Eternal nature

“ But if Gods Power can make Man's Soul, as also the good and evil Spirits to last eternally without end, he may, by his Omnipotency make as well things without beginning. You will say, If Nature were Eternal, it could not be created, for the word Creation is contrary to Eternity. ”

“ He proclaimed the absolute vitality of nature, the endless change of matter, the mutability and perishability of all individual things in contrast with the eternal Being—the supreme harmony which rules over all. ”

“ But if you ask me, how it is possible that Nature, the Effect and Creature of God, can be Eternal without beginning? I will desire you to answer me first, how a Creature can be Eternal without end, as, for example. Supernatural Spirits are, and then I will answer you, how a Creature can be Eternal without beginning; For Eternity consists herein, that it has neither beginning nor end; and if it be easie for God to make a Being without end, it is not difficult for Him to make a Being without beginning. ”

“ Created, then, so purely of ourselves, this is the result with regard to the natural world about us: that with our own feelings and affections, we discover, each for himself, all the glory of the universe. And therefore is nature eternal, unchangeable—that all men may know the whole goodness of God. ”

“ So that all the inhabitants of heaven are for ever knowing, seeing, hearing, feeling, and variously enjoying all that is great, amiable, infinite, and gracious in the Divine Nature.’ And again, in his Way to Divine Knowledge: ‘Out of this transcendent Eternal Nature, which is as universal and immense as the Godhead itself, do all the highest beings, cherubims and seraphims, all the hosts of angels, and all intelligent spirits, receive their birth, existence, substance, and form. ”

“ The writings of the prophets illustrate these conceptions of the visionary fancy by their various sublime and divine images as seen in the worlds of vision.
The world of imagination is the world of eternity. It is the divine bosom into which we shall all go after the death of the vegetated body. This world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation, or vegetation, is finite and temporal. There exist in that eternal world the permanent realities of every thing which we see reflected in this vegetable glass of nature. ”

“ It is of the very nature of thought to be eternal. No thought ever dies, or can die. All the determinations of God’s thought are eternal. The mind of God has within it all determinations of thought; those past, those present, and those to come. Some of these determinations of the divine thought have taken the form of objects in the inorganic world, some have taken the form of objects in the vegetable kingdom, and some have taken the form of objects in the animal kingdom. The determinations of thought, of which inorganic things, trees, and animals were the expressions, are all eternal. ”

“ The first and last lesson of religion is, "The things that are seen, are temporal; the things that are unseen, are eternal." It puts an affront upon nature. ”

“ Through {177} this eternal process of self-differentiation and outgoing activity, the inner spiritual universe comes into being—as an intermediate Nature or world, between the ineffable Abyss of God on the one hand, and our world of material, visible things on the other hand. ”

“ Oh, happy we, the first-born heirs of nature,
⁠For whom the Heavenly Sun delays his light!
He by the sweets of every mortal creature
⁠Tempers eternal beauty to our sight;
And by the glow upon love's earthly feature
⁠ the path of our departure bright. ”

“ We have a prospect of the invisible things of God: we see the spiritual world, which is all round about us, and yet no more discerned by our natural faculties, than if it had no being: and we see the eternal world, piercing through the veil which hangs between time and eternity. Clouds and darkness then rest upon it no more, but we already see the glory which shall be revealed. ”

“ His to-morrows are as seeds which shall germinate, bursting into beauty and potency of life, and no doubt shall shake his trust, no uncertainty rob him of repose. The Present is his, only in the immortal Present does he live, and it is as the eternal vault of blue above which looks down silently and calmly, yet radiant with purity and light, upon the upturned and tear-stained faces of the centuries. ”

“ In the eternity of the past, upon the personalization of the Infinite Spirit the divine personality cycle becomes perfect and complete. The God of Action is existent, and the vast stage of space is set for the stupendous drama of creation—the universal adventure—the divine panorama of the eternal ages. ”

“ Oh, how admirable the wisdom that embraces all eternity at once, and contains within itself the whole of immensity, that draws to itself all infinity, in which alone all things possess a kind of eternal being, and eternal life, which, lastly, is without beginning and without end, and is in every respect immutable! ”

“ And the end to which all these lives are moving, of every flower that blooms, of every bird that sings, is also the central principle of the entire evolution of the universe—the embodied Word of God. For the purpose of the whole is nothing other than the incarnation of the divine, the participation of the created in the eternal life of the uncreated, of which the God-man is the perfect revelation.... If God be indeed the end of all existence, he must needs fill all things with his being. ”

“ Nature will be an open Book of Parables in which he can read the truth of Eternity, the world will be a clear mirror in which he can see the things of the Spirit and he will know what will cure both soul and body. ”

“ We are but the visionaries of the fleeting phenomena, we perceive only the shadows. But, by Thy grace and mercy, as the eyes are closed, the heart is opened; as the senses are sealed up, the spirit within is unveiled; and we behold Thee behind the phenomena, beyond the shadows, as the One Eternal Reality; and we rejoice that thus we are led even by Thee into the Holy of Holies. There, in the immost shrine of Thine eternal presence, what are we, where are we, except as mere glimpses and as surface-expressions of Thy profound reality? ”

“ Such is the eternity and blessedness that awaits us. Thank God for a spiritual body! Here some of us long to triumph over nature. We would grasp, if we could, angelic wisdom; but our brows will ache with pain, our frames decay, our eyes grow dim, our hearing fail. This flesh of ours will not stand hours of painful study and seasons of protracted labor; but, thank God! when the body that now oppresses us is laid in the grave a spiritual body will be given to us, pure, ethereal, and holy. Oh, what an extent of knowledge shall flash upon us; what light and glory; what spirituality and power! ”

“ Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproachèd light Dwelt from eternity—dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun, Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest The rising World of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless Infinite! ”

“ Of the great sun, through stones, and sea, and air,
Up to ourselves, in Nature everywhere.
Life differs from the soul. This is beyond
The realms of science;
God and mankind it joins in closest bond,
And bids defiance
To Death and Change. By faith alone confessed,
It dwells within our bodies as a guest.
The germ of life sleeps in the aged hills
And stately rivets,
And wakes into the life our hearts that thrills
And in leaves quivers.
The universe is one great reservoir
From which man draws of thinking life his store. ”

“ There may come a time, in some future existence, when we shall see righteousness like the sun, when we shall have visions of the beauty and order of holiness like the stars, and behold the glory of sacrifice spread out before our eyes like the firmament of heaven; and then the revelation of God through visible Nature will be swallowed up in the revelation of God through invisible Nature. ”

“ A great, bold, lofty thought compels us to stand on tiptoe, to hold up the head, to expand the mouth and nose. The feeling of eternity, the outlook on a wide open horizon, the sea, etc., make us stretch out our arms—we would merge ourselves into the eternal: with the mountains, we would grow towards the heavens, rush thither on storms and waves: yawning abysses throw us down in giddiness. ”

“ When our globe shall be dissolved, and all that are therein shall be burned up, the soul, more refined and dignified, shall survive the dissolution of matter, and shall either flourish in immortal youth and beauty on the healthful plains of Paradise, or endure an indescribable burden of anguish in the doleful regions of endless woe. How invaluable then is the soul, and how solemnly, pressing are its claims upon our most serious regard. Consider what the great Eternal has done to promote its everlasting health and vigor. ”

“ Wherefore confess we must on grounds the same That earth, sun, moon, and ocean, and all else, Exist not sole and single—rather in number Exceeding number. Since that deeply set Old boundary stone of life remains for them No less, and theirs a body of mortal birth No less, than every kind which here on earth Is so abundant in its members found. Which well perceived if thou hold in mind, Then Nature, delivered from every haughty lord, And forthwith free, is seen to do all things Herself and through herself of own accord, Rid of all gods. ”

“ He is a member of a new order; he is "heavenly," a creation "not made with hands," but wrought out of the substance of the spiritual world, and furnished with the inherent capacity of eternal duration, so that "mortality is swallowed up of life." ”

“ In other words, it dares to read the meaning of the universe through what is highest in man, not through what is lower, asserting that the soul is akin to the Eternal Spirit, and that by a life of righteousness its eternal quality is revealed. ”

“ I believe you to be the eternal being. I see you void of beginning, middle, or end—of infinite power, of unnumbered arms, and having the sun and the moon for eyes, and having a mouth like a blazing fire and heating the universe with your radiance. ”

“ Secondly, This pearl of eternity is the wisdom and love of God within thee. In this pearl, all the holy nature, spirit, tempers, and inclinations of Christ lie, and divine wisdom and heavenly love will grow up in thee, if thou givest but true attention to God. On the other hand, There is hidden also in the depth of thy nature the root, or possibility of all the hellish nature, spirit and tempers of the fallen angels. For heaven and hell have each of them their foundation within us, and spring up in us, according as our heart is turned, either to the light of God or the kingdom of darkness. ”

“ Paradoxically, the perpetual changeful energies of love and creation which inspire it are gathered up and made complete within the unchanging fact of Being: the Eternal and Absolute, within which the world of things is set as the tree is set in the supporting earth, the enfolding air. There, finally, is the rock and refuge of the seeking consciousness wearied by the ceaseless process of the flux. ”

“ Spirit of progress! speed the day when all mankind, redeemed from the bondage of superstition, will recognize the great truth that nature, governed by her own inherent forces, is all that has been, all that is and all that shall be; and that, ceasing to indulge in the vain hope of a blissful immortality in a paradise beyond the stars, will make a real paradise of this old earth of ours. ”

“ And those objects, as before observed, must be as much more beautiful and magnificent than the objects of this material world, as the Sun from which they are all derived, is more perfect than our natural sun,—or as spirit is more perfect than matter. So, also, the spirit then beholds the inhabitants of that world, constituted of the myriads and millions of men, who from the beginning of time have passed out of this material sphere into the spiritual, and thus have entered upon the scene of their eternal existence. ”

“ There is no union so intimate, so real, so perfect, as that of an indwelling life. Think of the life that circulates through a large and fruitful tree. How it penetrates and fills every portion; how inseparably it unites the whole as long as it really is to exist!—in wood and leaf, in flower and fruit, everywhere the indwelling life flows and fills. This life is the life of nature, the life of the Spirit of God which dwells in nature. It is the same life that animates our bodies, the spirit of nature pervading every portion of them with the power of sensibility and action. ”

“ What but an eternal reality! the reality of a godly, godlike life obtained from God, and sustained by God, and seen in the eye, felt in the hand, heard in the words—a light of life which shines beside many a dying bed in many a home of sorrow, as well as in the pulpit. ”

“ Turn and plant thy thoughts then on sublimer objects: with views thus changed, thou wilt no longer hurry impatiently through life, in search of that blessedness for which our souls are expressly formed, but will journey calmly on towards the eternal abiding place, where our Creator treasures up for the faithful, raptures ineffable. ”

“ You write primarily as a scientist (though a very human scientist) , and so you are naturally mainly occupied with the facts and conditions of what I may call our earth-life. I, on the other hand, writing as a Catholic, regard our earth-life as essentially and inseparably connected with an eternal existence which reaches out beyond the grave. I look on this life as utterly meaningless in itself, as a period which is simply and solely a means to an end—Eternity—a period of which all circumstances of pleasure and pain can only be explained and rightly used in their relation to this Eternity. ”