselves absolutely to Thy service, and had 
 never a thought but of Thee, we would be secur- 
 ing the greatest possible advantage for ourselves. 
 
 Woe to those whose blindness prevents them 
 from seeing these marvels! Illumine my dark- 
 ness, O God of Light! that I may know the mag- 
 nitude of Thy mercies and the multitudinous evi- 
 dences of Thy love, and after having seen that 
 Light, let me esteem and appreciate it at its 
 proper value, as far as the darkness of this life 
 may permit. May the vision of these things be 
 ever present to me, in order that my soul, amazed 
 and enraptured by so much benignity and by so 
 many benefits, may be inflamed with the fire of 
 Thy love and devote and consecrate itself entirely 
 to Thee. May all my thoughts, may all the 
 powers of my being, may all my preoccupations 
 and all the actions of my life be for Thy glory. 
 May all the strength of my body and soul be 
 spent in Thy service so that I, even I, may offer 
 something to Thy love and be found not alto- 
 gether ungrateful in Thy divine presence. 
 
 "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is 
 within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, 
 O my soul, and never forget all that He hath 
 done for thee. He forgiveth all thy iniquities; 
 healeth all thy diseases; redeemeth thy life from 
 destruction; crowneth thee with mercy and com- 
 
The Mercy of God 215 
 
 passion; and satisfieth thy desires with good 
 things. Thy youth shall be renewed like the 
 eagles." (Ps. cii.) 
 
 And do ye also O Angels, Archangels, Princi- 
 palities, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, Cheru- 
 bim and Seraphim bless the Lord! Bless Him, 
 unite your praise and exalt Him, because He has 
 exercised His mercy towards us. May the 
 heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is 
 in them, praise and exalt forever the greatness 
 of His name. To Him be honor and praise and 
 thanksgiving from every generation, for ever 
 and ever. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Justice of God. 
 
 < < \V 7 HO knoweth the power of Thy wrath ? 
 ** What terror will measure Thy ven- 
 geance ?" (Ps. lxxxix.) Who can properly ap- 
 preciate the magnitude and the multitude of the 
 punishments Thou hast prepared for sinners to 
 be meted out to them by Thine omnipotence in 
 due time? As Thy mercy is infinite so is Thy 
 justice. It shows itself in numberless ways 
 against sinners, not only in the future but in the 
 present life; and although now mercy is chiefly 
 exercised, nevertheless justice is at times exacted, 
 so that men may learn to fear Thee. If sweet- 
 ness does not avail to touch their hearts, the 
 severity of Thy judgments may strike them with 
 alarm. 
 
 Thou didst manifest Thy justice and Thine 
 anger against sin when for a single transgression 
 Thou didst precipitate myriads of angels into hell 
 though they were incomparably superior to men, 
 and didst condemn them to eternal torment with- 
 out any hope of pardon. Nor was Thy justice 
 stayed either by the vast number of those who 
 were punished, or by the excellence and beauty of 
 216 
 
The Justice of God 217 
 
 their nature, or by their marvellous intelligence 
 endowed though it was with such clear and pene- 
 trating knowledge. Thou didst not take into 
 account the praise and benediction and gratitude 
 and honor and glory that Thou wouidst have re- 
 ceived from them for all eternity if Thou hadst 
 pardoned their sin. Notwithstanding the loss of 
 this masterpiece of Thy hands and the glory 
 it would have procured for Thee hadst Thou for- 
 given it, Thou didst prefer to suffer such a loss 
 rather than pardon that single sin. 
 
