On Seeing God

How can we see a God that is incorporeal and invisible? Surely only by the understanding and eye of the mind; for, “No man can see God with the outward eye and live.”—(Exod. 33:20). Again, “No man hath seen God at any time.”—(John. 1:18) Christians say, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;” and well they know that God is without “body, parts, or passions;” as the true thesis declares, “He cannot therefore be seen with the corporeal eye;” that is, the bodily or outward eye cannot behold Him; thou must therefore behold Him with the eye of thy understanding, for the understanding is the only eye of the soul. How pure and single must be thy understanding, if thou hold fast to His divine unity; but, as soon as ever thou attempt to divide His blessed divine unity, either in essence, being, name or person, that is, into three distinct personalities, thy intellectual vision or understanding becomes obscured, and is immediately put out; because it is truly, as the idolaters say, “A great mystery;” that is, a total obscuration to the understanding and intellectual eye of the soul. How can the Great God be Almighty and yet have a coequal.

M. C. B. I.