REVELATION.
The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.—Romans, i. 18, 19.
Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest.—Romans, xvi. 25, 26.
Gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.—I. Peter, i. 13.
Revealed religion first informed thy sight,
And Reason saw not till Faith sprung to light.
Hence all thy natural worship takes the source:
’Tis Revelation, what thou think’st discourse,
Else how com’st thou to see those truths so clear,
Which so obscure to heathens did appear.
Dryden.
Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight;
O, teach me to believe Thee thus concealed,
And search no farther than Thyself revealed.
Dryden.
Bright as the morning of primeval day
Burst on the waters of chaotic gloom,
Came Revelation on the darksome world!—
Then error vanish’d in celestial truth,
Hush’d were the oracles, and quench’d the fires
That savage bigotry for ages fed:
New light, new order, new existence rose!
The pangs of woe, the wrongs of patient worth,
Were now no more, as once their truth had been:
Eternity would pay the debt of time,
The soul redeem, and justify her God.
R. Montgomery.
Sad error this, to take
The light of Nature, rather than the light
Of Revelation for a guide. As well
Prefer the borrowed light of earth’s pale moon
To the effulgence of the noon-day sun.
David Bates.