We are all bound to the throne of the Supreme Being by a flexible chain which restrains without enslaving us. The most wonderful a...spect of the universal scheme of things is the action of free beings under divine guidance.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is a mischievous notion that we are come late into nature; that the world was finished a long time ago. As the world was plasti...c and fluid in the hands of God, so it is ever to so much of his attributes as we bring to it. To ignorance and sin, it is flint. They adapt to themselves to it as they may; but in proportion as a man has anything in him divine, the firmament flows before him and takes his signet and form.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If prophets or those who divine by dreams appear among you and promise you omens or portents, and the omens or the portents declar...ed by them take place, and they say, "Let us follow other gods" (whom you have not known) "and let us serve them," you must not heed the words of those prophets or those who divine by dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you indeed love the LORD your God with all your heart and soul.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The form of act or thought mattered nothing. The hymns of David, the plays of Shakespeare, the metaphysics of Descartes, the crime...s of Borgia, the virtues of Antonine, the atheism of yesterday and the materialism of to-day, were all emanation of divine thought, doing their appointed work. It was the duty of the church to deal with them all, not as though they existed through a power hostile to the deity, but as instruments of the deity to work out his unrevealed ends.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is not any present moment that is unconnected with some future one. The life of every man is a continued chain of incidents,... each link of which hangs upon the former. The transition from cause to effect, from event to event, is often carried on by secret steps, which our foresight cannot divine, and our sagacity is unable to trace. Evil may at some future period bring forth good; and good may bring forth evil, both equally unexpected.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In Reason's Ear they all rejoice, And utter forth a glorious Voice,... For ever singing, as they shine, The Hand that made us is Divine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »