This positive (as opposed to natural) Revelation proceeds from the gratuitous condescension of God, and tends to a gratuitous union with Him, both of which are far beyond the demands of our nature. Hence it is called Supernatural Revelation, and sometimes Revelation pure and simple, because it is more properly a disclosure of something hidden. The third and highest degree of Revelation is in the Beatific Vision in Heaven where God withdraws the veil entirely, and manifests Himself in all His glory. Here on earth, even in Supernatural Revelation, “we walk by faith and not by sight;” “we see now through a glass in a dark manner, but then [in the Beatific Vision] face to face;” “we shall see Him as He is” (2 Cor. 5:7; 1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2).
SECT. 2.—THE NATURE AND SUBJECT-MATTER OF NATURAL REVELATION
Natural Revelation is the principle of ordinary knowledge, and therefore belongs to the domain of philosophy. We touch upon it here because it is the basis of Supernatural Revelation, and also because at the present day all forms of Revelation have been confused and have lost their proper significance.
I. All natural knowledge of intellectual, religious, and ethical truths must be connected with a Divine Revelation of some kind, and this for two reasons: to maintain the dependence of these truths upon God, and the better to inculcate the duty of obeying them. This Revelation, however, is nothing else but the action of God as Creator, giving and preserving to nature its existence, form, and life. Created things embody Divine Ideas, and are thus imitations of their antitypes, the Divine Perfections. The human intellect, in particular, is an image of the Divine Intellect: the Creator endows it with the power to infer, from visible nature, the existence and perfections of its Author; and, from its own spiritual nature, the spiritual nature of the Author of all things. The revealing action of the Creator, then, consists in exhibiting, in matter and mind, the image of Himself, and in keeping alive in man the power of knowing the image and, through the image,
