Vision (religion)

“ There is not one grace of the Spirit of God, of the existence of which, in any professor of religion, Christian practice is not the most decisive evidence.... The degree in which our experience is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual and divine.”
Catholic writers are equally emphatic. The good dispositions which a vision, or voice, or other apparent heavenly favor leave behind them are the only marks by which we may be sure they are not possible deceptions of the tempter. ”

“ Who can conceive or estimate the nature of that change which the soul of a believer must experience at the moment when, quitting its tabernacle of clay, it suddenly enters into the presence of God? If, even while “we see through a glass darkly,” the views of Divine love and wisdom are so delightful to the eye of faith, what must be the glorious vision of God, when seen face to face? ”

“ I can obscure my holy sight, if I intrude my world upon it. Nor can I behold the holy sights Christ looks upon, unless it is His vision that I use. Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind, reflected outward. ”

“ Religion is the vision of something which stands beyond, behind, and within, the passing flux of immediate things; something which is real, and yet waiting to be realised; something which is a remote possibility, 268and yet the greatest of present facts; something that gives meaning to all that passes, and yet eludes apprehension; something whose possession is the final good, and yet is beyond all reach; something which is the ultimate ideal, and the hopeless quest. ”

“ Yet the vision of Christ has been given me to replace them. It is through this vision that I choose to see.
God is the light in which I see.
I cannot see in darkness. God is the only light. Therefore, if I am to see, it must be through Him. I have tried to define what seeing is, and I have been wrong. Now it is given me to understand that God is the light in which I see. Let me welcome vision and the happy world it will show me. ”

“ With fixed and steady gaze, born of the unerring eye of God, scan for a while the horizon of divine knowledge, and contemplate those words of perfection which the Eternal hath revealed, that haply the mysteries of divine wisdom, hidden ere now beneath the veil of glory and treasured within the tabernacle of His grace, may be made manifest unto you. The denials and protestations of these leaders of religion have, in the main, been due to their lack of knowledge and understanding. ”

“ In the sacred books there is a profounder life than there is in secular literature where there is vision indeed, but in the sacred books there is the being. The mind in retrospect, meditation and aspiration needs guidance; and this spiritual architecture of Earth-world, with Mid-world, Heaven-world and God-world rising above it, made my own vision so far as it went intelligible to me, for my disconnected glimpses of supernature seemed to find a place in that architecture of the heavens. ”

“ Reason, which is the eye of the soul, promises to demonstrate God to the mind as clearly as the sun shows itself to the eyes. The soul, then, in order to see God, has need of Faith, Hope, and Love; after these are dwelt on as essentials to the true seeing, it is affirmed that by looking, which is the reason in active operation, the soul beholds the Beatific Vision. ”

“ For all that vast ambition I have not even a complete alphabet to show, much less one single illustration of how to read the letters of nature in their myriad intricacies of form, colour and sound in the world we live in. But I believe that vision has been attained by the seers, and we shall all at some time attain it, and, as is said in the Divine Shepherd of Hermes, it shall meet us everywhere, plain and easy, walking or resting, waking or sleeping, "for there is nothing which is not the image of God." ”

“ What the ray of light is to the flower seed in the dungeon, religion is to man. Wherever man has crept, like the vine, in the darkness, towards the light it was his religious spiritual nature and aspirations which led him. Truth, which comes from the bosom of the eternal Good, streams down into the darkness and lifts man's soul up into the light by the same law that the flower and the vine seek the sunshine, and all true science and philosophy sustain the religious concept. ”

“ It is not enough that a man should say, 'Whereupon I saw the vision,' or, 'Whereupon I was convinced of the vision,' or, 'Whereupon I understood the vision.' Sight, apprehension, theology, orthodoxy, they are all very well, but the right result is, 'Whereupon I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.' And unless your knowledge of Christ makes you do, and keep from doing, a thousand things, it is only an idle vision, which adds to your guilt. ”

“ For, when God is pleased to grant this favour to the soul, He communicates to it that supernatural light whereof we speak, wherein the soul sees the things that God wills it to see, easily and most clearly, whether they be of Heaven or of earth, and the absence or presence of them is no hindrance to the vision. ”

“ The enlightened soul can see the invisible, and live its true life in the suprasensible sphere. The primary evidence for the truth of religion is religious experience, which in persons of religious genius—those whom the Church calls saints and prophets—includes a clear perception of an eternal world of truth, beauty, and goodness, surrounding us and penetrating us at every point. ”

“ I can attest from experience that this supernatural illumination of the mind is the great secret in personal religion. Without it we are in darkness, while encompassed by the light of revelation; may admit the inspiration of the Bible, while the veil of mystery hangs over its sacred pages; may condemn, as Puritanical or Methodistical, the very principles we theoretically acknowledge to be divine; and, amidst all our professions of reverence for the character of God, and love to the person of the Redeemer, may be destitute of that mental peace which arises from a scriptural belief of the truth. ”

“ This is the only attitude that can bring the anointing of the eyes with that eye-salve which opens them to spiritual vision.
But when the eyes, in response to this attitude of willingness toward the will of God, are once opened to spiritual things, then God, in all the perfections of His divine character, is seen both in the Bible, the written Word, and in Christ, the living Word, and this two-fold revelation of Him is seen to be as perfect and flawless as the God who is thus revealed. Those who think they see imperfections either in the Bible or in Christ are spiritually blind. ”

“ For as that soul is justly deprived of this divine light if it fixes the eyes of the will on any other light, proceeding from anything that is not God, for then its vision is confined to that object; so also the soul, by a certain fitness, deserves the divine light, if it shuts its eyes against all objects whatever, to open them only for the vision of God. ”

