Revelation

“ What is revelation but the uncovering of new truths, by him who is the Fountain of all Truth? To say that there is no need of new revelation, is equivalent to saying that we have no need of new truths—a ridiculous assertion. ”

“ A Revelation that occasions the most bitter controversies upon every question and interest it embraces! A Revelation that perplexes mankind with the most uncertain speculations, and splits the body of believers into sects and divisions too numerous to be told! A Revelation in which nothing is fixed, in which every point is debated and disputed from the character of God to the character of sin! ”

“ They that have hearts to understand, they that have quaffed the Wine of love, who have not for one moment gratified their selfish desires, will behold, resplendent as the sun in its noon-tide glory, those tokens, testimonies, and evidences that attest the truth of this wondrous Revelation, this transcendent and divine Faith. Reflect, how the people have rejected the Beauty of God, and have clung unto their covetous desires. ”

“ Set now thy face towards the court of this Wronged One, that haply the breezes of Revelation and the breaths of inspiration may assist thee and enable thee to attain thy goal. Whoever gazeth this day on My signs will distinguish truth from falsehood as the sun from shadow, and will be made cognizant of the goal. God is aware and beareth Me witness that whatever hath been mentioned was for the sake of God, that haply thou mayest be the cause of the guidance of men, and mayest deliver the peoples of the world from idle fancies and vain imaginings. ”

“ There is much to be wrought, gained, and enjoyed. Thy most spiritual knowledge, thy richest experience will be found here. And then, when we look around us into the infinitely extended field of the Revelation of God, what a world of heavenly wisdom is there to intermeddle with! ”

“ Should it be Our wish, it is in Our power to compel, through the agency of but one letter of Our Revelation, the world and all that is therein to recognize, in less than the twinkling of an eye, the truth of Our Cause.... ”

“ The idea of Revelation in the mind describes exactly the state of affairs—that suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and fineness, something became visible and audible, something that shakes and pervades one to the depths. ”

“ Would that the hearts of men could be cleansed from these man-made limitations and obscure thoughts imposed upon them! haply they may be illumined by the light of the Sun of true knowledge, and comprehend the mysteries of divine wisdom. Consider now, were the parched and barren soil of these hearts to remain unchanged, how could they ever become the Recipients of the revelation of the mysteries of God, and the Revealers of the divine Essence? ”

“ As revelation is the great strengthener of reason, the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear, is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death. ”

“ Unless, then, you are to make one supposed revelation depend for its warrant upon another in an endless series, you must presuppose that somewhere there is found a revelation that proves its genuineness by appealing to what your own interior light, your personal acquaintance with the nature of a divine being, enables you to know as the basis of all your further insight into the divine. ”

“ But if arguments drawn from our feelings are admissible, hear, for once, the voice of simple nature, proclaiming in her simplicity by every thing which exists either in or around you, that a revelation is neither necessary nor useful. That every thing which can be enjoyed in life can be enjoyed equally as well, and often better, without either its knowledge or belief. ”

“ The world into which our desire is truly turned, is somehow revealed to us. The revelation, always partial and relative, is of course conditioned by our capacity, the character of our longing and the experiences of our past. ”

“ But seeing human reason is too weak and grovelling to exalt itself to an acquaintance with the Supreme Being, from what source shall we derive that idea, beside revelation itself? Thus revelation itself is to become the proof of the authority of revelation. ”

“ This is called by a peculiar name, REVELATION, and our assent to it, FAITH, which [as absolutely determines our minds, and as perfectly excludes all wavering,] as our knowledge itself; and we may as well doubt of our own being, as we can whether any revelation from God be true. ”

“ Why, when the Almighty reveals any thing to our souls, He, by another revelation, enables us to examine and discover whether the first revelation is right; but you have not told us, by which we are to be governed, if they differ. ”

“ Nevertheless only those which concern God and our relations with Him are said to belong to Natural Revelation, because they are the only truths in which He reveals Himself to us and which He commands us to acknowledge. ”

“ According to the order which we are here following, we have next to treat of the second kind of spiritual apprehension, which we have described above as revelations, and which properly belongs to the spirit of prophecy. With respect to this, it must first be known that revelation is naught else than the discovery of some hidden truth or the manifestation of some secret or mystery. Thus God may cause the soul to understand something by making clear to the understanding the truth concerning it, or He may reveal to the soul certain things which He is doing or proposes to do. ”

“ The miracles, then, and other evidence, not only play the part of equally supporting truth and falsehood, but, what is still more wonderful, convert the same things, in different men, into truth and falsehood alternately. Miracles they must verily be if they can do that! A wonderful revelation it certainly is, which thus accommodates itself to the varying conditions of the human intellect and conscience, and demonstrates just so much as each of you is pleased to accept, and no more. ”

“ If, then, we can obtain ideas, on the subject of revelation, which shall be, upon the whole, distinct, and worthy of being received as true, much will be done to remove objections, and to satisfy a reasonable mind. ”

“ You say I have acknowledged that a divine revelation 'if real, is of all truths the most important;' hence you call upon the 'eye of reason' to examine this proposition to see why it should be considered more important than the discoveries made in the arts and sciences, &c. ”

“ They rose up and tormented that Source of Divine knowledge, that Point where the Revelation had come down—all except for a handful who, turning their faces toward God, were cleansed of the stain of this world and found their way to the heights of the placeless Realm. ”

