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The created understanding then shall see the divine
essence, without any medium of species or
representation; yet not without a certain excellent
light which disposes, elevates, and strengthens it,
to raise its view so high, and to an object so
sublime and resplendent.
For as the owl has a sight strong enough to bear
the sombre light of a clear night, but not strong
enough to stand the mid-day light, which is too
brilliant to be borne by eyes so dim and weak; so our
understanding, which is strong enough to consider
natural truths by its discourse, yea even the
supernatural things of grace by the light of faith,
is not yet able, by the light of either nature or
faith, to attain unto the view of the divine
substance in itself. Wherefore the sweetness of the
eternal wisdom determined not to apply His essence to
our understanding till He had prepared, strengthened
and fitted it to receive a sight so eminent, and so
disproportionate to its natural condition as is the
view of the Divinity.
So the sun, the sovereign object of our corporal
eyes amongst natural things, does not present itself
unto our view without sending first its rays, by
means whereof we may be able to see it, so that we
only see it by its light.
Yet there is a difference between the rays which
the sun casts upon our corporal eyes and the light
which God will create in our understandings in
heaven: for the sun's rays do not fortify our
corporal eyes when they are weak and unable to see,
but rather blind them, dazzling and confounding their
infirm vision: whereas, on the contrary, this sacred
light of glory, finding our understandings unapt and
unable to behold the Divinity, raises, strengthens
and perfects them so excellently, that by an
incomprehensible marvel they behold and contemplate
the abyss of the divine brightness in itself with a
fixed and direct gaze, not being dazzled or beaten
back by the infinite greatness of its splendour.
In like manner, therefore, as God has given us the
light of reason, by which we may know Him as Author
of nature, and the light of faith by which we
consider Him as source of grace, so will He bestow
upon us the light of glory by which we shall
contemplate Him as the fountain of beatitude and
eternal life: but a fountain, Theotimus, which we
shall not contemplate afar off as we do now by faith,
but which we shall see by the light of glory while
plunged and swallowed up in it.
Divers, who, fishing for precious stones, go down
into the water, take oil, says Pliny, in their
mouths, that by scattering it, they may have more
light to see in the waters where they swim. Theotimus,
a blessed soul having entered and plunged into the
ocean of the divine essence, God will pour into its
understanding the sacred light of glory, which will
enlighten it in this abyss of inaccessible light,
that so by the light of glory we may see the light of
the Divinity. For with Thee is the fountain of life;
and in Thy light we shall see light.(1)
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