Diviner

“ But you, in the first place, represent diviners as asserting, "that all of them obtain a foreknowledge of future events through Gods or dæmons, and that it is not possible for any others to know that which is future, than those who are the lords of futurity." Afterwards you doubt, "whether divinity is so far subservient to men, as not to be averse to some becoming diviners from meal." ”

“ The ancient diviners gave responses by various ambiguous signs and noises, they also pretended to have intercourse with departed Spirits, and the united acclamations of confiding thousands attested to the truth of their declarations. What more can modern Spiritualism claim? ”

“ Oh that the sinfulness of our nature, and all that is of self, may be so discovered to us, that it may be no longer possible to live in it! May the Light that reveals this, reveal too, how Thy Holiness is our only hope, our sure refuge, our complete deliverance. O Lord! speak into our souls the word, ‘The Holy One, your Redeemer,’ ‘Your Holy One,’ with such power by Thy Spirit, that our faith may grow into the assured confidence that we can be holy as Thou art holy. ”

“ A Deity believed, is joy begun;
A Deity adored, is joy advanced;
A Deity beloved, is joy matured.
Each branch of piety delight inspires;
Faith builds a bridge from this world to the next,
O’er death’s dark gulf, and all its horror hides;
Praise, the sweet exhalation of our joy,
That joy exalts, and makes it sweeter still; 720
Prayer ardent opens heaven, lets down a stream
Of glory on the consecrated hour
Of man, in audience with the Deity.
Who worships the great God, that instant joins
The first in heaven, and sets his foot on hell.
Lorenzo! when wast thou at church before? ”

“ Its aim is to please the deity, and if the deity is one who delights in charity and mercy and purity more than in oblations of blood, the chanting of hymns, and the fumes of incense, his worshippers will best please him, not by prostrating themselves before him, by intoning his praises, and by filling his temples with costly gifts, but by being pure and merciful and charitable towards men, for in so doing they will imitate, so far as human infirmity allows, the perfections of the divine nature. ”

“ May all Thy miracles and mighty works fill us with Thy dread, and Thy goodness impress us with the love of Thy holy name. May holiness to the Lord be engraven upon all our thoughts, words, and actions. May the incense of piety ascend continually unto Thee from the altar of our hearts, and burn day and night, as a sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor, well pleasing unto Thee. ”

“ In which man, considering the titles of God which have reference to the state and condition of grace, offers and dedicates himself entirely to him as far as regards his spiritual state of life through grace.
O most high, powerful, and merciful God, adorable and incomprehensible Trinity! I offer, dedicate, and consecrate to thee my soul, with all its powers and faculties, all the capacity of my will to love thee, and of my intellect to know thee, to my own abasement and thy greater glory. ”

“ The example of the saint shows that the most essential preparation for the study of the holy scriptures consists in simplicity and purity of heart, an eminent spirit of prayer, and habitual profound meditation on the sacred oracles. Thus qualified, he, with admirable sagacity and piety, penetrates and unfolds the unbounded spiritual riches of the least tittle in the divine word; and explains its sacred truths with incomparable ease, perspicuity, elegance, and energy of style. The moral instructions are enforced by all the strength and ornaments of the most sweet and persuasive eloquence. ”

“ The other kind of divination is natural, as I have said before, and may by physical subtlety of reasoning appear referable to the nature of the Gods, from which, as the wisest men acknowledge, we derive and enjoy the energies of our souls; and as everything is filled and pervaded by a divine intelligence and eternal sense, it follows of necessity that the soul of man must be influenced by its kindred with the soul of the Deity. ”

“ Great awe and veneration were experienced by both father and son when they discovered that an Angel of the Most High had appeared to them in the form of a man. “Being seized with fear they fell upon their faces on the ground.” How much more reverence ought we to feel each time we are in the presence of the most holy Sacrament, in which our Lord is really and personally present with His Divinity and sacred Humanity. ”

“ The grave comportment of the angel and the modesty of his countenance corresponded to his veneration of the Virgin. Learn hence to act like an angel in your intercourse with men, but more especially so with God in prayer. The Virgin was pronounced by the angel to be full of grace, by excellence, and far superior to all other pure creatures. Reflect what you are full of, whether of grace and virtue, or not rather of pride, vanity and self-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. ”

“ My business, my course of life, does not call me where I am under the necessity of hearing the name of that Deity whom I worship blasphemed—where his character, name, place, and attributes are held in the deepest derision, as they are in the world. ”

“ Here is a supreme priest who believes God to be—what, in the name of God, does he believe God to be?—and discerns that all worship of God is a scenic phantasmagory of wax candles, organ blasts, Gregorian chants, mass-brayings, purple monsignori, wool-and-iron rumps, artistically spread out, to save the ignorant from worse.... ”