“ Our religions make promises to be fulfilled beyond the grave because they have no knowledge now to be put to the test, but the ancients spake of a divine vision to be attained while we are yet in the body. ”

“ The vision which is given to the eye of faith is more real in the true sense of that word, more substantial in the true sense of that word, more reliable and more near than that sight by which the bodily eye beholds external things. ”

“ We have not the vision and fruition of God, as of an object that is present with us, and as we hope for hereafter, when we shall see as we are seen. Note, Faith is for this world, and sight is reserved for the other world: and it is our duty, and will be our interest, to walk by faith, till we come to live by sight. ”

“ In spiritual sight, the soul which beholds is a mirror, and at once beholds and reflects. Thus, then, we may say that we have in our text the Christian life described as one of contemplation and manifestation of the light of God.
The great truth of a direct, unimpeded vision, as belonging to Christian men on earth, sounds strange to many of us. ‘That cannot be,’ you say; ‘does not Paul himself teach that we see through a glass darkly? Do we not walk by faith and not by sight? “No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see Him” ”

“ Now, since all the objects of the other senses, which are all that can be seen, and all that can be heard, and all that can be smelt and tasted and touched, are objects of the understanding in so far as they fall within the limits of truth or falsehood, it follows that, just as to the eyes of the body all that is visible in a bodily way causes bodily vision, even so, to the spiritual eyes of the soul — namely, the understanding — all that is intelligible causes spiritual vision ”

“ We shall speak of this when we treat of the dark and confused mystical understanding which remains to be described, wherein we shall show how, by means of this dark and loving knowledge, God is united with the soul in a lofty and Divine degree; [8] for, after some manner, this dark and loving knowledge, which is faith, serves as a means to Divine union in this life, even as, in the next life, the light of glory serves as an intermediary to the clear vision of God. ”

“ My religion is my life, and my life is the light of any wisdom that I have. So that my light is my eye, and if my eye is the eye of Truth my body is light, but if my eye or wisdom is an opinion my body is full of darkness. ”

“ Let us, then, now treat of the visions of corporeal substances, received spiritually in the soul, which come after the manner of bodily visions. For, just as the eyes see bodily visions by means of natural light, even so does the soul, through the understanding, by means of supernaturally derived light, as we have said, see those same natural things inwardly, together with others, as God wills; the difference between the two kinds of vision is only in the mode and manner of them. For spiritual and intellectual visions are much clearer and subtler than those which pertain to the body. ”

“ O thou who dost believe in the Spirit of Christ, in the Kingdom of God!
The body is composed, in truth, of corporeal elements and every composition is necessarily subject to decomposition; but the spirit is an essence, simple, pure, spiritual, eternal, perpetual and divine. He who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His body hath, in truth, debased Him and hath gone astray from Him; but he who seeketh Christ from the point of view of His Spirit will grow from day to day in joy, attraction, zeal, proximity, perception and vision. ”

“ But this spiritual light that I am speaking of, is quite a different thing from inspiration: it reveals no new doctrine, it suggests no new proposition to the mind, it teaches no new thing of God, or Christ, or another world, not taught in the Bible, but only gives a due apprehension of those things that are taught in the word of God.
4. ’Tis not every affecting view that men have of the things of religion that is this spiritual and divine light. Men by mere principles of nature are capable of being affected with things that have a special relation to religion as well as other things. ”

“ This is not a region in which human thought can live; and the symbolical eschatology of religion supplies us with forms in which it is possible to think. The basis of the belief in future judgment is that deep conviction of the rationality of the world-order, or, in religious language, of the wisdom and justice of God, which we cannot and will not surrender. ”

“ As alchemy develops into chemistry, and astrology into astronomy, as blind faith changes into seeing face to face, as belief changes into knowledge, so the religion of miracles, the religion of a salvation by magic, the religion of the dogmatist, ripens into the religion of pure and ascertainable truth. ”

“ Of course, if we are asked to point out to the natural eye the heaven of which we are speaking we cannot point to a literal thing that can be seen as a heaven. We can only point to the kingdom of God, which can now only be seen in thought, or, as we may say, with the mind’s eye. While the natural eye beholds the literal, the eye of thought or reason can look through it and beyond and see the new heavens wherein will dwell righteousness which will, in a higher sense than the natural, declare the glory of God and show forth his handiwork. ”

“ In this way the consciousness of God becomes a living reality in our lives; and in the degree in which it becomes a reality does it bring us into the realization of continually increasing wisdom, insight, and power. This consciousness of God in the soul of man is the essence, indeed the sum and substance of all religion. This identifies religion with every act and every moment of every-day life. That which does not identify itself with every moment of every day and with every act of life is religion in name only and not in reality. ”

“ A glance at some more of the Divine promises concerning this vital question would show us how they need to be projected into the experimental and the actual. “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself.” How we do need a conscious religion, personal and vital, unspeakable in its joy, and full of glory! The need is for a conscious religion, made so by the Spirit bearing witness that we are the children of God. A religion of “I know” is the only powerful, vital and aggressive religion. ”

“ The vision presented is that of a sorrowless world; a vision which has haunted the imagination of men in every age. The Bible declares that that which has been merely a bright but disappearing dream shall be a glorious fact. ”

“ If religion is to be a reality to the social consciousness, then, there must be a real revelation of a real God in the real world, in actual human history, not an imaginary God, nor a dream God, nor a God of mystic contemplation. ”

“ This double assertion, that there is a soul in the universe outside of ourselves, and that this soul makes for right conduct, is the basis of fundamental importance in all religions. There are many religions in the world, and many creeds of the one great religion of christendom. ”