Divine foreknowledge

“ The hidden reason is that it testifies to the uniqueness of the divine Name and the dissemination of its existence, which is included in him. The man made in the image and likeness bears witness and proclaims the divine. ”

“ That real acknowledgment, which not only accepts the fact of the existence of God, but perceives and confesses His attributes of love, wisdom, and omnipotence, and His consequent daily providence, can not exist—at least within the limits of tke Christian world—without an acknowledgment of, and belief in, that Revelation, that Revealed Word, whereby the Divine Being has been pleased to make Himself distinctly known to His creatures. ”

“ I can attest from experience that this supernatural illumination of the mind is the great secret in personal religion. Without it we are in darkness, while encompassed by the light of revelation; may admit the inspiration of the Bible, while the veil of mystery hangs over its sacred pages; may condemn, as Puritanical or Methodistical, the very principles we theoretically acknowledge to be divine; and, amidst all our professions of reverence for the character of God, and love to the person of the Redeemer, may be destitute of that mental peace which arises from a scriptural belief of the truth. ”

“ I follow no ritual, and trust no creed, except so far as it is conformable to the instinct of faith—the inward revelation of Himself which he has implanted in my soul—and to that outward revelation, the nearest and clearest that He has ever given of Himself to men, the Divine revelation of love which I find here, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, my Lord. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But thanks to certain indiscreet revelations on the topography of divine religions, to certain compromising confessions as to the duration of eternal punishment, and more than all, by their triumphant fatuity, we divine, we almost can see the supernumerary angel under the terrestrial veil of these young Christians. ”

“ Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above views there is a measure of truth. It will convince us how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought the conception of the Divine Holiness proves that it is the highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable glory of the Divine Being which constitutes Him the Infinite and Glorious God. Every attribute of God—wisdom and power, righteousness and love—has its image in human nature, and was in the religion or the philosophy of the heathen connected with the idea of God. ”

“ Something divine was discovered in everything that moved and lived. Names were stammered forth in anxious haste, and no single name could fully express what lay hidden in the human mind and wanted expression—the idea of an absolute, and perfect, and supreme, and immortal Essence. Thus a countless host of nominal gods was called into being, and for a time seemed to satisfy the wants of a thoughtless multitude. ”

“ When his doubts and perplexities are resolved and he knows that it is the Divine which must be his law, he aims again and always at such clear and decisive know- ledge as will guide him practically to this source and this rule of his future action. How is the Divine to be distinguished among the various states of being which constitute our ordinary experience ? ”

“ The external divine are miracles and prophecy; the external human are the historical proof as to the authenticity and genuineness of the literature which contains the narrative of the miracles and the prophecy. The internal divine are sought in the accordance of the materials of the Revelation, the character of Christ, the scheme of Redemption, &c. with the moral sense of man, and with the expectations which we should form antecedently of the contents of a revelation; the internal human, in the critical evidence of undesigned coincidence. ”

“ Say, ‘the Spirit proceedeth at My Lord’s command.’”140 As soon as Muḥammad’s answer was given, they all clamorously protested, saying: “Lo! an ignorant man who knoweth not what the Spirit is, calleth Himself the Revealer of divine Knowledge!” And now behold the divines of the age who, because of their being honoured by His name, and finding that their fathers have acknowledged His Revelation, have blindly submitted to His truth. ”

“ From this principle sprung their religious rites, the immediate object of which was a supposed race of spiritual beings or demons, whose existence could not have been imagined, without first conceiving the idea of a supreme Being, the source of all intelligence. The belief of a supreme Deity, the fountain of all the divinities which were supposed to preside over the several parts of the material world, was the true origin of all religious worship, however idolatrous, not excepting even that which consisted in paying divine honours to the memory of dead men. ”

“ Section III But you will find that the Word of God calls gods, both the Heavenly Beings above us, and the most beloved of God, and holy men amongst us, although the Divine Hiddenness is transcendently elevated and established above all, and no created Being can. ”

“ God willed to unite to the internal helps of the Holy Ghost external proofs of His revelation, to wit, external works divine, especially miracles and prophecies, which, clearly demonstrating God's omnipotence and infinite knowledge, are most certain signs of divine revelation and are suited to the intelligence of all. ”

“ This confession of the divine omniscience is here extorted from these idolaters, to the honour of God and their own condemnation, who though they knew there is a God in heaven, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secret is hid, yet offered up their prayers and praises to dumb idols, that have eyes and see not, ears and hear not. ”

“ Each has its cosmogony; each proclaims the doctrine of one supreme God, the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, of post-mortem rewards for "deeds done in the body,"—endless bliss for the righteous, and punishment for the wicked. Each attests the truth and divine origin of its religion by the record of a long array of the most astonishing miracles, confirmed and ratified by the fulfillment of numerous prophecies. Most of them teach the doctrine of the primeval innocence and moral elevation of man, and of his fall, and of his prospective subsequent restoration ”

“ In other words, a revelation can be viewed by you as a divine revelation only in case you hold, for whatever reason, or for no reason, that you already are acquainted with the signature which the divine will attaches to its documents, that you know the marks of any authentic revelation by which a divine will can make itself known to you. ”