“ 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. ”

“ Who art one God, one Lord; not one only person, but three persons in one substance. For that which we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality. Therefore, with Angels and Archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify thy glorious, name; evermore praising thee, and saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory: Glory be to thee, O Lord most high. ”

“ Forms, ceremonies, all the tricks and devices of priestcraft aiming at personal dominion are unknown here.
One God and all creation united with him in a harmonious desire to work His will; from the mightiest spirit of spheres celestial, to the humblest germ invisible even beneath the most powerful glass the ingenuity of man can devise. ”

“ Others followed, some for healing, others for complete deliverance from every taint of the devil. God himself gathered the saints at that place, and the day was devoted to salvation work. Probably twenty-five or thirty souls were delivered from all the works of the devil and filled with the Spirit of God. Oh, what a mighty change has taken place here! Instead of gloomy and hideous looks, now shines the glory and beauties of holiness, upon the joyful faces of the redeemed, and clear, ringing shouts of praises are pleasing to God. ”

“ IN this day the world is redolent with the fragrances of the robe of the Revelation of the Ancient King ... and yet, they (divines) have gathered together, and established themselves upon their seats, and have spoken that which would put an animal to shame, how much more man himself! Were they to become aware of one of their acts, and perceive the mischief it hath wrought, they would, with their own hands, dispatch themselves to their final abode.
“O CONCOURSE of divines!... Lay aside that which ye...” O CONCOURSE of divines!... ”

“ The Holy Spirit is called the proceeding Divine, yet no one knows why it is called proceeding. This is not known, because until now it has been unknown that the Lord appears before the angels as a sun, and that heat, which in its essence is Divine love, and light, which in its essence is Divine wisdom, proceeds from that sun. ”

“ 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. ”

“ For what is there among the things which are implanted in us by nature in the realms of generation that is a genuine, perfect, and eternal good?
CHAP. IV. Divine divination, therefore, which is conjoined with the Gods, alone truly imparts to us a divine life; since it participates of [divine] foreknowledge, and divine intellections, and renders us in reality divine. It likewise causes us to be genuine participants of the good, because 331the most blessed intellectual perception of the Gods is filled with all good. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Divine Holiness is thus that infinite Perfection of Divinity in which Righteousness and Love are in perfect harmony, out of which they proceed, and which together they reveal. It is that Energy of the Divine life in the power of which God not only keeps Himself free from all creature weakness or sin, but unceasingly seeks to lift the creature into union with Himself and the full participation of His own purity and perfection. The glory of God as God, as the God of Creation and Redemption, is His Holiness. ”

“ They who have ascribed creation to nature, and hence in heart, though not with the lips, have denied the Divine, consequently all things of the church and of heaven, consociate themselves with their like in this state, and call every one a god who excels in craftiness, even worshipping him with divine honor. ”

“ In order, therefore, to such worship and such inspiration acting through reason, it would appear fitting that the Deity should manifest Himself especially with reference to that heavenly Exemplar, the Three Divine Persons of the One Supreme Essence already shown to have been probable. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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? ”

“ DIVINATION, the process of obtaining knowledge of secret or future things by means of oracles, omens or astrology. The root of the word, deus (god) or divus, indicates the supposed source of the soothsayer’s information, just as the equivalent Greek term, μαντική, indicates the spiritual source of the utterances of the seer, μάντις. ”

“ And you may see in like manner the Hierarch bearing forward the sweet perfume from the more holy place into the sacred precincts beyond, and teaching, by the return to the same, that the participation in things Divine comes to all holy persons, according to fitness, and is undiminished and altogether unmoved and stands unchangeably in its identity, as beseems Divine fixity. ”

“ Wherefore the business of divination is to see to these loves and to heal them, and divination is the peacemaker of gods and men, working by a knowledge of the religious or irreligious tendencies which exist in human loves. ”

“ The angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom, who constitute the third or highest heaven, are in the Divine that proceeds from the Lord which is called celestial, for they are in the good of love from the Lord; the angels of the Lord's spiritual kingdom, who constitute the second or intermediate heaven, are in the Divine that proceeds from the Lord which is called spiritual, for they are in the truths of wisdom from the Lord; and the men of the church in the world are in the Divine natural, which also proceeds from the Lord. ”

“ The gods of rain were frequently propitiated, so was the goddess of maize, the mountain god, the mother of the gods, and many other divinities. The general theory of worship was the adoration of a deity, first by innumerable human sacrifices, next by the special sacrifice of a man for male gods, of a woman for each goddess. ”

“ 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. ”