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Of God, Angels and Men. Excerpt from Chapter 6 of "Essays on catholicism, liberalism and socialism" by Juan Donoso Cortés (1874) Before the creation of man, and in times removed beyond human investigations …More
Of God, Angels and Men.

Excerpt from Chapter 6 of "Essays on catholicism, liberalism and socialism" by Juan Donoso Cortés (1874)

Before the creation of man, and in times removed beyond human investigations, God had created the angels, happy and perfect creatures, whom He permitted to gaze attentively on the brightest splendours of His face, bathed in a sea of unutterable delights, and perpetually absorbed in contemplation of Him. The angels were pure spirits, and the excellence of their nature was greater than that of the nature of man, composed of an immortal soul and of the slime of the earth. By its simple nature the angel was connected with God, whilst by its intelligence, by its liberty, and by its limited wisdom, it had been formed to be connected with man; as man by his spiritual portion had intercourse with the angel, and by his corporeal matter with the physical world, which was at the service of his will, and under the obedience of his word. And all creatures came into being with the inclination and the capacity of being transformed, and of ascending by the immense ladder, which, beginning in the lowliest beings, ended in that sublime Being who is above all beings, and whom the heavens and the earth, men and angels, know by a name which is above all names. The physical world panted to rise and become spiritualised, in a certain way, like man; and man, to become more spiritualised like the angel; and the angel, to assimilate itself more to that perfect Being, the source of all life, the Creator of all creatures, whose height no rule can measure, and whose immensity no bounds can contain. All had come from God, and, rising, should return to God, who was their beginning and their origin; and as all had come from Him, and should return to Him, there was nothing which did not contain a spark, more or less resplendent, of His beauty.
In this way the infinite variety was reduced of itself to that ample unity which created all things, and placed in them a striking concert and a wonderful bond, separating those that were confused, and collecting those that were scattered, From which we see that the act of creation was complex, and composed of two different acts, namely, of that by which God gave existence to what previously had none; and of that other, by means of which He regulated all that He had given existence to. By the first of these acts He revealed His power of creating all substances which sustain all forms; with the second,the power He had of creating all the forms which embellish all substances. And as there is no substance beyond those created by God, neither is there any beauty beyond what He placed in things. For this reason, the universe, which signifies everything created by God, is the aggregate of all substances; and order, which signifies the form that God placed in things, is the' aggregate, of all beauties. Beyond God there is no creator, beyond order there is no beauty, beyond the universe there is no creature.