This is not so, however. The body is to rise again and live for ever. The universe is to remain for ever, with all its various grades of existence, including even the lowest, or those which are purely material. There is therefore a natural order coexisting with the supernatural in a subordinate relation to it—a minor and less principal part, but still an integral part of the divine, creative plan. There is a cognitio matutina and a cognitio vespertina, a matutinal and vesperal knowledge, in the blessed; the one being the immediate intuition of the trinity in unity, the other the mediate intuition of the idea or infinite archetype of creation in God, through his creative act. There is a natural intellectual life in the angels, and a natural intellectual and physical life in man, in the beatific state. The natural order is preserved and perfected in the supernatural order, with all its beauty and felicity—with its science, virtue, love, friendship, and society. The material world is everlasting, together with the spiritual. All orders together make up the universe; and it is the whole complex of diverse and multitudinous existences which completely expresses the divine idea and fulfils the divine purpose of the creator. The metaphysical finality or apex of the creative act is in the incarnate Word, but the relation to the final cause exists in everything, and is fulfilled in the universe as a totality, which embraces in one harmonious plan all things that have been created, and culminates in Jesus Christ, through the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in his person.
In this universe there may be an order of intelligent existences, touching at its lowest point the highest point of irrational existence, and at its highest point the lowest in the grade of the beatified spirits. That inferior order of knowledge and felicity may exist distinctly and separately which exists conjointly with supernatural beatitude in the kingdom of heaven. The perfection of the universe requires that there should be a beatified, glorified order at its summit. It may even the maintained that this consummation of created nature in the highest possible end is the only one which the divine wisdom could propose in creating. Yet this does not exclude the possibility of an inferior order of intelligence, upon which the grace elevating it to a supernatural state is not conferred.
We are prepared, therefore, to proceed to the consideration of the nature and conditions of that grace, as a cure, gratuitous gift of God, conferred upon angels and upon the human race through his free and sovereign goodness. From the point of view to which the previous reasoning has conducted us, the angels and mankind appear to us, not as mere species of rational creatures conducted by their creator along the path of rational development by natural law, but as the elect heirs of an entirely gratuitous inheritance of glory—candidates for a destiny entirely supernatural. The relation which they sustain to God in this supernatural scheme of grace will therefore be our topic next in order.
Original
SONG.
What magician pulls the string
That uncurtains pretty Spring?
And the swallow with his wing
Against the sky 1
Who brings the branch its green,
And the honey-bee a queen?
"Is it I?"
Said April, "I?"
"Yes, 'tis I."
What aërial artist limns
Rock and cloud, with brush that dims
Titian's oils and Hogarth's whims
In shape and dye?
What Florimel embowers
Lawn and lake with arching flowers?
"Is it I?"
Said bright July, "I?"
"Yes, 'tis I."
What good genii drop the grains
Of brown sugar in the canes?
Who fills up the apple's veins
With sweetened dew?
Who hangs the painted air
With the grape and golden pear?
Is it you,
October? You?
Yes, 'tis you.
Who careering sweeps the plain,
Scoffing at the violet's pain.
Echoing back and back again
His wild halloo?
Who makes the Yule-fire foam
Round the happy hearth of home?
Is it you,
December? You?
Aye, 'tis you.
T. W. K.