Divine creation

“ The most familiar conception of the Deity was that of a Creator, and creation was held to mean the grand six-day drama of calling the universe into existence; while this transcendent display of power had always been devoutly held as alike the exemplification and the proof of the Divine attributes. ”

“ Revealed theology, or the divine science of God, man, and creation, as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, is glorious, soul-inspiring, a blessed benediction on man. But those writers never designed us to accept the Scriptures in a material or literal sense only, but in their spiritual and metaphorical meanings. We cannot understand the foregoing text as literal without impugning the Divine Love that made man and gave him earth for a possession, and blest it for his sake. ”

“ The foundation of all religion being laid in our relation to God as our Creator, it was fit that that book of divine revelations, which was intended to be the guide, support, and rule, of religion in the world, should begin, as it does, with a plain and full account of the creation of the world—in answer to that first inquiry of a good conscience, Where is God my Maker? ”

“ His Resurrection, His Ascension,—all these thoughts were woven into one magnificent picture, wherein creation was viewed as the embodiment of the Divine ideas, and therefore the revelation of the Divine character; manifesting its Maker with increasing clearness at each successive stage in the great scale of being, till in the fulness of time He Himself became man, and thereby lifted human nature, and with it the material universe to which man is so intimately linked ”

“ It was God's intention to let His earthly creation be a reflection of the divine perfections, of the supernatural, of divinity, so that man might perceive the supernatural through created things, and thus more readily understand it. ”

“ They who have ascribed creation to nature, and hence in heart, though not with the lips, have denied the Divine, consequently all things of the church and of heaven, consociate themselves with their like in this state, and call every one a god who excels in craftiness, even worshipping him with divine honor. ”

“ It is, therefore, in his own essence that God must have beheld the eternal possibility of creation and the ground or reason of creability. It is the divine essence itself, therefore, which contains the archetype or ideal of a possible creation. ”

“ We attribute the creation to the Holy Ghost when we say in the Creed, "And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Life-giver."
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Recall what I said about the Holy Ghost, that He is God living, enjoying His Divine life. Creation is the image of God living, and hence of the Holy Ghost. When man was created, the Sacred Record says, "God breathed the breath [or spirit] of life into his face, and man became a living soul." With man, everything lives and enjoys its being with an enjoyment which is a reflection of the supreme living beatitude in God. ”

“ The same causes that started creation have continued it, even to bringing forth its final form, which is the righteous and holy Christian, with a rational comprehension of a spiritual world, aspirations for eternal life, a living faith in God, and inmost desire to become more and more His image and likeness. ”

“ Until this absolute Science of being is seen, understood, and demonstrated in the offspring of divine Mind, and man is perfect even as the Father is perfect, human speculation will go on, and stop at length at the spiritual ultimate: creation understood as the most exalted divine conception. ”

“ And when the sanctified souls rend asunder the veils of all earthly attachments and worldly conditions, and hasten to the stage of gazing on the beauty of the Divine Presence and are honoured by recognizing the Manifestation and are able to witness the splendour of God’s Most Great Sign in their hearts, then will the purpose of creation, which is the knowledge of Him Who is the Eternal Truth, become manifest. ”

“ There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature. ”

“ This ideal which creation copies being, therefore, eternal in the divine intelligence, and the interior activity of the divine intelligence, or its interior ideal life, being inexplicable except in the relation of the three persons in God, creation is likewise inexplicable, except in relation to the distinct persons of the Trinity.
The Son, or Word, proceeds from the contemplation of his own divine essence by the Father, who thus reproduces the perfect and coequal image of himself. ”

“ It may be that the first chapter of Genesis was not intended so much as an infallible record of the divine order in the creation of the world as to teach the vastly higher spiritual truth that creation is the work of God, thus leading men to His worship and away from the lower worship of sun, moon and heathen deities. ”

“ And when it shineth forth from the Horizon of the universe with infinite Divine Names and Attributes upon the contingent and placeless worlds, this constituteth the emergence of a new and wondrous creation which correspondeth to the stage of "Thus I called creation into being". ”

“ The possibility of such divine agency in natural events cannot be questioned by one who, like the Christian, has had experience of the greater wonders of regeneration and daily intercourse with God, and who believes in the reality of creation, incarnation, and miracles. ”

“ The one essential thing in the doctrine of Creation is that the origin of our world and of the things upon it came about at some period of time in the past by a direct and unusual manifestation of Divine power; and that since this original Creation other and different forces and powers have prevailed to sustain and perpetuate the forms of life and indeed the entire world as then called into existence. ”

“ Like Christ, we must be perfected through suffering. The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together, to the end that the in [90] carnate purpose of life may be fulfilled, and that the increasing sum of the spiritual consciousness of creation may be brought into co-operation with the Divine Creator and so actively and willingly share in the divine government of life. ”

“ To a reasonable mind the Divine attributes must appear, not diminished or reduced in any way, by supposing a creation by law, but infinitely exalted. It is the narrowest of all views of the Deity, and characteristic of a humble class of intellects, to suppose him acting constantly in particular ways for particular occasions. ”