“ 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? ”

“ A new Manifestation of God appears with the fuller measure of Divine inspiration for the next stage in the awakening and civilizing of humankind:
Consider the hour at which the supreme Manifestation of God revealeth Himself unto men. Ere that hour cometh, the Ancient Being, Who is still unknown of men and hath not as yet given utterance to the Word of God, is Himself the All-Knower in a world devoid of any man that hath known Him. ”

“ 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? ”

“ We must therefore, from the experiential point of view, call these godless or quasi-godless creeds 'religions'; and accordingly when in our definition of religion we speak of the individual's relation to 'what he considers the divine,' we must interpret the term 'divine' very broadly, as denoting any object that is godlike, whether it be a concrete deity or not. ”

“ When we consider the vast importance of the interests involved, therefore, it must be apparent that there can be no more urgent problem for humanity to solve than the question: Is Christianity a supernatural Divine Revelation or not? ”

“ So I propose—arbitrarily again, if you please—to narrow our definition once more by saying that the word 'divine,' as employed therein, shall mean for us not merely the primal and enveloping and real, for that meaning if taken without restriction might well prove too broad. The divine shall mean for us only such a primal reality as the individual feels impelled to respond to solemnly and gravely, and neither by a curse nor a jest. ”

“ A Divine Incarnation, the birth of a Man-God, was the common faith of humanity,—the great dogma that under forms, more or less mysterious, appears in the oldest modes of worship, and may be traced in the most ancient traditions. ”

“ These intermediate stages of idolatrous hesitation in the transfer of veneration from the human and the visible to the divine and invisible are inevitable, but they should be shortened by the consciousness of the facilitating ministry of the indwelling divine spirit. ”

“ In apprehending one of them we have truly an intuition of a Divine attribute, of some feature of the Divine character. It is through contact, through communion with the Divine Intelligence, Love, and Will, that we know and feel and act. The Divine is the root and the law of human thought, emotion, and conduct. ”

“ All the remaining Angelic Beings, then, naturally regard the highest Order of the Heavenly Minds as source, after God, of every God-knowledge and God-imitation, since, through them, the supremely Divine illumination is distributed to all, and to us. ”

“ It might seem a question beyond the grasp of finite intelligence to determine whether the souls of the blessed are wafted to heaven and at once enjoy the ineffable bliss of beholding the Divine Essence, or whether they have to await the resurrection and the Day of Judgment. ”

“ These, the mutual and common distinctions, or rather the goodly progressions of the whole Deity, we will endeavour to the best of our ability to celebrate from the Names of God, which make them known in the Oracles;----first, having laid down, as we have said, that every beneficent Name of God, to whichever of the supremely Divine Persons it may be applied, is to be understood with reference to the whole Supremely Divine wholeness unreservedly. ”

“ He thinks, if by patching up half a dozen natural reasons together, he can prove a deity, and pay some homage or acknowledgment to him as such, that all is well with him; nay, that he is in the nearest and most ready way to heaven, in the mean while concluding that we go round about, if not a quite contrary way, to take up our religion on no less credit and authority than that of divine revelation. ”

“ To keep alive in their minds a prevailing sense of their dependance upon him, is, then, the ultimate end of prophecy: and what more suitable (will they perhaps add, when warmed with this moral enthusiasm,) to the best ideas we can form of 11 divine wisdom, than that this celestial light should be afforded to such ages or nations as are most in want of that great and salutary principle?
There is reason to believe, that many of the ancient speculatists reasoned thus on the subject of divination. ”

“ As it is conceived by successive generations of praying mortals, the alter ego evolves up through ghosts, fetishes, and spirits to polytheistic gods, and eventually to the One God, a divine being embodying the highest ideals and the loftiest aspirations of the praying ego. And thus does prayer function as the most potent agency of religion in the conservation of the highest values and ideals of those who pray. ”

“ So I humbly conceive, that the continuance and propagation of a divine revelation are even as well secured by the means which have been employed for that purpose, as if the Almighty had in every age, and in every country made such a revelation, and moreover, it is likewise apparent, that the mental labours necessary in obtaining a knowledge of these divine things greatly contribute to their enjoyment, and render the christian fellowship, faith and hope peculiarly interesting and edifying. ”

“ He learns about the way of salvation by finding out by what process God is willing to save him. Both sorts of knowledge must be principally mediated through God's revelation of himself, of his will, and of his plan of salvation. For, left to himself, man cannot find out these things. Apart from revelation, they are divine secrets. Hence the principal source of religious insight must be revelation. ”

“ But generally the influence of the divine or divinised being is more directly exercised, as in oracles, dreams, invisible touches, or actual theophanies, or appearances of the gods to the adoring patient. ”

“ But if the divine goodness is nothing else than the divine holiness, then certainly it is a reasonable studiousness, and not presumptuous intrusion, to inquire whether the same Trinity be not hinted at in an enigmatical mode of speech, by which our inquiry is stimulated, when it is written who made each creature, and by what means, and why. ”