Starting with this view of Him, enlightened with this truth, all that He has done for us in the world of nature and of grace, becomes clear, plain, reasonable, and consequent. All the other mysterious truths of Christianity, as I have said before, suppose the truth of this, and, indeed, would be unmeaning without it. The consideration of one or two of these will confirm the view I have taken of it. {149} Look at creation. This is fully as incomprehensible to our minds as the mystery of the Trinity itself. But without a revelation of the Trinity, it would be more difficult of belief, further away from our grasp, baffling more utterly all our attempts to form a reasonable conception of it. What is it? It is that God, who is all that is or can be, yet can create and has created something which is not God. It looks like a contradiction. Those who have rejected the Trinity and yet believe in God so regard it, and are led to imagine that the created universe and all that is in it and of it is Divine. We read that, when God created man, He said, "Let us make man to our image and likeness." [Footnote 40] [Footnote 40: Genesis i. 26] The creature is, then, an image of the Creator. Creation is not God, but is an image of God; that is, the being and life of creatures, analogous to the being and life of God, is not of themselves, but is a reflected image of God, which we may compare to the reflected image of ourselves in a mirror. The image we behold is not our own being, but an imperfect likeness of it. So the creation which God beholds imaged in His own Divine mind is not His own Divine being, but an imperfect likeness of it. {150} And now it is not the image of an abstract being--of an ideal being--but of a living being. The living God is the Trinity, as I have shown. The mystery of creation is illuminated by this truth, as you will see. We say in the Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth." He is the Personal Cause, the Progenitor of all creation. Yet we also say, with St. John: "The Word was God. All things were made by Him: and without Him was nothing made that was made." [Footnote 41] And with holy Job: "The Spirit of the Lord made me, and the breath of the Almighty gave me life." [Footnote 42] And again, with the Psalmist: "Thou shalt send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created: and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth." [Footnote 43] [Footnote 41: St. John i. 1-3.] [Footnote 42: Job xxxiii. 4.] [Footnote 43: Ps. ciii. 30.] [USCCB: Ps. civ. 30.]