 Thou didst again display Thy justice and Thy 
 wrath against sin in the punishment of our first 
 parents, not only by depriving the whole human 
 race of its original justice and the happiness of 
 the state in which Thou didst create it, but by 
 condemning it to innumerable miseries and to 
 death itself. Thy wisdom foresaw that in con- 
 sequence of this punishment an infinite multitude 
 of men would be lost and that scarcely one out of 
 a hundred would be saved, and yet on account 
 of this first sin of our parents, Thou didst permit 
 all that to fall on their posterity. Who is not 
 startled when standing before this abyss of Thy 
 judgments? Verily Thou art the great and 
 terrible God, infinitely exalted and superexalted 
 above all creatures, all-sufficing of Thyself for 
 all praise and glory and happiness, and needing 
 
218 Meditative Summaries 
 
 neither our service nor our praise, nor the service 
 of the angels, but requiring only one thing: 
 obedience to Thy will. 
 
 Thou didst also show Thine anger against 
 sinners when in punishment of a deluge of sin, 
 Thou didst send the deluge of the waters which 
 destroyed the whole human race with the excep- 
 tion of eight who were to repeople the world. 
 Thus didst Thou purify the earth which had been 
 made foul with crime. Thy wrath again shone 
 forth when a rain of fire and brimstone poured 
 down from the heavens and utterly destroyed 
 Sodom and the adjoining cities with all who 
 dwelt therein, thus giving even in this life an 
 image of the eternal fire prepared for sinners 
 after death. 
 
 Four hundred years afterwards, Thy wrath 
 was exercised against the Egyptians who were 
 oppressing Thy people by a cruel and unjust 
 slavery. When both prince and people persisted 
 in their obstinancy in spite of the mysterious and 
 terrible plagues with which they were stricken, 
 Thou didst make the waters of the Red Sea to 
 engulf them. 
 
 Thou didst not even spare Thy people whom 
 Thou hadst chosen from all the nations of the 
 world. In pursuance of Thy mandate, the earth 
 opened under the feet of those who rebelled, fire 
 
The Justice of God 219 
 
 falling from heaven consumed them, and the 
 sword exterminated them. For their sin of 
 murmuring they were condemned to wander for 
 forty years in the barren sands and frightful soli- 
 tudes of the desert; and finally during the time 
 of the Judges, Thou didst permit them on account 
 of their sins to be six times vanquished by their 
 enemies, dragged into slavery and subjected to 
 every kind of misfortune. 
 
 Finally to punish its sins Thou hast often chas- 
 tised the human race by pestilence, famine, war, 
 tempests, floods and earthquakes. For as there 
 is no place where sin is not committed, it is just 
 that in all places sinners should be scourged by 
 suffering in order that smitten by Thy hand they 
 may return to the ways of wisdom and fulfil their 
 duty to Thee. 
 
 Thou punishest sin not only by exterior calami- 
 ties, but still more by those which are interior and 
 spiritual, as when Thou withdrawest from sin- 
 ners Thy light and the protection of Thy grace, 
 and permittest them to be driven by the demon 
 into all kinds of wickedness. That is one of the 
 most dreadful chastisements because it is next 
 to eternal damnation. Thus for many thousands 
 of years Thou didst permit the Gentiles, that is 
 to say, almost the whole world, to enter upon the 
 paths of iniquity, and didst allow the devil as the 
 
220 Meditative Summaries 
 
 prince and god of this world to occupy Thy king- 
 dom, and to be honored and adored by men as a 
 veritable deity. In the same way Thou didst cast 
 away Thy people on account of their crimes. 
 Because they rejected the love of truth and put 
 Truth itself to death Thou didst reject them by 
 the withdrawal of Thy grace, and didst permit 
 the demons to hold them enthralled in the slavery 
 of intellectual blindness and error. Thus also 
 because of their crimes and chiefly because of 
 their heresies Thou didst abandon several Chris- 
 tian realms and didst deliver them over to in- 
 fidels or devils. 
 
