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Secrets of the Art
Revealed
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5. most perfect
Five: This
Art is most Perfect
My Son, a
perfect thing cannot be modified by adding anything to it
or by taking anything away from it: and given that the
perfection of Work can be known from the perfection of
the Artificer, how perfect indeed must be the Work that
the Supreme Artificer taught me? I am speaking about the
General Art that GOD showed me on a mountain (Mount
Randa): (Lib. Quaest. super 4. Lib. Sent. in prol.)
therefore, as the Works of GOD are perfect (Deut ch 32 v
4), what could the self-styled Reformers of my Art either
add to, or take away from this Art?
The Pupil: I
must avow, dearest Father, that I, too, was one of those
who tried hard to correct your Books and your Art.
The Teacher:
"my Son, do not try in any way to correct my books,
but try to understand them as much as you can, and raise
only a few objections; many are those who correct the
books while leaving themselves stranded in ignorance and
error." (Doctor Ilum. in Introd. Art. Dem. cap. 40
n. 6.)
The Pupil:
Should anyone deny, Father, that you received your Art
from GOD, as quite a few have already done, some have
gone so far as to shamelessly proclaim you an impostor, a
fanatic and a Disciple of the devil; if this is any
indication of what their followers will do in the future,
I do not know what will happen, only GOD knows.
The Teacher:
My Son, if you are anxious to know the origin of my Art
and my Books, then ascend into my Trees, taste the fruit
and see:
"16 By
their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of
thorns, or figs of thistles?
17 Even so
every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil
tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
18 A good
tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil
tree bring forth good fruit." (Matthew Ch 7)
My Son,
according to my General Art, from the above particular
demonstration, the following general demonstration
follows: "all that is good does good, and all that
is evil does evil, good cannot do evil, nor can evil do
good." Would any Christian presume to deny that this
demonstration made according to the Logic of Christ is
better than any syllogism contained in Aristotle's
barbaric method of logical argument? Nonetheless, my Son,
I do not want your sole judgment to be the ultimate
arbiter as you study my Books and my Art, for you are
vulnerable, as I was, to being misled and to mislead
others, and this potential for going astray obliges and
compels the sheep to follow their Shepherd.
And
regarding this point, my Son, I tell you as my Pupil to
do as your Master did, unless you want to be miserably
deceived and perish with the straying sheep, who falsely
claim that by some gift from the Supreme Shepherd they
are as infallible, and even more so, than the Shepherd
who represents Him on earth, because they do not
understand the proportion that must exist between the
two. Consider all my Works: notwithstanding any
enlightenment that I received from on high, I subjected
them all to the Censure of our Holy Mother, the Church;
from all the passages I wrote about this, take, for
instance, what I wrote in the first and, in my mind, the
most precious of all these books, namely the Great Book
of Contemplation in GOD.
"Now if
perchance this book contained any defect or error against
the holy Catholic Faith, I hereby affirm that this defect
is due to myself, and that I made this error through
ignorance, although my intention was good, pure and
Catholic, and that I neither believe in this error, nor
do I assert it, rather, I ask that it be expunged from
this Work; therefore I do not claim that this Work is
free of errors, and if anyone has doubts about anything
in it that might be an error contrary to the Faith, he
could also be mistaken, although well intentioned, as it
is equally possible for me to have made errors in this
Work, if there be any error in it, even though I intended
to avoid putting any error in this Book, or anything
against the holy Catholic Law. (Lib. Contempl. Vol. 3.
Lib. 5. cap. 365.)
Do not be
afraid, my Son, now if this Art is a gift of the Holy
Spirit, the very same Spirit who leads his Spouse on
earth, our Mother, will not allow her to be opposed to
this Art, for she will receive many good things through
this Art, as I mentioned above.
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