Divine presence

“ In all the Divine Books the promise of the Divine Presence hath been explicitly recorded. By this Presence is meant the Presence of Him Who is the Dayspring of the signs, and the Dawning-Place of the clear tokens, and the Manifestation of the Excellent Names, and the Source of the attributes, of the true God, exalted be His glory. God in His Essence and in His own Self hath ever been unseen, inaccessible, and unknowable. By Presence, therefore, is meant the Presence of the One Who is His Vicegerent amongst men. ”

“ Then, content and confident, without saying another word, she waited with her two inarticulate but eloquent companions—Art, consecrated to God, and Nature, informed by God—and felt above and about the illuminating Presence. For faith is the rod that calls the divine Lightning down, whether it came as a dove, or a tongue of fire, or a pointing finger, or a whispering voice. ”

“ Some believe that God can be seen by corporeal sight, others entirely deny it. But all believe that when the human souls are gathered up in the Great Account, the Divine Presence will enfold the Universe. ”

“ Inasmuch as it is certain that God is ever present in the soul, at least in the first way, the soul does not say, "Be present"; but, "Reveal and manifest Your hidden presence, whether natural, spiritual, or affective, in such a way that I may behold You in Your divine essence and beauty." ”

“ The presence of the Paradise spirit in the mind of man constitutes the revelation promise and the faith pledge of an eternal existence of divine progression for every soul seeking to achieve identity with this immortal and indwelling spirit fragment of the Universal Father. ”

“ A habitual effort to cultivate a deeper sense of the divine presence is necessary and one of the most beautiful employments of the sanctified heart. Those reverential feelings toward God must daily become stronger. ”

“ The soul prays Him that as He by His essential presence gives it its natural being, and perfects it by His presence of grace, so also He would glorify it by the manifestation of His glory. But as the soul is now loving God with fervent affections, the presence, for the revelation of which it prays the Beloved to manifest, is to be understood chiefly of the affective presence of the Beloved. Such is the nature of this presence that the soul felt there was an infinite being hidden there, out of which God communicated to it certain obscure visions of His own divine beauty. ”

“ Our Father is in heaven — therefore heaven is our country; and the devout soul may make acts of desire and longing for her heavenly home. Again, wherever God is, by His grace and love, there is heaven. His presence makes heaven. Now we know by divine faith that God is everywhere, and intimately present in all things and in all places ”

“ The face of God looks lovingly on men in Him, so that Jesus could declare, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.' His presence brings God's presence, and He can venture to say, 'We will come and make our abode with Him.' He is the agent of the divine salvation. ”

“ When one speaks of the presence of God, there are two ways of looking upon it. The first, is that God is present to us, that is to say, that we think of Him, and that, in the eyes of faith, we look upon His Divine Being as intimately present in the place in which we are. ”

“ Of the revelation of His Holy and His Holy-making Presence, the centre is found in the person of the high priest, in his double capacity of representing God with man, and man with God. He is the embodiment of the Divine Holiness in human form, and of human holiness as a Divine gift, as far as the dispensation of symbol and shadow could offer and express it. ”

“ There is no paradise more wondrous for any soul than to be exposed to God’s Manifestation in His Day, to hear His verses and believe in them, to attain His presence, which is naught but the presence of God, to sail upon the sea of the heavenly kingdom of His good-pleasure, and to partake of the choice fruits of the paradise of His divine Oneness. II, 16.58
“Worship thou God in such wise that if thy worship lead ...” ”

“ And thus we are taught to set God always before us, and to see him near us both night and day. Something of the nature of that divine revelation which the Old-Testament church was governed by might also be signified by these visible signs of God's presence, the cloud denoting the darkness and the fire the terror of that dispensation, in comparison with the more clear and comfortable discoveries God has made of his glory in the face of Jesus Christ. ”

“ It also begets in us a holy freedom, and, if I may so speak, a familiarity with God, where, when we ask, He supplies the graces we need. Over time, by often repeating these acts, they become habitual, and the presence of God becomes quite natural to us. ”

“ Believer! the God who calls you to holiness is the God of the Indwelling Life. The tabernacle typifies it, the Son reveals it, the Spirit communicates it, the eternal glory will fully manifest it. And you may experience it. It is your calling as a believer to be God’s Holy Temple. Oh, do but yield yourself to His full indwelling! seek not holiness in the first place in what you are or do; seek it in God. Seek it not even as a gift from God, seek it in God Himself, in His indwelling Presence. Worship Him in the beauty of holiness, as He dwells in the high and holy place. ”

“ May you each and all share in the Divine Bounties of the Kingdom of Heaven. May the world be for you no obstacle hiding the truth from your sight, as the human body of Christ hid His Divinity from the people of His day. May you receive the clear vision of the Holy Spirit, so that your hearts may be illumined and able to recognize the Sun of Truth shining through all material clouds, His splendour flooding the universe. ”

“ And I make it my business only to persevere in His holy presence, wherein I keep myself by a simple attention, and a general fond regard to God, which I may call an actual presence of God; or, to speak better, an habitual, silent, and secret conversation of the soul with God, which often causes me joys and raptures inwardly, and sometimes also outwardly, so great that I am forced to use means to moderate them and prevent their appearance to others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ God's presence blends with every other thought and consciousness, flowing sweetly and evenly through our business plans, our social converse our heart's affections, our manual toil, our entire life, blending with all, consecrating all, and conscious through all, like the fragrance of a flower, or the presence of a friend consciously near, and yet not hindering in the least the most intense and constant preoccupation of the hands and brain. How beautiful the established habit of this unceasing communion and dependence, amid and above all thoughts and occupations! ”