“ A pious expositor very justly observes, By faith assenting to Divine revelation, and not by reason we understand the truth and wonders, the reasons and causes, the manner and end, of the creation of the world. Reason indeed tells us that there was a creation, consequently a Creator; but reason without Divine revelation could never have discovered the circumstances and manner of the creation, which wholly depended upon the will of God. ”

“ As they are the first medium by which activity proceeds from the Creator and are therefore most fully charged with the Divine nature they are properly called the Divine Proceeding, popularly thought of under the term Holy Spirit, a represents the sun ”

“ God as cause and creation as effect; and although creation may be first distinctly perceived and reflected on, as being more connatural to the reflecting subject himself, and more directly in contact with his senses and reflecting faculties. The knowledge of God is limited to that which he expresses by the similitude of himself exhibited in the creation. Our positive conceptions of God in the reflective order are therefore derived from the imitations, or representations of the divine attributes in the world of created existences. ”

“ Nothing divine dies. All good is eternally reproductive. The beauty of nature re-forms itself in the mind, and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation. ”

“ O fairest of Creation, last and best Of all God's works, Creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! ”

“ One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves. ”

“ That this soul, purified by asceticism, might be reunited to the great spirit of the universe from which it had originally emanated, was the hopeless aim and dream of these theosophists,--not the control of passions and appetites, which God commands, but their eradication; not the worship of a Creator who made the heaven and the earth, but a vague worship of the creation itself. ”

“ This is but a central illustration of what would determine the Fathers’ conception of the truth of physical events. Again: the Creation was a great miracle; its cause, the will of God. The Cause of the Creation was spiritual, and spiritual was its purpose, to wit, the edification and salvation of God’s people ”

“ Genesis i. 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
The Infinite hath no beginning. This word beginning is employed to signify the first, — that is, the eternal verity and unity of God, the universe, and man. The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love, — is God. The universe and man are reflections of Him. There is but one Creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the Infinite Mind, and forever reflected. ”

“ The Founder of the new religion, the Being who had brought upon earth a divine light, was he God, was he man, was he of an intermediate nature, and, though superior to all other created beings, yet himself created? ”

“ As none but the third Person in the Godhead is ever so much as once in the Scriptures called the Spirit of God; so the Holy Spirit’s agency in the work of creation evinces his distinct personality, and is a confirmation of his proper Divinity. A cause must be equal to the effect it produces: but no finite spirit could be a joint, concurring, efficient cause in the work of the creation: therefore the Holy Spirit is God. ”

“ Instead of ascribing to the god all the attributes of beauty, goodness, and strength at once, instead of associating in one all the gods, or all the sympathic forces and figures of Nature, a new divine form was created for each attribute. ”

“ As it regards his Nature, the Scriptures say, He is a Spirit. We must therefore, conceive the Creator to be, a Living, Rational, Benevolent, and Spiritual Essence; absolutely, necessarily, and naturally perfect, and, therefore, immaterial, uncompounded, indivisible, and eternal. ”

“ It is because this first seed of life, which is sown into the soul, is itself the light of God, and that every stirring, or opening of this seed of life, every awakening thought or desire that arises from it, must be called the moving, or the quickening of the Spirit of God. Hence also we have a plain declaration of the certain truth, of all those scriptures, which speak of the inspiration of God, the operation of the Holy Spirit, the power of the divine light, as the necessary agents in the renewal and sanctification of our souls. ”

“ In the first creation, the Omnipotent Creator, in His bounty towards His favourite child, as foreseeing the assumption of that nature by Himself, attached to the gift of natural life the Spirit of sanctification; in the second, having assumed that nature, He gave through His own Body, first taken out of us, then crucified, now risen and exalted, the gift of the Spirit, Who, with all the endowments springing from Him, as the Inspirer of truth and charity, of unity and holiness, dwells in that Body for ever. ”

“ Our scientific interpretation of the ever-changing universe at last rests on ethical theistic faith, and the Christian revelation of divine love is responded to by the divine inspiration of God in Man, in the form of the spiritual Common Sense. ”

“ I have heard many declare they could better worship their Creator in the fields and woods than in temples made{91} with hands, and can ‘look from nature up to nature’s God.’ I fear such are greatly deceived in the nature of their feelings, and many a lonely anchorite has thus mistaken adoration of the beauties of creation for worship of its Creator. ”

“ And now he enunciates the great principle or law which governs not only this fact of resurrection, but the whole evolution of God's works: "first that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual." It is this law which we see ruling the history of creation and the history of man. The spiritual is the culminating point towards which all the processes of nature tend. The gradual development of what is spiritual, of will, of love, of moral excellence—this, so far as man can see, is the end towards which all nature constantly and steadily is working. ”

“ He begins by the revealed truth, that every good and perfect gift descends from the Father of light, and teaches of its descent by these four ways—exterior, inferior, interior, and superior—through successive irradiations, namely, Holy Scripture, experimental mechanics, and philosophy, which succeed each other like the days of creation, all converging in the light of Holy Scripture, and all succeeded by that seventh day in which the soul will rest in the perfect knowledge of heaven. ”