Page:Post-Mediaeval Preachers.djvu/191

 “Aristotle says that as the sun, most visible in itself, cannot be contemplated without difficulty by our eyes, on account of their weakness; so God, of supreme entity and perfection, can hardly be grasped by us, through the imperfection of our intellect.”

“When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up, says the Psalmist; and Israel exclaimed, Make us gods to go before us. For without God we have not power to advance. What will he say to this, who enters on a state of life without God to lead him, who undertakes hard matters forgetful of God? As the ivy trails along the earth when it finds not a tree, to which it may cling and by which it may ascend, so does the soul lie prostrate till it has found God, to whom it may cling as to its beloved; and having found Him, by Him ascend, going on from grace to grace.”

“The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork: they all point wondrously to their Creator, showing themselves to be creatures fashioned by His hands.

“Cicero observes: If when travelling you came suddenly in a desert upon some magnificent palace, such as that of Solomon, and were to ask how it came thither, and the answer were made that a mountain had fallen, and that its ruins had shaped themselves, somehow, into this great mansion, you would laugh them to scorn who asserted this, for the house shows plainly the handiwork of an artificer—and that he was a famous artificer to boot—who thus ranged all in such perfect order, and this, you would say, was self-evident. So, too, he who considers the workmanship of this world