God-Man

“ Now, the great God is invisible—a Spirit—and not a body, as I think you all know; and when it is said that God made man in his own image, it must mean that man was made to be holy, and just, and good, and merciful; and he was made to be a careful and loving ruler over the poor dumb creatures, as the Lord God is a careful and loving ruler over all that he has created. ”

“ God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art. ”

“ What god are you praying to, we ask in dismay, when you lift up your hands and your eyes, or turn to east or west, or kneel or lie? Is there any god in the wastes of infinity, in a sunstar, a swarm of worlds, who is not in that miraculous soul of yours? Is there aught anywhere greater than a son of God? Is a stone, a star, a heaven studded with infinite glories, a greater place than your eternal soul? Then look within you. Speak with yourself, commune with your own heart, summon up the irresistible energies of your nature and nothing shall be impossible to you. ”

“ That which remains ever fixed in man's heart and which rules over all things without cease, that is God. Alas, you earnestly seek God in the blue sky, while forgetting Him altogether in your hearts. Can you expect your prayers to be answered? ”

“ This Word is the Divine Truth, the form of the Divine Good, always existent, corresponding, in the projection of God—the Divine Good—into nature to the plane of the Inmost in man. This Divine Truth, having as its inmost or soul the Divine Good, and in actual fact identical with it as form and substance are always one, clothed itself with a temporarily limited soul-form and fleshly body. ”

“ God, and not man; God, and not the work of men's hands; the Creator of all, and not the creature of men's fancies. Thou art the God who hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, the upper and lower world, and all the creatures that are in both." Thus we Christians distinguish ourselves from the heathen, that, while they worship gods which they have made, we are worshipping the God that made us and all the world. ”

“ The divine is God's concern; the human, man's. My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not a general one, but is—unique, [5] as I am unique.
Nothing is more to me than myself! ”

“ And when we have attained to this point in our course of thought, the first leading fact of God’s revelation meets us. Here it is: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” ”

“ In regard to the last, the thousand varied forms which we every day behold, and the thousand beautiful and minute grades by which matter is led from the simple clod to the most perfect of our conceptions, proves evidently the will of the Deity to vary and employ all that which is within the immensity of his power. To admit that there is a God, is to admit that there is a spirit. ”

“ None is good but God," to that sublime consciousness of achieved divinity which led him to exclaim, "Which one of you convicts me of sin?" And this progressing ascent from the human to the divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God. ”

“ There is one God, eternal, infinite, all-wise, perfect in goodness, the creator of the universe. Hence all the gods and idols of the heathen are vanity and a lie.—"There is one God the Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." ”

“ But as you grow in goodness and spirituality, you comprehend more clearly the truth which Jesus, the greatest Medium the world ever knew, spoke to the ears of men, when he said, “God is a Spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” Therefore our definition of Godliness is spirituality, the influence of God felt in the soul and made manifest in the life of man. Just in proportion as this principle or power is realized in the hearts of men, they approach nearer unto Deity; they see more of his perfect life ”

“ But he unites himself with the mind of a saint, takes him for his temple, actuates and influences him as a new, supernatural principle of life and action. There is this difference, that the Spirit of God, in acting in the soul of a godly man, exerts and communicates himself there in his own proper nature. ”

“ Consider yourself and all the fallen world, as having nothing to wish for, but by the spirit of prayer to draw into your soul this divine, meek, loving, nature of God. Consider the holy Jesus as the gift of God to your soul, to begin and finish this within you, in spite of every inward or outward enemy. ”

“ Let us now consider how the light of grace generally arises in the soul. God has the word of grace, which he has commanded to be preached, and by which he operates; and this word is spirit and life. John 6:63. And though God by his power and providence is everywhere present, yet his proper habitation, in which he peculiarly operates and kindles his divine light, is the soul of man. ”

“ And if the revelations that God has made of himself to man, agree and harmonize upon this theory, and if mankind would be more believing, and accept the simple, plain, clear definition of Deity, and description of himself which he has given us, instead of hunting for some great mystery, and seeking to find out God where he is not and as he is not, we all might understand him. ”

“ This part of God, self-separated and, as it were, set over against himself, and including every visible manifestation or revelation of himself, may well be called a Second Person of the godhead, which by eternal generation developes into sons in man, and finally into fulness of godhead in the ideal man — the Divine Man — as his well-beloved Son. ”

“ To suppose that God might make Himself more obvious, more distinctly apparent to us, than He has done, is to mistake what God is and how we can know Him. What are the highest attributes of Divinity, the most Divine characteristics of God? Are they great power, vast size, dazzling physical glory that overpowers the sense; or are they infinite goodness, holiness that cannot be tempted, love that accommodates itself to all the [11] needs of all creatures? ”

“ In some quarters it seems to be supposed that the Holy Spirit himself is the solution of the perplexities of our time. Now what we may witness in some coming age we know not, but in this it is clear that God in the person of Christ is the one only and divine answer. Here is God's yea and amen, the Alpha and Omega, sight for the blind, healing for the paralyzed, cleansing for the polluted, life for the dead, the gospel for the poor and sad and comfortless. ”

“ These three divinities are primarily manifested by the Supreme Being as power-personality synthesis. They are variously shown forth by God the Sevenfold in seven differing associations of divine meanings and values on seven ascending levels.
To finite man truth, beauty, and goodness embrace the full revelation of divinity reality. As this love-comprehension of Deity finds spiritual expression in the lives of God-knowing mortals, there are yielded the fruits of divinity: intellectual peace, social progress, moral satisfaction, spiritual joy, and cosmic wisdom. ”

