I must try to do what seems very foolish – describe God.
God is simple, without body or distinction of parts.
He is simple, because He has nothing borrowed.
He is good without qualities, great without quantity,
Creator, yet needing nothing; everywhere, yet without place; eternal, without
term, and changing all things, without change Himself.
He is good with an infinite goodness, and good to all, but
especially good to men.
He is infinite in the multitude of His perfections, in their
intensity, and in their magnificence.
He is present everywhere, in different manners, yet nowhere
contracting soil or stain.
He is immutable; His eternity defends Him from time, His
immensity from change of place, and His wisdom from change of purpose.
He is eternal without beginning as well as without end, and
eternal with a life which exists all at once and altogether, and with a perfect
possession of it.
He subsists by the incomparable unity of His blessed nature,
and it is the crowning interest of every man in the world that God should be
but One.
He is sovereign purity, unspeakable sanctity, and most resplendent
beauty.
He is always in adorable tranquility; no trouble can come
nigh to His being.
He is known to nature, to faith, to glory, yet He is
incomprehensible by all.
His name is the ineffable God.
His science is beyond all thought, and is the source of His
ravishing joy.
His being is Truth itself, and His life is the inexhaustible
fountain of life.
His will is worshipful, unblamable, supreme, and His
liberty is without parallel and beyond words.
His love of His creatures is eternal, constant, gratuitous
and singular; and His mercy is an unfathomable abyss of the most beautiful
compassions and condescensions, and no less also of the most delicate judgments
and the most tender retributions.
His justice is as irreproachable as His sanctity, and as
benevolent as His mercy.
His power is illimitable, and full of love; and His
blessedness is inaccessible.
Yet all these are not separate perfections; but He is
Himself all these excellencies, and He is one: Three co-equal, co-eternal, and
consubstantial Persons, One only God.
Such, in the dry language of the schools, is the description of Him who is our loving and indulgent Father, God over all, blessed forevermore! Amen.
- From "All For Jesus or The Easy Ways of Divine Love" by Frederick William Faber
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