“ In other words, a revelation can be viewed by you as a divine revelation only in case you hold, for whatever reason, or for no reason, that you already are acquainted with the signature which the divine will attaches to its documents, that you know the marks of any authentic revelation by which a divine will can make itself known to you. ”

“ I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach; and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. ”

“ Now, the arguments by which one assures oneself of the fact of a revelation are human arguments, such as proofs that revelation is possible and suitable, that there are miracles, prophecies and other signs to guarantee the divine mission of those who delivered the revelation, etc. ”

“ And the light and the conviction of truth which had enlightened his soul, which had arisen in him without the help of any man, spake thus: “There is in every man an inner light, which is God's revelation to man; an inner voice which witnesses of the truth, and which is God's voice, in the soul of man, and which guides it to all truth. ”

“ Thou art He Who by a word of His mouth hath revolutionized the entire creation, and by a stroke of His pen hath divided Thy servants one from another. I bear witness, O my God, that through a word spoken by Thee in this Revelation all created things were made to expire, and through yet another word all such as Thou didst wish were, by Thy grace and bounty, endued with new life. ”

“ With regard to prophesying, I wish to say, that we have a great many times the revelations of God given unto us through his spirit, when we do not comprehend what revelation is. How many of you have had the still small voice of the spirit whisper things to you, and when you have followed the dictations of that spirit it has become in you a principle of revelation. ”

“ All revelation is either from discourse with angels through whom the Lord speaks or from perception. It should be known that they who are in good and thence in truth, especially those that are in the good of love to the Lord, have revelation from perception; but those who are not in good and thence in truth, though they may indeed have revelations, yet not from perception, but by a living voice heard within them, thus by angels from the Lord. ”

“ Where Nature is dumb, and Man igno­rant, Revelation speaks in the authoritative voice of prophecy. Then let us see whether that Reve­lation can stand the test of reason and of truth.—God, we are told, is omnipotent, omniscient, om­nipresent,—all wise, all just, and all good ”

“ The word revelation means the discovery of something that was not known before, or the making clear something that was obscure. Now, with this idea in our mind, it may excite surprise to find how much the Christian Revelation abounds in mysteries. By mysteries, I understand truths which are imperfectly comprehended. ”

“ Now the first thing that will strike you in comparing these two possible methods of a Revelation is, that the written communication containing doctrines is cold, formal, indistinct and distant, when contrasted with the living presence of a pure and heavenly being, who places himself at our side, enters into our joys and sorrows, shows us in action and in suffering the will of God reflected on every form of life, and works out before our eyes the vast idea of perfection. ”

“ THIS is a Revelation of Love that Jesus Christ, our endless bliss, made in Sixteen Shewings, or Revelations particular.
Of the which the First is of His precious crowning with thorns; and therewith was comprehended and specified the Trinity, with the Incarnation, and unity betwixt God and man's soul; with many fair shewings of endless wisdom and teachings of love: in which all the Shewings that follow be grounded and oned. ”

“ LESSON VI. (Scripture Reading Exercise.)
IV. REVELATION.
SPECIAL TEXT: "No man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." Matt. xi:27.
NOTES.
1. Revelation By Divers Means: "Revelation is the name of that act by which God makes communication to men. Inspiration is the name of that influence, that divine influence which operates upon the minds of men under which they may be said to receive divine guidance." (Cambridge Bible Helps) . The inspiration may be strong or it may be weak. ”

“ A revelation must not only be limited by the extent of the human capacity for receiving it, and by the proposed object of it, but also, in a considerable degree, by the state of knowledge existing in the world at the time it is made. ”

“ If the great purpose of revelation is to make us know that God loves us, and has given us His Son that in Him we may know Him and possess His Righteousness, difficulties and obscurities in its form or in its substance take a very different aspect. What need we more than that knowledge and possession? ”

“ We believe in a spiritual and moral Revelation, most awakening, most sanctifying, most holy; which words, being the signs of hard and definite ideas, could never express, and which is therefore pourtrayed in a mind divinely finished for the purpose, acting awhile on Earth and publicly transferred to Heaven. ”

“ Let us now examine the conditions under which a revelation may be expected to be given to the original recipients.
It may be observed in the first place that a revelation must possess some distinctive character. Even, if it should turn out that there is no such thing in reality at all, at least the notion which we form in our minds must possess such points of difference as to distinguish it from all other notions. ”

“ An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the individual with the force of a revelation. ”

“ So I humbly conceive, that the continuance and propagation of a divine revelation are even as well secured by the means which have been employed for that purpose, as if the Almighty had in every age, and in every country made such a revelation, and moreover, it is likewise apparent, that the mental labours necessary in obtaining a knowledge of these divine things greatly contribute to their enjoyment, and render the christian fellowship, faith and hope peculiarly interesting and edifying. ”

“ Revelation is a voluntary approximation of the Infinite Being to the ways and thoughts of finite humanity. But until this step has been taken by Almighty Grace, how should man have a warrant for loving with all his heart and mind and strength?.... Without the gospel, nature exhibits a want of harmony between our intrinsic constitution and the system in which it is placed. ”

“ They are solutions of the soul's own questions. They do not answer the questions which the understanding asks. The soul answers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.
Revelation is the disclosure of the soul. The popular notion of a revelation is, that it is a telling of fortunes. In past oracles of the soul, the understanding seeks to find answers to sensual questions, and undertakes to tell from God how long men shall exist, what their hands shall do, and who shall be their company, adding names, and dates, and places. ”