 Such are the judgments of Thy justice; such 
 are the wages meted out to the wicked for their 
 desertion of God. Those who abandon Thee and 
 Thy doctrine are abandoned by Thee, and de- 
 livered over to the deceits of the devil so that they 
 mistake light for darkness and darkness for light, 
 rejecting good as if it were evil and embracing 
 the greatest evil as if it were the greatest good. 
 Yet although this is the most awful punishment 
 that can be inflicted in the present life, neverthe- 
 less as it is not visible and not felt, no attention 
 is paid to it, and instead of being regarded as a 
 chastisement, it is esteemed as a benefit. But 
 that is only a proof of the extremity of the mis- 
 fortune. 
 
The Justice of God 221 
 
 It is by these and other punishments that Thou 
 afflictest sinners in this life and showest Thy 
 wrath and Thy justice. But who can explain the 
 sufferings, the afflictions, and the miseries that 
 Thou hast reserved for sinners in the life to 
 come, when Thou loosenest the reins of Thine 
 anger, and no longer restrainest it by Thy mercy. 
 There are they imprisoned in the deepest dun- 
 geon where everything inspires horror; there 
 they are plunged in a pool of fire and brimstone ; 
 there the heaped up bodies will burn as dry wood 
 in the midst of the sulphurous lake ; there, will be 
 weeping and gnashing of teeth because of the 
 fierceness of the suffering inflicted and the in- 
 ability to support it; there under the form of 
 frightful monsters, the demons enwrapped in a 
 body of fire will exercise their cruelty on the un- 
 fortunate damned; there will be felt in the body 
 the extremest pain, and in all the senses extrem- 
 est agony ; there the soul will be overwhelmed by 
 incomprehensible sadness and incomprehensible 
 despair, when it considers the infinite loss that it 
 has suffered, the awfulness of its misfortunes, 
 and above all the eternity during which all these 
 losses and all these woes will be suffered without 
 the shadow of any alleviation or appeasement of 
 pain. O Eternity ! Infinite good for the blessed ; 
 infinite evil for the reprobate! What a dreadful 
 
222 Meditative Summaries 
 
 excess of pain, what horrible and intolerable tor- 
 ture it would be to burn in a blazing furnace 
 even for a day. What would it be for a year or 
 a hundred years ; or a thousand years ; or a hun- 
 dred thousand years ! What horror would seize 
 our soul if we were condemned to burn for a 
 hundred thousand years ! But if it is for all etern- 
 ity, the punishment becomes infinitely greater 
 and infinitely worse and engenders in the soul an 
 agony incomparably more appalling. What then 
 must that suffering be in itself which is incom- 
 parably greater than a hundred thousand years in 
 the torture of fire? 
 
 Who can meditate on these sufferings without 
 a shudder? To avoid them and to reach a place 
 where they are no longer possible who would not 
 despise from the depths of his soul the riches, 
 pleasures and honors of this world ? Who would 
 not enter upon the narrow path of salvation? 
 Who would not consider it as the uttermost limit 
 of madness, to expose himself for earthly and 
 passing things to the danger of measureless and 
 everlasting woe? 
 
 I beg Thee, O Lord, by Thine infinite goodness 
 and mercy, by the merits and mysteries of Thy 
 Sacred Humanity to preserve me from such mad- 
 ness. Illumine my mind with Thy light and the 
 salutary wisdom of the elect, that by its fire, T 
 
The Justice of God 223 
 
 may know more clearly the grievousness of sin 
 which deserves such frightful punishments. 
 Make me often consider, O my God, with all the 
 strength of mind the misfortune of the lost; let 
 me thoroughly understand for the sake of my 
 salvation what a boundless ocean of malice there 
 is in each deadly sin, that overwhelms both soul 
 and body in such an ocean of misery ; and finally, 
 let me endeavor with all possible care to avoid it, 
 and to strive to please Thee. It is thus that* I 
 shall flee from the greatest evil and labor effica 
 ciously for the greatest good. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 God Our Last End. 
 
 i < f~\ YE sons of men, how long will you be dull 
 ^^ of heart ? Why do you love vanity and 
 seek after lying?" (Ps. iv.) The honors, riches 
 and pleasures you seek so ardently are all vanity. 
 Yet to obtain them you employ all the resources 
 of your soul by which you could have attained 
 solid and everlasting happiness. 
 
