The seeing soul knows praise is folly...

The seeing soul knows praise is folly, if given to other than the Creator; He who from earth can create the body, and make the wind the register of speech, the Giver of reason, the Inspirer of hearts, who calls forth the soul, the Creator of causes;--generation and corruption, all is his work; He is the source of all creation, and the place to which it returns all comes from Him and all returns to Him; good and evil all proceeds to Him.

He creates the freewill of the good and of the wicked; He is the Author of the soul, the Originator of wisdom; He from nothing created thee something; thou wert of no account, and He exalted thee. No mind can reach a comprehension of His mode of being; the reason and soul know not His perfection. The mind of Intelligence is dazzled by His majesty, the soul's eye is blinded before His perfection. The Primal Intelligence is a product of His nature,--it He admitted to a knowledge of himself.

Imagination lags before the glory of His essence; understanding moves confined before His nature's mode of being. His fire, which in haughtiness He made His carpet, burnt the wing of reason; the soul is a serving-man in His pageant, reason a novitiate in His school. What is reason in this guest-house? only a crooked writer of the script of God. What of this intelligence, agitator of trifles?

What of this changing inconstant nature?, When He shows to intelligence the road to Himself, then only can intelligence fitly praise Him. Since Intelligence was the first of created things, Intelligence is above all choicest things besides; yet Intelligence is but one word out of His record, the Soul one of the foot-soldiers at His door. Love He perfected through a reciprocal love; but intelligence He tethered even by intelligence.

Intelligence, like us, is bewildered on the road to His nature, like us confounded. He is intelligence of intelligence, and soul of soul; and what is above that, that He is. How through the promptings of reason and soul and senses can one come to know God? But that God showed him the way, how could man ever have become acquainted with Divinity? ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD Of himself no one can know Him; His nature can only be known through Himself.

Reason sought His truth,--it ran not well; impotence hastened on His road, and knew Him. His mercy said, Know me; otherwise who, by reason and sense, could know Him? How is it possible by the guidance of the senses? How can a nut rest firmly on the summit of a dome?