Chapter 9, Section 1c

For just as, supposing we were in thought to represent the soul itself in bodily shape, and represent this indivisible substance as surrounded by bodily parts, we should, in such a case, give the surrounding parts a different meaning suited to the indivisible nature of the soul, and should interpret the head to mean the Intellect, the neck Opinion (as being betwixt reason and irrationality), the breast to mean Passion, the belly Animal Desire, and the legs and feet to mean the Vital Nature: thus using the names of bodily parts as symbols of immaterial faculties; even so (and with much greater reason) must we, when speaking of Him that is beyond all things, purge from false elements by sacred heavenly and mystical explanations the Difference of the Forms and Shapes ascribed to God. And, if thou wilt attribute unto the intangible and unimaged God, the imagery of our threefold bodily dimensions, the Divine Breadth is God’s exceeding wide Emanation over all things, His Length is His Power exceeding the Universe, His Depth the Unknown Mystery which no creature can comprehend. Only we must have a care lest, in expounding these different forms and figures we unwittingly confound the incorporeal meaning of the Divine Names with the terms of the sensible symbols. 448 448 i. e. We must not take metaphorical titles literally (much bad philosophy and much sentimentality and also brutality in Religion, has come from taking anthropomorphic titles of God literally). This matter I have dealt with in my Symbolical Divinity: the point I now wish to 166 make clear is this: we must not suppose that Difference in God means any variation of His utterly unchanging Sameness. It means, instead, a multiplicity of acts wherein His unity is undisturbed, and His all-creative fertility while passing into Emanations retains its uniformity in them. 6. And if God be called Similar (even as He is called “Same,” to signify that He is wholly and altogether like unto Himself in an indivisible Permanence) this appellation of “Similar” we must not repudiate. But the Sacred Writers tell us that the All-Transcendent God is in Himself unlike any being, but that He nevertheless bestows a Divine Similitude upon those that turn to Him and strive to imitate those qualities which are beyond all definition and understanding. And ‘tis the power of the Divine Similitude that turneth all created things towards their Cause. These things, then, must be considered similar to God by virtue of the Divine Image and Process of Similitude working in them; and yet we must not say that God resembles them any more than we should say a man resembles his own portrait. For things which are co-ordinate may resemble one another, and the term “similarity” may be applied indifferently to either member of the pair; they can both be similar to one another through a superior principle of Similarity which is common to them both. But in the case of the Cause and Its effects we cannot admit this interchange. For It doth not bestow the state of similarity only on these objects and on those; but God is the Cause of this condition unto all that have the quality of Similarity, 449 449 If anything derived this quality from some other source than God, that thing, instead of standing towards God in the relation of effect to Cause, would be co-ordinate with Him. But as it is, all things stand towards God in the relation of effect to Cause. and is the Fount of Very Similarity; 450 450 Vide supra on Very Existence, Very Life, Very Wisdom, etc. and all the Similarity in the world 167 possesses its quality through having a trace of the Divine Similarity and thus accomplishes the Unification of the creatures. 7. But what need is there to labour this point?