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July 9 - July 25, 2015
It had thrived earlier in the harsh landscapes of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and before that in the mountainous enclaves of Zurich and Geneva in Switzerland. Calvinism emerged geographically out of the same fierce terrain once occupied by the ancient Celts in northern Europe.
The Celts and Calvinists alike were fascinated with eternal mysteries, the wonders of creation, a rigorous discipline, and the harsh, stubborn realities of life.
Tis thee, abstractly thee, God of uncreated Beauty, that I love, in thee my wishes are all terminated; in thee, as in their blissful centre, all my desires meet . . . The God of nature, and the original of all beauty, is my God.
“Immortal, invisible, God only wise,/with light inaccessible hid from our eyes,/most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,/almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise.”
Wild landscapes best convey the sense of awe that Reformed piety seeks most to nurture.
“The world was founded for this purpose,” said Calvin, “that it should be the sphere of the divine glory.”3
“What a pleasure is it to dive into the secrets of nature,” he exulted. “What a deal of the majesty of the great Creator doth shine in the face of this fabric of the world!”
“The world is God’s book,” Taylor affirmed, “no page is empty, but full of lines; every quality of the creature, is a several letter of this book, and no letter without a part of God’s wisdom in it.”8
“We have been placed here, as in a spacious theater, to behold the works of God, and there is no work of God so small that we ought to pass by it lightly, but all ought to be carefully and diligently observed.”9
God who “clothes himself, so to speak, with the image of the world, in which he would present himself to our contemplation. . . . Therefore, as soon as the name of God sounds in our ears, or the thought of him occurs to our minds, let the world become our school if we desire rightly to know God.”11
“The sun discovers to our eyes the most beautiful theater of the earth and heaven and the whole order of nature, but God has visibly displayed the chief glory of his work in his Son.”17
Nature regularly appears in the Reformed tradition as a mirror (speculum), school (schola), dramatic representation (theatrum), painting (tabula), clothing (vestis), book (liber), compass (circuitus), or imprint (impressio) of God’s astonishing glory.18
“The azured sky is his comely curtain” and “the earth his theater.”20
speaking of “that sacred wedlock through which we are made flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, and thus one with him.”23
Honoring creation was for him a Eucharistic impulse, an act of profound thanksgiving for all the sensible ways in which God comes to us.
What Christian heart can take pleasure to see one poor beast to rent, tear and kill another? . . . Although they be bloody beasts to mankind and seek his destruction . . . , yet they are good creatures in their own nature and kind, and made to set forth the glory and magnificence of the great God . . . and therefore for his sake not to be abused.46
“Glaciers move in tides,” he proclaimed. “So do mountains, so do all things.”88
Remaining a deeper Calvinist than he knew, Muir insisted that, “Every particle of rock or water or air has God by its side leading it the way it should go. How else would it know where to go and what to do?”89
Reformed and Roman Catholic Christians have to journey together, as Karl Rahner said, to a home where none of us have been before.10
You cannot in one glance survey this most vast and beautiful system of the universe, in its wide expanse, without being completely overwhelmed by the boundless force of its brightness.
God’s providential care prevents thunderstorms and earthquakes, drought and flood from destroying the earth. Under God’s protectorship, these provide, instead, abundant occasions for repentance and the practice of faith.
