hich is the perfection of beauty,
hath God shined, Psal. 1. 2. All other creatures are fair, I confess, and
many other objects do much enamour us, a fair house, a fair horse, a comely
person. [6313]"I am amazed," saith Austin, "when 1 look up to heaven and
behold the beauty of the stars, the beauty of angels, principalities,
powers, who can express it? who can sufficiently commend, or set out this
beauty which appears in us? so fair a body, so fair a face, eyes, nose,
cheeks, chin, brows, all fair and lovely to behold; besides the beauty of
the soul which cannot be discerned. If we so labour and be so much affected
with the comeliness of creatures, how should we be ravished with that
admirable lustre of God himself?" If ordinary beauty have such a
prerogative and power, and what is amiable and fair, to draw the eyes and
ears, hearts and affections of all spectators unto it, to move, win,
entice, allure: how shall this divine form ravish our souls, which is the
fountain and quintessence of all beauty? _Coelum pulchrum, sed pulchrior
coeli fabricator_; if heaven be so fair, the sun so fair, how much fairer
shall he be, that made them fair? "For by the greatness and beauty of the
creatures, proportionally, the maker of them is seen," Wisd. xiii. 5. If
there be such pleasure in beholding a beautiful person alone, and as a
plausible sermon, he so much affect us, what shall this beauty of God
himself, that is infinitely fairer than all creatures, men, angels, &c.
[6314] _Omnis pulchritudo florem, hominum, angelorum, et rerum omnium
pulcherrimarum ad Dei pulchritudinem collata, nox est et tenebrae_, all
other beauties are night itself, mere darkness to this our inexplicable,
incomprehensible, unspeakable, eternal, infinite, admirable and divine
beauty. This lustre, _pulchritudo omnium pulcherrima._ This beauty and
[6315] "splendour of the divine Majesty," is it that draws all creatures to
it, to seek it, love, admire, and adore it; and those heathens, pagans,
philosophers, out of those relics they have yet left of God's image, are so
far forth incensed, as not only to acknowledge a God; but, though after
their own inventions, to stand in admiration of his bounty, goodness, to
adore and seek him; the magnificence and structure of the world itself, and
beauty of all his creatures, his goodness, providence, protection,
enforceth them to love him, seek him, fear him, though a wrong way to adore
him: but for us that are Christians, re