30. These illustrations, I repeat, must only be used as aids to apprehension of the faith, not as standards of comparison for the Divine majesty. Our method is that of using bodily instances as a clue to the invisible. Reverence and reason justify us in using such help, which we find used in God’s witness to Himself, while yet we do not aspire to find a parallel to the nature of God. But the minds of simple believers have been distressed by the mad heretical objection that it is wrong to accept a doctrine concerning God which needs, in order to become intelligible, the help of bodily analogies. And therefore, in accordance with that word of our Lord which we have already cited, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit371    St. John ii. 6., we have thought it expedient, since God is Spirit, to give to these comparisons a certain place in our argument. By so doing we shall avert from God the charge that He has deceived us in using these analogies; shewing, as we have done, that such illustrations from the nature of His creatures enable us to grasp the meaning of God’s self-revelation to us.

30. Comparationum quis usus.---Et haec, ut dixi, ad intelligentiam fidei tantum comparata sint, non 0225B etiam ad Dei dignitatem, ut nos potius intelligentiam invisibilium ex corporalibus sumeremus, non utique ut aliquod naturae Dei satisfaceret comparationis exemplum: cum dignum et justum esset testanti de se Deo credere. Sed quia simpliciorum fidem furor haereticus turbaret, ut id de Deo credi non oporteret, quod difficile, nisi per corpoream comparationem, posset intelligi: idcirco secundum illud jam etiam superius memoratum a nobis Domini dictum: Quod de carne nascitur, caro est: quod autem de spiritu, spiritus est (Joan. III, 6), quia Deus spiritus est, utile existimavimus haec pro parte inserere comparationis exempla: ne mentiri de professione sua existimaretur, cum divinae nobis professionis intelligentiam ex aliquo naturalia creaturarum 0225C exempla praestarent.