executed through
the nicest metaphysical speculations, in the five first volumes of
his works. He everywhere strikes out a new track for himself; and
enters into the most secret recesses of this shadowy region; so as
to appear new even on known and beaten subjects. For his writings
are original efforts of genius and reflection, and every point he
handles in a manner that makes it appear new. If his speculations
are sometimes spun fine, and his divisions run to niceties, this was
the fault of the age in which he lived, and of the speculative
refining geniuses of the Arabians, whom he had undertaken to pursue
and confute throughout their whole system. His comments on the four
books of the Master of the Sentences contain a methodical course of
theology, and make the sixth and seventh volumes of his works; the
tenth, eleventh, and twelfth give us his Summ, Or incomparable
abridged body of divinity, though this work he never lived to
finish. Among the fathers, St. Austin is principally his guide; so
that the learned cardinals, Norris and Aguirre, call St. Thomas his
most faithful Interpreter. He draws the rules of practical duties
and virtues principally from the morals of St. Gregory on Job. He
compassed his Summ against the Gentiles, at the request of St.
Raymund of Pennafort, to serve the preachers in Spain in converting
the Jews and Saracens to the faith. He wrote comments on most parts
of the holy scriptures, especially on the epistles of St. Paul, in
which latter he seemed to outdo himself. By the order of pope Urban
IV., he compiled the office of the blessed sacrament, which the
church uses to this day, on the feast and during the Octave of
Corpus-Christi. His Opuscula, or lesser treatises, have in view the
confutation of the Greek schismatics and several heresies; or
discuss various points of philosophy and theology; or are comments
on the creed, sacraments, decalogue, Lord's prayer, and Hail Mary.
In his treatises on piety he reduces the rules of an interior life
to these two gospel maxims: first. That we must strenuously labor by
self-denial and mortification to extinguish in our hearts all the
sparks of pride, and the inordinate love of creatures; secondly,
That by assiduous prayer, meditation, and doing the will of God in
all things, we must kindle his perfect love in our soul