Divine nature

“ Studies in Nature lead us to cherish the idea of a God, who created, who regenerates, who preserves this universe by invariable laws, and by a continued chain of similar causes, producing similar effects; who pervades all Nature with His Divine Spirit, as a universal Soul, which moves, directs, and restrains the fabric of this world. The blissful idea of a God sweetens every moment of our time, and embellishes before us the paths of life; invites us delightfully to all the beauties of Nature, and associates us with everything that lives or moves. ”

“ I understand, in that case, how it is that the religious sense is but a “sentiment,” and its exercise a “gratifying treat,” for it is like the sense of the beautiful or the sublime. I understand how the contemplation of the universe “leads onwards to divine truth,” for divine truth is not something separate from Nature, but it is Nature with a divine glow upon it. ”

“ And who can consider these amazing acts of divine power and wisdom, without admiration and praise to the Author of nature? This astonishing order of nature appeared so glorious to the ancient heathens, that they worshipped even the sun for their God, as being the greatest and most splendid of all objects, and as enlightening all the world. This was a conclusion for blind, corrupt reason to draw, though every part of the creation, to pure and right reason, fully manifests and discovers the being and excellencies of the Creator. ”

“ The Divine Nature is spirit. This shows, that, according to the popular and common use of the word, he is a Being entirely separated from matter or body, in all its properties and affections; that he is a pure mind, and possessed of the most excellent powers and perfections, which belong to spiritual beings. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And all this is of the Nature-Goodness of God, by the working of Grace. God is Nature [2] in His being: that is to say, that Goodness that is Nature, it is God. He is the ground, He is the substance, He is the same thing that is Nature-hood. [3] And He is very Father and very Mother of Nature: and all natures that He hath made to flow out of Him to work His will shall be restored and brought again into Him by the salvation of man through the working of Grace. ”

“ He saw the earth and the fulness thereof as the outer sign of the supreme Spirit of Life—Nature being the vesture of God, the cloak of spirit, making all creatures likenesses of God and manifestations of the divine will. God's works of art—natural phenomena—are variously interpreted, because men's spiritual perception is regulated by their intellectual capacity to understand what they perceive. ”

“ Viewed in that light, and from the standpoint of this illuminating truth, "the world's no blot for us, nor blank," but the scene of Divine activity and unceasing revelation; for all nature's forces are seen to be the expression of the Divine Energy, and all nature's laws the manifestation of the Divine Will. ”

“ But you will say, The divine Soul is a part of Man, and Man a part of Nature, wherefore the divine Soul must needs be a part of Nature. I answer, Not: For the divine Soul is not a part of Nature, but supernatural, as a supernatural Gift from God onely to Man, and to no other Creature: and although in this respect it may be called a part of Man, yet it is no natural or material part of Man; neither doth this supernatural Gift disturb Nature or natural Matter, or natural Matter this supernatural Gift. ”

“ Since all these objects represent, more or less, the divine mind, and are in perfect harmony with it, and so always at one with God, they express, it may be, all of deity which Matter in these three modes can contain, and thus exhibit all of God that can be made manifest to the eye, the ear, and the other senses of man. Since these things are so, Nature is not only strong and beautiful, but has likewise a religious aspect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And when we conceive of the whole nature {25} of things as somehow interested in us and in our salvation, as the religiously minded very generally do, we call this nature of things divine, in a very familiar sense of that word. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These, and the varied phenomena of nature are the direct expressions of the Divine Energy, the modes of operation of the Divine Mind, the manifestations of the Divine Wisdom and the expressions of the Divine Love. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The world and nature are marvellous in their being, but they are not “divine”! The formula “natura sive deus” is a monstrous misuse of the word “deus,” if we are to use the words in the sense which history has given to them. God is the Absolute Being, perfect, wholly independent, resting in Himself, and necessary; nature is entirely contingent and dependent, and at every point of it we are impelled to ask “Why?” ”

“ Divine things are that which is known of God, namely: that God is, and that He is to be worshipped by us, Rom. 1:19-21. This is surely the natural knowledge of God, which spontaneously springs forth in human adults furnished with a sound mind, and is confirmed in them by the contemplation of the works of God ”

“ 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. ”