“ The Divine Holiness is thus that infinite Perfection of Divinity in which Righteousness and Love are in perfect harmony, out of which they proceed, and which together they reveal. It is that Energy of the Divine life in the power of which God not only keeps Himself free from all creature weakness or sin, but unceasingly seeks to lift the creature into union with Himself and the full participation of His own purity and perfection. The glory of God as God, as the God of Creation and Redemption, is His Holiness. ”

“ Hitt pointed out in our last meeting that mortal beings are interpretations in mortal or human mind of the infinite mind, God, and its ideas. The most perfect human interpretation of God’s greatest idea, Man, was Christ Jesus. The real selfhood of every one of us is God’s idea of us. ”

“ What God's purpose was in creating man, what He designed to accomplish through the death of Christ, what was to be the outcome of all human life, and temptation, and struggle—these things were God's secret, known only to the Spirit of God that was in Him. ”

“ There is a race of men among us at the present day who scorn bitterly against faith’s meek submission to God’s revealed will. The divinity, they say, is in every man; which means that every man is a god unto himself. ”

“ In the consciousness of the utter impotence of our own wisdom or understanding to know God, our souls must in contrition, brokenness from ourselves and our power or efforts, yield to God’s Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, to reveal God as the Holy One. ”

“ For whatever God be, if there be any God distinct from the world, and wherever he exists, he is all sense, all sight, all hearing, all life, all mind, and all within himself. To believe that there are a number of Gods, derived from the virtues and vices of man, as Chastity, Concord, Understanding, Hope, Honor, Clemency, and Fidelity ”

“ The great God of this universe, creator of heaven and earth and everything therein—God, who sprinkled the heavens with teeming millions of bright sparkling worlds, which we behold by night, and made these bodies of ours that are so wonderfully and fearfully constructed—God, who has all power and wisdom, and who is characterized by love, mercy, and tenderness—God, the everlasting God, hath spoken. God, the Holy and Living God of all the universe, hath condescended to speak unto us who are mere worms of the dust. ”

“ And the universal feeling that may be set down to be common to all nations and people bearing the human form, is that there is a God; and there is a yearning after him, and a desire to worship him, however difficult it may be to satisfy themselves of the manner in which they may worship him acceptably. ”

“ In the Divine holiness we have the highest and inconceivably glorious revelation of the very essence of the Divine Being; in the holiness of the saints the deepest revelation of the change by which their inmost nature is renewed into the likeness of God. ”

“ The gods are but the several parts of nature, and they are all lost in one god, who is nature in its entirety.”
The proconsul signified his approval of the words of his brother, and speaking in a serious strain, defined the attributes of divinity.
“God is the soul of the world; this soul spreads to all parts of the universe, infusing motion and life into it. This soul, a creative flame, penetrating the inert mass of matter, gave shape to the world, governing and preserving it. Divinity, an active force, is essentially good. ”

“ By the Deity we mean—and I suppose everyone means—the all-controlling consciousness of the universe as well as the infinite, unfathomable, and unknowable abyss of being beyond. By divinity we mean the essence of the nature of the immanent God, the innermost and all-determining quality of that nature; we have already seen that according to the Christian religion the innermost quality of the divine nature is perfect love. ”

“ And here, with prayer and oblation, religion in the stricter sense makes its appearance.
The next step of man is from the crowd of animistic spirits to isolate the god. The notion of a god is much the old notion of an anthropomorphic elemental spirit, widened, [Pg 105] exalted, and further removed from sense. Instead of a local and limited home, the god has his dwelling in the whole expanse of heaven or in some distant region of space. ”

“ The next question, scarcely inferior to that of the Divine Character in its practical importance, is that of the Divine Personality. Does God exist as a Divine Person, or only as a formless and universally diffused essence? And is He to be thought of and adored as one Person, or more than one? ”

“ I know that, while the great God is absolute, eternal, and infinite, he is also good, divine, and gracious. I know the truth of the great declarations: "God is spirit" and "God is love," and these two attributes are most completely revealed to the universe in the Eternal Son. ”

“ For those who used to worship a multitude of deities, whenever they spake according to the genuine sense of nature, used simply the name of God in the singular number, as though they were contented with one God. ”

“ Even here it fills our souls with trembling joy and wonder: when God’s work of making holy is complete, how we shall join in the song, ‘Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which wast, and art, and art to come!’
In preparation for all this the most wonderful events are to take place. The Lord Jesus Himself is to appear, the power of sin and the world is to be destroyed; this visible system of things is to be [p276] broken up; the power of the Spirit is to triumph through all creation; there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. ”

“ What the human heart desires, and what the human mind seeks, are proofs of the existence of a God, not of mere intelligence and potentiality, but such a God as Jesus characterized,—a God of love and benevolence, a God who sustains the relation of Father to all humanity. ”

“ That theology, therefore, which they call natural, being put aside for a moment, as it is afterwards to be discussed, we ask if any one is really content to seek a hope for eternal life from poetical, theatrical, scenic gods? Perish the thought! The true God avert so wild and sacrilegious a madness! What, is eternal life to be asked from those gods whom these things pleased, and whom these things propitiate, in which their own crimes are represented? ”