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BY this time was that wicked and abominable time of my Youth dead, and I went on into a more solid Age: by how much the elder in yeeres, so much the fouler in vanity,
who could not imagine any o∣ther kinde of substance, than what I saw with these eyes. Yet thought I not thee, O God, to be comprehended under the fi∣gure of an humane body; since the time I beganne to heare any thing of Wisedome, I alwaies a∣voided that: and I rejoyced to have found thus much in the faith of our spirituall Mother, thy Catholike Church. But what else I should thinke thee to be, I knew not. And I being but a man, (and so meane a man too) yet set I my selfe to beleeve thee to be the soveraigne and onely∣true God: and that thou wert in∣corruptible, and inviolable, and unchangeable, with all the pow∣ers of my soule did I beleeve: because not knowing how nor which way, yet most plainely did I behold, and very sure I was, That that which may bee corrupted, must needs be worse than that which cannot be cor∣rupted;
and that which cannot be violated, did I without any sticking at, preferre before that which was subject to be viola∣ted: and that which suffers no alteration, I judged to be much better than that which may suf∣fer alteration.
2. My heart passionately cry∣ed out upon all my former phantasmes; and with one blow I laid about mee, to beat away all that sluttering troope of uncleane fancies, from the eye of my mind. And loe, being yet scarce put off by the space of the twinckling of an eye, they came in multitudes again about me, they pressed upon my sight, and so beelouded it, that though I thought thee not to be of the shape of a humane body, yet was I constrained to imagine thee to be some corporeall sub∣stance, taking up vast spaces of place: and that, either infusea into this world, or else diffuse••
infinitely without it: yea, even of that incorruptible, and invi∣olable, and unchangeable, which I preferred before corruptible, and violable, and changeable, did I imagine thus. Because, that whatsoever I deprived of these spaces, seemed to bee no∣thing unto me; yea altogether nothing, not so much as an em∣ptinesse verily: just as if a body were taken out of it's place, and the place should remaine empty of any body at all, either earth∣ly, or watery, or ayery and hea∣venly; but should remaine a void place, as it were a spacious nothing.
3. I therefore being thus grosse-hearted, not conspicuous so much as to my very selfe; whatsoever was not stretched out over certaine spaces, nor dif∣fused abroad, nor amassed up into bulke, nor swelled into bredth, or which did not or could not receive some of these dimensions,
I thought to be a just nothing: For such formes as my eyes were wont to range over, even such like Images did my heart now rove after: nor did I yet observe that very a 1.1 Intenti∣on of mine, by which I formed those Images, was not any such corporeall substance, which yet could not have formed them, had not it selfe beene some great thing. In like manner did I con∣ceive thee, O thou Life of my life, to be some hugie corporeall substance, on every side pier∣cing thorow the whole Globe of this world; yea, and diffused every way without it, and that by infinite spaces, though un∣bounded.
So that the Earth should have thee, the Heaven should have thee, all things should have thee, and that they should be bounded in thee, but thou no where.
4. For as the body of this Ayre which is about the Earth, hindred not the light of the Sun from passing thorow it, which pierceth it, not by bursting or by cutting, but by filling of it: so thought I, that not the body of the Heaven, the Ayre & Sea onely, but of the Earth too, to be at pleasure passable unto thee, yea easie to be pierced by thee in all its greatest and smallest parts, that all might receive thy presence, which by a secret in∣spiration, both inwardly and outwardly governeth all things which thou hast created. Thus I suspected; because any other thing I could not thinke of, and yet was this false too. For by this meanes should a greater
part of the Earth have contained a larger portion of thee, and the lesse, a lesser: and then should all things in such sort have been full of thee, as that the body of an Elephant should containe so much more of thee than the bo∣dy of a Sparrow, by how much that should be bigger than this, and take up more roome by it; by which conceipt shouldest thou make thy parts present un∣to the severall parts of the World, by bits, as it were; great gobbets to great parts, lit∣tle bits to little parts of the world. But thus thou art not present. But thou hadst not as yet enlightned my darknesse.
This Phi∣losophical word, the former Translator turnes, This Action of my minde. Short of the sense. Saint Augustine alludes to that in Phi∣losophy, That all na∣turall bodies to make thē∣selves per∣ceived by the sense, doe send and beame out from them, some figure, Image, &c. by which the sense may app••∣hend them: which figure or shape striking upon the sense, provokes it, and so makes it take actuall notice of us pro∣per object. And this spirituall figure representing a re∣all object, which these bodies send out; doe the Philo∣sophers call their Intention. So that Austens 〈◊〉〈◊〉 fancying the like Images, he cals it the intention of his minds.