“ This thoroughly 'pragmatic' view of religion has usually been taken as a matter of course by common men. They have interpolated divine miracles into the field of nature, they have built a heaven out beyond the grave. It is only transcendentalist metaphysicians who think that, without adding any concrete details to Nature, or subtracting any, but by simply calling it the expression of absolute spirit, you make it more divine just as it stands. I believe the pragmatic way of taking religion to be the deeper way. ”

“ Nature is a material embodiment of divine truth, and if studied rightly, brings the mind into communion with the great Father, whose Spirit lives through all. Yea, even inanimate substances, or those which we consider as such, obey His commands and work out His will. ”

“ Divine Life by evolution approaches dead matter, 556-m. Divine mingles with human in all affairs, 12-u. Divine Nature, a theme on which man is not entitled to dogmatize, 222-m. Divine Nature, Power and Justice the same, Wisdom and Mercy the same in the, 552-m. ”

“ But, Madam, all this I speak of the Natural Soul of Man, not of the Divine Soul, which is not subject to natural imperfections, and corporeal errors, being not made by Nature, but a supernatural and divine gift of the Omnipotent God, who surely will not give any thing that is not perfect. Wherefore it is not probable, this Divine Soul, being not subject to Nature, should be an architect of the body, as having an higher and more divine imployment, viz. to fix her self on her Creator, and being indued with supernatural faculties, and residing in the body in a supernatural manner ”

“ The modes of activity which we have indicated,—Legislation,—Science (knowledge of nature—power over nature) —Religion,—are those in which the Divine Idea most commonly reveals and manifests itself through man in the world of sense. ”

“ But to return; if what the light of Nature teaches us concerning the divine perfections, when duly attended to, is not only sufficient to hinder us from falling into superstition of any kind whatever; but, as I have already shown, demonstrates what God, from his infinite wisdom and goodness, can, or cannot command; how is it possible that the law of Nature and grace can differ? ”

“ Here may we see that we have verily of Nature to hate sin, and we have verily of Grace to hate sin. For Nature is all good and fair in itself, and Grace was sent out to save Nature and destroy sin, and bring again fair nature to the blessed point from whence it came: that is God; with more nobleness and worship by the virtuous working of Grace. ”

“ These sympathies with their allied sentiments have been unwarrantably projected out beyond their proper sphere, that of human affairs, into an idea of the Divine—it being forgotten in the process that Nature in the broad view is the fullest manifestation of divine power we know, and that from Nature herself in her manifold operations should we try to integrate a conception of its informing Spirit. Hence the discrepancy between the conception of the theological Deity and the facts of the universe. Do the processes of Nature exhibit sympathy, mercy, or love? ”

“ His manifestation, form or body is infinite wisdom. Divine love is the self-subsisting life of the universe. From God emanates a divine sphere, which appears in the spiritual world as a sun, and from this spiritual sun again proceeds the sun of the natural world. The spiritual sun is the source of love and intelligence, or life, and the natural sun the source of nature or the receptacles of life ”

“ Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy — by one or more or all of these — and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Section IV But, inasmuch as the Divine Being is source of sacred order, within which the holy Minds regulate themselves, he, who recurs to the proper view of Nature, will see his proper self in what he was originally, and will acquire this, as the first holy gift, from his recovery to the light. ”

“ That I may have the soul-life, the soul-nature, let divine beauty bring to me divine soul. ”

“ By this incoming spiritual power and life-substance the entire personality of the recipient is affected. The {72} recreative energy which pours in transforms both soul and body. The inner eternal Word of God, who became flesh, acts upon the inner nature of man, so that the believing man is changed into something spiritual, divine and heavenly, and like Jesus Christ, the incarnated Word of God. ”

“ 5 Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the great lesson to be received from all.One lesson, however, we are invariably taught by all, however approached or viewed,—that the work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects,—that the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mouldering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; ”

“ it is indeed from the experience of beauty and happiness, from the occasional harmony between our nature and our environment, that we draw our conception of the divine life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Or view the stupendous scenery of Alpine countries, and there, amid rock and snow, overlooking the valleys below, we feel a sense of the presence of Divinity. Or, wandering on ocean beach, watching the play of the waves, or listening to the roar of the breakers, our hearts are impressed with a sense of the power and majesty of God. In short, wherever we contemplate the vast or wonderful in nature, there we experience a religious exaltation of spirit. It is the soul within us placing itself en rapport with the soul of nature, the great first cause. ”