 "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," says 
 Ecclesiastes, and he had tried everything and in 
 the light of the highest intelligence had contem- 
 plated everything. Rightly he calls them vanity 
 because they are of no avail for the end we have 
 been appointed to reach, and they are often an 
 obstacle. They are lies for they promise happi- 
 ness and bring only misery. Those who seek 
 such things are truly described as the sons of 
 men for their minds are blinded, their cupidity 
 is senseless and their labor useless and pernicious. 
 Not for such things have we been created and 
 placed in the world; not in them is good or rest 
 to be found. They are earthly and fleeting and 
 can neither perfect nor satisfy the soul whose 
 nature is heavenly and eternal, whose capacity is 
 224 
 
God Our Last End 225 
 
 boundless and whose dignity is next to that of 
 the angels. 
 
 What then is our real good? Listen to the 
 Royal Prophet who asks : "Who showeth us good 
 things ? The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, 
 is signed upon us. Thou hast given gladness in 
 our heart." (Ps. iv.) The light of faith can 
 show us this good and the way to reach it, and 
 the knowledge of it fills the heart with incredible 
 joy. For what is more desirable than to know 
 our sovereign good and our last end, and to be 
 surely treading the pathway that conducts us to 
 eternal life. Without that knowledge all other 
 knowledge is useless and deserves not the name 
 of wisdom. 
 
 The ancient philosophers lacked that knowl- 
 edge and hence they were dissipated in their 
 thoughts and drew no profit from their labors and 
 researches. "For who knoweth the thoughts of 
 God if it be not the Spirit of God, for the Spirit 
 searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God 
 (I Cor. ii) ? By the Spirit has this hidden coun- 
 sel of God been revealed to us. "May the heavens 
 and the earth and the sea and all they contain, 
 bless Thee, O my God! may they praise and 
 exalt Thee for ever and ever." (Dan. iii.) For 
 before all ages we were Thy care, and in the first 
 counsel of Thy Trinity Thou didst form in our 
 
226 Meditative Summaries 
 
 regard a design of infinite benignity. It was to 
 make us sharers in Thy divinity and in all Thy 
 possessions and in all Thy joy. Who would not 
 be ravished with astonishment in contemplating 
 such benignity and sweetness ? Who would have 
 ever been able to hope for or divine it ? But such 
 was the pleasure of Thine infinite goodness whose 
 nature is to pour itself out and communicate it- 
 self in ineffable ways. 
 
 Alone in Thine eternity Thou wert in the en- 
 joyment of Thine own goodness, and lacking 
 nothing, for Thou art the infinite good and most 
 sufficient for all happiness. The delight of the 
 sweetness of association and friendship was not 
 wanting. Thou didst find it in the Trinity of 
 Persons ; for between the Father and the Son and 
 the Holy Spirit there exists a sovereign society, 
 a sovereign love, a sovereign communication of 
 all good, of all joys, of all thoughts. Thou didst 
 not therefore need the society of creatures. That 
 could not be of advantage to Thee. Yet never- 
 theless yielding to the inclination of Thy good- 
 ness, Thou didst wish to create us and to elevate 
 us to the participation of Thy possessions and of 
 Thine infinite felicity. 
 
 Between Thee and us there is an infinite dis- 
 tance not of place but of nature. Being infinitely 
 exalted above all creatures, Thou rulest them 
 
God Our Last End 227 
 
 from an infinite height. Between us and Thee 
 are the infinite degrees of rational nature which 
 Thou in Thine infinite wisdom and power dost 
 keep as Thou hast disposed them. Yet neverthe- 
 less the power of Thy goodness is so great, that 
 Thou canst elevate our soul above all created 
 beings and, above all that may be created, in a 
 most wonderful manner without assistance unite 
 us to Thee by vision, by love and by beatitude. 
 