“ Every thing that is attests, not only God's creating power, but His living presence. He is in the flames and in the light, and in the pastures, in the air, in the ground, in the body, and in the soul, in the head, in the eye, in the ear, and in the heart. He is in us, and we are in Him, bathed in His presence as in an ocean, breathing in it as in an atmosphere. This is what the Psalmist expresses so beautifully: "Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art present ”

“ But when it is known that the Lord appears as a sun, a just idea can be had of the proceeding Divine, which is called the Holy Spirit; that it is one with the Lord, but proceeds from Him, as heat and light from the sun. ”

“ 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 Holy Ghost, by his divine inworking will, has completed in us the Divine likeness, and perfected over us the Divine dominion. The human body will now be in sovereign subjection to the human spirit, and the human spirit to the divine Spirit, and God will be all and in all. ”

“ Some speak as if the, ‘Let us draw near,’ meant prayer, and that in our special approach to God in acts of worship we enter the Holiest. No; great as this privilege is, God has meant something for us infinitely greater. We are to draw near, and dwell always, to live our life and do our work within the sphere, the atmosphere, of the inner sanctuary. It is God’s Presence makes holy ground; God’s immediate Presence in Christ makes any place the Holiest of all: and this is it into which we are to draw nigh, and in which we are to abide. ”

“ O thou who dost believe in the Spirit of Christ, in the Kingdom of God!
The body is composed, in truth, of corporeal elements and every composition is necessarily subject to decomposition; but the spirit is an essence, simple, pure, spiritual, eternal, perpetual and divine. He who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His body hath, in truth, debased Him and hath gone astray from Him; but he who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His Spirit will grow from day to day in joy, attraction, zeal, proximity, perception and vision. ”

“ It is entirely evident, from the accounts of his life, that the consciousness on the plane of the Divine grew more and more prominent as he progressed, as he threw off the merely human and limited, as the Divine descended lower and lower into the outward. ”

“ In the Trinity Teacher Sons the love, mercy, and ministry of the three Paradise Deities are co-ordinated on the highest time-space value-levels and are presented to the universes as living truth, divine goodness, and true spiritual beauty. ”

“ There is a place where He is present visibly and manifests Himself as He does not elsewhere. The place of God's visible presence and full manifestation of Himself is Heaven, though in His spiritual presence He pervades the universe. ”

“ It is true that the spectacle presented before our minds when contemplating the surroundings of the people of the Latter-day Saints—the comforts of life they are enjoying, and the material blessings that they have become possessed of—does not alone determine the divine character of the spiritual philosophy, the system of principles and doctrine which constitute their faith. ”

“ Moreover, the means that in general she looks to for realising God's nearness, in whatever measure or manner the revelation of it may come to any soul, is the immediate one of faith as a gift of nature and a grace from the Holy Ghost: faith leading by prayer, and effort of obedience, and teachableness of spirit, into actual experience of oneness with God. ”

“ The Holy Spirit, in the external authority of the Church, acts as the infallible interpreter and criterion of divine revelation. The Holy Spirit in the soul acts as the divine Life-giver and Sanctifier. ”

“ We can meditate by adoring the presence of God all around us, as we walk in the midst of Him, or as causing by His presence in each object we behold, its continued existence and its qualities of good. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And every touch of the Holy Spirit's presence within trusting hearts,—the sweet peace, the quiet assurance, the longing for purity, the drawing away to prayer, the hunger for God's Word, the intense desire to have others saved, the passion to please this wondrous God of ours,—all these simple marks of the Holy Spirit's presence in our hearts, all tell us, and each tells us, in unmistakable tones, that Christ is crowned. ”

“ We have the support, within us and around us, of the Holy Spirit as our effective intercessor, and the consciousness of an eternal and infallible purpose of divine love which is taking effect stage by stage in the case of each one of us whom God has made members of His elect body. ”

“ How much more reasonable is it to conceive the Divine Essence to subsist in a plurality of persons, and thus to conceive, consistently, of the eternal, immense, and immutable activity and happiness of the Divine Being? ”

“ But why speak I in conjectures concerning these unknown matters, or why yearn I thus impatiently for the hour of the Lord’s coming, seeing that the Lord vouchsafeth to me, even on earth, his perpetual presence in mine heart, and the signs of his presence compass me everywhere around, so that even to live is joy? For verily to thee, O Lord, and to thy Kingdom, all things in heaven and earth do bear witness. ”

“ Beg of God that she may make her sacrifice in the view of His love alone, and with a firm resolution to be wholly devoted to Him. I will send you one of these books, which treat of the presence of God, a subject which, in my opinion, contains the whole spiritual life; and it seems to me that whoever duly practises it will soon become spiritual. ”

“ According to the Christian revelation, God is a Trinity; that is, the Divine Essence exists in Three Persons, perfectly equal in nature and dignity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father only. ”

“ When the soul is unstained by sin, and if we remain still and recollected, we can perceive God's presence in the heart, just as we see daylight penetrating a room. We may not be always conscious of this Presence, but imperceptibly it influences all our actions. ”