Divine essence

“ The merciful outpourings of that Divine Essence, however, are vouchsafed unto all beings and it is incumbent upon man to ponder in his heart upon the effusions of the Divine Grace, the soul being counted as one, rather than upon the Divine Essence itself. This is the utmost limit for human understanding. As it hath previously been mentioned, these attributes and perfections that we recount of the Divine Essence, these we have derived from the existence and observation of beings, and it is not that we have comprehended the essence and perfection of God. ”

“ To every discerning and illuminated heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. ”

“ 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. ”

“ All the divine excellences and perfections, considered simply as they exist in God, are, in reality, distinct neither from one another nor from the divine essence, but are a Being, supreme, perfect, and indivisible ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we say that the Divine Essence understandeth and is free, we do not mean that we have discovered the Divine Will and Purpose, but rather that we have acquired knowledge of them through the Divine Grace revealed and manifested in the realities of things. ”

“ Holiness appears to express what is the very essence or perfection of the Divine Being Himself. None of the attributes can be predicated of all that belongs to God; but Scripture speaks of His Holy Name, His Holy Day, His Holy Habitation, His Holy Word. In the word Holy we have the nearest possible approach to a summary of all the Divine perfections, the description of what Divinity is. We speak of the other attributes as Divine perfections, but in this we have the only human expression for the Divine Perfection itself. ”

“ And they see and feel and find in themselves, by means of this Divine light, that they are the same simple Ground as to their uncreated nature, since the glory shineth forth without measure, after the Divine manner, and abideth within them simply and without mode, according to the simplicity of the essence. ”

“ Meditation centered upon divine realities is the very essence and soul of prayer. ”

“ And what picture can ever be drawn of these, as persons? “God is a Spirit.”—“God is light.”—“God is love.”—And what are all his glorious perfections, but himself manifested in such characters? Holiness, Truth, Wisdom, Justice, Grace, Mercy, Goodness, Majesty, Eternity, Almighty, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient. And what figures can be drawn of this Sacred, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty? I trust this remark will be blest to some characters who have suffered under the same temptation. But, although it has pleased the God of Grace to reveal himself in the Oneness of the Divine Unity ”

“ A message from the Word of life, from the eternal Word, we should gladly receive: and the present one is this (relating to the nature of God whom we are to serve, and with whom we should covet all indulged communion) — That God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, v. 5. This report asserts the excellency of the divine nature. He is all that beauty and perfection that can be represented to us by light. He is a self-active uncompounded spirituality, purity, wisdom, holiness, and glory. And then the absoluteness and fulness of that excellency and perfection. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Is there, and can there be, a perpetuity in mortal charms without the recognition or the supposition of a moral beauty connected with them, which alone is pure and imperishable, and which alone creates the sacred ecstasy that revels in the enjoyment of what is divine, or what is supposed to be divine, not in man, but in the conceptions of man,—the ever-blazing glories of goodness or of truth which the excited soul doth see in the eyes and expression of the adored image? It is these archetypes of divinity, real or fancied, which give to love all that is enduring. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But afterwards confirmed by use, it introduces the soul into a higher world, where the most pure, essential essence meeting it, fills the soul with the image of the spiritual world, while the majesty of deity evolves and discovers itself. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We reach the Divine through our aesthetic faculties when our soul is stirred by a grand burst of music, or by the contemplation of a magnificent landscape. We reach the Divine through our purely intellectual faculties, when, by true reasoning, founded on sound observation, we master any great law by which God governs the world. We reach the Divine through our emotional nature when pure grief or pure love, holy longing, unselfish hope, righteous indignation, elevate us above the [272] prosaic level of customary equanimity, and help us to realize the incomparable beauty of holiness. ”

“ The Divine, for my active life, is limited to impersonal and abstract concepts, which, as ideals, interest and determine me, but do so but faintly in comparison what a feeling of God might effect, if I had one. ”

“ From the Lord proceed the celestial, the spiritual, and the natural, one after the other. What proceeds from His Divine Love is called celestial, and is Divine Good; what proceeds from His Divine Wisdom is called spiritual, and is Divine Truth; the natural is from both, and is their complex in the ultimate. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So that His revealed or written Word and His Word in Nature alike descend from Him, and lead up to Him, who is the inmost and animating soul of both; not a mere undefined pervading influence, but a Divine Personal God,—an infinitely glorious Divine Man, the great Archetype, of which man was created the finite image. ”

