Divine substance

“ And high understanding it is, inwardly to see and know that God, which is our Maker, dwelleth in our soul; and an higher understanding it is, inwardly to see and to know that our soul, that is made, dwelleth in God's Substance: of which Substance, God, we are that we are.
And I saw no difference between God and our Substance: but as it were all God; and yet mine understanding took that our Substance is in God: that is to say, that God is God, and our Substance is a creature in God. ”

“ To my distinct consciousness the spirit of the Lord is that living divine, or divine substance which constantly proceeds from His divine person, somewhat in the same way and manner that rays of light and heat are continually proceeding from our natural sun. It is written that 'God is love/ and that 'God is light/ or truth. ”

“ The Substance, Life, Intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere, when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Divine Science.
Spirit creates and fashions all things spiritually, after its own likeness. Life is reflected in existence, Truth in Sublunary reflections. truthfulness, God in goodness. Truth imparts its own true peace and permanence. Love, redolent with unselfishness, bathes all in beauty and light. ”

“ So elsewhere it is said that in our Sense-soul, the lower part of human nature, God dwells, but that our Substance, the higher part, dwells in God. (The regard of Mercy and Pity is with the Sense-soul; the high Regard of Joy and Bliss is with the Substance.) ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ God's attributes as such, his holiness, his justice, his mercy, his absoluteness, his infinity, his omniscience, his tri-unity, the various mysteries of the redemptive process, the operation of the sacraments, etc., have proved fertile wells of inspiring meditation for Christian believers.22 We shall see later that the absence of definite sensible images is positively insisted on by the mystical authorities in all religions as the sine qua non of a successful orison, or contemplation of the higher divine truths. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our scientific interpretation of the ever-changing universe at last rests on ethical theistic faith, and the Christian revelation of divine love is responded to by the divine inspiration of God in Man, in the form of the spiritual Common Sense. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Also, as we have seen (ante-Lesson III) , not only is the Immanent Spirit the Divine Power, but that spirit carries with it into the immensity of space which it pervades, at least certain attributes of the Divine Intelligence from whom it proceeds, and becomes the inspiration to intelligence in men, and the atmosphere of wisdom, holiness, truth, and of love. ”

“ Already, even in the present chaos of scientific and religious opinion, indications can be seen by the observant, that the Divine Spirit of order is breathing on the mass, and will evolve from it new and beautiful worlds of mental and spiritual existence. ”

“ The reasons why will be readily seen by recurring to the basic propositions of the divine science, which declares that God, the soul of the universe, is positive heat, celestial fire; that the aura of Deity (God-od) is love, the prime element of all power, the external fire-sphere, the informing and formative pulse of matter. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But from that Divine Love and Wisdom there proceed goodness and truth, which are spiritual heat and light: these flow from the Lord down into the heavens, and into the minds of angels there, and also into the minds of men on earth, giving light to the understanding and warmth to the heart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By means of this process, the features of natural objects are thrown upon a sensitive sheet, through a lens, and leave their impression upon the sheet. So when the character of God is, by means of prayer, brought to bear upon the mind of the believer—that mind being rendered sensitive by the Holy Spirit—it impresses there the Divine image. ”

“ Inferior deities, or angels, are believed in by each. God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence are taught in both Bibles.
44. God is represented to be invisible by each. And "God is a spirit," and infinitely wise and good, is taught in each. ”

“ When in meditation and worship you have sought to take in and express what God’s word has taught, then comes the time for confessing how you know nothing, and for waiting on God to reveal Himself.
6 The Divine necessity and meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity is seen from the counterpart we have of it in nature. In every living object that exists we distinguish first the life, then the form or shape in which that life manifests itself, then the power or effect as seen in the result which the life acting in its form or manifestation produces. ”

“ The explanation is offered that it was necessary to attribute human form, members and passions, to God, in order to make spiritual things intelligible to man; but what is the reason for ascribing the divine form to man, as in the passage just quoted? ”

“ 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 ”

“ But the absence of the definite article from the word “spirit” seems to suggest a gift rather than a Person. The Holy Spirit of God enters into our spirit, and the result is wisdom and revelation. These two words refer to general illumination and specific enlightenment. He desires his readers to enter fully into the meaning of these great realities to which he has given such full expression (vers. 1-14) .
(2) But this Divine gift is only possible by means of a simple yet important condition. It is “in the full knowledge of Him.” ”

“ The divine and living object, then, of which he speaks, is the highest intelligible conception that he has been able to form to himself of the divinity, and is not some corporeal beauty which might overshadow his thought and appear superficially to the senses. ”

“ We may as well do this, as discern divine and supernatural things by natural and human reason. God has endued us with different faculties, suitable and proportionable to the different objects that engage them. We discover sensible things by our senses, rational things by our reason, things intellectual by understanding, but divine and cœlestial things he has reserved for the exercise of our faith, which is a kind of divine and superior sense in the soul. ”