 O admirable, happy and glorious union in 
 which, O my God, are found at the same time our 
 greatest good and Thy greatest glory! For by 
 it we are made sharers in the divine goodness 
 and the divine joy; and by it Thy Divinity shines 
 in greatest splendor outside of Itself in the mirror 
 of the created spirit, as within, It shines in the 
 contemplation of Itself. In other created things, 
 as in the structure of this universe and the differ- 
 ent degrees of being, there are without doubt 
 certain feeble rays of Thy Divinity, by the help of 
 which we somewhat surmise Thy power, Thy wis- 
 dom, Thy goodness ; but in our soul thus elevated 
 and united to Thee the whole plenitude of Thy 
 Divinity glows in Its splendor, and in It Thy 
 beauty is reflected. And although It is one, It is 
 nevertheless multiplied in such a marvellous man- 
 ner that there would seem to be as many divini- 
 ties as there are blessed spirits. 
 
228 Meditative Summaries 
 
 That union of our soul with God is made the 
 supreme aim of our desires. By it all good flows 
 to us : power, because we shall be kings and sons 
 of God ; wisdom, for we shall possess and contem- 
 plate the very source of wisdom; holiness, for 
 that burning love with which we shall be inflamed 
 is supreme holiness and the perfection of every 
 virtue; riches, because the kingdom of heaven 
 and all its wealth belongs to us; honors, because 
 we shall be received and honored as sons of God ; 
 beauty, because our body shall shine as the sun 
 and our soul like the Divinity; joys and delights, 
 for we "shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy 
 house and shall drink of the torrent of Thy pleas- 
 ure" (Ps. xxxv ) ; peace and security, for nothing 
 without or within can ever trouble or sadden or 
 disturb us; and what is greatest of all, there is 
 the absolute certainty that this union with God 
 will be eternal. 
 
 Therefore let this union in which are found 
 our greatest good, and God's greatest glory be 
 ever nearest to our heart. Let us long for it and 
 let us place it above all created things. Let the 
 possessions of this life, no matter how great they 
 may appear, become vile in comparison with it, 
 and let all else without exception be reputed as 
 nothing. Let all our thoughts, our cares, our 
 labors tend to that divine union and let our soul 
 never know rest except in it. 
 
God Our Last End 229 
 
 But as so great a good is far beyond our 
 strength, we have recourse to Thee, O most be- 
 nignant God! It is solely by Thine infinite 
 bounty that from all eternity Thou hast destined 
 us to that sublime state. To conduct us thither 
 and to put us in possession of it, Thou hast 
 created the world, assumed our flesh, died on the 
 cross, and given us other innumerable testimonies 
 of Thy love. Continue Thy benignity towards 
 us; interrupt it not, nor diminish it because of 
 our ingratitude, our negligences, and the other 
 blots that are the sad consequences of our 
 frailty. Augment it rather, being mindful of 
 Thine eternal purpose and of all the mercies Thou 
 hast heaped upon us to this day. Illumine our 
 souls with the light of Thy Holy Spirit; let it 
 make us know the vanities and perils of this 
 world, by the deceits of which so many perish, 
 and let it reveal to us the excellence and the holi- 
 ness of the eternal good that Thou hast prepared 
 for us in Thee. Keep all this ever before our 
 eyes and let it exercise on our souls a profound 
 impression which will urge us in spite of all 
 transitory things to the love and the conquest of 
 all that is eternal. Let our desires, and our long- 
 ing never cease ; let our efforts ever increase until 
 the last moment of our life; and then by Thy 
 grace, make us be found worthy of Thy kingdom 
 
230 Meditative Summaries 
 
 and of the eternal rest in which all the saints, 
 united with Thee who art their last end and sov- 
 ereign good, will find by the vision and by love, 
 unutterable delights and the supreme accomplish- 
 ment of all their desires. 
 
 FINIS. 
 

 
 
 
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