“ But Light not only discovers what is impure, that it may be purified, but is in itself a thing of infinite beauty. And so some of our holiest men have not hesitated to speak of God’s Holiness as the infinite Pulchritude or Beauty of the Divine Being, the Perfect Purity and Beauty of that Light in which God dwelleth. ”

“ There is no reason that can be urged against the fact that the impact of the activity of the Spirit of God, in which there are infinite potencies, gives the sense of spiritual beauty, the inspiration of divine grandeur, the perception of moral law, the sense of purity, love, righteousness, holiness, divinity ”

“ It bears the marks of perfection, whether we look at it from the point of view of the Speaker's divinity or from the point of view of His humanity. Divine in its sublimity, it is most human in its tenderness. ”

“ The lights of reality must now be revealed, and the secrets of God’s bestowals must now be made known, and now must the olden grace shine forth and this world change into the pleasure-ground of heaven, the garden of God. And out of pure hearts, and through heavenly bounties, all the perfections, qualities and attributes of the divine must now be made manifest. ”

“ We shall speak of this when we treat of the dark and confused mystical understanding which remains to be described, wherein we shall show how, by means of this dark and loving knowledge, God is united with the soul in a lofty and Divine degree; [8] for, after some manner, this dark and loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means to Divine union in this life, even as, in the next life, the light of glory serves as an intermediary to the clear vision of God. ”

“ But, long before the elaboration of this concept of the ruthless Thing, and of its blind Force, Our Lord had, by His Life and Teaching, brought to man, with abidingly unforgettable, divine depth and vividness, the sense of Spirit and Personality, with its liberty and interiority, its far-looking wisdom and its regenerating, creative power of love. ”

“ That Divine Wisdom, that contrived and beautified this glorious structure, can best explain her own art, and carry up the soul back again in these reflected beams to Him who is the Fountain of them.... Good men may easily find every creature pointing out to that Being whose image and superscription it bears, and climb up from those darker resemblances of the Divine wisdom and goodness, shining out in different degrees upon several creatures, till they sweetly repose themselves in the bosom of the Divinity ”

“ The heart in its own purity, tenderness, and strength recognizes the Divine Presence. "The soul gives itself, alone, original, and pure, to the Lonely, Original, and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits, leads, and speaks through it." The order of physical nature is the symbol and the instrument of a moral order. The beauty and sublimity of nature are the manifestation through sense of the Divine Reality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then co-ordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love. ”

“ From ourselves, when we take away the idea of imperfection, we can form some conception of what God is. But holiness is that which is characteristically Divine, the special contents of a Divine revelation. ”

“ Into his spiritual sight will come the Principles of the divine Life, and as he approaches them, their incomparable beauty and majestic symmetry will astonish his vision, and gladden his heart with a gladness hitherto unknown. ”

“ We might say that the light of the sun, or the rain, or the cooling winds, are among the divinest gifts to mankind. So any good impulse in the hearts of men, and every noble deed, is a divine gift ordained or given from God, our Heavenly Father. Why restrict His divine gifts or ordinances to two mere ceremonies, and not include all that is good? The universe is alive with God. The thing that is natural is none the less divine and worthy of our love and reverence. Every scientific fact, or we might say, everything good, all is of divine origin. ”

“ And beholding in many souls the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls. ”

“ The energy, life and power of this thought weaves all of my diversified Life's experiences into a Divine pattern of perfection for me. There can be no trouble, disappointments, sorrow, reverses, loss or discord but that shall be changed for my good when I think Spirit and live the affirmation of today, namely, "Divine Harmony and Peace actuate every thought and action of my being." All things are in Divine order. ”

“ One Divine Nature in Many Persons: One divine nature, then, is the conclusion; but a divine nature in manifold persons, many, though indeed one, because harmonized into unity of purpose, and will; one divine spirit, rising from one divine nature—though participated in by many; a spirit rising from all Intelligences who have attained to the divine nature and unity in all and through all, manifesting God in his splendor and glory, as creating, sustaining, and guiding power in the universe—both Immanent and personal. ”