(15) The truth of the matter is this that, just as the seed of man becomes a man, and a buried date stone becomes a palm tree, so the knowledge of God acquired on Earth will in the Next World change into the Vision of God, and he who has never learnt the knowledge will never have the Vision. This Vision will not be shared alike by all who know, but their discernment of it will vary exactly as their knowledge. God is one, but He will be seen in many different ways, just as one object is reflected in different ways by different mirrors, some showing it straight, and some distorted, some clearly and some dimly. A mirror may be so crooked as to make even a beautiful form appear misshapen, and a man may carry into the next world a heart so dark and distorted that the sight which will be a

(49) "So also in God's love there is only the fountain and knowledge of joyfulness, for every science or root causes or produceth its like.

(13) In the first place, everyone of man's faculties has its appropriate function which it delights to fulfill. This holds good of them all, from the lowest bodily appetite to the highest form of intellectual apprehension. But even a comparatively low form of mental exertion affords greater pleasure than the satisfaction of bodily appetites. Thus, if a man happens to be absorbed in a game of chess, he will not come to his meal, though repeatedly summoned. And the higher the subject-matter of our knowledge, the greater is our delight in it; for instance, we would take more pleasure in knowing the secrets of a king than the secrets of a vizier. Seeing, then, that God is the highest possible object of knowledge, the knowledge of Him must afford more delight than any other. He who knows God, even in this world, dwells, as it were, in a paradise, "the breadth of which is as the breadth of the Heavens and the Earth," a paradise the fruits of which no envy can prevent him plucking, and the extent of which is not narrowed by the multitude of those who occupy it.

(5) But knowledge, conveyed from communication through the grace of God as a deposit, is entrusted to those who show themselves worthy of it; and from it the worth of love beams forth from light to light. For it is said, "To him that hath shall be given:" to faith, knowledge; and to knowledge, love; and to love, the inheritance.

(134) Whereby in the heavenly pomp such fair beauteous forms, ideas, figures and vegetations always spring up, as also various colours and fruits; and this the qualifying or fountain spirits of God do in God, as a holy play, sport or scene. Now behold!

(22) But thou must know here that they all have a lovewill one to another, none of them grudgeth the other his form and beauty; for as it goeth among the spirits of God, so it goeth among these.

(4) If to be more exalted we aspired, Discordant would our aspirations be Unto the will of Him who here secludes us; Which thou shalt see finds no place in these circles, If being in charity is needful here, And if thou lookest well into its nature; Nay, 'tis essential to this blest existence To keep itself within the will divine, Whereby our very wishes are made one; So that, as we are station above station Throughout this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing, As to the King, who makes his will our will. And his will is our peace; this is the sea To which is moving onward whatsoever It doth create, and all that nature makes." Then it was clear to me how everywhere In heaven is Paradise, although the grace Of good supreme there rain not in one measure. But as it comes to pass, if one food sates, And for another still remains the longing, We ask for this, and that decline with thanks, E'en thus did I; with gesture and with word, To learn from her what was the web wherein She did not ply the shuttle to the end.

(2) This, then, is truer than all truth, and plainer than what the mind [’s eye] perceives;—that from that Universal God of Universal Nature all other things for evermore have found, and had bestowed on them, the mystery of bringing forth; in which there is innate the sweetest Charity, [and] Joy, [and] Merriment, Longing, and Love Divine. We might have had to tell the mighty power and the compulsion of this mystery, if it had not been able to be known by every one from personal experience, by observation of himself.

(5) Certain men say that we ought to be without will, wisdom, love, desire, knowledge, and the like. Hereby is not to be understood that there is to be no knowledge in man, and that God is not to be loved by him, nor desired and longed for, nor praised and honoured; for that were a great loss, and man were like the beasts and as the brutes that have no reason. But it meaneth that man’s knowledge should be so clear and perfect that he should acknowledge of a truth that in himself he neither hath nor can do any good thing, and that none of his knowledge, wisdom and art, his will, love and good works do come from himself, nor are of man, nor of any creature, but that all these are of the eternal God, from whom they all proceed. As Christ Himself saith, “Without Me, ye can do nothing.”8 St. Paul saith also, “What hast thou that thou hast not received?”9 As much as to say—nothing. “Now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?” Again he saith, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.”10 Now when a man duly perceiveth these things in himself, he and the creature fall behind, and he doth not call anything his own, and the less he taketh this knowledge unto himself, the more perfect doth it become.

(96) In God all the spirits do triumph as one spirit, and one spirit always mitigateth or softeneth and loveth the others, so there is nothing but mere joy and delight: But their severe birth or geniture, which is effected or done in secret, must be so:

(5) But there is that species of knowledge which is characteristic of the herald, and that which is, as it were, characteristic of a messenger, and it is serviceable in whatever way it operates, both by the hand and tongue. "For he that soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well-doing." On him who by Divine Providence meets in with it, it confers the very highest advantages, - the beginning of faith, readiness for adopting a right mode of life, the impulse towards the truth, a movement of inquiry, a trace of knowledge; in a word, it gives the means of salvation. And those who have been rightly reared in the words of truth, and received provision for eternal life, wing their way to heaven. Most admirably, therefore, the apostle says, "In everything approving ourselves as the servants of God; as poor, and yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing all things.

(3) Those who are wise in mind have a certain attribute of nature peculiar to themselves; and they who have shown themselves capable, receive from the Supreme Wisdom a spirit of perception in double measure. For those who practise the common arts, are in what pertains to the senses highly gifted: in hearing, he who is commonly called a musician; in touch, he who moulds clay; in voice the singer, in smell the perfumer, in sight the engraver of devices on seals. Those also that are occupied in instruction, train the sensibility according to which the poets are susceptible to the influence of measure; the sophists apprehend expression; the dialecticians, syllogisms; and the philosophers are capable of the contemplation of which themselves are the objects. For sensibility finds and invents; since it persuasively exhorts to application. And practice will increase the application which has knowledge for its end. With reason, therefore, the apostle has called the wisdom of God" manifold," and which has manifested its power "in many departments and in many modes" - by art, by knowledge, by faith, by prophecy - for our benefit. "For all wisdom is from the Lord, and is with Him for ever," as says the wisdom of Jesus.