“I have invented a science, entirely of myself; this science I teach thee; thou and I communicate it to a third. The same science is in all three; one of us knows nothing which the other knows not; one knows as much as all the three. Yet is there this difference between us, I have the knowledge of myself, having received it of none; in thee it is derived from me; in the third it proceeds from thee and me. Now suppose that, instead of a science, this were my nature which I gave to thee, and which we two communicated to the third; then should we three be one in nature, and yet with the diversity I have specified.
“Thus, as I have said, is it with our God, in whom it is the same to be, to know, to be able, &c. This wisdom and nature is in the Father self-derived, received of none. It is in the Son also, the same, but received by intelligence from the Father. It is in the Holy Ghost, but proceeding from the Father and the Son by love: therefore the Persons are three, but there are not three Gods nor three Lords, for the nature, and the wisdom, and the power, and the goodness are one, but in three Persons; therefore there is but one God, one Lord, one Wise.”
“God is the abyss of being, as signifies His name Jehovah; in Him are all perfections, of which perfections each is infinite, all are One. What then is my God? Ask every creature, and let them show you their God, and tell you what He is; not that each can declare Him perfectly, but each in part. Does it not happen to you sometimes, as you walk abroad, that you light upon a brook, and say, I will trace it to its source, and see whence this streamlet flows? Do you now act thus, and you will attain to your God. Mark what is good in the creatures you behold, in the song of birds, in the beauty of flowers, in the wealth of metals, in the sweetness of meats; these are but rills proceeding from God the abounding Fount; all these utter the things which are in God; for all creatures are but voices manifesting Him.”
Yet we must not rest in them. “It has happened that painters have pictured fruit with such accuracy that birds have come out of the sky thinking them real, in order to feed upon them; but finding them to be painted, and that there is no food in them, they fly away to seek their true sustenance. The Divine painter has traced with His brush in His creatures the beauties which live in Himself, and in them they seem to live. Yet are they but figures, not verities, for the fashion of this world passeth away. Would you know how to act, knowing that these are but pictures and not realities? Act as the bird, which finding no food in the painting seeks its real meat elsewhere. Mark this, you will find in creation no true food, no satiety, no repose; mark this and fly away to your God, He is very good, He is true food, in Him alone is repose.”
“When you hear sweet harmony, you say, I hear musicians, though you see them not; so seeing the harmony of creation, acknowledge God its source. In God are all perfections. Take the opal. Look at it fixedly from one point; it is white as snow, and you see nought save whiteness in it. Turn a little aside; it flashes out in flames as a carbuncle. Look from another point, it glows a rich crimson as the ruby; again, from another point it is all green as the emerald. Lo! you have an image of God, that most precious gem, to win which we must sell all we have. He is one, yet manifold. Moses beheld God, and He was to him like to the carbuncle, a burning fire: The Lord thy God is a consuming fire. That same God did David behold: The Lord is full of compassion and mercy: long-suffering and of great goodness. To him then was He not all white? Isaiah beheld him: Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel? and seeing Him executing vengeance, He was like to the ruby. John beheld Him, and a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. Lo! what variety, and yet what unity!”
One of the most curious ideas of Osorius is the following. He says that as he lies in bed he hears the stroke, stroke, of his heart; and it sounds to him as though within were two wood-cutters engaged night and day in hewing down a tree. Nor am I wrong in thinking so, he continues, for Flux and Reflux are engaged every hour in laying their axes to the root of the tree of life. In another sermon he speaks of men fretting over the loss of worldly goods and neglecting their eternal inheritance as resembling the little boy who has built a mud castle, and who weeps when a passer-by overthrows it with his foot, though he cares nothing that a lawsuit is going on at the time by which a large inheritance is being wrested from him.
The following is singularly beautiful, to my mind. Osorius is speaking of the dower Christ has given to His Church. He says, that as when a traveller marries a wife in a far country he gives her a few presents, but says to her, O my beloved, when we come home to my own country, where all my wealth and property are, then you shall have ten thousand times better presents; so does Christ act with His Church. Here, in the far country of this earth, He gives her a few gifts and graces, but when He leads her home to His heavenly habitation, He will crown her with endless glory.
On the subject of the Ascension, he observes, very gracefully, that when a fleet is tossing on the sea, if one vessel enters the port in safety, the others pluck up courage to follow. When the soldiers see their leader mount the wall of the besieged city, they, though below, are stirred to press onward too.
And again, speaking of Christ resuming His seat in Heaven, he says that when a costly gem is given to a king, he sets it in a golden ring, which is exquisitely wrought, and which seemed a miracle of perfection before the insertion of the gem. But when the jewel is set, its glory eclipses all the graving of the ring. So was Heaven beauteous without Christ, beauteous as the setting, but now the precious gem, for whom all was made, is again in His place, and eclipses all other glories in His own effulgent beauty.
“The joy of Heaven must have been great, and the cause of the joy is manifest. Heaven has received its sun, enlightening it more than all its stars. It has gotten its precious gem adorning that ring of eternity more than its fine gold, more than all the comely forms thereon engraved. But, earth, how canst thou rejoice this day, deprived of the sun which late illumined thee? When the sun shines in this hemisphere, all things rejoice receiving light from it; but when it retires to the other hemisphere, those things which are in it begin their rejoicing, whilst those which are in ours are veiled in darkness, and droop in gloom and tears. When the ark of God was brought to Bethshemesh, that is, the house of the sun, the calves of the cows which drew it were shut up at home, and they lowed because the mothers which gave them milk were away. This day is the ark of God, which has been held captive in the house of this world, brought back into Heaven, the true house of the sun. And we, as the calves, remaining shut up in this world’s tabernacle, without our nourishment from the breast and wounds of Christ, how shall we do otherwise than low and lament?”