“If on earth such praise of God does not come to pass . . . then the whole order of nature will be thrown into confusion and creation will be annihilated.”52
“The whole world is a theater for the display of the divine goodness, wisdom, justice and power; but the church is the orchestra, as it were—the most conspicuous part of it.”53
We see, indeed, the world with our eyes, we tread the earth with our feet, we touch innumerable kinds of God’s works with our hands, we inhale a sweet and pleasant fragrance from herbs and flowers, we enjoy boundless benefits; but in those very things of which we attain some knowledge, there dwells such an immensity of divine power, goodness, and wisdom, as absorbs all our senses.65
The pastor whose salary was supplemented by 350–700 liters of wine a year could happily reflect that “we have never been forbidden to laugh, or to be filled, or to join new possessions to old or ancestral ones, or to delight in musical harmony, or to drink wine.”68
[I]f we ponder to what end God created food, we shall find that he meant not only to provide for necessity but also for delight and good cheer. Thus the purpose of clothing, apart from necessity, was comeliness and decency. In grasses, trees, and fruits, apart from their various uses, there is beauty of appearance and pleasantness of odor. . . . Has the Lord clothed the flowers with the great beauty that greets our eyes, the sweetness of smell that is wafted upon our nostrils, and yet will it be unlawful for our eyes to be affected by that beauty, or our sense of smell by the sweetness of that
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“The name of Jesus is not only light but also food . . . honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, rejoicing in the heart.”70
God of his own nature is inclined to allure us to himself by gentle and loving means, as a father goes about to win his children, by laughing with them and giving them all they desire. If a father could always laugh with his children and fulfill their desires, all his delight would surely be in them. Such a one does God show himself to be toward us.71
Correctly then is this world called the mirror of divinity; not that there is sufficient clearness for man to gain a full knowledge of God, by looking at the world, but . . . the faithful, to whom he has given eyes, see sparks of his glory, as it were, glittering in every created thing. The world was no doubt made, that it might be the theater of divine glory.79
For in the cross of Christ, as in a splendid theater, the incomparable goodness of God is set before the whole world. The glory of God shines, indeed, in all creatures on high and below, but never more brightly than in the cross, in which there was a wonderful change of things (admirabilis rerum conversio) . . . in short, the whole world was renewed and all things restored to order.80
It is evident that all creatures, from those in the heavens to those under the earth, are able to act as witnesses and messengers of God’s glory. . . . For the little birds that sing, sing of God; the beasts clamor for him; the elements dread him, the mountains echo him, the fountains and flowing waters cast their glances at him [luy iettoient oeillades: they wink at him], and the grass and flowers laugh before him.83
“as if the stars themselves sang his praises with an audible voice.”
“Astronomy may justly be called the alphabet of theology,” he added, knowing that the stars “contribute much towards exciting in the hearts of men a high reverence for God.”86
[T]he Psalmist calls upon the irrational things themselves, the trees, the earth, the seas, and the heavens, to join in the general joy. Nor are we to understand that by the heavens he means the angels, and by the earth men; for he calls even upon the dumb fishes of the deep to shout for joy. . . . As all the elements in the creation groan and travail together with us, according to Paul’s declaration, (Rom. 8:22,) they may reasonably rejoice in the restoration of all things according to their earnest desire.89
“attributing to the dumb creature a quality which, strictly speaking, does not belong to it, in order the more severely to upbraid men for their ingratitude.”
“We know by experience that singing has great power and vigor to move and inflame men’s hearts to call upon and praise God with a more vehement and burning zeal.”103
“Believe me,” he declared: thou shalt find more in the Woods than in a [library] corner; Stones and Trees will teach thee what thou shalt not hear from learned Doctors. By a skilful and industrious improvement of the creatures (saith Mr. Baxter excellently) we might have a fuller taste of Christ and Heaven in every bit of Bread that we eat, and in every draught of Beer that we drink, than most men have in the use of the Sacrament.96
In Reformed spirituality, simply delighting in beauty (whether the beauty of nature or the beauty of one’s spouse) is not enough. It must lead to a delight in God’s own matchless beauty and to the covenantal responsibility of safeguarding God’s reflected beauty in the environment and in the mutual intimacy of married life. A Calvinist aesthetic remains restless until it expresses itself in moral action.
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree. For in being what God means it to be it is obeying Him. It ‘consents,’ so to speak, to his creative love . . . Therefore a tree imitates God by being a tree . . . by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do.
“a fierce stream of blood boiled until the bark of every tree was red; there was blood throughout the world in the tops of every great wood.”13
“Would you teach a man to pray, send him to sea.”
“’Tis beyond doubt that too much weight has been laid, by many persons of late, on discoveries of God’s greatness, awful majesty, and natural perfection . . . without a real view of the holy, lovely majesty of God.”9
The light and comfort which some of them enjoy, gives a new relish to their common blessings, and causes all things about ’em to appear as it were beautiful, sweet and pleasant to them: all things abroad, the sun, moon and stars, the clouds and sky, the heavens and earth, appear as it were with a cast of divine glory and sweetness upon them.53
There is really an analogy, or consent, between the beauty of the skies, trees, fields, flowers, etc. and spiritual excellencies. . . . When we behold the light and brightness of the sun, the golden edges of an evening cloud, or the beauteous bow, we behold the adumbrations of [Christ’s] glory and goodness. . . . There are also many things wherein we may behold his awful majesty: . . . . in comets, in thunder, in the towering thunder clouds, in ragged rocks and the brows of mountains.
