Divine simplicity

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the other hand, all the goodness and perfection, all the happiness, glory, and joy, that any intelligent creature can be possessed of, is, and can be, from nothing else, but the invisible uncreated light and Spirit of God manifesting itself in the creatures, filling, blessing, and uniting them all in one love.
And thus again: there is no possibility of man’s attaining to any heavenly perfection and happiness, but only in the way of the gospel, by the union of the divine and human nature, by man’s being born again from above, of the Word and Spirit of God. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Has doubt taken away from the glory of the universe? Rather, as the result of the work of these myriad investigators, whose one aim and end was truth, at last we have a universe worthy to be the home of an infinite God, a universe that matches our thought of the Divine, a universe that thrills and lifts us, fills us with reverence, and bends us to our knees in the attitude of worship. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Not only have reflections and comment been unable to exhaust that truth, but it is found that the more deeply it is explored, and the more fully it is understood, the richer and the sublimer does it appear. In fact, the utterance of that Divine discourse seems to have been a work of spiritual creation, answering, in a manner, to the works of the natural creation, which are found to be more and more beautiful and wonderful, the further they are explored, and the more perfectly they are understood. ”

“ And if we have no time for long reasonings, let us at least turn our eyes towards God, and place ourselves in his presence, to ask his leave and approbation for what we do. Let us consider ourselves under the all-seeing eye of that divine majesty, as in the midst of an infinite globe of light ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Answer.—Know that the Reality of Divinity or the substance of the Essence of Oneness is pure sanctity and absolute holiness—that is to say, it is sanctified and exempt from all praise. The whole of the supreme attributes of the degrees of existence, in reference to this plane, are only imaginations. It is invisible, incomprehensible, inaccessible, a pure essence which cannot be described, for the Divine Essence surrounds all things. Verily, that which surrounds is greater than the surrounded, and the surrounded cannot contain that by which it is surrounded, nor comprehend its reality. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we look at the worlds and the souls, we see wonderful signs of the divine perfections, which are clear and apparent; for the reality of things proves the Universal Reality. The Reality of Divinity may be compared to the sun, which from the height of its magnificence shines upon all the horizons and each horizon, and each soul, receives a share of its radiance. ”

“ It perpetually has been, and is, in the exaltation of holiness and sanctity. All that is mentioned of the Manifestations and Dawning-places of God signifies the divine reflection, and not a descent into the conditions of existence.96
God is pure perfection, and creatures are but imperfections. For God to descend into the conditions of existence would be the greatest of imperfections; on the contrary, His manifestation, His appearance, His rising are like the reflection of the sun in a clear, pure, polished mirror. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If this be so, then from the views just presented it may be seen that all created existences, whether in the material or in the spiritual world, are but out-births, productions from the mind of the Creator,—thus that the created universe is, truly, as it is so often called, a mirror of its Divine and benevolent Maker; wherein can be seen,—not indeed in thieir full glory and perfectness, but in distant and dimly reflected images and forms,—the wondrous loveliness and goodness, beauty and brightness, richness, abundance, and magnificence of the Divine attributes. ”

“ It is not; and there is where most persons fail. 'The Divine can never be literal, and there is in all art a vanishing point, where the Divine merges itself into the ideal.' And that vanishing point is seen in the human composition, as well as in natural objects, that point where we lose ourselves in the Divine, and merge our own being into that greater, grander being. ”

“ 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 primal image and likeness of God has become so defaced, distorted, and broken, that it is often hard to find a remnant still testifying to its Divine origin. Let us rise up from among these shattered fragments, and contemplate for a while the means of bringing the poor, fallen human nature into harmony with the divine;—let us develop, if we can, a system that may aid us in training our faculties, so that the Affections shall be pure, the Understanding wise, and Life the harmonious exponent of both. ”

“ He sees his being as a spiritual whole, a complete design in the thought of Eternal Nature, which design he is religiously bound to divine and serve. To serve Creative Reality even in the regards he bestows upon himself,—in coming to that aim and action, he, for the first time, beholds his being with a pure eye. ”

“ It not only shows the mercy and justice of God to be as great as can possibly be conceived, but it also shows the perfect harmony and agreement which subsists between these sublime attributes of the Divine Being. It marks out and defines the orbit, in which each revolves in all the perfection and plenitude of its glory, without the least clashing or interference with the other. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And every God-knowing man or angel possesses the potential of unlimited self-expression on ever-progressive levels of unified self-realization by the technique of the never-ending achievement of Godlikeness—the experiential blending in the evolutionary experience of eternal truth, universal beauty, and divine goodness. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and expresses all; and all must therefore be as perfect as the Satisfaction. divine Principle is perfect. Nothing is new to Spirit. Nothing can be novel to eternal Mind, the author of all things, who knoweth His own ideas from all eternity. Deity was satisfied with His work. How could He be otherwise, since the spiritual creation was the outgrowth, the emanation, of His infinite self-containment and immortal wisdom? ”

“ Now, in this Humanity, the quality or nature of God was manifested to men with a fullness and distinctness, far beyond that of any of the other forms in which the Divine has sought to make himself comprehensible to his creatures. ”

“ Contemplating, now, the joys and glories of the spiritual world, and the life eternal—as they have been thus imperfectly sketched—what conclusion remains to be drawn in reference to the great point, which is the aim of all our remarks,—the existence of a Divine Creator, and His Power, Wisdom, and Goodness. ”

“ What do you mean by infinitely beautiful? A. I mean that God is beauty itself, infinitely lovely, infinitely excellent; that all the beauty and perfections which we see in creatures are but emanations of His divine beauty ”

“ The image we behold is not our own being, but an imperfect likeness of it. So the creation which God beholds imaged in His own Divine mind is not His own Divine being, but an imperfect likeness of it. {150} And now it is not the image of an abstract being—of an ideal being—but of a living being. The living God is the Trinity, as I have shown. The mystery of creation is illuminated by this truth, as you will see. ”