Common and proper ratio of divine perfection; description by negation and degrees
But the common ratio which we conceive in God is that absolute which we are accustomed to think of as a certain common grade in every being. The proper ratio, however, is a certain proper perfection, which we can declare partly by comparison to our concept — that according to His nature it is conceived only positively — partly by comparison to the opposite, which excludes every imperfection of the creature, by which the creature is in a manner non-being: and that we intimate when we call God infinite (chapter 9).
And so we explain God's perfection by negation of a ratio. For to deny imperfection or non-being is in the truth of the thing an affirmation, but one conceived in the manner of a negation because of a preceding fiction by which non-being is conceived after the likeness of being. And that God's own grade of being may somehow be understood, all the partial or graded forms of perfection which we see distributed in any way in created things are to be considered: these gathered into one, we will think that all which are divided in creatures are in God most simply and infinitely even more — much more than we say all the grades of light that appear more sparsely in other bodies are at once eminently and in a more perfect manner in the sun.
Such descriptions are frequent both in the divine letters and among ecclesiastical and pagan authors. We choose this one for the present, both because it sufficiently distinguishes God from all other things, and because it grants us a certain principle that is as it were a foundation on which all the remaining attributes of God may be built.
Latin
Est autem ratio communis, quam in Deo concipimus, esse illud absolutum, quod quasi gradum quendam communem in omni ente cogitare solemus. Ratio autem propria est perfectio quaedam propria, quem partim comparatione ad conceptum nostrum declarare possumus, quod secundum naturam suam tantum concipiatur positive, partim per comparationem ad oppositum, quod excludat omnem imperfectionem creaturae; qua quodammodo est non ens: idque innuimus, cum Deum infinitum dicimus, cap. 9. Atque ita explicamus perfectionem Dei per negationem rationis. Nam imperfectionem sive non ens negare, est in rei veritate affirmatio, sed quae concipitur in modum negationis ob fictionem praecedentem, qua non ens instar entis concipitur. Ut autem gradus essendi Deo proprius aliquo modo intelligatur, considerandae sunt omnes quasi partes seu gradus perfectionis, quos in rebus creatis ullo modo distributos videmus: quibus in unum collectis haec omnia, quae in creaturis divisa sunt, in Deo simplicissime & infinites etiam plura esse cogitabimus multo magis, quam omnes gradus luminis in reliquis corporibus parcius apparentes, in sole simul eminenter ac perfectiore quodammodo esse dicimus. Tales descriptiones frequentes sunt cum in divinis literis, tum apud ecclesiasticos & profanos autores. Nos hanc in praesentiarum eligimus, tum quia Deum ab aliis rebus omnibus sufficienter distinguit, tum quia principium quoddam nobis largitur, quod sit tanquam fundamentum, cui reliqua omnia Dei attributa superstruantur.