There must be, for instance, a spiritual fragrance and an intellectual velocity. As the parables of the Gospel show -- and indeed the whole scheme of bible exegesis supposes it -- the things and the doings of this visible material world are types of invisible realities. Nature is constructed on hierarchical lines. Our mortal minds ascend feebly where the angels descend in their strength, by a sort of Jacob's ladder, we by type from earth to heaven, they by antitype from heaven to earth.

Of God and His Creatures: 2.99