God's Kingdom & Nature

God, in being restored to the human soul and made at peace with it, not only sets up his kingdom in man, but in other things with which man is essentially connected. When the kingdom of God is restored in the human heart, it is restored everywhere. It should not be forgotten, that the world, in all its varieties, is but one system; a connection obviously running through all its parts; each part being sustained by and harmonizing with the others.  The mineral kingdom has a definite relation to the vegetable; the vegetable to the animal; the animal to the sentient; and the sentient to the moral. They expand and develop themselves in progression, and with an infinity of ties and relations. They are parts of one great and harmonious system of arrangements, conceived by one perfect wisdom, and sustained by one perfect love. The completion of all is in man. He stands at the head; and if all are made for man, it is equally true that man is made for all.

Time and God's grace will make this great truth better understood than it is at present. There is no isolation in the universe, except what is made by sin. There is a true and noble sense in which Adam and all created things around him were one. There is a sense in which Adam and all his posterity were one. There is a sense in which Christ, the second Adam, and all his redeemed children are one.

When man fell, nature fell. The flowers wept, and bowed their heads in sorrow. The beasts and the birds, that once loved him, now fled away from him. And the reverse will be true, when man returns again. All nature, sympathizing with the restoration of its head, will wipe away its tears and put on its smiles, whenever man arises from the dust. Life will return; and beauty will return with life. The cessation of mental death will be crowned with the return of physical health and strength, which will be experienced in outward nature as well as in man's person. The curse of "thorns and thistles" will be revoked, because man, on whose account it was inflicted, will be restored to favor. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree. The trees shall clap their hands; and the hills and the mountains shall break forth into singing." [Isa.  55:12, 13.]

Fear, also, shall be taken away from the beasts of the field. The bond of union, beginning with man in his restoration to God, will extend everywhere. The infusion of love flowing from God to man will be felt in every part of creation. The birds will sing with a happier note. "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them." [Isa. 11:6.] 

“See truth, love, and mercy in triumph descending,

And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom;

On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending,

And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 8, Chapter 12.